Behind Closed Doors, the Pentagon Is Talking About America's 'War' in Africa

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/world/behind-closed-doors-pentagon-talking-about-americas-war-africa



What the military will say to a reporter and what is said behind closed doors are two very different things -- especially when it comes to the U.S. military in Africa. For years, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has maintained a veil of secrecy about much of the command’s activities and mission locations, consistently downplaying the size, scale, and scope of its efforts. At a recent Pentagon press conference, AFRICOM Commander General David Rodriguez adhered to the typical mantra, assuring the assembled reporters that the United States “has little forward presence” on that continent. Just days earlier, however, the men building the Pentagon’s presence there were telling a very different story -- but they weren’t speaking with the media. They were speaking to representatives of some of the biggest military engineering firms on the planet. They were planning for the future and the talk was of war.

I recently experienced this phenomenon myself during a media roundtable with Lieutenant General Thomas Bostick, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. When I asked the general to tell me just what his people were building for U.S. forces in Africa, he paused and said in a low voice to the man next to him, “Can you help me out with that?” Lloyd Caldwell, the Corps’s director of military programs, whispered back, “Some of that would be close hold” -- in other words, information too sensitive to reveal.

The only thing Bostick seemed eager to tell me about were vague plans to someday test a prototype “structural insulated panel-hut,” a new energy-efficient type of barracks being developed by cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He also assured me that his people would get back to me with answers. What I got instead was an “interview” with a spokesman for the Corps who offered little of substance when it came to construction on the African continent. Not much information was available, he said, the projects were tiny, only small amounts of money had been spent so far this year, much of it funneled into humanitarian projects. In short, it seemed as if Africa was a construction backwater, a sleepy place, a vast landmass on which little of interest was happening.

Fast forward a few weeks and Captain Rick Cook, the chief of U.S. Africa Command’s Engineer Division, was addressing an audience of more than 50 representatives of some of the largest military engineering firms on the planet -- and this reporter. The contractors were interested in jobs and he wasn’t pulling any punches. “The eighteen months or so that I’ve been here, we’ve been at war the whole time,” Cook told them. “We are trying to provide opportunities for the African people to fix their own African challenges. Now, unfortunately, operations in Libya, South Sudan, and Mali, over the last two years, have proven there’s always something going on in Africa.”

[newfie11]

1. And how many of those wars did we start?

We have no business in Africa militarily except to manipulate.

MIC must have war ya know, the hell with suffering of the populations!

The MIC will in the end be responsible for our demise.

[malaise]

8. Having fucked up continental North America

it's now time to steal Africa - they have land, resources and loads of water.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Actually ask China what exactly they are doing there?

Because quite a bit of this has to do with China, the upcoming power.

Per always nuance.

I should make that my sig to be honest.

[bemildred]

2. Well, we have to be tricked into these wars nowadays, can't be up front about it. nt

[xchrom]

3. isn't that right?

[bemildred]

4. I love that helmet picture.

My bowels quiver with fear every time I look at it.

Yeah. indeed.

[Zorra]

11. +1 nt

[MisterP]

14. that's the partisan difference in wars: it's not that one does war and the other doesn't

it's that the Bushes like to go in directly (Panama, Somalia I, Afghanistan, Iraq) whereas Carter, Reagan, and Obama outsource the war a la Israel's "Arab assets" (Nicaragua--started by Carter/Brzezinski--Somalia II, Libya, Syria, Pakistan; though the "color revolutions" were perfected under * and Obama tried to hang on with ground forces)

[Octafish]

5. JFK did things differently in Africa.

Believed in these concepts called Justice and Democracy:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023964436

Of course, not all his successors can say the same.

[KoKo]

6. “We have shifted from our original intent of being a more congenial combatant command.."

(All done with our Taxpayer Dollars in Our Name...disgusting)


TomDispatch’s recent investigations have, however, revealed that the U.S. military is indeed pivoting to Africa. It now averages far more than a mission a day on the continent, conducting operations with almost every African military force, in almost every African country, while building or building up camps, compounds, and “ contingency security locations.” The U.S. has taken an active role in wars from Libya to the Central African Republic, sent special ops forces into countries from Somalia to South Sudan, conducted airstrikes and abduction missions, even put boots on the ground in countries where it pledged it would not.

“We have shifted from our original intent of being a more congenial combatant command to an actual war-fighting combatant command,” AFRICOM’s Rick Cook explained to the audience of big-money defense contractors. He was unequivocal: the U.S. has been “at war” on the continent for the last two and half years. It remains to be seen when AFRICOM will pass this news on to the American public.

[octoberlib]

7. Africa is a developing nation with abundant natural resources.

This doesn't surprise me at all. They have to ensure a left-leaning leader doesn't take power who'll want to nationalize everything. That would be bad for our corporations, you know.

[NickB79]

9. Nailed it.

South America and Africa are the last two bastions of untapped natural resources remaining to satisfy our desire for more raw materials. And we're not alone in eying it; the Chinese are rapidly increasing their footprint on the continent as well.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. The politicians and MIC have to develop a reliable Bogeyman in Africa.

And, figure out what "our vital national interests" are in Africa so we can "protect" them.

[Jesus Malverde]

13. We've been in northern Africa for years, this should be more focused on subsaharan Africa.

There is tons of money to be made plowing down the savanna and bringing in corporate farms. The mineral and oil resources are extensive and all those people need cell phones and Facebook. It's irresistible.