The Master as
“Guest”: The U.S. Military Swarms Over Africa
ISLAMIC DICK HEAD NEEDS ALL THE DIAMONDS
A long-planned U.S. escalation of its military presence in Africa will soon get underway, with the permanent deployment of a 3,500-strong brigade. The heavy combat team will make itself at home in African bases in 35 countries. “This is a very different kind of invasion – more like an infiltration-in-force.”
By Glen Ford
January 11 2013 "Information Clearing House" - 2013 is the year the U.S. kicks off its wholesale military occupation of Africa. The escalation should come as no surprise, since the Army Times newspaper reported, back in June, that a U.S. brigade of at least 3,000 troops would become a permanent presence on the continent in the new year. On Christmas Eve, the Pentagon announced that 3,500 soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade, in Fort Riley, Kansas, will be sent to Africa, supposedly to confront a threat from al-Qaida in Mali, where Islamists have seized the northern part of the country. But the 2nd Brigade is scheduled to hold more than 100 military exercises in 35 countries, most of which have no al-Qaida presence. So, although there is no doubt that the U.S. will be deeply involved in the impending military operation in Mali, the 2nd Brigade’s deployment is a much larger assignment, aimed at making all of Africa a theater of U.S. military operations. The situation in Mali is simply a convenient, after-the-fact rationale for a long-planned expansion of the U.S. military footprint in Africa.
A long-planned U.S. escalation of its military presence in Africa will soon get underway, with the permanent deployment of a 3,500-strong brigade. The heavy combat team will make itself at home in African bases in 35 countries. “This is a very different kind of invasion – more like an infiltration-in-force.”
By Glen Ford
January 11 2013 "Information Clearing House" - 2013 is the year the U.S. kicks off its wholesale military occupation of Africa. The escalation should come as no surprise, since the Army Times newspaper reported, back in June, that a U.S. brigade of at least 3,000 troops would become a permanent presence on the continent in the new year. On Christmas Eve, the Pentagon announced that 3,500 soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade, in Fort Riley, Kansas, will be sent to Africa, supposedly to confront a threat from al-Qaida in Mali, where Islamists have seized the northern part of the country. But the 2nd Brigade is scheduled to hold more than 100 military exercises in 35 countries, most of which have no al-Qaida presence. So, although there is no doubt that the U.S. will be deeply involved in the impending military operation in Mali, the 2nd Brigade’s deployment is a much larger assignment, aimed at making all of Africa a theater of U.S. military operations. The situation in Mali is simply a convenient, after-the-fact rationale for a long-planned expansion of the U.S. military footprint in Africa.
The Pentagon’s larger
purpose in placing an army brigade on roving duty all across
the continent is to acclimate African commanders to hosting
a permanent, large scale U.S. presence. This is a very
different kind of invasion – more like an
infiltration-in-force. The Pentagon’s strategy is designed
to reinforce relationships that the U.S. Africa Command has
been cultivating with African militaries since the
establishment of
AFRICOM
during George Bush’s last year in office. As an infiltrating
force, AFRICOM has been a phenomenal success.
“Militarily, the
West Africans are totally dependent.”
Militarily speaking,
the African Union has become an
annex of the Pentagon.
The AU’s biggest operation, in Somalia, is armed, financed
and directed by the U.S. military and CIA. The 17,000
African troops on so-called peace-keeping duty in Somalia
are, for all practical purposes, mercenaries for the
Americans – although poorly paid ones. Ethiopian and Kenyan
forces act as extensions of U.S. power in the East Africa.
U.S. Special Forces roam the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Uganda, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic –
ostensibly looking for the fugitive warlord Joseph Kony but,
in reality, establishing a web of
U.S. military
infrastructures
throughout center of the continent. Uganda and Rwanda keep
the eastern Congo’s mineral riches safe for U.S. and
European corporations – at the cost of 6 million Congolese
lives. Their militaries are on the Pentagon’s payroll.
In northwest Africa,
the 16 nations of the region’s economic community await the
intervention of the
United Nations
– which really means the United States and France – to
expel the Islamist
forces
from Mali. Militarily, the West Africans are totally
dependent. But, more importantly, they show no political
will to escape this dependency – especially after the demise
of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
The creeping,
continental U.S. expeditionary force, soon to be spearheaded
by the 1st
Infantry Division’s 2nd
Brigade, will bunk down in African military bases throughout
the continent, not as invaders, but as guests. Guests who
pay the bills and provide the weapons for African armies
whose mission has nothing to do with national independence
and self-determination. Three generations after the
beginnings of decolonization, the African soldier is once
again bowing to the foreign master.
This article was
originally posted at
BlackAgendaReport
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