Very well said, Neoliberalnot.
They can set up and knock down the straw man that the exercise is some power grab and not simply training all they want but it doesn’t answer the question. What are they training for? They’ve been training for years and years and they have become very well trained for whatever is asked of them on on foreign soil without doing an exercise like this. Training to interface with American local agencies is only good training if you are training to crush a tea party rebellion. Learning how to interface with American civilian agencies does you no good in the middle East.