The Covid-19 has given me more to write about and I have been ignoring my writings on international relations and conflicts…..I will try to do better…..starting with the US involvement in Africa.
For years now the US has been involved in the issues and situations in Africa…..but out counter-terrorism policies have proved to be as worthless as the counting of sand grains.
We are heavily invested in the Sahel…..but is it worth the investment?
Since 9/11 the United States has significantly scaled up its counterterrorism (CT) activities in Africa. The U.S. has conducted unilateral CT operations as well as extensive training for African partner forces involved in the CT fight. Despite this long counterterrorism campaign the growth of jihadist groups continues in Somalia, north Africa, and west Africa. Many of the violent extremist organizations (VEOs) are aligned with either al-Qa’ida or the Islamic State.
That gives a semi rosy view but the truth is not so rosy or successful…..
President Trump provoked a furor when he declared his intent to withdraw some 1,400 US troops from West Africa, where he claimed they had quelled the terrorist threat. He sparked a similar firestorm when he announced that the U.S. would (eventually) pull 14,000 troops from Afghanistan, where they were engaged in an 18-year conflict against other violent extremists.
Establishment figures claimed that the battle against violent extremism was far from over and that U.S. military leadership was critical to victory. They pointed to ongoing insurgencies in the African countries of Mali and Nigeria in the Western Sahel and Somalia and Sudan in the Horn. Other progressives countered that U.S. policies have been ill-conceived and counterproductive — and that foreign military intervention has exacerbated the crises
It is time for the US to step back from the Sahel and let someone else do the heavy lifting……we have enough on our budgetary plate and a little relief would go a long way to easing the deficit.
I have several visitors from Africa….from Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Tunisia and many others……. and I do not want them to feel as I am slighting their fight with this pandemic…..plus I have been negligent with my postings on international situations…especially this killer disease….I shall attempt to rectify my oversight…..
There has been word that this virus has been slow to advance across Africa….but that could not be a good thing in the long run……
In late March an anonymous doctor in a New York hospital told CNN that he was working in “Third World” conditions, with patients coming in so fast, and so gravely incapacited, that he and his colleagues would soon be overwhelmed. “Third World” is strong language, with an antique ring to it—a memory of the 1980s, when late-night TV ads regularly featured pleas for charity accompanied by images of skeletal, fly-bitten African children barefoot in the dirt outside their huts. It was a generation’s cliché of misery. That’s us now—or it will be soon, the New York doctor’s comparison implied, if we don’t control the spread of this disease.
But the comparison invites a question. If America is now Africa, what is Africa? Africa is much better off than it was 30 years ago, but even today, most of the world’s extremely poor live on that continent, and its health-care systems are (with a few exceptions) a wreck. COVID-19 has been slow to arrive in Africa, or at least has been slow to be detected there. But the wave is coming. “Our health systems cannot absorb additional shocks,” Simon Antara, of the African Field Epidemiology Network, told me from his office in Kampala, Uganda. “We are preparing for disaster.”
According to WHO Africa has moved beyond to preparedness to response…….
The global community is racing to slow down and eventually halt the spread of COVID-19, a pandemic that has claimed thousands of lives and sickened tens of thousands of others. In Africa, the virus has spread to dozens of countries within weeks. Governments and health authorities across the continent are striving to limit widespread infections.
Since the start of the outbreak the World Health Organization (WHO) has been supporting African governments with early detection by providing thousands of COVID-19 testing kits to countries, training dozens of health workers and strengthening surveillance in communities. Forty-seven countries in the WHO African region can now test for COVID-19. At the start of the outbreak only two could do so.
WHO has issued guidance to countries, which is regularly updated to take into account the evolving situation. The guidelines include measures such as quarantine, repatriations of citizens and preparedness at workplaces. The Organization is also working with a network of experts to coordinate regional surveillance efforts, epidemiology, modelling, diagnostics, clinical care and treatment, and other ways to identify, manage the disease and limit widespread transmission.
The Sahel? That is Africa in case you were dashing for the Google button.
For years now the US has been in the region assisting local governments in their efforts to fight the specter of growing terrorism.
What got me thinking about our involvement in the Sahel was the announcement of a special envoy….
The United States has created a special envoy for Africa’s Sahel region, a State Department spokesman said on Friday, to counter rising violence from groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State which are expanding their foothold.
Envoy Peter Pham, started his new role earlier this week, the spokesman said. He has been serving as U.S. Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa since November 2018.
A Review of the necessity for US troops in the region is on-going…..
Facing skepticism from members of Congress about plans to alter force posture in Africa, Defense Secretary Mark Esper told members of the House Armed Services Committee that he remains committed to keeping U.S. forces on the continent.
“There are no plans to completely withdraw all forces from Africa,” Esper said Wednesday.
As part of a broader review of the force structure for the combatant commands, Esper has been considering moving forces out of U.S. Africa Command’s area of operations. Reports emerged at the end of 2019 that the department was looking at removing several hundred forces from Niger, Chad and Mali.
Why do we continue to fight and die in this region? I mean our so-called NATO allies are there as well then why not let them handle the hard lift in Africa?
For Washington’s foreign policy establishment, no nation is too unimportant to be considered vital to America’s security. No territory is too insignificant for the United States to dominate. No spot on earth is too distant to station an American soldier. How else to judge the hysterical criticism of the Trump administration’s proposed military drawdown in Africa?
Despite the fiscal crisis, strategic overreach, endless war, and political division, “the Blob,” as Washington’s foreign policy community is known, refuses to consider a world where Uncle Sam does not treat every region and nation as his personal sphere of interest. Washington is determined to protect more than a score of rich allies in Europe, multiple wealthy clients in Asia, and a gaggle of Middle Eastern nations.
Roughly seven thousand American personnel are stationed across Africa, primarily in Djibouti, Niger, and Somalia. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is considering rebalancing U.S. defense resources, shifting toward containment—not that he has used that word—of China and Russia. To advance that process, last fall the Pentagon asked each regional command for its resource needs. Explained Esper: “We’ve begun a review process where I’m looking at every theater, understanding what the requirements are that we set out for, making sure we’re as efficient as possible with our forces.”
Personally I say end this deployment of US troops…..we already have enough war in other spots why make a new one?
As the United States sensibly backs its military out of Afghanistan and considers drawing down the remaining 5,000 American troops in Iraq, it is time to review the expanded U.S. military presence in West and East Africa (~7,000 troops), particularly counterterror operations. Such a review was announced by Secretary of Defense Mike Esper in December 2019.
Our African deployments were practically invisible until October 2017, when four American soldiers died in an ambush in Niger. Suddenly Americans — including at least one U.S. Senator — realized that the U.S. military was in Africa getting the U.S. into deeper and deeper trouble.
It is time to pull back these forces. They reflect a militarization of U.S. foreign policy that has accelerated since 2001. Claims to the contrary, the military does not do these operations particularly well and there is growing evidence that they are counterproductive, generating more terrorists than they eliminate and exacerbating instability. They do nothing to counter Chinese or Russian influence in Africa, despite claims that they do. The threat they target is not a vital U.S. interest. In sum, by militarizing U.S. engagement in Africa, security assistance, training, and operations are harming U.S. security interests.
How many people know what they are and why they are illegal?
AS usual the Old Professor can help.
Diamonds are supposed to be symbols of love, commitment, and joyful new beginnings. But for many people in diamond-rich countries, these sparkling stones are more a curse than a blessing. Too often, the world’s diamond mines produce not only diamonds – but also civil wars, violence, worker exploitation, environmental degradation, and unspeakable human suffering.
Not long ago, the public started to become aware that large numbers of diamonds are mined in violent and inhumane settings. Consumers are now demanding, with ever greater urgency, that their diamonds be untouched by bloodshed and human rights abuses. So far, however, the diamond industry’s response has been woefully inadequate. Diamonds with violent histories are still being mined and allowed to enter the diamond supply, where they become indistinguishable from other gems. Violence and injustice remain an everyday aspect of diamond mining.
I bring this up because Russia is proposing loosening the rules around “blood diamonds”….
Russia is proposing to move toward ending the ban on selling so-called blood diamonds from the Central African Republic, a former French colony that’s struck recent military and commercial ties with Moscow, amid resistance from the U.S. and Europe.
The CAR, which is mired in civil conflict, should be granted a “road map” outlining the steps it needs to take to get the suspension of diamond sales lifted, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev said in an interview in Moscow.
“We need to ensure that illicitly traded diamonds move to the legal marketplace, bringing income for people and taxes for the state,” Moiseev said. “The situation in CAR isn’t getting any better, and we can’t delay this any more.”
World War One, the Great War saw the deaths of millions and the destruction of much…….Africa was not spared the carnage.
There is many ways to explain what happened….none do the events justice…..
Sparked in the Balkans as a result of European nationalism and imperialrivalries, the first world war raged from July 1914 to November 1918. It pitted the 48 million soldiers of the Allies – led by the French, British and Russian empires – against the 26 million soldiers of the Central Powers – led by the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, who lost the war.
07 August 1914 the shooting war began and on the 8th of August 1914 the war moved to East Africa.
A hundred years ago on this day, on August 8th, 1914, the British HMS Asteria and Pegasus protected cruisers bombed Dar-es-Salaam, then the capital of German East Africa, bringing the European so-called “war to end all wars” to the eastern African shores. The day before, Anglo-French forces constituted of Ghanaian, Nigerian, Sierra Leonean, Gambian and Beninese troops had invaded German Togoland in West Africa.
Among World War I campaigns, the East African one was the longest of all: as the armistice was being signed in Europe on November, 11th 1918, the last of the German forces were still fighting their British counterparts. Indeed the general who led them only surrendered two weeks later, on November, 25th 1918.
But who knows any of this, whether in America, in Europe or indeed in Africa? As the world commemorates the Centenary of the Great War, the African side of this story remains a footnote, despite huge losses of human lives and major consequences for the future of the African continent.
A million people died in East Africa alone during World War I. Many Africans also fought in Europe, defending the interests of their colonial masters. Today, their sacrifice has been largely forgotten.
All the carnage should have taught the world a valuable lesson….but instead it just laid the ground work for World War Two……so lightning can strike in the same place more than once.
I am a student of history and of conflict…….I try to let my readers know what is happening around the world because eventually the US may be fighting yet another war.
I have a friend that studies the region in Africa known as the “Sahel”…..but most of my readers will be asking WTF?
Let me help out….
I have written about this region on occasion but not in-depth…..most of mine has been about the deaths of American SOF troops or the terror that is Boko Haram….but there is so much more to this region that some small posts of mine.
I introduced my reader to the “Sahel” when I reported on the deaths of American soldiers in Mali and Niger.
There is so much going on in this region with the US and France using soldiers to try and control the developing situations.
thousands of miles away, in the deserts and scrublands of West Africa’s Sahel – a semi-arid belt of land on the southern edge of the Sahara – another jihadist insurgency has been spreading like wildfire, with far less international attention.
The civilian toll in numbers
Civilian fatalities rose 7,000 percent in Burkina Faso, 500 percent in Niger, and 300 percent in Mali compared to the previous year
440,000 people displaced by conflict, a five-fold increase over the previous year
1.8 million people face food insecurity
5.1 million people require humanitarian assistance
157 men, women, and children killed in March in one attack in Mali
In recent months, a surge in violence in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – three Sahelian countries with shared borders and common problems – has left more than 440,000 people displaced and 5,000 dead, as militants – some with links to al-Qaeda and IS – extend their grip across the region.
The UN has isolated several problems other than the rise in terrorist activity……food, environmental, fragile economies as well as political instability……
Let’s be honest the Sahel is quickly becoming a hot bed for terrorist activity……
Violent extremist organizations in the Central Sahel (the Fezzan in Libya’s south, Niger and the Lake Chad Basin) are exploiting environmental change, economic grievances, and longstanding social cleavages to recruit and expand. United States Africa Command is explicitly tasked with countering significant terrorist threats but fluctuating resources and underuse of diplomatic and economic tools risks allowing extremists to consolidate their gains and establish safe havens.
Once again I return to my small expertise….foreign affairs….I have gotten caught up in the drama we call politics here in the US….it is a train wreck that one cannot look away from or miss the best part.
Our president is playing the trade war card these days…..everyone is in his sights……his policies reflect ideas from the 1950s not the 21st century….but that is not what this post is about……
There is a new “Free Trade” agreement now…..it is the continent of Africa…..
In a nutshell, it means a single market of goods and services for 1.2 billion people with an aggregate GDP of over $2 trillion. UNCTAD, the UN’s trade body, predicts reducing intra-African tariffs under AfCFTA“could bring $3.6 billion in welfare gains to the continent through a boost in production and cheaper goods.”
One of the more stark economic data points about Africa is just how little African countries trade with each other—just 16% of total continental trade in 2014. The UN Economic Commission for Africa thinks AfCFTA has the potential to raise intra-African trade by 15% to 25%, or $50 billion to $70 billion, by 2040.
Brookings’s analyst Landry Signé estimates that if AfCFTA works as intended, Africa will have a combined consumer and business spending of $6.7 trillion in 2030.
There is one continent that the western world seems to dismiss as often as it can….like it does not matter…..but it does.
For instance….China is heavily invested in Africa…..the problem is their presence is having a negative effect…..
On a sticky morning on the slopes of Mount Kenya, Solomon Wambogo Munyua sprinkles water on the long and sturdy green shoots of the garlic crop he planted in January.
His farm is just one-eighth of an acre, perched on the humid mountainside in the fertile East African Rift Valley, over which glacier-capped peaks loom.
It isn’t an easy existence, and his concerns include issues ranging from transportation costs to the low prices paid for produce.
But these complaints are dwarfed by a new challenge farmers such as Munyua feel powerless to fight: imports of Chinese garlic flooding into the Kenyan market.
Six African Heads of State will be among global leaders and foreign dignitaries to eye-witness the official ceremony inaugurating the newly elected Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, scheduled to take place on May 7 in Moscow.
The importance of this ceremony is that Putin will continue to keep the symbols of power – the national seal, the national flag and a specially bound copy of the Constitution after taking the oath of office as President.
I bring up the two situations with two of the biggest competitors of the US because I would like to know what the US has in store for Africa……
Africa is not likely to emerge as one of US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy priorities. But the continent is almost certain to be affected by the fallout from his hardline foreign policy views, his strong anti-Muslim pronouncements, his vow to eliminate Islamic terrorism, and his “America First” economic policies. And the prospects are probably bleak for any bold new development initiatives targeted at Africa like those rolled by his predecessors Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Over the past two decades, US Africa policy has enjoyed strong bipartisan congressional support from both Democrats and Republicans working together. But without a strong commitment to Africa in the White House or Executive Branch under Trump, the major programmes that have defined US policy in Africa for the past two decades will probably struggle to sustain the previous funding levels and state support.
Newsweek offered n small look at what the Trump Africa Agenda will look like……
The U.S. faces an ever-connected, dynamic, and often dangerous world. Nowhere are the obstacles and opportunities presented by these conditions more evident than in U.S.-Africa policy.
Despite offering little insight into this foreign policy thinking during the campaign, the president-elect will enter office facing a number of serious challenges to U.S. interests in Africa, but also an unprecedented chance to deepen a partnership with the fastest-growing continent in the world and advance American security and economic interests.
The following priorities should be of particular interest to the Trump administration:
Then over last weekend I read another story of Karma striking……
A poacher in South Africa in search of rhino horn instead brutally met his maker courtesy of a different beast altogether. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports, the unidentified man was hunting Tuesday with four other men when he was trampled by an elephant, then apparently eaten by a pride of lions. When park officials began searching for his remains, all they found was a pair of pants and a skull. “Entering Kruger National Park illegally and on foot is not wise, it holds many dangers and this incident is evidence of that,” says the preserve’s manager. “It is very sad to see the daughters of the deceased mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.” The four surviving poachers have been charged
Once again a story that made me laugh out loud……and lions are cleaning up the mess……
According to the US point of view China is trying to get one up on the US in Africa….
A look at African natural resources distribution…..
But is all the US predictions actual fact or something more fanciful….
At the September 2018 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing, African Union Chairperson and Rwandan President Paul Kagame lauded the Chinese aid and investment strategy in Africa as a source of “deep transformation”. Kagame argued that the cooperation between China and Africa is based on mutual respect and is for the benefit of both partners. This sentiment is perhaps shared by most African heads of states and governments if their attendance of the summit is anything to go by.
However, despite the African leadership’s embrace of China as a valued partner, the view that Beijing is a “predatory” actor in Africa, attempting to recolonise the continent is also ubiquitous in foreign policy circles, media narratives and academia.
