Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 15:44:11 +0200
Pirates of the Gulf of Guinea
In the Face of Rising Maritime Insecurity, AFRICOM Claims Success and Obama
Embraces a Strongman
By <http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/nickturse> Nick Turse
September 25, 2014
“The Gulf of Guinea is the most insecure waterway, globally,” says
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/photo/1350/US-AFRICOM-Photo> Loic Moudouma.
And he should know. Trained at the U.S. Naval War College, the lead
maritime security expert of the Economic Community of Central African
States, and a Gabonese Navy commander, his
<http://www.coastalsurveillanceafrica.com/speakerinfo.aspx?tp_spkid=83577>
focus has been piracy and maritime crime in the region for the better part
of a decade.
Moudouma is hardly alone in his assessment.
>From 2012 to 2013, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence found a 25%
<http://www.oni.navy.mil/Intelligence_Community/piracy/pdf/20140813_PAWW.pdf
> jump in incidents, including vessels being fired upon, boarded, and
hijacked, in the Gulf of Guinea, a vast
<http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/west-africa/op-eds/schneider-v
ircoulon-west-africa-where-navies-are-not-enough-fighting-piracy-in-the-gulf
-of-guinea.aspx> maritime zone that curves along the west coast of Africa
from Gabon to Liberia. Kidnappings are up, too. Earlier this year, Stephen
Starr, writing for the CTC Sentinel, the official publication of the
Combating Terrorism Center at West Point,
<https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/maritime-piracy-on-the-rise-in-west-africa>
asserted that, in 2014, the number of attacks would rise again.
Today, what most Americans know about piracy likely centers on an
<https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/attractions/magic-kingdom/pirates-of-the-
caribbean/> attraction at Walt Disney World and the
<http://pirates.disney.com/> Johnny Depp movies it inspired. If the Gulf of
Guinea rings any bells at all, it’s probably because of the Ebola
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-military-to-lead-e
bola-fight/2014/09/15/69db3da0-3d32-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html>
outbreak in, and upcoming U.S. military “
<http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/ebola-surge-obama-ann
ounce-military-led-fight-n204106> surge” into, Liberia, the nation on the
northern edge of that body of water. But for those in the know, the Gulf
itself is an intractable hotspot on a vast continent filled with them and
yet another area where U.S. military efforts have fallen short.
A recent investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
<http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-422> found that “piracy and maritime
crime in the Gulf of Guinea has escalated” and that “armed robbery at sea,
oil theft, and kidnapping is a persistent problem that continues to
contribute to instability” there. Not only that, but as Pottengal Mukundan,
the director of the International Maritime Bureau of the International
Chamber of Commerce, recently
<http://www.icc-ccs.org/news/947-imb-reports-worrying-trend-of-small-tanker-
hijacks-in-southeast-asian-waters> noted, piracy in the Gulf has taken on a
particularly violent character.
What Benjamin Benson, media chief for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), thinks
isn’t quite so clear. As the situation in the Gulf of Guinea was worsening,
he touted it as an American “success” story, pure and simple. Then he
claimed that he hadn’t done so, after which he clammed up completely. What
he thinks today is anyone’s guess. He now refuses to say a word about it.
Loic Moudouma, for his part, claims to see progress in bringing security to
a body of water nearly the size of the Gulf of Mexico that is critical to
the economies of a dozen nations. He also credits the United States for its
support of security efforts there, even if they have paradoxically occurred
alongside an increase in both piracy and insecurity. West African states,
says Moudouma, have left waterways ungoverned, turning them into breeding
grounds for criminal activity. The problem, he insists, is the poor
leadership of the African nations in the region, America’s “partners” on the
frontlines of the fight. Their lust for power, according to Moudouma, has
put the national security of numerous African nations and the economic
well-being of the region at risk, yet the Obama administration only recently
feted the area’s most corrupt strongman and the U.S. military regularly
partners with his armed forces.
The Sweet Smell of Success
“Do not put words in my mouth. I did not say the Gulf of Guinea was a
success. I did not say Gulf of Guinea maritime security was a success.”
This was AFRICOM spokesman Benson’s response last November when I asked if
he wanted to amend his earlier assessment of the Gulf of Guinea shortly
after pirates
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/10/24/americans-kidnapped-by-
pirates/3178141/> kidnapped two Americans from a U.S.-flagged ship there.
I was taken aback.
I remembered him touting the region as a triumph when we talked in the
spring of 2013, so I went back to a recording of our conversation. “I’m
wondering what you think the big success stories are,” I had asked about
AFRICOM’s work on the continent. “There’s actually two success stories,” he
replied, telling me first about American efforts in Somalia. “Another area
that’s definitely a success is the Gulf of Guinea,” he added. “We’ve been
working with a number of different states developing... maritime security
capabilities.”
I listened to that passage several times. It sure sounded like he was
calling the Gulf of Guinea a success.
For almost a year since then, Benson has failed to amend, clarify, or defend
his statement. He has ignored repeated requests for further information,
refusing even to issue a pro forma “no comment.” He may still claim that he
never uttered those words or he may still believe the Gulf has been an
American success story, but even his boss, AFRICOM commander General David
Rodriguez, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee earlier
this year,
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjA
A&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.africom.mil%2Fnewsroom%2Fdocument%2F23012%2Fu-s-afric
a-commands-formal-report-to-the-u-s-house-armed-services-committee&ei=tzT2U7
20EI38yQTjvYHQCA&usg=AFQjCNEy> said “maritime criminal activities in the
Gulf of Guinea remain at concerning levels.”
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/gaogulfguineadata_large.jpg>
Click here to see a larger version
http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/gaogulfguineadata_small.jpg
Analysis of Office of Naval Intelligence data by the Government
Accountability Office from “Ongoing U.S. Counter-piracy Efforts Would
Benefit From Agency Assessments” (GAO 14-422).
America’s Battle Against Pirates
The United States has been
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/mtjprece.html>
fighting African pirates since the early days of the republic -- battles so
formative that, among other things, they
<http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl30172.htm> established a
<http://www.thenation.com/article/176256/americas-afghan-victims>
long-standing <https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/haiti>
pattern of
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/opinion/for-america-life-was-cheap-in-vie
tnam.html?_r=0> dealing with
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/275/chalmers_johnson_on_our_iraqi_wars/>
foreign policy
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175704/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_the_et
ernal_war> problems through
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175888/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_escalat
ion_follies/> armed interventions and also
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/weekinreview/12gettleman.html?ref=weekinr
eview&_r=0> inspired the iconic phrase “the shores of Tripoli” in the
<http://www.hqmc.marines.mil/hrom/NewEmployees/AbouttheMarineCorps/Hymn.aspx
> Marine Corps hymn. By the late 2000s, American ships were once again
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/world/africa/10pirates.html> under attack
off an African coastline and the U.S. military had again been dispatched to
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/world/africa/13pirates.html?pagewanted=al
l> kill pirates. This time around, the conflict centered on the Horn of
Africa -- not North Africa -- specifically the waters off the coast of
Somalia.
In the 1990s, Somalia descended into a maelstrom of violence, which has
<http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/30/business/mogadishu-holidays-business-econ
omy/> abated somewhat in recent years but
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/24/somalia-militants-mogadishu-pa
rliament-attack> continues to
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/30/car-bomb-somalia-
mogadishu-china-embassy> plague that
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/08/somalil-militants-attack-presi
dential-palace-mogadishu> nation and has since spread
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/westgate-mall-attacks-kenya>
beyond its
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/27/uk-djibouti-attacks-idUSKBN0E72AA
20140527> borders. In 1993, when American troops infamously arrived in its
capital, Mogadishu, in support of a United Nations humanitarian mission,
they
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-has-deployed-milit
ary-advisers-to-somalia-officials-say/2014/01/10/b19429f2-7a20-11e3-af7f-13b
f0e9965f6_story.html> suffered 18 killed and two helicopters shot out of the
sky in the “
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/04/us-appoint-ambassador-somalia-
since-black-hawk-down> Black Hawk Down” disaster. Somalia was then
repeatedly battered as Islamic militants struggled for control against
U.S.-backed militias and various African armed forces. During those years,
neighboring nations began illegally fishing in Somali waters, prompting
local fishermen to arm themselves and
<http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/10/11/captain_phillips_true_story_
of_somali_pirates_is_complicated.html> collect “taxes” from foreign vessels.
Some of these proto-pirates soon began hijacking relief food shipments,
while others moved on to
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/world/africa/somalia-pirates-hijack-oil-t
anker.html?_r=0> attacking merchant vessels and
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/30/pirates-seize-supertanker-soma
lia> oil tankers. By 2008, Somali swashbucklers were, by some estimates,
<http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB124060718735454125> raking in as much
as $150 million annually.
That same year, the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) developed a
document it called “Countering Piracy off the Horn of Africa: Partnership
and Action Plan.” Its focus was the prevention and disruption of maritime
crime off the coast of Somalia. Despite this, the number of reported
attacks in the region nearly <http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-856>
doubled between 2008 and 2009, and the next year the GAO weighed in with
recommendations for the NSC to “reassess and update its Action Plan;
identify metrics; assess the costs, benefits, and effectiveness of U.S.
counter-piracy activities; and clarify agency roles and responsibilities.”
For the next four years, however, the NSC failed to respond.
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/killanythingpbk.jpg
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> In those
years, the United Nations also
<http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/piracy_hornafrica.htm> passed
numerous resolutions related to maritime crime in the Horn of Africa,
authorizing international militaries to conduct counter-piracy efforts.
Naval <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-18882769> patrols and other
missions by NATO and the European Union as well as Australia, Bahrain,
Canada, France, Jordan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey,
<http://natocouncil.ca/nato-china-and-somali-piracy-a-missed-opportunity/>
China, Russia, Japan, India, and the U.S. -- in addition to the
<http://www.navy.mil/ah_online/antipiracy/images/gallery/testimony.pdf> use
of armed mercenaries to protect ships and a slew of new policies designed to
thwart attacks -- have had a demonstrable effect. According to the
International Maritime Bureau, piracy incidents in the Horn of Africa
<http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-422> declined from 219 in 2010 to just
15 in 2013.
“At the peak point of operations, up to 30 vessels from as many as 22
nations were engaged in counter-piracy operations in the region,” Rear
Admiral Joseph Kuzmick
<http://www.navy.mil/ah_online/antipiracy/images/gallery/testimony.pdf> told
Congress last year. “International naval forces have thwarted pirate attacks
in progress, engaged pirate skiffs, and successfully taken back hijacked
ships during opposed boardings.” While a truly international effort, the
<http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/05/economist-explain
s-11> battle against the Somali pirates ranks as one of the few true bright
spots for the U.S. military in Africa.
Over these same years, the U.S. has also been pouring money and effort into
maritime security activities on the other side of the continent with
drastically different results.
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/gulfofguinea_large.jpg> Click
here to see a larger version
http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/gulfofguinea_small.jpg
GULF OF GUINEA (April 2, 2014) - U.S. Sailors, U.S. Coast Guardsmen, and
Ghanaian maritime specialists, ride in a rigid-hull inflatable boat as part
of a U.S.-Ghana combined maritime law enforcement operation under the
African Maritime Law Enforcement Partnership program. (U.S. Navy photo by
Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jeff Atherton)
>From 2007 to 2011, the U.S.
<http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/article/8662/us-welcomes-u-n-assessment-of-
maritime-piracy-in-w> provided $35 million to West and Central African
countries for
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/8075/new-radar-system-improves-nige
rian-maritime-capabi> coastal radar, boats, equipment, and maritime security
training. These efforts included the African Partnership Station (APS) -- a
shipboard effort
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/6071/testimony-to-the-house-armed-s
ervices-committee--s> designed to “provide quality military training to
sailors and leaders of [partner] nations.” Under the auspices of the APS,
the United States annually
<http://navylive.dodlive.mil/2013/04/11/navy-efforts-to-combat-piracy-contin
ue/> hosts four regional security
<http://codebookafrica.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/profiles-of-africoms-express
-exercise-series-available/> exercises around the African continent:
<http://www.africom.mil/what-we-do/exercises/cutlass-express> Cutlass
Express, <http://www.africom.mil/what-we-do/exercises/phoenix-express>
Phoenix Express,
<http://www.africom.mil/what-we-do/exercises/saharan-express> Saharan
Express, and <http://www.africom.mil/what-we-do/exercises/obangame-express>
Obangame Express, the latter based in the waters off West Africa.
By 2012, five years after it was launched, APS activities
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/9056/africa-partnership-station-pro
motes-security-coope> involved more than 30 African, European, and North and
South American countries. In last year’s iteration of Obangame Express,
some 16 nations
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/10389/exercise-obangame-express-201
3> participated in exercises in the Gulf of Guinea, including Benin,
Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, France, Gabon, Nigeria, Republic
of Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe, Togo, and the United States. This year, 20
nations <http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=80539> were
involved, including 11 which took part in boarding exercises conducted
aboard 36 different vessels in the gulf.
AFRICOM and the U.S. Coast Guard also
<https://africom.wordpress.com/category/amlep/> provide counter-piracy
training as well as instruction in search and seizure skills through the
African Maritime Law Enforcement Partnership program. In addition, the U.S.
has held
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/10858/africa-center-and-us-dept-of-
state-hold-maritime-safety-and-security-seminar-in-ghana> seminars,
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/6772/international-forum-plans-2010
-maritime-partnershi> symposiums, and
<http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/article/8281/piracy-is-of-common-concern-to
-africans-global-com> conferences devoted to maritime security; it has
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/6351/united-states-donates-defender
-class-response-boat> donated spare parts and even entire ships to West
African allies, provided hands-on maintenance instruction,
<http://www.stripes.com/news/africom-counters-piracy-with-training-1.87056>
advised personnel from regional navies and coast guards, and
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/8759/africom-funded-projects-assist
ing-african-partners> offered aid for maritime counter-narcotics and
law-enforcement projects.
Despite all these efforts, maritime insecurity has been markedly on the rise
in the waters off West Africa. When I spoke last year with AFRICOM’s Benson
about signs of U.S. “success” in the Gulf of Guinea, he cited U.S. efforts
that culminated in a
<http://www.voanews.com/content/african-leaders-meet-to-address-maritime-ins
ecurity/1687627.html> conference where West and Central African leaders
would hammer out a comprehensive
<http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/publications/featured-story-piracy-west-afric
a> strategy to improve maritime security, with a formal code of conduct for
states to follow. At the time, however, the conference -- organized by the
Economic Community of Central African States, the Economic Community of West
African States, and the Commission of the Gulf of Guinea -- had yet to take
place.
How could that count as a success, I wondered, especially when signs of
regional failure were all too evident? According to the U.S. Office of
Naval Intelligence, incidents of piracy and maritime crime in the Gulf of
Guinea <http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-422> jumped more than 80% from
2010 to 2013. Last year,
<http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/publications/state-maritime-piracy-2-page-sum
mary> according to Oceans Beyond Piracy, an advocacy group focusing on
maritime security issues, West African pirates attacked at least 1,871
“seafarers” and 279 were known to have been taken hostage. Additionally,
1,209 vessels were boarded by pirates. Experts now
<http://news.usni.org/2013/07/12/countering-piracy-in-the-gulf-of-guinea>
estimate that $2 billion is lost each year in port revenue, insurance
premiums, and security costs due to maritime crime in the Gulf of Guinea.
Getting Cozy With Africa’s Most Corrupt Strongman
It was at a conference hosted by the Department of Defense’s Africa Center
for Strategic Studies, held on the periphery of the White House’s
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/us-africa-leaders-summit> U.S.-Africa Leaders
Summit in August, that Loic Moudouma spoke positively about U.S. assistance
in the region while also asserting that the Gulf of Guinea was the most
insecure and violent waterway in the entire world. When I questioned him
about this apparent paradox -- asking why maritime insecurity has escalated
during years of increased U.S. assistance -- he pointed to the slow pace in
implementing plans and the relentlessness of the region’s pirates. He also
put the blame squarely on America’s allies in Africa. “The state is still
absent from the sea,” he said, drawing attention to the inability of nations
to police their territorial waters. Moudouma also called out the region’s
heads of state. “Over the last decade, our political leaders have been
investing in how to stay in power as long as possible,” he said.
Moudouma sees systemic problems at the ministerial and presidential levels
in African governments and called for more action aimed at heads of state.
This type of pressure, however, didn’t seem to be on the table at that
recent White House summit when President Obama hosted -- and stood for a
<http://trendyafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/usasmr-45.png> smiling
portrait with -- Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang.
Since he first seized power in a
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-trying-to-seize-more-than-70m-fro
m-dictators-son-over-alleged-corruption/2011/10/25/gIQAYknmIM_story.html>
coup 35 years ago (just before Obama began his
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/25/barack-obama-the-college-years
> freshman year in college), Obiang has ruled that tiny, oil-rich nation on
the Gulf of Guinea with an iron fist. A perennial pariah state, his country
is noted for its
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/30/equatorial-guinea-halt-prisoner-torture>
utter lack of press freedom and political opposition, and a profusion of
corruption, oppression, and
<http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/equatorial-guinea/report-2013> human
rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and the imprisonment and
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/30/equatorial-guinea-halt-prisoner-torture>
torture of opposition figures. While most of Equatorial Guinea lives on
about $2 per day, the Obiang family lives the high life, complete with a
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/be579cda-1bbc-11e4-9db1-00144feabdc0.html> fleet
of flashy cars -- including Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and Lamborghinis -- not
to mention
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-trying-to-seize-more-than-70m-fro
m-dictators-son-over-alleged-corruption/2011/10/25/gIQAYknmIM_story.html>
private jets.
The country seems to be the archetypal example of the sort of corruption
Moudouma denounced. It ranked 163 out of 175 on Transparency
International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2013. Yet
<http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:65VXqL0lNl8J:www.defen
selink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx%3Fid%3D46243+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us>
year after
<http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vmDmWdh2xOUJ:country.e
iu.com/article.aspx%3Farticleid%3D1578987742%26Country%3DEquatorial%2520Guin
ea%26topic%3DPolitics%26subtopic%3DRecent%2Bdevelopments%26aid%3D1%26oid%3D1
468673131+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk> year,
<http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=51650> U.S. forces have
<http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=80539> partnered with
<http://www.stripes.com/news/navy-crew-teaches-skills-to-equatorial-guineans
-1.87326> those of <http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=34735>
Equatorial Guinea for
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/10389/exercise-obangame-express-201
3> military exercises,
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/6244/equatorial-guinea-navy-officer
s-train-aboard-us-co> training missions, and even,
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/6428/bradley-first-us-navy-ship-to-
visit-bata-equatoria> according to a 2009 Navy press release, “a flight deck
reception for distinguished Equatorial Guinean visitors in order to develop
relationships and promote regional cooperation between Equatorial Guinea and
the United States.”
Succeeding at Failure
On June 19th, the Government Accountability Office
<http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/664268.pdf> published a new report, “Ongoing
U.S. Counter-Piracy Efforts Would Benefit From Agency Assessments.” It
contrasted the much-improved situation off Somalia’s coast with the
“persistent problem” of piracy and maritime crime in the Gulf of Guinea. It
also <http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-856> drew attention to
recommendations -- like systematically tracking costs and identifying which
agencies will lead or support various counter-piracy efforts -- that, after
four years, had yet to be implemented.
A day later, the National Security Council
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/20/white-house-releases-
united-states-counter-piracy-and-maritime-security-> unveiled its 2014
“United States Counter Piracy and Maritime Security Action Plan.” According
to a statement provided to TomDispatch by NSC spokesman Ned Price, it
“provides guidance to the Federal government focusing on three core areas
including: prevention of attacks, response to acts of maritime crime, and
enhancing maritime security and governance.”
The new plan contains an annex devoted to the Gulf of Guinea (which went
unmentioned in the 2008 report) and, according to the NSC, “effectively
addresses the recommendations raised in the [June 2014 GAO] report.” That
isn’t quite the case according to Stephen Caldwell, one of that report’s
authors. “Our recommendations from the earlier report were only partially
fulfilled,” he told me. “Some of the more specific issues were not
addressed.”
While acknowledging that the National Security Council has a lot on its
plate beyond piracy, Caldwell drew attention to the ways in which a
continuing failure to track costs, identify resource constraints, and define
specific roles for the agencies involved in maritime security efforts can
lead to a lack of accountability and the inability to fix ineffective
efforts. “Although the United States has interagency and international
efforts underway with African states to strengthen maritime security, it has
not assessed its efforts or the need for a collective plan to address the
evolving problem in the region,” <http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-422>
says the GAO report. “The U.S. role in addressing piracy in the Gulf of
Guinea has focused on prevention, disruption, and prosecution, through
training and assistance to African coastal states. However, according to
U.S. agencies working in the region, the National Security Council Staff
(NSCS) has not directed them to collectively assess their efforts to address
piracy and maritime crime.”
U.S. failures when it comes to the Gulf of Guinea are many: a failure to
address the longstanding concerns of a government watchdog agency, a failure
to effectively combat piracy despite an outlay of tens of millions of
taxpayer dollars, and a failure to confront corrupt African leaders who
enable piracy in the first place. In fact, the rolling out of a
<http://nickturse.tumblr.com/obiang> red carpet in Washington for an
astoundingly corrupt West African strongman, precisely the type of leader
even a Pentagon-approved analyst cites as the source of regional
instability, mirrors other U.S. efforts in Africa, from
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175831/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_the_pentagon,
_libya,_and_tomorrow%27s_blowback_today> Libya to
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/nick_turse_blowback_central> Mali to
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175878/> South Sudan, which have crumbled,
collapsed, crashed, and burned.
For the better part of a year, following his email outburst about putting
words in his mouth, U.S. Africa Command spokesman Benjamin Benson has
ignored my repeated requests for comment or clarification when it comes to
the Gulf of Guinea. And it’s little wonder. After all, as the U.S.
military has shown repeatedly in its “pivot” to Africa over these last
years, it’s so much easier to claim success than to achieve it.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the
Nation Institute. A 2014 Izzy Award winner, he has reported from the Middle
East, Southeast Asia, and Africa and his pieces have appeared in the New
York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch.
His New York Times bestseller
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> Kill
Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam just received an
<http://www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com/> American Book Award. This story
was reported in partnership with the <http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/>
Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute. Additional funding was provided
through the generosity of Adelaide Gomer.
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