The US Carried Out 674 Military Operations in Africa Last Year. Did You Hear
About Any of Them?


 

Tomgram: Nick Turse, The U.S. Military's Battlefield of Tomorrow

Posted by  <http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/nickturse/> Nick Turse at
8:00am, April 14, 2015.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter  <http://www.twitter.com/tomdispatch>
@TomDispatch.

   

[Note for TomDispatch readers: A week from now we’re planning to launch the
newest Dispatch book, Nick Turse’s
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa.  It is, I
think, a monument to what one intrepid, determined, and canny reporter can
do on his own without the backing of a major (or even minor) mainstream
media outfit. It’s also Turse’s riveting record of how, over these last
years, the U.S. military took -- and lost -- Africa at one and the same
time. You won’t find anything like it elsewhere. Next week, with another
bang-up Turse piece, we’ll officially launch the book and offer you a chance
to receive your own signed, personalized copy in return for a donation to
the site. In the meantime, if you want to be the first on your block to get
your hands on
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
Tomorrow’s Battlefield, then preorder it this second! You can purchase it
directly from our wonderfully dedicated publisher, Haymarket Books, by
<http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Tomorrows-Battlefield> clicking here. Tom]

Years ago,  <http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175377/sheila_johnson_chal>
Chalmers Johnson took a term of CIA tradecraft, “blowback,” and put it into
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805075593/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> our
language.  Originally, it was meant to describe CIA operations so secret
that, when they blew back on this country, Americans would be incapable of
tracing the connection or grasping that the U.S. had anything to do with
what hit us.  The word now stands in more broadly for any American act or
policy that rebounds on us.  There is, however, another phenomenon with, as
yet, no name that deserves some attention.  I’ve come to think of it as
“blowforward.”

In a way, this is what Nick Turse has been
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175823/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_america%27s_n
on-stop_ops_in_africa> documenting for the last two years
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/> at TomDispatch as he’s
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_american_prox
y_wars_in_africa> covered the way the U.S. military and its Africa Command
(AFRICOM) “pivoted” onto that continent big time.  As in his latest piece,
he -- and he alone -- has continued to report in graphic detail on a level
of operational hubris and pure blockheadedness that might be considered
unparalleled in our era -- if, that is, we didn’t have the
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175854/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_a_record_of_u
nparalleled_failure/> disastr ous story of post-9/11 U.S. military
operations throughout the Greater Middle East eternally before us.  In
Africa, as he reminds us today, when the U.S. military first started moving
onto the continent in a significant way, there were almost no Islamic terror
organizations outside of Somalia.  Now, with AFRICOM fully invested and
operational across the continent, count ‘em.

This is no less true of the
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175854/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_a_record_of_u
nparalleled_failure/> relationship between American invasions, occupations,
wars, raids, interventions, and drone assassination campaigns, and the
growth of terror outfits (and the
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175895/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_the_great_con
centration_or_the_great_fragmentation/> fragmentation of states) in the
Middle East.  That someone should draw a lesson or two from all this and not
do essentially the same things over and over again may seem reasonable
enough on the face of it, but evidently not in Washington.  The question is:
Why?  Perhaps part of the explanation lies in the phenomenon I’ve started
calling blowforward.

Before the disaster of 9/11, America’s intelligence agencies managed to
gather  <http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=129563> much information on and
yet
<http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002/05/17/failure-usatcov.h
tm> see little of what was coming.  The result of their blindness was, of
course, the
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175901/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_entering_the_
intelligence_labyrinth/> unparalleled growth of those same agencies and the
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175655/tomgram%3A_kramer_and_hellman,_the_w
ashington_creation_that_ate_your_lunch/> national security state. Moreover,
those in key positions who might have been held responsible for missing 9/11
paid no price at all.  Instead, they were generally promoted and honored in
the years that followed.  E ver since, every new terror group or hideous
video or newly proclaimed caliphate that surfed in on a wave of American
wars and interventions has blown forward on that security state, spurring
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-wor
ld-growing-beyond-control/> phenomenal growth, enhancing its prestige,
making countless careers, and offering new kinds of power. In short, what
might otherwise be seen as failed policies actually strengthened the hand of
a  <http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
shadow government in Washington that had an endless set of
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175936/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_the_national_
security_state_%22works,%22_even_if_nothing_it_does_works/>
get-out-of-jail-free cards at its disposal.

In other words, each disastrous American move that bred yet more of the
insecurity the national security state is supposed to prevent has proved
anything but a disaster for the movers.  Each has translated into more
funds, more power, more independence, more prestige, and greater reach.  As
Turse writes today of AFRICOM’s growth, bad news from the African front
after the U.S. military moved onto the continent in a big way only led to a
further “swelling of bases, personnel, and funding” -- and, of course, no
blowback at all when it comes to the officials directing all of this. For
them, as Turse’s reporting makes clear, it’s a blowforward world all the
way. Tom

2044 or Bust 
Military Missions Reach Record Levels After U.S. Inks Deal to Remain in
Africa for Decades 
By  <http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/nickturse> Nick Turse

For three days, wearing a kaleidoscope of camouflage patterns, they huddled
together on a military base in Florida. They came from U.S. Special
Operations Command (SOCOM) and U.S. Army Special Operations Command, from
France and Norway, from Denmark, Germany, and Canada: 13 nations in all.
They came to plan a years-long “Special Operations-centric” military
campaign supported by conventional forces, a multinational undertaking that
-- if carried out -- might cost hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of
dollars and who knows how many lives.

 

Ask the men involved and they’ll talk about being mindful of “sensitivities”
and “cultural differences,” about the importance of “collaboration and
coordination,” about the value of a variety of viewpoints, about
“perspectives” and “partnerships.”  Nonetheless, behind closed doors and
unbeknownst to most of the people in their own countries, let alone the
countries fixed in their sights, a coterie of Western special ops planners
were sketching out a possible multinational military future for a troubled
region of Africa.

>From January 13th to 15th, representatives from the U.S. and 12 partner
nations gathered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa for an exercise dubbed
Silent Quest 15-1. The fictional scenario on which they were to play out
their war game had a ripped-from-the-headlines quality to it.  It was an
amalgam of two perfectly real and ongoing foreign policy and
counterterrorism disasters of the post-9/11 era: the growth of
<http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/01/africom-commander-wants-full-coun
terinsurgency-plan-boko-haram/103929/> Boko Haram in Nigeria and the
emergence of the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant or ISIL.  The war game centered on the imagined rise of a group
dubbed the “Islamic State of Africa” and the spread of its proto-caliphate
over parts of  <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-31902503> Nigeria,
<http://www.reuters.%20com/article/2015/04/02/us-niger-boko-haram-hunger-idU
SKBN0MT21920150402> Niger, and
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/09/us-nigeria-violence-niger-idUSKBN
0LD14L20150209> Cameroon -- countries terrorized by the real Boko Haram,
which did recently pledge its allegiance to the Islamic State.

Silent Quest 15-1 was just the latest in a series of similarly named
exercises -- the first took place in March 2013 -- designed to help plot out
the special ops interventions of the next decade.  This war game was no
paintball-style walk in the woods.  There were no mock firefights, no dress
rehearsals.  It wasn’t the flag football equivalent of battle.  Instead, it
was a tabletop exercise building on something all too real: the
ever-expanding panoply of U.S. and allied military activities across
ever-larger parts of Africa.  Speaking of that continent, Matt Pascual, a
participant in Silent Quest and the Africa desk officer for SOCOM’s
Euro-Africa Support Group, noted that the U.S. and its allies were already
dealing with “myriad issues” in the region and, perhaps most importantly,
that many of the participating countries “are already there.”  The country
“already there” th e most is, of course, Pascual’s own: the United States. 

In recent years, the U.S. has been involved in a variety of multinational
interventions in Africa, including one in Libya that involved both a
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/30/america-s-secret-libya-war
-u-s-spent-1-billion-on-covert-ops-helping-nato.html> secret war and a
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/air-strikes-on-libya-so-far-very-effective/>
conventional campaign of missiles and air strikes,
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_pr
oxy_wars_in_africa> assistance to French forces in the Central African
Republic and Mali, and the training and funding of African proxies to do
battle against militant groups like
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175925/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_when_is_a_%
22base_camp%22_neither_a_base_nor_a_camp> Boko Haram as well as Somalia’s
<http://www.tomdis%20patch.com/blog/175875/> al-Shabab and Mali’s
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_pr
oxy_wars_in_africa> Ansar al-Dine.  In 2014, the U.S. carried out 674
military activities across Africa, nearly two missions per day, an almost
300% jump in the number of annual operations, exercises, and
military-to-military training activities since U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)
was established in 2008. 

Despite this massive increase in missions and a similar swelling of bases,
personnel, and funding, the picture painted last month before the Senate
Armed Services Committee by AFRICOM chief General David Rodriguez was
startlingly bleak.  For all the American efforts across Africa, Rodriguez
offered a vision of a continent in crisis, imperiled from East to West by
militant groups that have developed, grown in strength, or increased their
deadly reach in the face of U.S. counterterrorism efforts.  

“Transregional terrorists and criminal networks continue to adapt and expand
aggressively,” Rodriguez told committee members. “Al-Shabab has broadened
its operations to conduct, or attempt to conduct, asymmetric attacks against
Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and especially Kenya.  Libya-based threats are
growing rapidly, including an expanding ISIL presence... Boko Haram
threatens the ability of the Nigerian government to provide security and
basic services in large portions of the northeast.”  Despite the grim
outcomes since the American military began “pivoting” to Africa after 9/11,
the U.S. recently signed an agreement designed to keep its troops based on
the continent until almost midcentury.

Mission Creep   

For years, the U.S. military has publicly insisted that its efforts in
Africa are negligible, intentionally leaving the American people, not to
mention most Africans, in the dark about the true size, scale, and scope of
its operations there.   AFRICOM public affairs personnel and commanders have
repeatedly claimed no more than a “light footprint” on the continent.  They
shrink from talk of camps and outposts, claiming to have just one
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s
_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22> base anywhere in Africa: Camp Lemonnier in
the tiny nation of Djibouti.  They don’t like to talk about
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175823/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_america%27s
_non-stop_ops_in_africa> military operations.  They offer detailed
<http://www.africom.mil/what-we-do> in formation about only a tiny fraction
of their training exercises.  They
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s
_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22> refuse to disclose the locations where
personnel have been stationed or even counts of the countries involved.

During an interview, an AFRICOM spokesman once expressed his worry to me
that even tabulating how many deployments the command has in Africa would
offer a “skewed image” of U.S. efforts.  Behind closed doors, however,
AFRICOM’s officers speak quite a different language.  They have repeatedly
asserted that the continent is an American “
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom%27s_g
igantic_%22small_footprint%22> battlefield” and that -- make no bones about
it -- they are already embroiled in an actual “
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom_bec
omes_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22> war.”

According to recently released figures from U.S. Africa Command, the scope
of that “war” grew dramatically in 2014.  In its “posture statement,”
AFRICOM reports that it conducted 68 operations last year, up from 55 the
year before.  These included operations Juniper Micron and Echo Casemate,
missions focused on aiding French and African interventions in Mali and the
Central African Republic; Observant Compass, an effort to degrade or destroy
<https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-lord-s-resistance-army-is-collapsing-9
01acd86cb29> what’s left of Joseph Kony’s murderous Lord’s Resistance Army
in central Africa; and United Assistance, the deployment of military
personnel to combat the
<http://www.africom.mil/operation-united-assistance> Ebola crisis in West
Africa.

The number of major joint field exercises U.S. personnel engaged in with
African military partners inched up from 10 in 2013 to 11 last year. These
included  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J396pWevnIU> African Lion in
Morocco,
<http://www.army.mil/article/128543/USARAF_hosted_Exercise_Western_Accord_14
_kicks_off_in_Senegal/> Western Accord in Senegal,
<http://www.army.mil/article/122105/Harlem_Hellfighters_keep_troops_moving_d
uring_Central_Accord/> Central Accord in Cameroon, and
<http://www.army.mil/article/130298/Exercise_Southern_Accord_14_kicks_off_in
_Malawi/> Southern Accord in Malawi, all of which had a field training
component and served as capstone events for the prior year’s
military-to-military instruction missions. 

AFRICOM also conducted
<https://codebookafrica.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/africoms-annual-exercise-sc
hedule-continues-with-saharan-express/> maritime security exercises
including  <http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=80539> Obangame
Express in the
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175899/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_%2
2success%22_and_the_rise_of_west_african_piracy> Gulf of Guinea, Saharan
Express in the waters off Senegal, and three weeks of maritime security
training scenarios as part of
<http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=81418> Phoenix Express
2014, with sailors from numerous countries including Algeria, Italy, Libya,
Malta, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey.

The number of security cooperation activities skyrocketed from 481 in 2013
to 595 last year.  Such efforts included military training under a “state
partnership program” that teams African military forces with U.S. National
Guard units and the State Department-funded Africa Contingency Operations
Training and Assistance, or ACOTA, program through which U.S. military
advisers and mentors provide equipment and instruction to African troops.

In 2013, the combined total of all U.S. activities on the continent reached
546, an average of more than one mission per day.  Last year, that number
leapt to 674.  In other words, U.S. troops were carrying out almost two
operations, exercises, or activities -- from
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/world/africa/drone-strike-is-said-to-kill
-shabab-leader.html> drone strikes to
<http://www.hoa.africom.mil/story/8274/u-s-amisom-hone-operational-military-
decision-making-processes> counterinsurgency instruction, intelligence
gathering to marksmanship training -- somewhere in Africa every day.  This
represents an enormous increase from the 172 “missions, activities,
programs, and exercises” that AFRICOM
<http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/Transcript/6544/written-testimony-in-annual
-posture-statement-ward> inherited from other geographic commands whe n it
began operations in 2008. 

Transnational Terror Groups: Something From Nothing 

In 2000, a report
<http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=199>
prepared under the auspices of the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies
Institute examined the “African security environment.”  While it touched on
“internal separatist or rebel movements” in “weak states,” as well as
non-state actors like militias and “warlord armies,” there was conspicuously
no mention of Islamic extremism or major transnational terrorist threats.
Prior to 2001, in fact, the United States did not recognize any terrorist
organizations in sub-Saharan Africa and a senior Pentagon official
<http://2001-2009.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/8801.htm> noted that the most feared
Islamic militants on the continent had “not engaged in acts of terrorism
outside Somalia.” 

 <http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> In the
wake of 9/11, even before AFRICOM was created, the U.S. began ramping up
operations across the continent in an effort to bolster the counterterror
capabilities of allies and insulate Africa from transnational terror groups,
namely globe-trotting Islamic extremists.  The continent, in other words,
was seen as something of a clean slate for experiments in terror prevention.


Billions of dollars have been pumped into Africa to build bases, arm allies,
gather intelligence, fight proxy wars, assassinate militants, and conduct
perhaps thousands of military missions -- and none of it has had its
intended effect.  Last year, for example, Somali militants “either planned
or executed increasingly complex and lethal attacks in Somalia, Kenya,
Uganda, Djibouti, and Ethiopia,” according to AFRICOM.  Earlier this month,
those same al-Shabab militants upped the ante by
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/world/africa/setbacks-press-shabab-fighte
rs-to-kill-inexpensively.html> slaughtering 142 students at a college in
Kenya. 

And al-Shabab’s deadly growth and spread has hardly been the exception to
the rule in Africa. In recent
<http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/download/rodriguez_03-26-15> testimony
before the Senate Armed Services Committee, AFRICOM commander Rodriguez
rattled off the names of numerous Islamic terror groups that have sprung up
in the intervening years, destabilizing the very countries the U.S. had
sought to strengthen.  While the posture statement he presented put the best
gloss possible on Washington’s military efforts in Africa, even a cursory
reading of it -- and under the circumstances, it’s worth quoting at length
-- paints a bleak picture of what that “pivot” to Africa has actually meant
on the ground. Sections pulled from various parts of the document speak
volumes:

“The network of al-Qaeda and its affiliates and adherents continues to
exploit Africa’s under-governed regions and porous borders to train and
conduct attacks. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is expanding its
presence in North Africa. Terrorists with allegiances to multiple groups are
expanding their collaboration in recruitment, financing, training, and
operations, both within Africa and trans-regionally. Violent extremist
organizations are utilizing increasingly sophisticated improvised explosive
devices, and casualties from these weapons in Africa increased by
approximately 40 percent in 2014...

“In North and West Africa, Libyan and Nigerian insecurity increasingly
threaten U.S. interests. In spite of multinational security efforts,
terrorist and criminal networks are gaining strength and interoperability.
Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar al-Sharia, al-Murabitun,
Boko Haram, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and other violent
extremist organizations are exploiting weak governance, corrupt leadership,
and porous borders across the Sahel and Maghreb to train and move fighters
and distribute resources...

“Libya-based threats to U.S. interests are growing… Libyan governance,
security, and economic stability deteriorated significantly in the past
year… Today, armed groups control large areas of territory in Libya and
operate with impunity. Libya appears to be emerging as a safe haven where
terrorists, including al-Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant-affiliated groups, can train and rebuild with impunity. The Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant is increasingly active in Libya, including in
Derna, Benghazi, Tripoli, and Sebha...

“The spillover effects of instability in Libya and northern Mali increase
risks to U.S. interests in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, including
the success of Tunisia’s democratic transition...

“The security situation in Nigeria also declined in the past year. Boko
Haram threatens the functioning of a government that is challenged to
maintain its people’s trust and to provide security and other basic
services… Boko Haram has launched attacks across Nigeria’s borders into
Cameroon, Chad, and Niger...

“...both the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo
are at risk of further destabilization by insurgent groups, and simmering
ethnic tensions in the Great Lakes region have the potential to boil over
violently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

All this, mind you, is AFRICOM’s own assessment of the situation on the
continent on which it has focused its efforts for the better part of a
decade as U.S. missions there soared.  In this context, it’s worth
reemphasizing that, before the U.S. ramped up those efforts, Africa was --
by Washington’s own estimation -- relatively free of transnational Islamic
terror groups.

Tipping the Scales in Africa

Despite Boko Haram’s  <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-31862992> pledge
of allegiance to the Islamic State and
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/27/islamic-state-opening-front
-in-north-africa/?page=all> scare
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/01/14/boko-haram-baga-nigeria
-weak-response/21696525/> headlines
<http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21640440-jihadist-insu
rgency-nigeria-turning-regional-conflict-africas> lamenting their merger or
conflating those or other brutal terror outfits operating under similar
<http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21640440-jihadist-insu
rgency-nigeria-turning-regional-conflict-africas> monikers, there is
currently no real
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/01/14/boko-haram-baga-nigeria
-weak-respo%20nse/21696525/> Islamic State of Africa.  But the war game
carried out at MacDill Air Force Base in January against that fictional
group is far from fantasy, representing as it does the next logical step in
a series of operations that have been gaining steam since AFRICOM’s birth.
And buried in the command’s 2015 Posture Statement is actual news that
signals a continuation of this trajectory into the 2040s.

In May 2014, the U.S. reached an agreement -- it’s called an “implementing
arrangement” -- with the government of Djibouti “that secures [its]
presence” in that country “through 2044.”  In addition, AFRICOM officers are
now
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom_becom
es_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22> talking about the possibility of
building a string of surveillance outposts along the northern tier of the
continent.  And don’t forget how, over the past few years, U.S. staging
areas, mini-bases, and airfields have popped up in the contiguous nations of
Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and --  skipping
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175925/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_when_is_a_%
22base_camp%22_neither_a_base_nor_a_camp> Chad (where AFRICOM recently built
temporary facilities for a special ops ex ercise) -- the Central African
Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia.  All of this suggests
that the U.S. military is digging in for the long haul in Africa. 

Silent Quest 15-1 was designed as a model to demonstrate just how Washington
will conduct “Special Operations-centric” coalition warfare in Africa.  It
was, in fact, designed to align, wrote Gunnery Sergeant Reina Barnett in
SOCOM’s trade publication Tip of the Spear, with the “2020 planning guidance
of Army Maj. Gen. James Linder, commander of Special Operations Command
Africa.” And the agreement with Djibouti demonstrates that the U.S. military
is now beginning to plan for almost a quarter-century beyond that.  But, if
the last six years -- marked by a 300% increase in U.S. missions as well as
the spread of terror groups and terrorism in Africa -- are any indicator,
the results are likely to be anything but pleasing to Washington. 

AFRICOM commander David Rodriguez continues to put the best face on U.S.
efforts in Africa, citing “progress in several areas through close
cooperation with our allies and partners.”  His command’s assessment of the
situation, however, is remarkably bleak.  “Where our national interests
compel us to tip the scales and enhance collective security gains, we may
have to do more -- either by enabling our allies and partners, or acting
unilaterally,” reads the posture statement Rodriguez delivered to that
Senate committee. 

After more than a decade of increasing efforts, however, there’s little
evidence that AFRICOM has the slightest idea how to tip the scales in its
own favor in Africa.

Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the
Nation Institute. A 2014 Izzy Award and
<http://www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com/> American Book Award winner for
his book
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> Kill
Anything That Moves, he has reported from the Middle East, Southeast Asia,
and Africa and his pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the San
Francisco Chronicle, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. His latest
book,  <http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa (Haymarket
Books), will soon be published. 

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Dispatch Book, Rebecca Solnit's
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464962/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> Men
Explain Things to Me, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book,
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> Shadow
Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a
Single-Superpower World.

Copyright 2015 Nick Turse

Dr. Shungu M. Tundanonga-Dikunda
Public & Policy Affairs Consultant
PF 62 02 45

D-10792 Berlin (Germany)

 

 

EM

On the 49th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in
anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni
katika machafuko" 

 

 

 

 

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