US in 'Cold War Mode' in Africa

[unhappycamper]

US in 'Cold War Mode' in Africa
November 19, 2008
Chicago Tribune

TADJOURA, Djibouti -- In hundreds of military training programs from the Sahara to the Seychelles, the U.S. is quietly bolstering Africa's ragtag armies to fight extremism so the Pentagon won't have to.

Some experts have taken to calling this strategy -- not always admiringly -- "America's African Rifles" after an indigenous African unit organized by Britain to fight its bloody colonial wars of the 19th Century.

Over the past five years, 21 African countries have hosted military instructors in the biggest-ever U.S. training effort on the continent.

Green Berets have taught troops from impoverished Niger how to parachute from planes. Ugandans have been shown how to patrol their lakes in speedboats. And some 39,000 African troops have cycled through U.S. peacekeeping courses.

Soldiers in the Djibouti branch of this vast effort speak spare, unplaceable English. They are U.S. military trainers from Guam -- Bravo Company, 1/294th Infantry Battalion.


Rest of Africom article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/us-in-cold-war-mode-in-africa.html