[A-List] AFRICOM: Wars, Oil, Training Africa's Armies

Sun Jun 20 10:46:14 MDT 2010

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Rick Rozoff
To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 11:33 PM
Subject: [stopnato] AFRICOM: Wars, Oil, Training Africa's Armies

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e42cbede-7997-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html

Financial Times
June 19, 2010

What the US’s Africa command does
By Christopher Thompson

[Excerpts]

-In 2006, when the Department of Defence said that Africa “holds growing 
geopolitical importance” for the US, 16 per cent of its crude came from the 
continent. Today, Africa supplies more oil than Saudi Arabia to America.
-[I]n September 2006, General Bantz Craddock, the new head of European 
Command [and NATO Supreme Allied Commander], told Congress that Africa was 
his “greatest security stability challenge”. Action duly followed. Six weeks 
before he resigned as secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld assembled an 
advisory commission that would lead to the creation of the Unified Military 
Command for Africa, or Africom.
-Since 2004, the US has poured huge resources into initiatives such as 
Easbrig, using private contractors and military advisers to train almost 
60,000 African soldiers such as the Rwandans I encountered. Africom has also 
trained Congolese special forces to operate in the country’s mineral-rich 
forests and reformed virtually the entire Liberian national army. Easbrig is 
an example of what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls “smart power” – 
a mixture of military might and nation-building that bears a resemblance to 
Rumsfeld’s concept of the “long war”.
-Between 2007 and 2009, Africom’s budget has tripled, to $310m, while Africa 
resources at the US State Department have dwindled. Several critics have 
likened Africom to a Trojan horse, using the cover of humanitarian aid to 
pursue America’s real strategic interests.

[A]t around 1pm, “Operation Celestial Balance” arrived. Four US military 
helicopters came over the horizon and, say eyewitnesses, engaged Nabhan and 
his fellow travellers in a fierce gunfight. Twenty minutes later, Nabhan and 
his companions lay dead. Commandos abseiled down from the helicopters, 
surveyed Nabhan’s Toyota Land Cruiser and carried away his remains.

The assassination was co-ordinated several hundred miles away, at Camp 
Lemonier, in the neighbouring east African state of Djibouti. Situated on 
the dusty, rain-starved outskirts of Djibouti City, next to the Indian 
Ocean, the base is home to the 2,000 US military personnel that comprise 
the “Combined Joint Task Force for the Horn of Africa”.

The US has agreements with at least 13 African governments for temporary use 
of its local military bases – dubbed “lily pads” – as and when it needs, but 
Camp Lemonier is its most conspicuous presence in Africa.

Security is tight, the walls are heavily fortified and, in contrast to the 
neighbouring French base, whose legionnaires frequent the prostitute-filled 
bars in the town centre, its personnel tend not to leave the blast-proof 
perimeter. The camp was established in 2002 as a base for small groups of 
special forces....But in the past eight years it has grown, in step with US 
foreign policy in Africa, to become a much larger and more sophisticated 
operation. Since 2008, Camp Lemonier has been a mainstay of Africom, the 
Pentagon’s sixth and newest military command, America’s first military 
structure of the post-9/11 era, and a controversial idea since its 
inception.
. . .
[P]ressing has been Washington’s other African concern: energy. West Africa’s 
large, under-explored reserves of low-sulphur crude oil are perfectly placed 
for shipment to America’s east coast refineries. In 2006, when the 
Department of Defence said that Africa “holds growing geopolitical 
importance” for the US, 16 per cent of its crude came from the continent. 
Today, Africa supplies more oil than Saudi Arabia to America.

Africa’s growing stature – as a source of both instability and opportunity – 
made its old home in the US military command structure increasingly 
uncomfortable. Responsibility for the continent had been shared between the 
Pentagon’s European, Middle Eastern and Pacific regional commands, and in 
September 2006, General Bantz Craddock, the new head of European Command, 
told Congress that Africa was his “greatest security stability challenge”. 
Action duly followed. Six weeks before he resigned as secretary of defence, 
Donald Rumsfeld assembled an advisory commission that would lead to the 
creation of the Unified Military Command for Africa, or Africom.

Africom’s first leader is General William “Kip” Ward. The US military’s only 
serving African-American general, Ward may be the first to keep a Ugandan 
walking stick by his desk, its handle carved into the shape of a roaring 
lion’s head. “It’s a sign of authority,” he said.
....
As a young infantryman, Ward served at the heart of the cold war, patrolling 
the Iron Curtain just an hour from his current office, watching Soviet 
tanks. But since the early 1990s, his career has read as a textbook of “new 
security threats”, the sort of low-intensity, diffuse and complex 
military situations that have superseded more familiar nation-state 
warfare.

Just before his appointment to Africom in October 2007, Ward spent six 
months as George W. Bush’s security envoy to Israel and Palestine. Hamas had 
been elected in Gaza and the US peace roadmap was in tatters. Nevertheless, 
Ward quietly helped persuade Israel to reopen some West Bank roads and 
bolstered the Palestinian government’s security forces to rein in 
extremists. They were modest gains, but they caught the eye of Congress....

He had followed a similar philosophy on his first deployment to Africa. 
Almost 20 years ago, Ward was in Somalia, taking part in America’s signal 
military mission in Africa of recent times. He led a US Mountain Division 
brigade in President George H.W. Bush’s “Operation Restore Hope"....

Of the 54 states on Africom’s radar, only civil war-wrecked Liberia publicly 
invited the new US military command to base itself there. An Africom 
spokesperson described the prospect of late-career Pentagon bureaucrats 
moving to equatorial Africa as unlikely.
....
In December, I travelled to the bush to see what this kind of work looks 
like. On a deserted plateau in Djibouti, a group of African soldiers kitted 
out with Soviet-era AK-47s and knock-off Ray-Bans waited patiently behind 
waist-high walls of sandbags, surrounded by goats. Behind them, 
military-green tents stood out against the ochre of the hills. This was 
Rwabatt, an elite contingent of Rwandan troops, and they were taking part in 
an exercise in a fictional country called “Canara”. Rwabatt is expected to 
form part of the 7,000-strong rapid reaction force at the heart of east 
Africa’s first regional army, known as “Easbrig” (East African Standby 
Brigade).

Easbrig...has...become a focus for Africom. Since 2004, the US has poured 
huge resources into initiatives such as Easbrig, using private contractors 
and military advisers to train almost 60,000 African soldiers such as the 
Rwandans I encountered. Africom has also trained Congolese special forces to 
operate in the country’s mineral-rich forests and reformed virtually the 
entire Liberian national army. Easbrig is an example of what Secretary of 
State Hillary Clinton calls “smart power” – a mixture of military might and 
nation-building that bears a resemblance to Rumsfeld’s concept of the “long 
war”.
....
Unusually for a military command, Africom has civilians from the State 
Department and USAid, the development agency, embedded in its structure. In 
the field, meanwhile, Africom soldiers frequently have medics and engineers 
alongside them to help seek out so-called “enablers” – community leaders 
whose allegiance is crucial in the war for hearts and minds.

However, this complicated approach has not helped to soften criticism of 
Africom. In fact, it has made it worse. Foremost is the charge that the 
command is militarising humanitarian aid, an accusation borne out by its 
funding. Between 2007 and 2009, Africom’s budget has tripled, to $310m, 
while Africa resources at the US State Department have dwindled. Several 
critics have likened Africom to a Trojan horse, using the cover of 
humanitarian aid to pursue America’s real strategic interests.

“The notion of a benign US combatant command is an enigma to those who 
clearly understand the need for the US to secure access to Africa’s natural 
resources, especially oil, and to establish bases from which to 
destroy networks linked to al-Qaeda,” said Mark Malan, a South African 
peacekeeping expert at the US Army War College. “When the US promotes a 
combatant military command in terms of development and humanitarianism, 
Africans will inevitably suspect that the true story is being kept from 
them.”
....
The US insists it has no intention of becoming directly involved in the 
Somali conflict, but there may soon be no government to prop up – even 
indirectly. President Ahmed currently controls little more than Mogadishu’s 
port, airport and a few dilapidated city blocks. America’s only official 
role, meanwhile, remains training battalions of UN troops from Uganda and 
Burundi that serve as Ahmed’s de facto army.

As the situation in Somalia deteriorated, I returned to Stuttgart for the 
last time. It was “African-American History Day” at the base and Ward was 
giving prizes in the annual soul-food cook-off. When we eventually sat down 
I asked him whether Somalia was turning into Africom’s first war. “[The US] 
has said it will support the Somali government with governance 
and security,” he said, adding that several African countries had offered 
to send troops and that Africom was standing behind them. “Do I see American 
soldiers in Somalia doing that kind of work?” he asked. “No, I do not. But I 
see a role for providing assistance.”
....
Christopher Thompson is a freelance writer.
===========================
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