U.S. Escalates Military Penetration of Africa
06/14/2012 - 09:12 - Glen Ford
* .....AFRICOM's array of alliances and agreements with African
militaries already embraces virtually every nation on the continent except
Eritrea and Zimbabwe........
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The Americans are preparing to establish a network of bases in Africa,
initially to serve a 3,000-troop roving brigade to be deployed on the
continent, next year. The brigade has all the markings of a permanent
presence on African soil, while the bases are euphemistically called "safe
communities." U.S. influence over African militaries is already pervasive.
With the establishment of joint bases, "regime change will never be farther
away than a drink at the officers club." All but a handful of Black African
states routinely take part in military maneuvers staged by the Americans.
"Africa is to be dominated by military means."
According to the
<
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/06/army-3000-soldiers-serve-in-africa-ne
xt-year-060812/> Army Times newspaper, the United States will soon deploy a
brigade of about 3,000 troops - "and likely more" - for duty "across the
continent" of Africa. The "pilot program" has all the markings of a
permanent, roving presence, joining the 1,200 U.S. soldiers stationed in
Djibouti and the 100-plus Special Forces dispatched to Central Africa by
President Obama, last October.
As always and everywhere, the U.S. is looking for bases to occupy - although
the U.S. military command in Africa doesn't call them bases. Rather, "as
part of a 'regionally' aligned force concept,' soldiers will live and work
among Africans in safe communities approved by the U.S. government," said
AFRICOM's Maj. Gen. David Hogg.
The First Black U.S. President, who in 2009
<
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/5778804/Bara
ck-Obama-tells-Africa-to-stop-blaming-colonialism-for-problems.html>
lectured Africans that "corruption" and "poor governance," rather than
neocolonialism, were the continent's biggest problems, has made the U.S.
military the primarily interlocutor with African states. Functions that were
once the purview of the U.S. State Department, such as distribution of
economic aid and medical assistance, are now part of AFRICOM's vast
portfolio. In Africa, more than anyplace in the world, U.S. foreign policy
wears a uniform - which should leave little doubt as to Washington's
objectives in the region: Africa is to be dominated by military means.
Obama's "good governance" smokescreen for U.S. neocolonialism is embedded in
AFRICOM's <
http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=1644&blog=all> stated
mission: "to deter and defeat transnational threats and to provide a
security environment conducive to good governance and development."
Translation: to bring the so-called war on terror to every corner of the
continent and ensure that U.S. corporate interests get favorable treatment
from African governments.
"In Africa, more than anyplace in the world, U.S. foreign policy wears a
uniform."
AFRICOM's array of alliances and agreements with African militaries already
embraces virtually every nation on the continent except Eritrea and
Zimbabwe. All but a handful of Black African states routinely take part in
military maneuvers staged by Americans, utilizing U.S. command-and-control
equipment and practices. The new, roving U.S. brigade will further
institutionalize U.S. ties with the African officer class, part of AFRICOM's
mission to forge deep "soldier-to-soldier" relationships:
general-to-general, colonel-to-colonel, and so forth down the line. The
proposed network of "safe communities" to accommodate the highly mobile U.S.
brigade is a euphemism for joint bases and the most intense U.S.
fraternization with local African militaries. Regime change will never be
farther away than a drink at the officers club.
According to the Army Times article, the composition of the new brigade, in
terms of military skills, is not yet known. However, the brigade is
conceived as part of the "new readiness model," which "affords Army units
more time to learn regional cultures and languages and train for specific
threats and missions." This sounds like special ops units - Rangers and
Special Forces - which have been vastly expanded under President Obama (and
are quite capable of carrying out regime-change operations on their own or
in close coordination with their local counterparts).
In most cases, coups will be unnecessary. Regional African "trade" blocs
like ECOWAS, the 16-member Economic Community of West African States, and
IGAD, the six-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development, in East
Africa, have provided African cover for U.S. and French military/political
designs in the Ivory Coast and Somalia, respectively. These blocs will
doubtless become even more useful and compliant, as U.S. military commanders
and their African counterparts get cozier in those "safe communities."
"The Americans are following a European chart in Africa that goes back
centuries."
Americans, no matter how bloody their hands, have always liked to think of
themselves as "innocents abroad." "As far as our mission goes, it's
uncharted territory," said AFRICOM's Gen. Hogg. Not really. The Americans
are following a European chart in Africa that goes back centuries, and their
own long experience in the serial rape of Latin America, where the close
fraternization of U.S. and Latin American militaries in recent decades
smothered the region in juntas, dirty wars, torture-based states, and
outright genocide.
The U.S. and its African allies perpetrated of the worst genocide since
World War Two: the death of six million in the eastern Democratic Republic
of Congo. Uganda, which acts as a mercenary for the U.S. in Africa, is
complicit in mega-death in Congo and Somalia. As Milton Allimadi, publisher
of Black Star News,
<
http://www.amsterdamnews.com/opinion/we-must-reject-kony-the-pro-africom-pr
opaganda/article_813cb8a2-745d-11e1-8f08-001871e3ce6c.html> reported: "In
2005 The International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Uganda liable for the
Congo crimes. The court awarded Congo $10 billion in reparations. Uganda's
army plundered Congo's wealth and committed: mass rapes of both women and
men; disemboweled pregnant women; burned people inside their homes alive;
and, massacred innocents."
Naturally, as a henchman of the United States, Uganda has not paid the $10
billion it owes Congo. Ugandan leader Yoweria Museveni, who became Ronald
Reagan's favorite African after seizing power in 1986 with a guerilla army
packed with child soldiers, and who for decades waged genocidal war against
the Acholi people of his country, now plays host to the Special Forces
continent sent by President Obama, ostensibly to fight the child
soldier-abusing Joseph Kony and his nearly nonexistent Lord's Resistance
Army.
"Uganda, which acts as a mercenary for the U.S. in Africa, is complicit in
mega-death in Congo and Somalia."
Rwanda, the Pentagon's other hit man on the continent, has been cited by a
<
http://blackagendareport.com/content/us-achieves-deep-penetration-african-a
rmed-forces> United Nations report as bearing responsibility for some of the
millions slaughtered in Congo, as part of its ongoing rape and plunder of
its neighbor.
Gen. Hogg says AFRICOM's mission is to combat famine and disease. Yet, the
AFRICOM-assisted Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in late 2006 led to "the
<
http://blackagendareport.com/content/us-starves-children-somali-war> worst
humanitarian crisis in Africa - worse than Darfur," according to United
Nations observers. The 2007 humanitarian crisis and the escalating
U.S.-directed war against Somalia made the 2010 famine all but inevitable.
Ugandan soldiers, nominally working for the African Union but in the pay of
the Pentagon, kept watch over western interests in the starving country, as
did the 1,200 soldiers stationed at the U.S. base in neighboring Djibouti -
a permanent presence, along with the French garrison.
There's nothing "uncharted" or mysterious about AFRICOM's mission. The
introduction of the 3,000-strong mobile brigade and a network of supporting
bases prepares the way for the arrival of much larger U.S. and NATO forces -
the recolonization of Africa. Gen. Hogg swears up and down there are no such
plans. "For all the challenges that happen and sprout up across Africa, it
really comes down to, it has to be an African solution," he said.
That's exactly the same thing they said in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at
<mailto:Glen.Ford_at_BlackAgendaReport.com> Glen.Ford_at_BlackAgendaReport.com.
Related Articles:
* War Against Somalia
<
http://www.blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/war-against-somali
a> |
*
<
http://www.blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/us-military-maneuv
ers-africa> U.S. Military Maneuvers Africa |
*
<
http://www.blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/us-bases-africa>
U.S. bases in Africa |
* Famine in Somalia
<
http://www.blackagendareport.com/category/africa/famine-somalia> |
. Congo genocide <
http://www.blackagendareport.com/taxonomy/term/1292>
Received on Thu Jun 14 2012 - 21:26:40 EDT
