As imperialists recarve world markets
Pentagon quietly sends troops to Africa
By Monica Moorehead
The Bush administration continues to threaten
the globe with its dangerous perspective of endless war. One of
its lesser known yet important strategic targets is Africa, the
most underdeveloped continent.
George W. Bush is scheming with his close ally, British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, to overthrow the legitimate
government of Robert Mugabe in the southern African country of
Zimbabwe. But this is just one piece in the U.S. government's
overall plan to transform huge sections of Africa into a
gigantic U.S. military base. Washington is carrying out a
general campaign of recolonization in order for the U.S. ruling
class to overtake other international corporate competitors for
control of the world's capitalist markets, which are wracked
with a deepening crisis.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center,
the U.S. has stepped up its military presence in Africa in the
name of fighting terrorism.
It was reported on June 17 that the USS Kearsarge, with
1,800 Marines, 1,200 sailors and attack helicopters, has been
diverted from Iraq to sail to Liberia.
At least 1,500 U.S. troops are stationed in the small
African country of Djibouti, located on the Horn of Africa on
the Red Sea. This region is a gateway to the oil-rich Middle
East, where the U.S. is presently focused on the colonial
occupation of Iraq and the Palestinian people are continuing
their heroic resistance against the U.S.-backed Zionist state
of Israel.
NATO's Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, Gen. James
Jones, spoke at a Defense Writers Group breakfast last month in
Washington, D.C. The DWG organizes journalists who cover
Pentagon developments. Jones emphasized that the future of
NATO, a post-World War II anti-communist military alliance made
up of the U.S., Canada and capitalist Europe, could rest on
establishing "forward operating locations."
The objective of these "locations" will be to carry out
rapid training and deployments in times of "crisis." By this
October, NATO plans to debut prototype quick reaction forces
comprised of ground, sea and air forces numbering between 2,000
and 3,000 troops.
Jones stated, "The carrier battle groups of the future and
the expeditionary strike groups of the future may not spend six
months in the Mediterreanean Sea but I'll bet they'll spend
half the time down the West Coast of Africa." (allAfrica.com,
May 2, 2003)
At the present time, the USS Mount Whitney is stationed in
the Red Sea. It is a highly sophiscated ship that uses
helicopters and electronics to counter so-called terrorist
groups within the area covering Yemen, Sudan, Somalia,
Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya, along with Djibouti.
The Horn of Africa is not the only African region the
Pentagon is interested in. According to an article entitled,
"Pentagon Moving Swiftly to Become 'Globocop'," published on
the June 11 internet edition of Ghana News, the U.S. also plans
to use the West African country of Ghana as a military base,
initially sending 1,000 troops. The article states that while
U.S. military think tanks are planning to scale back their
military presence in Germany, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, they are
setting their sights on establishing semi-permanent, "forward"
bases in Algeria, Morocco and perhaps Tunisia in northern
Africa.
The Pentagon is also planning to establish smaller
facilities in Senegal, Mali and Ghana in order to further
dominate the oil-rich West African countries, especially
Nigeria.
Just recently, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz met
with military representatives from the East Asia region about
U.S. global strategy. This is the same Wolfowitz who originally
drafted the infamous "Defense Planning Guidance" doctrine in
1992, one year following the collapse of the Soviet Union and
the socialist camp. The DPG, which was first leaked by the New
York Times, outlined the U.S. military strategists' plans to
become the pre-eminent world police force and warned other
imperialist allies, especially in Europe, not to dare challenge
U.S. world hegemony.
Even before the so-called war on terrorism, the DPG was
declaring that the U.S. military would become a "constant
fixture" in the New World Order brought about by the demise of
the Soviet Union. The Pentagon uses phrases like "the arc of
instability" to describe underdeveloped countries in Africa,
the Caribbean Basin, South and Central Asia. In their view,
these countries are too weak to resist the U.S. turning them
into military enclaves.
The brass use racist codewords to justify their military
build-up in Africa and elsewhere. Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski,
chief of the Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation, spoke
last month at a meeting of the Heritage Foundation.
"Disconnectedness is one of the great danger signs around the
world," he said. He went on to talk about "gap" regions
characterized by "politically repressive regimes, widespread
poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and--most
important--the chronic conflicts that incubate the next
generation of terrorists."
Thomas Barnett, a representative of the Naval War College,
wrote in the March edition of Esquire magazine, "If we map out
U.S. military responses since the end of the Cold War, we find
an overwhelming concentration of activity in the regions of the
world that are excluded from globalisation's growing
Core--namely the Caribbean Rim, virtually all of Africa, the
Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and much
of Southeast Asia."
The U.S. is not the only imperialist power in Africa.
Thousands of French troops are occupying Ivory Coast, a former
French colony, wearing the uniform of the United Nations. They
could not have gotten UN cover for this mission without the
blessing of the U.S. Hundreds of French troops have also poured
into war-torn Congo, considered to be the most mineral-rich
country in Africa and one of the poorest worldwide. Along with
British and German troops, they are part of a so-called
peacekeeping team sanctioned by the UN and the European
Union.
The British also have a military base near Mount Kenya.
Hundreds of women, mainly from the Masai nation, have
registered formal complaints to the British government against
troops who raped them in the 1980s and 1990s. (The Observer,
Oct. 20, 2002) These women and their lawyers are demanding
compensation for these violent assaults. Where is the outcry in
the big business media over these heinous crimes against
African women?
The legacy of centuries-old super-exploitation and
unspeakable atrocities in Africa by the imperialists is still
being carried out today under the guise of humanitarianism. A
new wave of anti-imperialist, organized fightback by the
African masses is on the horizon. Our sisters and brothers will
be counting on political solidarity from the multinational
working class in the imperialist countries, who face deepening
cutbacks in social programs and general decline in living
standards at home.
Reprinted from the June 26, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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