Tomgram: Nick Turse, America's Shadow Wars in Africa
Posted by Nick Turse at 9:27am, July 12, 2012.
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Here’s an odd question: Is it possible that the U.S. military is
present in more countries and more places now than at the height of
the Cold War? It’s true that the U.S. is reducing its forces and
giant bases in Europe and that its troops are out of Iraq (except for
that huge, militarized embassy in Baghdad). On the other hand,
there’s that massive ground, air, and naval build-up in the Persian
Gulf, the Obama administration’s widely publicized “pivot” to Asia
(including troops and ships), those new drone bases in the eastern
Indian Ocean region, some movement back into Latin America (including
a new base in Chile), and don’t forget Africa, where less than a
decade ago, the U.S. had almost no military presence at all. Now, as
TomDispatch Associate Editor Nick Turse writes in the latest in his
“changing face of empire” series, U.S. special operations forces,
regular troops, private contractors, and drones are spreading across
the continent with remarkable (if little noticed) rapidity.
Putting together the pieces on Africa isn’t easy. For instance, only
the other day it was revealed that three U.S. Army commandos in a
Toyota Land Cruiser had skidded off a bridge in Mali in April. They
died, all three, along with three women identified as “Moroccan
prostitutes.” This is how we know that U.S. special operations forces
were operating in chaotic, previously democratic Mali after a coup by
a U.S.-trained captain accelerated the unraveling of the country,
leading more recently to its virtual dismemberment by Tuareg rebels
and Islamist insurgents. Consider this a sample of what Nick Turse
calls the U.S. military’s “scramble for Africa” in a seamy, secretive
nutshell.
So here’s another question: Who decided in 2007 that a U.S. Africa
Command should be set up to begin a process of turning that continent
into a web of U.S. bases and other operations? Who decided that every
Islamist rebel group in Africa, no matter how local or locally
focused, was a threat to the U.S., calling for a military response?
Certainly not the American people, who know nothing about this, who
were never asked if expanding the U.S. global military mission to
Africa was something they favored, who never heard the slightest
debate, or even a single peep from Washington on the subject. (To
catch Timothy MacBain's latest Tomcast audio interview in which Turse
discusses the Pentagon’s shadowy, but fast-expanding mission in
Africa, click here or download it to your iPod here.) Tom
Obama’s Scramble for Africa
Secret Wars, Secret Bases, and the Pentagon’s “New Spice Route” in Africa
By Nick Turse
They call it the New Spice Route, an homage to the medieval trade
network that connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, even if today’s
“spice road” has nothing to do with cinnamon, cloves, or silks.
Instead, it’s a superpower’s superhighway, on which trucks and ships
shuttle fuel, food, and military equipment through a growing maritime
and ground transportation infrastructure to a network of supply
depots, tiny camps, and airfields meant to service a fast-growing U.S.
military presence in Africa.
Few in the U.S. know about this superhighway, or about the dozens
of training missions and joint military exercises being carried out in
nations that most Americans couldn’t locate on a map. Even fewer have
any idea that military officials are invoking the names of Marco Polo
and the Queen of Sheba as they build a bigger military footprint in
Africa. It’s all happening in the shadows of what in a previous
imperial age was known as “the Dark Continent.”
In East African ports, huge metal shipping containers arrive with
the everyday necessities for a military on the make. They’re then
loaded onto trucks that set off down rutted roads toward dusty bases
and distant outposts.
On the highway from Djibouti to Ethiopia, for example, one can see
the bare outlines of this shadow war at the truck stops where local
drivers take a break from their long-haul routes. The same is true in
other African countries. The nodes of the network tell part of the
story: Manda Bay, Garissa, and Mombasa in Kenya; Kampala and Entebbe
in Uganda; Bangui and Djema in the Central African Republic; Nzara in
South Sudan; Dire Dawa in Ethiopia; and the Pentagon’s showpiece
African base, Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti on the coast of the Gulf of
Aden, among others.
According to Pat Barnes, a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command
(AFRICOM), Camp Lemonnier serves as the only official U.S. base on the
continent. “There are more than 2,000 U.S. personnel stationed
there,” he told TomDispatch recently by email. “The primary AFRICOM
organization at Camp Lemonnier is Combined Joint Task Force -- Horn of
Africa (CJTF-HOA). CJTF-HOA's efforts are focused in East Africa and
they work with partner nations to assist them in strengthening their
defense capabilities.”
Barnes also noted that Department of Defense personnel are
assigned to U.S. embassies across Africa, including 21 individual
Offices of Security Cooperation responsible for facilitating
military-to-military activities with “partner nations.” He
characterized the forces involved as small teams carrying out pinpoint
missions. Barnes did admit that in “several locations in Africa,
AFRICOM has a small and temporary presence of personnel. In all cases,
these military personnel are guests within host-nation facilities, and
work alongside or coordinate with host-nation personnel.”
Shadow Wars
In 2003, when CJTF-HOA was first set up there, it was indeed true
that the only major U.S. outpost in Africa was Camp Lemonnier. In the
ensuing years, in quiet and largely unnoticed ways, the Pentagon and
the CIA have been spreading their forces across the continent. Today
-- official designations aside -- the U.S. maintains a surprising
number of bases in Africa. And “strengthening” African armies turns
out to be a truly elastic rubric for what’s going on.
Under President Obama, in fact, operations in Africa have
accelerated far beyond the more limited interventions of the Bush
years: last year’s war in Libya; a regional drone campaign with
missions run out of airports and bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and the
Indian Ocean archipelago nation of Seychelles; a flotilla of 30 ships
in that ocean supporting regional operations; a multi-pronged military
and CIA campaign against militants in Somalia, including intelligence
operations, training for Somali agents, a secret prison, helicopter
attacks, and U.S. commando raids; a massive influx of cash for
counterterrorism operations across East Africa; a possible
old-fashioned air war, carried out on the sly in the region using
manned aircraft; tens of millions of dollars in arms for allied
mercenaries and African troops; and a special ops expeditionary force
(bolstered by State Department experts) dispatched to help capture or
kill Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and his senior
commanders. And this only begins to scratch the surface of
Washington’s fast-expanding plans and activities in the region.
To support these mushrooming missions, near-constant training
operations, and alliance-building joint exercises, outposts of all
sorts are sprouting continent-wide, connected by a sprawling shadow
logistics network. Most American bases in Africa are still small and
austere, but growing ever larger and more permanent in appearance.
For example, photographs from last year of Ethiopia’s Camp Gilbert,
examined by TomDispatch, show a base filled with air-conditioned
tents, metal shipping containers, and 55-gallon drums and other gear
strapped to pallets, but also recreation facilities with TVs and
videogames, and a well-appointed gym filled with stationary bikes,
free weights, and other equipment.
Continental Drift
After 9/11, the U.S. military moved into three major regions in
significant ways: South Asia (primarily Afghanistan), the Middle East
(primarily Iraq), and the Horn of Africa. Today, the U.S. is drawing
down in Afghanistan and has largely left Iraq. Africa, however,
remains a growth opportunity for the Pentagon.
The U.S. is now involved, directly and by proxy, in military and
surveillance operations against an expanding list of regional enemies.
They include al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in North Africa; the
Islamist movement Boko Haram in Nigeria; possible al-Qaeda-linked
militants in post-Qaddafi Libya; Joseph Kony’s murderous Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA) in the Central African Republic, Congo, and
South Sudan; Mali’s Islamist Rebels of the Ansar Dine, al-Shabaab in
Somalia; and guerrillas from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula across
the Gulf of Aden in Yemen.
A recent investigation by the Washington Post revealed that
contractor-operated surveillance aircraft based out of Entebbe,
Uganda, are scouring the territory used by Kony’s LRA at the
Pentagon’s behest, and that 100 to 200 U.S. commandos share a base
with the Kenyan military at Manda Bay. Additionally, U.S. drones are
being flown out of Arba Minch airport in Ethiopia and from the
Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, while drones and F-15
fighter-bombers have been operating out of Camp Lemonnier as part of
the shadow wars being waged by the U.S. military and the CIA in Yemen
and Somalia. Surveillance planes used for spy missions over Mali,
Mauritania, and the Sahara desert are also flying missions from
Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, and plans are reportedly in the works for
a similar base in the newborn nation of South Sudan.
U.S. special operations forces are stationed at a string of even
more shadowy forward operating posts on the continent, including one
in Djema in the Central Africa Republic and others in Nzara in South
Sudan and Dungu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The U.S. also
has had troops deployed in Mali, despite having officially suspended
military relations with that country following a coup.
According to research by TomDispatch, the U.S. Navy also has a
forward operating location, manned mostly by Seabees, Civil Affairs
personnel, and force-protection troops, known as Camp Gilbert in Dire
Dawa, Ethiopia. U.S. military documents indicate that there may be
other even lower-profile U.S. facilities in the country. In addition
to Camp Lemonnier, the U.S. military also maintains another
hole-and-corner outpost in Djibouti -- a Navy port facility that lacks
even a name. AFRICOM did not respond to requests for further
information on these posts before this article went to press.
Additionally, U.S. Special Operations Forces are engaged in
missions against the Lord’s Resistance Army from a rugged camp in Obo
in the Central African Republic, but little is said about that base
either. “U.S. military personnel working with regional militaries in
the hunt for Joseph Kony are guests of the African security forces
comprising the regional counter-LRA effort,” Barnes told me.
“Specifically in Obo, the troops live in a small camp and work with
partner nation troops at a Ugandan facility that operates at the
invitation of the government of the Central African Republic.”
And that’s still just part of the story. U.S. troops are also
working at bases inside Uganda. Earlier this year, elite Force Recon
Marines from the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force 12
(SPMAGTF-12) trained soldiers from the Uganda People's Defense Force,
which not only runs missions in the Central African Republic, but also
acts as a proxy force for the U.S. in Somalia in the battle against
the Islamist militants known as al-Shabaab. They now supply the
majority of the troops to the African Union Mission protecting the
U.S.-supported government in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
In the spring, Marines from SPMAGTF-12 also trained soldiers from
the Burundi National Defense Force (BNDF), the second-largest
contingent in Somalia. In April and May, members of Task Force
Raptor, 3rd Squadron, 124th Cavalry Regiment, of the Texas National
Guard took part in a training mission with the BNDF in Mudubugu,
Burundi.
In February, SPMAGTF-12 sent trainers to Djibouti to work with an
elite local army unit, while other Marines traveled to Liberia to
focus on teaching riot-control techniques to Liberia’s military as
part of what is otherwise a State Department-directed effort to
rebuild that force.
In addition, the U.S. is conducting counterterrorism training and
equipping militaries in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania,
Niger, and Tunisia. AFRICOM also has 14 major joint-training
exercises planned for 2012, including operations in Morocco, Cameroon,
Gabon, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Senegal, and Nigeria.
The size of U.S. forces conducting these joint exercises and
training missions fluctuates, but Barnes told me that, “on an average
basis, there are approximately 5,000 U.S. Military and DoD personnel
working across the continent” at any one time. Next year, even more
American troops are likely to be on hand as units from the 2nd Brigade
Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, known as the “Dagger Brigade,” are
scheduled to deploy to the region. The roughly 3,000 soldiers in the
brigade will be involved in, among other activities, training missions
while acquiring regional expertise. "Special Forces have a particular
capability in this area, but not the capacity to fulfill the demand;
and we think we will be able to fulfill the demand by using
conventional forces," Colonel Andrew Dennis told a reporter about the
deployment.
Air Africa
Last month, the Washington Post revealed that, since at least
2009, the “practice of hiring private companies to spy on huge
expanses of African territory… has been a cornerstone of the U.S.
military’s secret activities on the continent.” Dubbed Tusker Sand,
the project consists of contractors flying from Entebbe airport in
Uganda and a handful of other airfields. They pilot turbo-prop planes
that look innocuous but are packed with sophisticated surveillance
gear.
America’s mercenary spies in Africa are, however, just part of the story.
While the Pentagon canceled an analogous drone surveillance
program dubbed Tusker Wing, it has spent millions of dollars to
upgrade the civilian airport at Arba Minch, Ethiopia, to enable drone
missions to be flown from it. Infrastructure to support such
operations has been relatively cheap and easy to construct, but a much
more daunting problem looms -- one intimately connected to the New
Spice Route.
“Marco Polo wasn't just an explorer,” Army planner Chris Zahner
explained at a conference in Djibouti last year. “[H]e was also a
logistician developing logistics nodes along the Silk Road. Now let's
do something similar where the Queen of Sheba traveled." Paeans to
bygone luminaries aside, the reasons for pouring resources into sea
and ground supply networks have less to do with history than with
Africa’s airport infrastructure.
Of the 3,300 airfields on the continent identified in a National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency review, the Air Force has surveyed only
303 of them and just 158 of those surveys are current. Of those
airfields that have been checked out, half won’t support the weight of
the C-130 cargo planes that the U.S. military leans heavily on to
transport troops and materiel. These limitations were driven home
during Natural Fire 2010, one of that year’s joint training exercises
hosted by AFRICOM. When C-130s were unable to use an airfield in
Gulu, Uganda, an extra $3 million was spent instead to send in Chinook
helicopters.
In addition, diplomatic clearances and airfield restrictions on
U.S. military aircraft cost the Pentagon time and money, while often
raising local suspicion and ire. In a recent article in the military
trade publication Army Sustainment, Air Force Major Joseph Gaddis
touts an emerging solution: outsourcing. The concept was tested last
year, during another AFRICOM training operation, Atlas Drop 2011.
“Instead of using military airlift to move equipment to and from
the exercise, planners used commercial freight vendors,” writes
Gadddis. “This provided exercise participants with door-to-door
delivery service and eliminated the need for extra personnel to
channel the equipment through freight and customs areas.” Using
mercenary cargo carriers to skirt diplomatic clearance issues and move
cargo to airports that can’t support U.S. C-130s is, however, just one
avenue the Pentagon is pursuing to support its expanding operations in
Africa.
Another is construction.
The Great Build-Up
Military contracting documents reveal plans for an investment of
up to $180 million or more in construction at Camp Lemonnier alone.
Chief among the projects will be the laying of 54,500 square meters of
taxiways “to support medium-load aircraft” and the construction of a
185,000 square meter Combat Aircraft Loading Area. In addition, plans
are in the works to erect modular maintenance structures, hangers, and
ammunition storage facilities, all needed for an expanding set of
secret wars in Africa.
Other contracting documents suggest that, in the years to come,
the Pentagon will be investing up to $50 million in new projects at
that base, Kenya’s Camp Simba, and additional unspecified locations in
Africa. Still other solicitation materials suggest future military
construction in Egypt, where the Pentagon already maintains a medical
research facility, and still more work in Djibouti.
No less telling are contracting documents indicating a coming
influx of “emergency troop housing” at Camp Lemonnier, including
almost 300 additional Containerized Living Units (CLUs), stackable,
air-conditioned living quarters, as well as latrines and laundry
facilities.
Military documents also indicate that a nearly $450,000 exercise
facility was installed at the U.S. base in Entebbe, Uganda, last year.
All of this indicates that, for the Pentagon, its African build-up
has only begun.
The Scramble for Africa
In a recent speech in Arlington, Virginia, AFRICOM Commander
General Carter Ham explained the reasoning behind U.S. operations on
the continent: “The absolute imperative for the United States military
[is] to protect America, Americans, and American interests; in our
case, in my case, [to] protect us from threats that may emerge from
the African continent.” As an example, Ham named the Somali-based
al-Shabaab as a prime threat. “Why do we care about that?” he asked
rhetorically. “Well, al-Qaeda is a global enterprise... we think they
very clearly do present, as an al-Qaeda affiliate... a threat to
America and Americans.”
Fighting them over there, so we don’t need to fight them here has
been a core tenet of American foreign policy for decades, especially
since 9/11. But trying to apply military solutions to complex
political and social problems has regularly led to unforeseen
consequences. For example, last year’s U.S.-supported war in Libya
resulted in masses of well-armed Tuareg mercenaries, who had been
fighting for Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi, heading back to Mali
where they helped destabilize that country. So far, the result has
been a military coup by an American-trained officer; a takeover of
some areas by Tuareg fighters of the National Movement for the
Liberation of Azawad, who had previously raided Libyan arms depots;
and other parts of the country being seized by the irregulars of Ansar
Dine, the latest al-Qaeda “affiliate” on the American radar. One
military intervention, in other words, led to three major instances of
blowback in a neighboring country in just a year.
With the Obama administration clearly engaged in a twenty-first
century scramble for Africa, the possibility of successive waves of
overlapping blowback grows exponentially. Mali may only be the
beginning and there’s no telling how any of it will end. In the
meantime, keep your eye on Africa. The U.S. military is going to make
news there for years to come.
Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com. An
award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles
Times, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. He is the
author/editor of several books, including the recently published
Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050 (with
Tom Engelhardt). This piece is the latest article in his series on
“the changing face of American empire,” which is being underwritten by
Lannan Foundation. You can follow him on Tumblr. To catch Timothy
MacBain's latest Tomcast audio interview in which he discusses the
Pentagon’s shadowy, but fast-expanding mission in Africa, click here
or download it to your iPod here.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter _at_TomDispatch and join us on Facebook.
Copyright 2012 Nick Turse
Received on Mon Jul 16 2012 - 11:06:45 EDT
