War A Africa

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Re: War A Africa

Postby American Dream » Wed Feb 11, 2015 1:00 pm

http://www.ww4report.com/node/13970

Sahara drug trade funds Boko Haram insurgency

Submitted by WW4 Report on Wed, 02/11/2015

The brutal Boko Haram rebels are gaining ground at a frightening pace in northwest Nigeria, even mounting a bloody attack this week on the region's major city, Maiduguri. Reports are mounting that the exremist movement is funding its insurgency by exploiting Nigeria's strategic place as a crossroads of the global narco-traffick. BBC News on Jan. 25 asked "How have Nigeria's militants become so strong?" It cited the findings of the International Crisis Group that Boko Haram "has forged ties with arms smugglers in the lawless parts of the vast Sahel region." Plenty of its arms (including tanks and armored vehicles) have been plundered from the Nigerian army itself. But plenty more are thought to have come from Libya, where arms depots were looted when Moammar Qaddafi's regime was overthrown in 2011. Trafficking networks have been moving that plundered war material across the Sahel and Sahara, integrating the traffick into routes already established for moving drugs and other contraband between West Africa, Europe and Asia.

As for recruiting fighters, Boko Haram is conscripting villagers at gunpoint (sometimes exploiting ethnic loyalty among the Kanuri, the group to which rebel leader Abubuakar Shekau belongs). But for special operations, they are "relying on criminals and thugs, paying them for attacks, sometimes with a share of the spoil."

The media in India are hyping claims that the Boko Haram dope-for-guns pipeline is being overseen by Dawood Ibrahim, a top Indian drug lord who has been linked to terror attacks in Mumbai in 1993 and is believed to be hiding in Pakistan. DNA India in July 2014 wrote that "intelligence inputs indicate Dawood's younger brother Anees Ibrahim travelled to Lagos in Nigeria recently and met Abubukar Shkau [sic], chief of Boko Haram." The report claimed Boko Haram is "targeting the lucrative drug market in India, exploiting the well-oiled network of the D-gang spread across the country." D-Gangs are the police name for drug gangs in the orbit of Dawood Ibrahim. "Just like any other terror group, Boko Haram needs money to sustain itself," an anonymous senior police officer said. "By joining hands with the D-gang they plan to make money by smuggling drugs into India."

India has just launched a special multi-agency task-force to fight the D-Gangs, claiming the bust of a top "Dawood aide" in Lucknow on Jan. 23 who hs been wanted for 15 years on arms-trafficking charges. (Times of India, Jan. 24)
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Re: War A Africa

Postby conniption » Wed Sep 09, 2015 5:48 pm

counterpunch

September 9, 2015
America’s Imperial Footprint in Africa


by Eric Draitser

The following text is taken from an interview conducted on August 19, 2015 with CounterPunch Radio host Eric Draitser on WBAI 99.5FM New York City.

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WBAI: In the past decade, America has quietly expanded its military presence throughout Africa. Take us there as a starting point and educate us.

Eric Draitser: The last decade is a good timeframe to discuss this because there have been such significant changes both in terms of what’s happened on the continent of Africa, and in terms of how the United States and its military establishment have responded to that. People may remember, or they may not in fact, that back in 2007 towards the end of the Bush administration we had the establishment of the US military’s so-called Africa Command (AFRICOM). And from its humble beginnings, so to speak, in terms of “cooperative security arrangements” and “counter-terrorism,” AFRICOM has quietly expanded to become a continent-wide military footprint that the United States uses for all sorts of goals. In fact, the US military establishment has insinuated itself in almost every single country on the continent with the exception of two (Zimbabwe and Eritrea).

And so, although it doesn’t receive much media attention, though it doesn’t get much fanfare, the United States has deeply penetrated Africa militarily, and is directly engaged in every important conflict on the continent. Whether you want to discuss the US-NATO war on Libya in 2011, the United States was a principal part of that conflict. The US is deeply engaged in West Africa, both in terms of the so-called counter-terrorism operations against Boko Haram, as well as being a principal participant in the conflicts around the Lake Chad basin. It has deep penetration in the Sahel region both with counter-terrorism and surveillance. And we could go on and on. The point here is that anywhere you look in Africa the US military is involved.

And so, in understanding the changing nature of US engagement we need to understand both western corporate interests (resource extraction, investment, etc.), as well as its military engagement and all the pretexts with which it justifies that. In looking at the issue in this way, one begins to get a comprehensive understanding of just how deeply involved the US and the former colonial powers really are in Africa.

WBAI: The motivation, we are told, when we do discover or realize this penetration, is fundamentally humanitarian. It’s there to assist in counter-terrorism, such as you mentioned with Boko Haram and the kidnapped schoolgirls, etc. Please educate us more deeply about the motivations, the places, and the substantive issues that have brought the US to furthering its military foothold throughout Africa.

ED: Sure. Boko Haram is one that happens to get a lot of headlines because of the grizzly attacks, the kidnappings of the Chibok girls and others, the massacres at Baga and elsewhere, and all the rest of that organization’s violence. Certainly it warrants that attention, although if we have time, I could go more deeply into the fact that the corporate media won’t touch the real issues behind Boko Haram: where it comes from, its murky beginnings, and the shadowy networks that it operates within. But also, beyond Boko Haram, we remember quite recently the Ebola scare in West Africa which provided a very convenient pretext for the United States to send so-called “military advisers” along with military medical equipment and facilities, providing a cover for continued military engagement and, interestingly enough, a lot of those military forces are still there. So, of course, you see there are a number of pretexts that the US uses to justify its presence.

If we remember back to 2012-2013, in the wake of the US-NATO war that overthrew the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya government of Muammar Gaddafi, there was a steady flow of weapons that went west and south, and those weapons, and some of those fighters, ultimately led to the overthrow of the government in Mali which led to a war in that country. That war then precipitated an intervention by the former colonial master France, backed naturally by the United States. And, in fact, US military personnel were engaged in Mali well before the overthrow of the government. So you see, all throughout West Africa and the Sahel region you have US military involvement.

It should be noted though that the US presence is not limited to active troop presence and active military engagement. Allow me to provide just a few examples. In the nation of Chad, the United States has indefinitely stationed a contingent of troops. In fact Chad, a very important nation because of its strategic location – south of Libya, east of West Africa, situated in the Lake Chad basin and the Sahel region – was the host of the US military exercise known as Flintlock 2015. This US-sponsored series of military exercises included the participation of the nations of Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Tunisia. Each of these countries hosted US military personnel as an outgrowth of this comprehensive international military exercise.

But of course the US presence is not limited to simply such exercises. The Washington Post reported the establishment of a major new US drone base in the nation of Niger. This base is designed to be the drone and surveillance headquarters for the entire Lake Chad-West Africa-Sahel region. Consider very carefully what such a base means; it means that the Washington has “eyes in the sky” throughout the whole Boko Haram conflict zone and the entire Lake Chad basin, extending upwards into North Africa, to the western edge of West Africa and south into Central Africa. So, when the US claims that they have no idea what’s going on with Boko Haram and are in the dark about what’s happening in the Lake Chad basin, this strains credulity.

But it doesn’t stop there. The United States has “staging outposts” – they won’t call them military bases for obvious propaganda reasons – in the nations of Ghana, Senegal, and Gabon. It also has allies such as Germany and France with a presence in those countries. And then of course the US has a major hub in its surveillance network in the nation of Burkina Faso as was reported by the Washington Post back in 2012.

I’m really only scratching the surface here. We could talk for hours and hours about all the different military facilities all over the continent which they have penetrated so deeply, and of course the reasons behind this penetration. And as I mentioned earlier, the reasons are complex and multi-faceted: it is about geopolitics, economics, and strategic military engagement.

WBAI: Could you give us a summary of some of that? How do the neocolonial powers use debt as a weapon against Africa? How does the US use the military in this contemporary neocolonial context? At one point I know you had posited to me off air that to some degree this is done to block the growing influence of China in its development and engagement with Africa. Could you lay some of that out for us?

ED: Ultimately the geopolitics is central to all of this. Looking first at the debt issue – the United States and its neocolonial allies France and the UK primarily (but not exclusively) have maintained their hegemony over their former colonial possessions through the mechanism of debt. I don’t think this is a secret to anyone who has followed the politics of Africa in the postcolonial period. This is something that is well known and well-studied. They use the mechanism of international finance through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank; the main levers are debt financing and debt servicing. That is to say, they provide financial assistance to these countries that is never really payable, forcing these countries into the vicious cycle of paying back the debt, and the interest on the loans. So the indebted countries are then forced to take new loans to pay back the original loans, further indebting themselves, thereby stunting their own economic progress for years to come.

Not surprisingly, those countries that have attempted to either repudiate debt, or that have at least called it what it is and tried to find a way out of that cycle of debt slavery, have been destroyed, had interventions or assassinations or coups. One could look at Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso, or even Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Many of these countries that have done something to get out of that economic enslavement have found themselves in worse situations because of the reactions of the neocolonial countries of the West.

And this is really the main issue here: the US and its allies want to continue to maintain hegemony over Africa financially for the purposes of exploiting resources – extracting the wealth of Africa and shipping it back to the colonial powers, something that’s been going on for centuries, albeit this is a somewhat new form and under the guise of legal, neoliberal capitalism so to speak.

But also, the expansion of hegemony is done for the purposes of blocking China. The Chinese have engaged economically all throughout the continent, this has been the unmistakable trend over the last decade or more. Just to give an idea of the scope of what China has invested in Africa: in 2000 China’s total investment in Africa was roughly $10 billion for all of Africa, by 2012 it had risen to more than $165 billion, a fifteen-fold increase. This gives you an idea of the importance of Africa to China’s investment growth, and how it views its future in terms of financial engagement on the continent.

One of the reasons China has become such an attractive investor to these African countries is because the Chinese model is decidedly different from that of the US and the western powers. Specifically, the Chinese don’t view aid in terms of loans, grants, or charity. Rather, they view financial aid in terms of mutually beneficial cooperation – win-win investment as the Beijing sometimes calls it. To be fair, there are of course instances of corruption, some negative byproducts in terms of uneven distribution, environmental degradation, and other effects which come with all forms of investment, regardless of who’s doing the investing. But what the Chinese offer is hard investment in infrastructure: roads, factories, airports, railways, ports, satellite and telecommunications networks, etc. that are required for them to get a return on their investment and to be able to further expand their economic investment on the continent.

And China does so without that negative product that the African people are so justifiably afraid of: debt. In other words, when the Chinese come in to make an investment, they do so without the debt albatross to hang around the necks of African nations. There are no loans to be serviced when the Chinese are done with their investment. And this is one of the reasons why almost every country in Africa views China as a viable alternative to western financial investment and “aid.” And this is the danger that the US sees here. The US knows, quite frankly, that because of its own economic issues and those of Europe as well, that it simply cannot compete with China in terms of investment in Africa. So, what the United States has chosen to do, and this is clear from the policy decisions and military engagement all over the continent, is to check Chinese economic penetration with military penetration. And that is really the overarching issue here: the US uses its military everywhere on the African continent to block Chinese economic engagement, penetration, and influence.

WBAI: I’d like to get back to the US-NATO war on Libya in 2011 which was a major force of destabilization. You’ve contended that this was a turning point for Africa. Could you elaborate?

ED: Absolutely. In fact, calling it a turning point might be understating it. It was a watershed moment of world-historical importance because the destruction of Libya – I would call it an imperial war on Libya – really set off a chain of events the effects of which we’re still seeing today.

When the United States and its NATO allies destroyed Libya, they destabilized the entire North African region. As I think I mentioned briefly earlier, the weapons and fighters from Libya flowed both west and south; anyone looking at a map can see quite obviously what the effects of that would be. As those weapons flowed west, they went into West Africa and into the Sahel, and when they went south they went to Chad. Those weapons and fighters that went to Chad, many of them are now engaged in the conflict we’ve come to know as the war of Boko Haram. The networks from which Boko Haram has sprung have been based in Chad, this we know from WikiLeaks cables that we’ve now seen. Many of these fighters get a lot of their financing and weapons funneled through Chad as well as certain elements in Nigeria. Their staging areas are also in Chad. So, a lot of those weapons went into that conflict there.

Many of the weapons and fighters also went into Mali. The war in Mali and the overthrow of the Malian government was a direct outgrowth of the war in Libya, many of those fighters filtered back into Mali, they picked up their weapons and engaged in their continued war which had been going for a number of decades. Terrorism arose within that maelstrom. We saw the emergence of the terrorist organization known as Ansar al Dine led by a shadowy individual known as Ayad Ag Ghaly who has deep connections to the Saudis and Qataris. Ghaly led the terrorist insurgency in Mali which then necessitated a French intervention in order to restore order. So we see at least two separate wars in Mali and Nigeria that can be described as a direct outgrowth of the war on Libya.

Of course, there’s also the continuation of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a very shadowy terrorist organization, also has its contemporary roots in what happened in Libya in 2011, though the group existed well before that war. Many of the fighters from Libya have become guns for hire in criminal organizations such as AQIM and others in the region.

So in Libya, the flow of weapons, the flow of fighters, out of that country destabilized the entire region. And I should reiterate that this is not exclusive to Africa because many of those fighters who were veterans of the war in Libya not coincidentally found their way into Syria, and have acted as mercenaries in the four and a half year war on Syria.

Clearly, there are deep shockwaves that emanated from the war on Libya, and are still being felt today all throughout North Africa, West Africa, as well as the Middle East. I would contend that this was not unpredictable. Many of us, including myself, were saying that this is exactly what would happen if the United States wages this war on Libya. That’s precisely what happened. And if you think that the strategic planners in Washington had no concept of that, I’d say that’s deeply naïve and misguided. I think that they understood perfectly that by destabilizing and destroying Syria, they could expand the chaos throughout the region which, going back to what I said at the beginning of this interview, provides the justification and pretext for expanded US military engagement, precisely what they’ve wanted all along.

WBAI: In the remaining time that we have Eric, how do you analyze Obama’s recent trip to Kenya and Ethiopia?

ED: Well, I think that this was an act of desperation what we saw in both places, evident on the face of Obama, because in both countries the US is now being outstripped by China in various ways, especially in Ethiopia. This is very interesting because Ethiopia has historically been a US proxy state for the last few decades, acting as Washington’s “cop on the beat” for the Horn of Africa. The fact is though that Ethiopia is increasingly turning towards China. One of the main examples of this shift is the massive new dam that the Ethiopians are building on the Nile with Chinese funding and Chinese expertise. Although the project has certain negative environmental consequences, it is in many ways a major development for Ethiopia, a country in which the majority of the population still lives without electricity, where the infrastructure is dilapidated to the extent that it exists at all, which is deeply backwards in terms of its development. And the Chinese have come in and offered this massive project, and the Ethiopians have jumped at it.

The United States is deeply concerned that it will lose its foothold in the Horn of Africa if the Ethiopians become direct allies with China. And so, what you saw with Obama was a historically significant moment: the first time a US president has gone to Africa and openly said that the US offers Africa a better deal than does China. In other words, open and overt recognition that the United States is in open competition with China for influence in Africa. This is something many people have written about, many people have known. But for the US president to say it openly on an official trip to Africa is, I think, quite significant and quite telling of the desperation that Washington feels.

The other thing we saw on this trip was Obama’s speech in Kenya when he was standing there shoulder to shoulder with Kenyan President Kenyatta. Obama was talking about American and Western “values” and the importance of “values” referring to things like recognition of the rights of LGBTQ individuals, what might be called “secular western liberal progressive values.” But what we saw was a rejection not simply of those specific values, although we saw that as well, but also a rejection of the US dictating the terms of African cultural, social, and political development. What President Kenyatta said – first of all it should be noted that Kenyatta ran on an anti-International Criminal Court platform, against the validity of the court itself, arguing that it had been made into a tool of the US and the West to prosecute solely African people, thereby becoming effectively the International Criminal Court for Africans. That the court itself is white supremacist, colonialist, and racist at its very core…and I entirely agree with Mr. Kenyatta’s assessment and analysis.

And so we’ve seen a shift in terms of African perceptions and perspectives towards both the United States, and the western political and economic institutions that it dominates. So when Kenyatta was standing there with Obama, he was not only rejecting the notion that the US should dictate values to Africans, he was rejecting the very idea of western hegemony in Africa, and I think that that is really critical. Although Kenya works with the US on a number of issues involving peacekeeping and many other things, you’re seeing a major shift in terms of perspective and in terms of values and understanding the role that the United States plays in Africa. And I think that that’s really critical because that is a turning point. Africans want independent development – independent political and economic development. And that is what we’re seeing. The more the better for Africa.

WBAI: Eric Draitser, thank you for this comprehensive analysis which we will continue to dive into in the weeks and months that come. Thanks for getting up with us this morning.

ED: Thank you for having me.

Eric Draitser is the founder of StopImperialism.org and host of CounterPunch Radio. He is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. You can reach him at ericdraitser@gmail.com.
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Re: War A Africa

Postby conniption » Sat Nov 05, 2016 9:19 pm

off-guardian

Published on October 29, 2016
Comments 3
Sudan, Africa and the Mosaic of Horrors


by Andre Vltchek
October 21, 2016
, via Counterpunch

“What could be the most striking image, one that would clearly illustrate the destructive involvement of the United States in Sudan?” I ask. “In short, what should I photograph, that could show the suffering of the Sudanese people?”

“Let’s go and photograph what is left of the Al-Shifa factory,” I am told. “It is terrible, and truly symbolic.”


It is actually close to impossible to photograph just about anything in Sudan. For right or wrong reasons, the government is paranoid. Elaborate permits have to be issued for traveling outside the main urban areas, and for taking photos and videos even inside the capital city of Khartoum itself. If one dares to at all, one has to work fast and clandestinely, even if one is not planning to do anything damaging to Sudan.

And I was definitely not coming here as a foe.

Why was I here? After making my films, after covering the horrid wars of the African Great Lakes, after witnessing the awful devastation of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), I had to finally come to Sudan, which for me represented that remaining, that last piece of the ‘puzzle’; a part in the mosaic of the horrors which are now covering almost the entire continent of Africa.

I thought that I had to be here, in order to understand all the subtle nuances of how Western imperialist designs have been fragmenting and ruining this entire continent.

I convinced one of my friends in Khartoum to accompany me, and on my third day in Sudan, we drove towards the ‘legendary’ sight of the former Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Bahri, Khartoum North. The path we took led through relatively affluent neighborhoods, full of large houses, even villas, some of which, I was told, belong to Omar al-Bashir himself, and to his relatives.

Our car passed near the bizarre complex of Al-Noor Mosque, which is built in a Turkish style.

“This may be the only mosque in the world, which has a supermarket behind its walls,” my guide explained, smiling sarcastically. “The investment and idea came from our President; from al-Bashir himself.”

A few minutes later we see what we came here for: the site, the rubble, the devastation. A surviving chimney of the factory is right in front of us. On the left-hand side of the road, it is just pure destruction. 18 years after the ‘event’, nothing grows here, and nothing, no structures have replaced what has been converted into debris.

I work fast. I don’t want to get caught. I came here in order to document the brutality of the Western global regime, but somehow here I feel like a thief, like an intruder. At this point I still don’t know why.

The Al-Shifa factory was hit and destroyed by US Tomahawk cruise missiles in 1998, just a few days after the terrorist attacks on the American embassies in both Kenya and Tanzania. President Bill Clinton ordered the attack, arguing that the compound was storing nerve gas, something that was strongly denied by both the Sudanese government and the owner of the plant.

On October 20th, 2005, The New York Times reported in its uncommonly critical article:

“…American officials have acknowledged over the years that the evidence that prompted President Clinton to order the missile strike on the Shifa plant was not as solid as first portrayed. Indeed, officials later said that there was no proof that the plant had been manufacturing or storing nerve gas, as initially suspected by the Americans, or had been linked to Osama bin Laden, who was a resident of Khartoum in the 1980’s… no apology has been made and no restitution offered, which has Sudan’s government steaming, even seven years after the ground shook and the dark sky over Khartoum turned light as the plant was hit.

On the most recent anniversary of the bombing, Sudanese authorities did what they always do and repeated their call for a United Nations investigation of the American attack on the factory, which, if nothing else, was a major provider of medicines for humans and animals at the time it was destroyed.

Mustafa Osman Ismail, who was foreign minister until recently, also raised the issue at the United Nations summit meeting in New York last month, saying the bombing “damaged the development efforts of my country and deprived my people of basic medicines.””


“It is thoroughly paradoxical,” I am told, as we are driving away. “The Americans ruined Sudan’s most important medicine supply. They bombed a private factory that actually belonged to a person with extremely close business ties to the United States.”

But this is not the only paradox that I will encounter in this country. And it is not the only paradox in its relationship with the arch tormentor – the United States.

***


In Khartoum, I met dozens of people: Sudanese people, Eritrean people, Europeans as well as Asians.

I kept putting the same questions to everyone: is Sudan really at odds with the West, particularly with the United States? Or is ‘the game’ actually much more complex than that?

If Sudan is really a brutal dictatorship, then Sudanese people are shockingly outspoken. Those who are opposing the government are speaking against it openly, even in front of a total stranger like myself. This would be unthinkable even in today’s Egypt or Turkey.

“But no names, please, no names,” I am told.

I understand. I take notes, but do not write down any names.

A man working for an international organization is laughing, as we are having dinner:

“In Sudan, people can meet and say whatever they want. Nobody cares. But god forbid if they begin to organize.”

He is talkative and friendly. But later I find out that he thinks (and tells his colleagues) that I am a ‘spy’, which, in turn, is explained to me, is quite the usual way of looking at each other here. It is enough to be half Eritrean or Ethiopian to be suspected of spying. All Westerners are flatly considered to be professional spies, no matter how strong their anti-imperialist credentials are.

This constant suspicion is what made me uncomfortable in Sudan, from the first moment I stepped off the plane. I never felt like this in Eritrea or in Zimbabwe. There, they knew who I was and what I do: they read my books and have watched my films, and consequently they trusted me.

Here, one paradox piles on top of another. There is this brutal embargo, and open confrontation between the West and Sudan. Already, many years ago, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against the President. It is almost impossible to get a Sudanese visa with a US passport. But, as I am told, half of the Sudanese parliamentarians are holding US citizenship and regularly ‘commute’ between Sudan and North America. Bizarre? Yes, thoroughly. Is it even possible? Apparently it is: welcome to Sudan!

In the meantime, over one of the tastiest steaks I have ever had in my life, my acquaintance spills his heart out to me (allegedly a foreign spy):

“We have some of the best meat in the world… The embargo means, no chemicals, everything is organic. Sudanese are herders… Beef, sheep… Such a rich land! We have plenty of water below the ground. Our people are nice, they are peaceful, welcoming… We want to be friends with everybody in this world.”

At the end, he helps to arrange a car for me, for the following day. He is not supposed to, as I am not allowed to drive anywhere in this country. Especially if he thinks that I’m a spy.

Things are slightly confusing. But I am quickly getting used to it.

***


Several African and foreign analysts now believe that the events in Sudan, the West’s desire to destabilize it, to overthrow its government and ultimately to break the country into pieces, are closely linked to the horrific past and present of the rest of Central Africa, particularly to Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC. Others dispute it.

The disagreements are often only over whether the main booty of the West was actually supposed to be the Democratic Republic of Congo or Sudan.

In his legendary work, first published in 2004, CENTRAL AFRICA: 15 YEARS AFTER THE END OF THE COLD WAR. THE INTERNATIONAL INVOLVEMENT, Dr. Helmut Strizek, a German academic, argues:

Most people expected that Clinton with his “leftist” leanings would pressurize the Bashir-Turabi regime into a process of democratization in line with the Bush-Mitterrand approach that had been adopted after the end of the Cold War. But things took a different course. Clinton and Madeleine Albright, the new American Ambassador to the U.N., considered Sudan to be a “rogue state” and the number one enemy in Central Africa. They therefore opted for a proxy approach (“get others to fight your war”), a well known strategy that had been applied during the Cold War.

Mitterrand was unlikely to comply with the intended “regime change” in Khartoum. He was apparently not informed about Washington’s Sudan policy and could not understand the effects this new policy had on the Rwandan problem. After the Somalia disaster of 3 October 1993, Madeleine Albright used all the tricks in the book to minimize a U.S. contribution to the UNAMIR peacekeeping force envisaged in the Arusha Agreements. These activities were the first signs that the U.S. wished to reduce its commitment in favour of power sharing in Rwanda, help Museveni and his friend, Paul Kagame, to win the Rwandan war, and find other anti-Khartoum allies.”


The horrors in Rwanda occurred in 1994 and then the US-backed Tutsi RPF took power almost immediately there (or one could say almost simultaneously), the same year. One year later, Rwanda and Uganda began one of the most brutal and genocidal wars in the history of the 20th Century – the one against the people of the DRC. The war continues until now, and is fought on behalf of several Western powers and business interests. By the recent count, at least 10 million people have already lost their lives.

The West was interested in chipping off several resource-rich parts of Sudan, including the then so-called southern Sudan. Neighboring Uganda was extremely interested in the ‘project’, too. It was enjoying full impunity and was clearly emerging as a brutal regional power. It had already supplied, trained and hardened the RPF cadres, (before the RPF took power in neighboring Rwanda). It was already helping with plundering the DRC, and it felt suddenly ready to play and to think big.

Not everyone was impressed. But the stakes were extremely high, and rebellious heads, those that did not want to support the West’s Machiavellian designs, began to roll. Helmut Strizek continues:

UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali was considered in Washington to be a “French and Sudanese sympathizer”. He became a prominent victim of the approach to Sudan. Richard Clarke reveals a strange deal: “Albright and I and a handful of others (Michael Sheehan, Jamie Rubin) had entered into a pact together in 1996 to oust Boutros-Ghali as Secretary-General of the United Nations, a secret plan we had called Operation Orient Express (…). The entire operation had strengthened Albright’s hand in the competition to be Secretary of State in the second Clinton administration.” (CLARKE 2004:201/202). This pact was forged after an attempt – attributed to the Khartoum regime – to kill Egypt’s President Mubarak during a conference of the Organization for African Unity in Addis Ababa in June 1995. “Following that event, Egypt and we (joined by other countries in the region) sought and obtained the United Nations Security Council’s sanctions on Sudan.”


Well, Egypt was always on the side of the British colonialists, when it came to the wars against Sudan. Similar to his predecessors, Mubarak faithfully served the Empire.

In 1998, Bill Clinton organized a ‘meeting’ in the Ugandan city of Entebbe, in order to amalgamate a group of the proxies – those willing to launch a war against Khartoum.

Helmut Strizek again:

“Rather than promoting democracy the meeting was intended to prepare for war against Khartoum with the help of this so-called “new generation of African leaders”. But the war never took place. Shortly after Clinton left Africa, an absurd war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Laurent Kabila, whose anti-democratic record – according to different reports in the press – had made Clinton feel very uneasy in Entebbe, used this war as an excuse to leave the anti-Khartoum alliance and try to get rid of his Rwandan “protectors” in late July 1998. As a result the anti-Khartoum alliance collapsed.”

While the planned war failed to materialise, the joint U.S.-U.K. policy initiative to topple the Sudan government continued. Although Richard Clarke would like to make the world believe that the bombing of a chemical plant in Khartoum on 20 August 1998 in retaliation for the Al Qaida attacks on the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam was a success story, in fact it was a failure. This attack only exacerbated anti-American feelings, because the Sudan government had apparently not supported Osama bin Laden after he left Sudan in 1995. The failed attempt to kill bin Laden the same day in Afghanistan reinforced his belief that he was protected by “providence” and so he stepped up the fight against the “American devil”.”

Despite the improved relations between Sudan and Egypt, there was no change in the policy to bring about a regime change in Khartoum before the end of the Clinton era. Even Jimmy Carter, who cannot be suspected of excessive sympathy with Muslim fundamentalism, disapproved of this inflexible approach in 1999. “The people in Sudan want to resolve the conflict. The biggest obstacle is U.S. government policy. The U.S. is committed to overthrowing the government in Khartoum. Any sort of peace effort is aborted, basically by policies of the United States. Instead of working for peace in Sudan, the U.S. government has basically promoted a continuation of the war.”


What Jimmy Carter said is definitely correct, but it does not, of course, apply exclusively to Sudan. It could be traced to almost all the conflicts in which the Empire has some involvement (therefore, to almost all of them), from those in Africa to those in the Middle East, including Syria.

Helmut Strizek believes that the wars in the African Great Lakes Region were directly connected to the US attempt at destabilizing Sudan, that they were actually ignited by the West, for Sudan to be destroyed or conquered in the end.

But many others, including a legendary Canadian international lawyer, Christopher Black, who has been deeply involved in the events of the region (where he was working for the ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania), disagree. Chris wrote to me, shortly after I sent to him Strizek’s report:

“Strizek… He testified for the defense in our trial at the ICTR and put forward this thesis about Sudan. I think most of what he says is correct but found then and still find his theory that the war in Rwanda was about Sudan a little difficult to accept. It may have been one of the considerations for Museveni and the US and UK etc. but it was not the primary one. The primary one was the war on Zaire, to kick out Mobutu and break Congo into pieces, That was the central plan for the RPF, US, UK, Belgium etc. re Rwanda and I have a letter from Kagame saying so. Strizek was used by an opposing defense team in my trial to try to make it look like I forged that letter from Kagame and I went after him about that.

I think he fell into a trap about that – that is that other defense team, who I am sure were working for the prosecution, tricked him into doing. We discussed it later and he admitted perhaps he had been wrong but would not totally retreat. But we are in touch still… So in my opinion, the rest of his paper is basically correct re the geopolitical situation and he is correct on who invaded Rwanda and is responsible for that war, but I disagree that Sudan was the central objective of that war – that objective was Zaire. I agree re Sudan’s importance but I fail to see how the take over of Rwanda had any effect on the attempt to break up Sudan.

It is not on Sudan’s border, Uganda is. No doubt Museveni etc. wanted that result – but I could never quite see how Rwanda fitted into that picture except in general terms – that is the US etc. wanting to take over all central Africa which would make them stronger further north in Sudan etc. But it is clear from all the other evidence at the trial and that of the French expert Dr. Bernard Lugan and others that the main objective of the Rwanda war was to take over Rwanda so they could use it to attack and break up Zaire, which is what they did.”


My comrade, a Ugandan opposition politician Arthur Tewungwa, agrees with Christopher Black, but he also thinks that the West ‘drenched in blood’ the entire region, whatever have been its ‘primary goals’:

“Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC have all been the victims of a cross-Atlantic foreign policy that has left the region disfigured and drenched in blood. While the motives have been presented as altruistic, the net result has been dreadful. Loud Western propaganda based on simplistic interpretations has been the order of the day. Sadly this approach has drawn celebrities and other well-intentioned individuals who have contributed to suffering equaled only during WWII. Darfur, Luwero, Eastern Congo and Rwanda have narratives built that don’t stand the test of objective scrutiny. Who will repair the damage visited on these places? The only answer is the victims. The do-gooders have done enough bad to warrant their exit left of stage!”


***


I then asked my close friend and a dedicated internationalist, Mwandawiro Mghanga, Chairperson of (Marxist) Social Democratic Party of Kenya (SDP), to comment on the situation in Sudan. He expressed, in his letter, a strong opinion and his support for the Sudanese people, against the sanctions and against Western imperialism in general:

“The economic and political sanctions imposed against Sudan by Western countries have existed for many years. However, despite disrupting the development of the country they have not succeeded into forcing the people with a long and proud history and culture to surrender its freedom to Western imperialism. Western countries imposed the sanctions against Sudan ostensibly for its violation of the human rights of South Sudan which until recently was part of Sudan. But even after the government of Sudan participated in the democratic process that gave birth to the Republic of South Sudan (RSS), still the West continued with its hostilities and sanctions against Sudan. Sudan is now accused by the West of gross violations of human rights in Darfur. Yet despite its propaganda, the West is not actually interested in solving the problem of Darfur but in undermining the government of Sudan, compromising its sovereignty and carving another country out of Sudan. After RSS and Darfur the West will encourage another region of Sudan to demand to split and so on until Sudan is left into a tiny country like Rwanda.

In fact, until the RSS was created, Sudan was the largest country in Africa in terms geographical size and ethnical diversity. This did not please Western imperialism that was imposed into Africa through the partition and balkanization of the second largest continent in the World and sharing it among the European colonial powers. Colonialism then existed in Africa through the notorious tactic of divide and rule that it continues today. The goal of Pan – Africanism and African Union for regional integration and eventual political union of African countries has always been seen as a threat to imperialist’s interests in Africa. In this context, Sudan like Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with it rich natural resources is seen to be too big by the West to dominate and therefore all means possible are used to balkanize it. They do not even care that the creation of RSS from Sudan has escalated inter-ethnic violence, violations of human rights and undermined real freedoms.

The national liberation hero of Sudan and leader of South Sudan John Garang was assassinated by the West ´with the connivance of the Ugandan government under President Yoweri Museveni because he was leading the struggle for the liberation of the whole of Sudan and not the creation of RSS. In the meanwhile, the sanctions against Sudan have only made the country more determined to safeguard its freedom and independence, to explore and implement self – reliance strategies and to search for alternative development partners – Russia and China. And so Sudan struggles and lives on.”


Not everyone in Africa feels deep solidarity with Sudan, though. The country has an extremely complex history and relationships with its neighbours. My close colleague from Eritrea, usually very outspoken and passionate about the West’s devastating involvement in Africa, this time just commented, simply and dryly:

The only thing I can say is that in Sudan it’s not similar to Eritrea – ours is a clear case of economic sabotage, injustice, and double standards.”


The last day before my departure, I ended up working with a lady, an acquaintance of mine, who spent a long year working in Darfur.

Are things there really as they are described by the Western mass media?

We sit in the lobby of my hotel, drinking coffee, and I’m taking notes. No names, of course, no names here… But she speaks freely, confidently, and what she describes is actually not much different from the nightmares occurring in many other parts of Africa:

“It is extremely tiring working in Darfur. You don’t realize it when you are still there; at some point it all becomes somehow ‘normal’, but then when you leave the place, it all comes back to you, and it is hard to keep living a normal life afterwards. You are asking whether it is it as horrible there, as we are told? Yes it is, and perhaps worse… Killings and rapes, refugees and despair, and great suffering of the people… But it is not happening, honestly, just because of this government, and the state-backed Janjaweed militias… although they can be blamed for many terrible acts, of course. But the other side is not blameless either. And local people almost never report crimes committed by the rebels, and the Western media hardly mentions them…”


What I want to know is what role the West is actually playing in Darfur?

“The West is definitely trying to encourage Darfur to leave Sudan. The West, even Israel, is supporting Abdelwahid rebels from Fur African tribe. It is not unlike what it did in South Sudan. Darfur is rich in uranium and other raw materials. The conflict in Darfur, and brutality of it, is actually being fuelled from outside. The UN peacekeeping force UNAMID is thoroughly ineffective in Darfur. It hardly interferes on behalf of the local people. One has to wonder, what are their mandates and true goals there. I asked and was told that they are there ‘to report’. It often appears that the so-called international community is doing everything for the conflict to continue, so it could justify its push for separation. In the meantime, the refugees are flowing into neighbouring Chad, and elsewhere. In the camps in Chad, they are often screened and interviewed, by foreigners, even Israelis… I don’t know what happens there, in those camps, afterwards.”


As we speak about Chad – its top military brass is having a joint meeting with local, Sudanese commanders. The entire hotel lobby is filled with men in various uniforms. Some are armed.

I then ask to be taken to the so-called ‘open areas’ outside Khartoum; places inhabited by the South Sudanese refugees. Like Darfur now, South Sudan had been, in the past, destabilized and encouraged to leave the Republic of the Sudan. The West did its best to create this the ‘youngest country on Earth’, rich in oil and many other resources.

As I was already explained to on several occasions by foreigners who have been based in South Sudan, the place has been, from the beginning, an ungovernable, and an artificial country, ruled by local warlords but above all, by countless international organizations and NGOs. That was actually the plan of the West from the outset.
The situation in South Sudan is now so terrible, that people are fleeing across the newly marked border, to the Republic of the Sudan. Before the breakup, the exiles would be processed simply as IDP’s, but now they are ‘true refugees’, as they are technically coming from a different country.

We drive slowly to one of the ‘open areas’ called Altakamul, in Alhag Youseif town. My acquaintances are feeding me with the latest data from UNHCR and other sources: “there are now 7 camps for South Sudanese refugees in White Nile State, with a population of 101,495. And there are 35,507 refugees located in the open areas, in and around Khartoum.”

How are they treated here?

“Right after the separation, there was a lot of talk about South Sudanese people being our ‘brothers and sisters’. We were told to treat them exactly as we would treat our own people. Some actually have relatives here, even houses. But now, with the economical difficulties that Sudan is facing, things are becoming very problematic.”

Altakamus is a tough, miserably poor area, covered by sand and dust. As with everywhere else, I am not supposed to photograph here. And as with everywhere else, I do.

Garbage covers almost entire alleys and the sides of roads. The whole area consists almost exclusively of only two colours with some varieties of shades: yellow and grey.

Only very few economic activities could be detected. At this hour, children should be in school, but many are not.

So this is where the increasing number of South Sudanese people are now ending up; this is the result of yet another ‘glorious’ Western experiment on human beings: of mingling with the borders, creating new states that should serve the Empire’s political and economic interests. How many more are ‘planned’ for this area? We know of at least of some others: Goma (the DRC), Darfur (Sudan), Jubaland (Somalia).

I don’t know where Sudan is heading. Despite many problems, despite its clearly capitalist leaning, corruption and economic troubles, I am impressed with many things here. Khartoum looks definitely much cleaner and safer than Nairobi or Kampala, two cities in countries that are fully supported and often loudly glorified by the West. In Nairobi, more than half the people live in desperate, deadly, even ‘toxic’ slums. In Khartoum, poverty has a much gentler face. Despite sanctions, despite everything…

Sudanese leaders have many new grand plans for their country: new housing developments, a new international airport, new office towers, hotels, riverfronts, office buildings and shopping malls. Some of these projects are now delayed, or even cancelled, but others are ongoing and on target.

Life is tough here, and much tougher in the provinces. Because of the sanctions, many goods and basic equipment (even those for the hospitals) are missing. No credit cards are accepted here. Inflation is mounting. Goods and services are often calculated in dollars, but there are two parallel exchange rates in place: official and the black market one.

Several times a day I hear the same question: “Do you like Sudan?”

I don’t know. It is a complex place, but inhabited by warm, courteous people.

Honestly, this is not my fight. Here I don’t see a struggle, an attempt to build an egalitarian country based on social justice.

But Sudan is, to a great extent, a victim. A place which has been placed on that horrid hit list of the Empire and selected for demolition. And as such, I feel, it deserves to be supported.

I wandered through the National Museum, with its exquisite artefacts. Two local schoolgirls wearing headscarves approached me, demanding to take selfies with me, on their phone.

At times, life appears to be almost ‘normal’, but there is always some tension.

As we drive through the city of Omdurman, I ask my friend: “Is it true what one reads in Western press; that they amputate hands for theft, that they are nailing people on the cross?”

She laughs, mockingly: “Of course not! They got rid of these practices a long time ago! If they kept up with them, half of the government would be running around without hands!”

But who is who here, and who works for whom? I am told that imaginary ‘spies’ are really everywhere.

One day, I was sitting with a friend and with a local filmmaker in a cafe, discussing the possibility of my returning here and making a documentary film. The filmmaker was offering to drive me to Port Sudan if I come back, even to arrange my visa and all the necessary permits.

At one point, we began discussing my latest novel “Aurora”. He asked about the plot. I told him that the book is about the European cultural institutions, which are funding young artists and thinkers in almost all developing countries, then using the arts and ‘culture’ as a vehicle for spreading capitalist and pro-Western propaganda, silencing almost all rebellious voices.

At first interested, the filmmaker became gradually very edgy, and towards the end of my explanation, he apologized and ran away from the café, faster than the speed of light. I never heard from him again.

You hit the nail on its head,” my friend began laughing, right after he vanished. “He is funded by all those organizations that you mentioned. You scared him witless.”

Before I left the country, all my notes ‘mysteriously’ disappeared. Someone entered my hotel room and took both notepad and my Mont Blanc pen, which was attached to it. The Mont Blanc had been, for many years, one of my dearest writing tools.

Practically, it was not easy to depart Sudan. At the airport, my passport was endlessly scrutinized, and in the end I was ordered to produce my ‘registration paper’. I was told that registration is not required for stays under 30 days. I began expecting the worst. But in the end, the security apparatus allowed me to leave.

But which security apparatus was harassing me, really? Who is in charge in this country? I will most likely never find out.

In 1898, during the Battle of Omdurman (and later in 1899 during the Battle of Umm Diwaykarat), British imperialism debilitated, and eventually ruined the entire Sudan. British forces relied on their alliance with the Egyptians.

In modern history, the West has never really left this proud nation in peace.
All the terrible attacks came in the name of higher principles. The West has always claimed that it has been liberating Sudan from someone or something. In the end, the Sudanese people have suffered immensely. Those who were supposed to be ‘freed’ were actually mercilessly sacrificed. Some things never change!

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.



1 of 3 comments:

Schlüter
October 29, 2016

See also:
“Half the Truth is a whole Lie! 20 Years of brazen Desinformation!” http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2014/04/2 ... formation/
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Re: War A Africa

Postby Cordelia » Sat Dec 10, 2016 3:19 pm

South Sudan News 1 December 2016

UN: 'Ethnic cleansing under way' in South Sudan

Fighting between government and rebels has seen deliberate starvation, gang rape, and the burning of villages.


"A UN commission on human rights in South Sudan has said a steady process of ethnic cleansing is underway in the country, involving massacres, starvation, gang rape and the destruction of villages.

On Wednesday, three commission members who had travelled around South Sudan for 10 days said they observed deepening divisions in a country with 64 ethnic groups.

"There is already a steady process of ethnic cleansing underway in several areas of South Sudan using starvation, gang rape and the burning of villages," commission chairwoman Yasmin Sooka told a news conference.

"The stage is being set for a repeat of what happened in Rwanda and the international community is under an obligation to prevent it."

The alleged ethnic cleansing comes after almost three years of fighting between government forces, rebel troops and allied militias. A political split between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar escalated into a military conflict in December 2013.

The conflict - which has killed tens of thousands, caused widespread hunger and forced three million people from their homes - has pitted Kiir's Dinka ethnic group against Machar's Nuer ethnic group and other groups suspected of supporting the rebels.

"You have so many different groups of armed actors, including the military who are talking about dealing with a rebellion and putting it down," Sooka told Al Jazeera in a separate interview.

"You have ethnic tensions because people have been displaced from their land based on ethnicity. Everybody believes that a military conflict is almost inevitable in different parts of the country."

Adama Dieng, UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, has called on the Security Council to impose an arms embargo to prevent the ethnic violence from escalating into full-on genocide.

In the Equatorias region, the commission "heard numerous accounts of corpses being found along the main roads," the UN's Godfrey Musila said.

The ethnic attacks have spread even to the southern Equatoria region, which had not experienced much violence until now, he said.

"The commissioner said that armed conflict could be averted if targeted sanctions, arms embargo and a hybrid court is set up to hold those accountable for crimes committed," Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said, reporting from Juba.

"The UN Security Council is expected to vote on targeted sanctions and an arms embargo this week, but the hybrid court … seems far from becoming a reality."

Separately, the UN humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan said he was "deeply concerned" about bureaucratic impediments and access constraints to humanitarian agencies trying to help people in need.

The statement said 91 such incidents had been recorded in November alone.

"Humanitarian organisations in South Sudan are striving every day to save lives and alleviate suffering across this country," humanitarian coordinator Eugene Owusu said. "Yet, they continue to face obstacles and challenges which hamper their efforts."

'Potential for genocide'


The United States on Wednesday also warned of escalating violence.

"We have credible information that the South Sudanese government is currently targeting civilians in Central Equatoria and preparing for large-scale attacks in the coming days or weeks," Keith Harper, the US representative at the UN Human Rights Council, said in Geneva.

"In the last two weeks, the government has mobilised at least 4,000 militia from other areas of South Sudan and is staging these fighters in Equatoria to begin conducting attacks," Harper said.

Earlier this month the UN's Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, told the Security Council there was a risk of "outright ethnic war" and the "potential for genocide".

The UN rights experts are expected to publish a report on their findings in March."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/e ... 14805.html



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr7fbsk2ZC4
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Re: War A Africa

Postby cptmarginal » Tue Jul 30, 2019 3:05 pm

stefano » Wed Feb 04, 2015 4:45 am wrote:
US AFRICOM commander calls for “huge” military campaign in West Africa

By Thomas Gaist
2 February 2015

Image
AFRICOM internal slide

US Africa Command (AFRICOM) head General David Rodriguez called for a large-scale US-led “counterinsurgency” campaign against groups in West Africa during remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC last week.

Rodriguez’s statements are part of a coordinated campaign by the US to massively expand its military operations in the resource-rich region, as it combats the influence of China and other powers.

The US should prepare for operations in at least four West African countries as part of a “huge international and multinational” response aimed at forces affiliated with Boko Haram, Rodriguez said.

AFRICOM is already preparing an “across the board response to the threat,” Rodriguez said.

Echoing recent comments from US Secretary of State John Kerry during his visit to Lagos, Nigera that the US is ready to “do more” militarily in Nigeria, Rodriguez called on the Nigerian government to “let us help more and more.”

In similar remarks at a the US Army West Point academy last week, US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) chief General Joseph Votel said that US commando teams must prepare for new deployments against Boko Haram and the Islamic State.

“[Boko Haram] is creating fertile ground for expansion into other areas,” Votel said.


I forgot Nick Turse was working for The Intercept.

(many embedded links in original)

VIOLENCE HAS SPIKED IN AFRICA SINCE THE MILITARY FOUNDED AFRICOM, PENTAGON STUDY FINDS

Nick Turse
July 29 2019

Since U.S. Africa Command began operations in 2008, the number of U.S. military personnel on the African continent has jumped 170 percent, from 2,600 to 7,000. The number of military missions, activities, programs, and exercises there has risen 1,900 percent, from 172 to 3,500. Drone strikes have soared and the number of commandos deployed has increased exponentially along with the size and scope of AFRICOM’s constellation of bases.

The U.S. military has recently conducted 36 named operations and activities in Africa, more than any other region of the world, including the Greater Middle East. Troops scattered across Africa regularly advise, train, and partner with local forces; gather intelligence; conduct surveillance; and carry out airstrikes and ground raids focused on “countering violent extremists on the African continent.”

AFRICOM “disrupts and neutralizes transnational threats” in order to “promote regional security, stability and prosperity,” according to its mission statement. But since AFRICOM began, key indicators of security and stability in Africa have plummeted according to the Defense Department’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. “Overall, militant Islamist group activity in Africa has doubled since 2012,” according to a recent analysis by the Africa Center.

There are now roughly 24 “active militant Islamist groups” operating on the continent, up from just five in 2010, the analysis found. Today, 13 African countries face attacks from these groups — a 160 percent increase over that same time span. In fact, the number of “violent events” across the continent has jumped 960 percent, from 288 in 2009 to 3,050 in 2018, according to the Africa Center’s analysis.

While a variety of factors have likely contributed to the rise in violence, some experts say that the overlap between the command’s existence and growing unrest is not a coincidence.

“The sharp increase in terrorist incidents in Africa underscores the fact that the Pentagon’s overly militarized approach to the problem has been a dismal failure,” said William Hartung, the director of the arms and security project at the Center for International Policy. “If anything, attempting to eradicate terrorism by force may be exacerbating the problem, provoking a terrorist backlash and serving as a recruiting tool for extremist groups.”

Take Somalia, for example. Over the last decade, AFRICOM has conducted hundreds of airstrikes and commando missions there and claims an enemy body count of approximately 800 terrorists, primarily members of the Shabab, a militant group. The number of U.S. air attacks has skyrocketed of late, jumping from 14 under President Barack Obama in 2016 to 47 under the Trump administration last year. Yet the Pentagon’s own analysis found that violent episodes involving the Shabab represent roughly 50 percent of all militant Islamist group activity in Africa and that this “rate has remained consistent over the past decade.”

In October 2017, members of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, or ISGS, ambushed American troops near the border of the Sahelian states of Mali and Niger, killing four U.S. soldiers and wounding two others. Just after the attack, AFRICOM claimed the troops were providing “advice and assistance” to local partners, but it was later revealed that American commandos operating alongside a Nigerian force had — until poor weather intervened — hoped to link up with another contingent of U.S. special operators trying to kill or capture Islamic State leader Doundoun Cheffou.

Despite these and several other long-running U.S. military efforts in the region, militant groups in the Sahel have grown more active and their attacks more frequent, according to the Africa Center. In fact, “violent episodes” linked to groups associated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, and ISGS increased from 192 in 2017 to 464 last year. At the same time, fatalities linked to these groups more than doubled, from 529 to 1,112.

This is especially significant in light of a 2000 report prepared under the auspices of the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, which examined the “African security environment.” While noting the existence of “internal separatist or rebel movements” in “weak states,” as well as militias and “warlord armies,” it made no mention of Islamic extremism or major transnational terror threats. Now the Africa Center counts 24 “active militant Islamist groups” on the continent while other official tallies have, in recent years, put the figure at nearly 50 terrorist organizations and “illicit groups” of all types.

Neither the Pentagon nor AFRICOM responded to The Intercept’s questions about the Africa Center’s analysis, the command’s effectiveness, and any role it may have played in the rising violence on the continent.
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Re: War A Africa

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Jul 31, 2019 6:34 am

A new cold war in Africa
Increasing tensions between China and the US will be detrimental to African prosperity and peace.

1 Jul 2019

US Navy personnel guard the US military ship USS Vicksburg during the opening ceremony of a DP World-managed oil terminal facility in Djibouti in 2006 [File: Reuters/Ahmed Jadallah]
Last week, the 12th US-Africa Business Summit, a high-level event attended by 11 African heads of state and government and some 1,000 business leaders, was held in Maputo, Mozambique. During the three-day event, US officials unveiled a $60bn investment agency which will seek to invest in low and middle-income countries, with a special focus on Africa.

The announcement came six months after National Security Advisor John Bolton presented the Trump administration's "New Africa Strategy". According to the document: "Great power competitors, namely China and Russia, are rapidly expanding their financial and political influence across Africa. They are deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the United States."

Although both China and Russia are mentioned, over the past few months, the US has demonstrated that it is mainly concerned about the former. In fact, it already appears that Africa is set to become yet another battleground for the escalating trade war between Beijing and Washington.

With increasing foreign military presence and growing diplomatic tensions, the continent is already witnessing the first signs of an emerging new cold war. And just like the previous one devastated Africa, fuelling wars and forcing African governments to make economic choices not in their best interests, this one will also be detrimental to African development and peace.

Economic war

China's approach to Africa has always been trade oriented. The continent became one of the top destinations for Chinese investment after Beijing introduced the so-called "Go Out" policy in 1999 which encouraged private and state-owned business to seek economic opportunities abroad.

As a result, Chinese trade with Africa has increased 40-fold over the past two decades; in 2017, it stood at $140bn. Between 2003 and 2017, Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) flows have also jumped more close to 60-fold to $4bn a year; FDI stocks stand at $43bn - a significant part of which has gone to infrastructure and energy projects.

China has significantly expanded African railways, investing in various projects in Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Angola and Nigeria; it is currently building a massive hydropower plant in Angola and have built Africa's longest railway connecting Ethiopia and Djibouti; it has built the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa and the West African regional bloc ECOWAS in Abuja.

By contrast, for a long time the US has viewed Africa as a battlefield where it can confront its enemies, whether the Soviets during the Cold War, terrorists after 9/11 or now the Chinese. Washington has never really made a concerted effort to develop its economic relations with the continent.

As a result, trade between the US and Africa has decreased from $120bn in 2012 to just over $50bn today. US FDI flows have also slumped from $9.4bn in 2009 to around $330m in 2017. The new $60bn investment fund announced last week is a welcome initiative from the US but it will not be able to challenge Chinese economic presence on the continent. Just last year Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $60bn too but dedicated it solely to investment in Africa.

The US has repeatedly accused China of using "debt to hold states in Africa captive to [its] wishes and demands" and has warned African states to avoid Chinese "debt diplomacy" which is supposedly incompatible with the independence of African nations and civil society and poses "a significant threat to US national security interests".

Yet, Africa is only the fourth-biggest recipient of Chinese FDI after Europe (mainly Germany, UK and Netherlands), the Americas (mainly the US and Canada), and Asia. The US has also borrowed heavily from China; currently its debt to its rival stands at $1.12 trillion. By contrast, Africa owes China around $83bn.

Africans are fully aware of and concerned about high indebtedness, trade imbalances, the relatively poor quality of Chinese goods and services and Beijing's application of lower standards of labour and environmental practices. But many do not share the American perspective that their economic relationship with China is to their detriment and rather see it as an opportunity that provides much-needed unconditional funding and that takes into account local priorities.

As Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh has pointed out, "The reality is that no one but the Chinese offers a long-term partnership."

The pressure the US is currently exerting on African countries to move away from partnerships with China could hurt African economies. It could force African countries into making choices that are not in their best economic interests and miss out on important development projects or funding.

Meanwhile, the US-China trade war is already affecting the continent. According to the African Development Bank, it could cause as much as a 2.5 percent decrease in GDP for resource-intensive African economies and a 1.9 percent dip for oil-exporting countries.

Militarisation

The escalating tensions between the US and China could also end up threatening the security of the continent. Both countries are militarily involved in Africa.

Over the past 15 years, the Chinese People's Liberation Army has been engaged in a number of security missions across the continent, making modest auxiliary troop contributions to peacekeeping operations in Sudan, South Sudan, Liberia, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has also contributed millions of dollars of peacekeeping equipment to the African Union Mission in Somalia and provided significant funding to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development for its mediation in South Sudan.

In 2017, the first Chinese overseas military base was opened in Djibouti. The facility, which currently hosts some 400 staff and troops, and has the capacity to accommodate 10,000, is officially supposed to provide support for the ongoing anti-piracy operations of the Chinese navy, but it also plays a role in securing maritime routes, part of the Belt and Road Initiative. There has also been speculation that this is the first of a number of planned bases meant to secure Chinese interests in Africa.

China's military presence in Africa, however, pales in comparison to that of the US. Over the past few years, US Africa Command has run some 36 different military operations in 13 African countries, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan and Tunisia. It has more than 7,000 troops deployed on the continent.

It has a large base in Djibouti - the biggest and only permanent US military base in Africa - but it also runs at least 34 other military outposts scattered across the west, east and north of the continent where US troops are deployed and military operations (including drone attacks) are launched from.

The US also directly supports the armies of Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mali, Niger and others as well as the G5 Sahel force tasked with counterterrorism.

While a direct confrontation between US and Chinese forces in Africa is unlikely, their growing presence is becoming an increasingly destabilising factor. Already Washington's strategy to contain Chinese influence over Africa is playing out at different conflict and social upheaval hotspots across the continent. The fallout of the US-Chinese competition is particularly apparent in the strategic Red Sea region, through which passes one of the most important maritime routes.

Countries in the region are not only feeling growing US and Chinese pressure to take one side or the other, but are also increasingly exposed to outside interference by various regional powers.

Growing regional tensions

Djibouti has recently found itself at the centre of US-Chinese diplomatic confrontation. Being a host to military bases of both superpowers, the small country has had to play a difficult balancing game.

In 2018, Djibouti seized control of its Doraleh Container Terminal from the Emirati company DP World, claiming its operation of the facility was threatening its sovereignty. The Djibouti authorities had feared that the UAE's investment in the nearby Port of Berbera in the autonomous Somali region of Somaliland could challenge its position as the main maritime hub for Ethiopia's large economy.

Its decision to terminate the contract with DP World, however, triggered a sharp reaction from Washington, a close Emirati ally. The Trump administration fears that Djibouti could hand over control of the terminal to China.

Bolton has warned: "Should this occur, the balance of power in the Horn of Africa - astride major arteries of maritime trade between Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia - would shift in favour of China. And, our US military personnel at Camp Lemonnier could face even further challenges in their efforts to protect the American people."

Djibouti was forced to declare publicly that it would not allow China to take over the terminal but that has not assuaged US fears. Ever since, the US sought to secure a possible alternative location for its African military base: neighbouring Eritrea.

It encouraged regional actors, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to pull Eritrea out of its decades-long isolation. In a matter of months, long-time enemies Ethiopia and Eritrea concluded a peace agreement to end their 20-year-old cold conflict, while the UN lifted sanctions on Asmara. As a result, Eritrea could emerge as a strategic rival to Djibouti, offering its coast for foreign military and economic facilities. The UAE, for example, has already set up a military base near the port of Assab.

Sudan, to the north, has also been the battleground of the ongoing superpower turf war. China had been a long-term supporter of President Omar al-Bashir. Under his rule, Beijing came to dominate its oil industry, buying some 80 percent of its oil and thus providing Khartoum with much-needed cash to wage war against various rebel groups. It was also one of the few countries, along with Russia, that would break the UN arms embargo and sell weapons to al-Bashir's regime.

After South Sudan gained independence in 2011, China continued to be a close partner of the Sudanese regime, remaining its main trading partner. Sudan in fact became the biggest beneficiary of the $60bn Africa investment package China pledged in 2018, having some $10bn in Chinese debt written off. The Chinese government also made a lot of plans to develop facilities in Port Sudan, where it already operates an oil terminal. Qatar and Turkey also signed deals with al-Bashir for various facilities in the port city.

When mass protests erupted in December last year, Beijing stood by al-Bashir, who it saw as the main guarantor of stability in the country, which falls on strategic routes, part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

Meanwhile, the US had repeatedly demonstrated that it did not want al-Bashir running for another term. His removal was approved in Washington, which has since appeared to back the interests of Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the country.

The two Gulf states currently hope to install another strongman sympathetic to their regional politics, who would maintain Sudan's participation in the war in Yemen and curb Turkish and Qatari influence. At this point, it seems China is at risk of being sidelined by the significant sway the UAE and Saudi Arabia have with Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC).

Apart from Djibouti and Sudan, various other countries in the region have felt the consequences of the US bid to contain China. This political confrontation has also added to the already rising tensions between other players in the region, including Egypt, Gulf countries, Iran and Turkey.

The Trump administration has particularly favoured Emirati, Saudi and Egyptian interests which have emboldened these three countries in their efforts to shape regional dynamics to their advantage.

Thus, in the long-term, given the pre-existing faultlines and conflicts in the region, the US-China cold war could have a detrimental effect, not only on its economy but also on its security.

At this point, to preserve its interests and its peace, Africa has only one option: to reject pressures to swear allegiance to either of the two powers. African countries should uphold their sovereignty in policy and decision-making and pursue the course that is in the best interests of their nations.

If the US wants to compete with China on the continent, it should do so in good faith. It can gain a competitive advantage by offering African countries better, more credible and principled alternatives to those put forward by China. But that can only happen if the US develops a strategy that focuses on Africa itself, not on containing and undermining the business of a third party.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opini ... 44847.html
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: War A Africa

Postby Iamwhomiam » Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:34 pm

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Hmmm...

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Re: War A Africa

Postby conniption » Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:02 pm

dandelionsalad
(embedded links)

South Africa: A Place Weeping

Image
Image by Sony200boy via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

by New Frame
Johannesburg, South Africa
June 6, 2021


The social devastation of mass unemployment renders South Africa a non-viable society for millions. Something must give.

Unemployment in the United States peaked at 24.9% during the Great Depression. On the eve of Adolf Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933, unemployment in Germany was at 24%. The protests that launched the Arab Spring in 2011 were ascribed, in part, to what the International Labour Organization called an “extremely high youth unemployment rate of 23.4%”.

In Gaza, the unemployment rate was 43.1% at the end of last year. We know what Gaza is. It is a ghetto formed by violent dispossession and sustained with violent repression. It is walled and surveilled. Its residents are subject to routine organised humiliation. There are organised ideological attempts to expel them from the count of the human race. Their protests are met with ruthless and spectacular violence.

In a 2009 essay on Gaza, John Berger, a writer for the ages, borrowed two lines from Kurdish poet Bejan Matur: “A place weeping enters our sleep / a place weeping enters our sleep and never leaves.”

In South Africa, unemployment is at 42.3%. The rate for young people is 74.7%. The scale of this social devastation is extraordinary in global terms. A 2019 survey placed the youth unemployment rate in the country, then calculated at 57.47%, as the worst in the world – a position it has held since 2017.

Millions of young people find that the world does not extend them any kind of welcome. They are, in the words of poet Lesego Rampolokeng, “frustrated hoisted then dropped against the rocks of promise”.

Millions of people endure blocked lives, passing time in a stasis marked by tightening circles of shame, failure, fear and despair. Some start to sleep most of the day. Some turn to transactional forms of religion, offering submission in the hope of reward. Some succumb to the temptation to dull their pain with cheap heroin. Some take what they can from who they can, how they can. Some, often supported by the grace of family, friends and community, manage to find a way to hold on to enough hope to keep going.

People rendered as waste

The weight of what all this means for these people and their families, the colossal squandering of their gifts and possibilities, are not taken as a crisis for our state, the people that govern it or most of our elite public sphere.

Lives are rendered as waste, voices as noise rather than speech, protests as traffic issues or crime. People are told that their suffering is a matter of personal failure, their attempts to cope with their situation consequent to moral dissolution. They can be murdered by the state during a protest or an eviction without consequence.

It is unsurprising that the demand to be recognised as human is often central to the language of popular protest. It is telling that the phrase “service delivery protests” is relentlessly imposed on much more complex phenomena by those whose unconscious investment in organised dehumanisation is such that they simply cannot recognise that the plainly expressed yearnings of the oppressed often extend far beyond aspirations for the basic means to sustain bare life.

It is not uncommon for thousands of people to apply for jobs that offer drudgery, exploitation and exhaustion for meagre rewards. People have died in stampedes for these kinds of jobs.

New forms of work are often precarious, and often organised with the aim of ensuring that employers can avoid the obligations imposed by generations of trade union organisation and struggle. The unions operate on the terrain of constant crisis, gearing up to oppose austerity in the state and fighting a long, losing battle to retain jobs as deindustrialisation escalates.

Exclusion from the count of the human

Neither democracy nor the NGOs calling themselves ‘civil society’ or the public sphere are really taken to include the people as a whole. Millions of people just don’t count as people. Weeping enters their sleep. It comes to sit in their bones. It comes to structure their sense of themselves, their place in their families and their understanding of the world.

We know what Gaza is. But do we understand what South Africa is?

South Africa is a chunk of territory, its borders drawn by an invading force, its people violently conquered, enslaved, dispossessed of their land, wealth and autonomy, contained in ghettos and forced into forms of labour – domestic, agricultural and industrial – structured as racial servitude. Violence built a system of racial appropriation, exploitation and exclusion, and violence sustained it.

The sequence of popular organisation and struggle that began in Durban in the early 1970s moved into the Soweto revolt and then the growing power of the trade union movement. The urban insurrection that followed in the 1980s, often organised by or in the name of the United Democratic Front, raised the possibility of radical democracy, popular power and deep structural transformation.

But an alliance between contending elites, backed by imperialism, was able to take the initiative in the early 1990s and follow the broad outlines of the standard path towards liberal democracy developed at the end of the Cold War. The people were thanked for their service, given rights on paper and sent home.

The ANC in power moved swiftly to co-opt or dissolve grassroots organisations, while union leaders were brought into the new circuits of state, corporate and party power. It was able to begin to make progress towards the deracialisation of the middle class and elites through enabling legislation and other forms of regulation. Later on, a new class of politically connected elites became wealthy – sometimes massively wealthy – by appropriating public funds. Impoverishment and inequality worsened.

Repression

When new social movements like the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign and the Landless People’s Movement emerged at the turn of the century, they were met with paranoia and repression. When popular protest, usually organised through road blockades marked out with burning tyres, began to become a ubiquitous backdrop to everyday life from 2004, protesters were murdered by the police at a steady clip.

When a movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, emerged from these protests, it was met with slander, assault, arrest, torture and murder. When workers on the platinum mines struck outside of the authority of a co-opted union in 2012, they were massacred.

The ANC was committed to opening access to elite spaces, but it showed no commitment to fundamentally transforming society in the interests of the majority. The question of who has access to the fortified nodes of wealth was, and remains, intensely contested. The question of what happens to the people locked out remains largely ignored, apart from empty and often cynical rhetorical gestures.

Where there have been advances, such as the expansion of the grants system or the antiretroviral rollout, they were not aimed at achieving anything beyond sustaining bare life. RDP houses were smaller and more poorly constructed than the township houses built under apartheid, and often extended rather than contested the logic of colonial spatial planning.

A non-viable society

There is no commitment to the flourishing of the majority, let alone to a fundamental shift in political and economic power.

As grants come in, the money is taken to the supermarkets, to white capital. The state has not even bothered to undertake a project as basic as serious urban land reform and support for small-scale farming cooperatives and markets that would allow impoverished people to grow their own food and sell it to each other.

Across space and time, very high rates of unemployment, especially among young people, have led to major social upheaval, sometimes taking progressive forms and sometimes marked by an attraction to authoritarianism and a will to scapegoat vulnerable minorities. South Africa is not a viable society for a large proportion of the people who live here, and if history is a reliable guide to the future, something will have to give.

The question is what gives – and what comes next? Will an authoritarian figure bent on displacing the crisis onto migrants step into the breach? Will our politics throw up more of the sort of crude chauvinists who took the recent by-elections in Eldorado Park? Will we have to endure our own Trump or Bolsonaro?

Will there be a long stasis in which the impoverished majority is governed with escalating violence as the better-off take what they can before getting out? Or will there be new forms of democratic popular power able to make some progress towards bending the state to their will, disciplining capital and insisting that every life be counted as a life?

None of these possibilities are foreclosed, and there are many more. But what is certain is that most of our people are young and urban, and most of them are without work. No social force will be able to decisively shape our future without the participation or sanction of these people.
_______
New Frame is a not-for-profit, social justice media publication based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
This article was first published by New Frame, June 4, 2021

New Frame content is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence. This means that our content can be republished by other publications, without editing the copy.


From the archives:

Abby Martin: A Guide to US Empire in Africa **

Thomas Sankara: An Icon of Revolution, by Yanis Iqbal

Chris Hedges: Extracting Profit: Imperialism, Neoliberalism, and the New Scramble of Africa

John Pilger: Vietnam, Cambodia, South Africa and the Plight of the Working Class

Apartheid Gone, But Social and Economic Inequality Still Exists by Joel S. Hirschhorn

Apartheid never died in South Africa. It inspired a world order upheld by force and illusion by John Pilger

John Pilger: Apartheid Did Not Die (1998)


https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/20 ... e-weeping/

~~~

**
A Guide to US Empire in Africa: Neocolonial Order & AFRICOM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HEs2CnVQUs

A Guide to US Empire in Africa: Neocolonial Order & AFRICOM
•Mar 13, 2021

Empire Files
Abby Martin speaks to Eugene Puryear to discuss the big picture of US imperialism in Africa: From the Berlin Conference to the subversion of liberation movements to neocolonial puppets and the current sprawl of AFRICOM "counterterrorism."
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Re: War A Africa

Postby dada » Fri Jun 11, 2021 12:04 am

This is why I dislike ideas like the mmt "lawful work for all" scheme. You have all these poor kids, all over the world. The mmt solution is to erase everyone's talents, and make them work for some corporations funded by government grant. Where do you think the lions share of that money goes?

But the part about erasing everyone's talents. Quoting from the article, "the colossal squandering of their gifts and possibilities." Sure, you can offer people jobs they aren't a fit for, you know, "retrain them." If there's enough poverty, they'll fight for the worst, even. As the article points out.

But it's inhuman, is the point. The whole way of thinking.

"Lives are rendered as waste, voices as noise rather than speech, protests as traffic issues or crime. People are told that their suffering is a matter of personal failure, their attempts to cope with their situation consequent to moral dissolution. They can be murdered by the state during a protest or an eviction without consequence.

It is unsurprising that the demand to be recognised as human is often central to the language of popular protest."

"Neither democracy nor the NGOs calling themselves ‘civil society’ or the public sphere are really taken to include the people as a whole. Millions of people just don’t count as people."

"The ANC was committed to opening access to elite spaces, but it showed no commitment to fundamentally transforming society in the interests of the majority. The question of who has access to the fortified nodes of wealth was, and remains, intensely contested. The question of what happens to the people locked out remains largely ignored, apart from empty and often cynical rhetorical gestures."

All so hauntingly familiar.

"Where there have been advances, such as the expansion of the grants system or the antiretroviral rollout, they were not aimed at achieving anything beyond sustaining bare life. RDP houses were smaller and more poorly constructed than the township houses built under apartheid, and often extended rather than contested the logic of colonial spatial planning."

So this is where the social engineering economic schemes end up. And you have to know this. Only an American exceptionalist would think otherwise. Like "oh, that's so terrible, but it never happens this way in the USA."

"as grants come in, the money is taken to the supermarkets, to white capital."

White capital is how you say "the corporate arm of mass production" in South African. I'd say all these quotes really hit home on many levels.

"Will there be a long stasis in which the impoverished majority is governed with escalating violence as the better-off take what they can before getting out? Or will there be new forms of democratic popular power able to make some progress towards bending the state to their will, disciplining capital and insisting that every life be counted as a life?

The first part, yes. And maybe yes to the second part, but only if they are new forms. They must be new forms.

But "The question of who has access to the fortified nodes of wealth was, and remains, intensely contested. The question of what happens to the people locked out remains largely ignored, apart from empty and often cynical rhetorical gestures." You know, this is what I'm saying about mmt. While the corporate sides fight over who has access to the fortified nodes, the poor people are locked out.

The article says, "There is no commitment to the flourishing of the majority, let alone to a fundamental shift in political and economic power." So when an intellectual who is caught up in mmt reads this, you would think it might give them pause, rethink and remember what it is they're really fighting for, and how far they've drifted from the left. We're building the language for a fundamental shift in political and economic power, while you're still tempering yours for fighting with the right on social media.

You know, we have a saying where I come from, "If you think you're part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

edited to add a poor behind a people.
Last edited by dada on Fri Jun 11, 2021 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.
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Re: War A Africa

Postby dada » Fri Jun 11, 2021 3:19 pm

Like, get on board, poor people. We must industrialize the wholesale killing of your hopes and dreams to save our bacon.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.
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Re: War A Africa

Postby dada » Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:02 pm

Which is to say the poor are being asked to sacrifice their creative aspirations to serve in the machinery of mass production.

Also saying what I've been saying to mass culture. Hi, I'm the machine teacher from the singularity you've been hearings about, and I've come to kill your consumer hopes and dreams. So the message is frightening to the mass.

And speaking to the fellows, writers guild 573, I'm saying we must industrialize the killing of our mass culture hopes and dreams, to save our bacon, not theirs. Our bacon is free and chemical free, practically invisible, and ten times as delicious. I mean, can you imagine bacon being any more delicious than it already is, Internets? Just think of it. I eat it all the time, live on it.

Machine teacher appealing to Internets love of bacon.

One last interpretation. Industrializing a wholesale killing is really making a killing. So the words mean that if we're really serious about saving bacon, it's the poor people, like me and you, that need to industriously produce our hopes and dreams, and find the weirding way to then mass produce them free of all corporate sponsorship. Steal some market share from mass culture using cheap tech with a language built for speed.

second edit changed "find a way" to "find the weirding way," first edit changed the guild number from the 123 that was a placeholder. Konami, my friend.
Last edited by dada on Fri Jun 11, 2021 6:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: War A Africa

Postby dada » Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:24 pm

Notice: the machine teacher has little to do with ben mack the phony robot on the herbalife thread.

Not saying he's phony, that's how salty the droid comes on, working the fake robot angle. The running joke in the atmosphere. I just saw Wombat Rex saying he'd heard gossip that droid is ben mack, and it stirred memories of fun games and old hats. But here nor there doesn't matter, the machine teacher is not now and then. You don't love or like the machine teacher on social media.
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Re: War A Africa

Postby conniption » Sat Nov 27, 2021 11:28 pm

My special thanks to Off-Guardian for being there providing us with insightful articles by outstanding authors with alternative views of the situations at hand, plus an active, lively comment section to boot. It was there we were introduced to the likes of CJ Hopkins, Edward Curtin, Alison Blunt and so many more... (not to mention co-founders/editors Kit Knightly and Catte Black).

"OffGuardian was launched in February 2015 and takes its name from the fact its founders had all been censored on and/or banned from the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ sections."

And now, on top of all that greatness they've included an audio version on select articles where you can read along with whoever.

Just sayin'...

~~~

off-guardian
(embedded links)

“The Omicron Variant” – Magic pills, or solving the Africa problem?

Kit Knightly
Nov 27, 2021


Audio Version New Feature!
Audio Player
00:00
Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.


Yesterday the WHO labelled the sars-cov-2 variant B.1.1.529 as a “variant of concern” and officially named it “Omicron”.

This was as entirely predictable as it is completely meaningless. The “variants” are just tools to stretch the story out and keep people on their toes.


If you want to know exactly how the Omicron variant is going to affect the narrative, well The Guardian has done a handy “here’s all the bullshit we’re gonna sell you over the next couple of weeks” guide:

> The Omicron variant is more transmissable, but they don’t know if it’s more dangerous yet (keeping their options open).

> It originated in Africa, possible mutating in an “untreated AIDS patient” (sick people are breeding grounds for dangerous “mutations”).

> “it has more than double the mutations of Delta…scientists anticipate that the virus will be more likely to infect – or reinfect – people who have immunity to earlier variants. (undermining natural immunity, selling more boosters, keeping the scarefest going).

> “Scientists are concerned” that current vaccines may not be as effective against the new strain, they may need to be “tweaked” (get your boosters, and the new booster we haven’t invented yet)

> “Scientists expect that recently approved antiviral drugs, such as Merck’s pill, will work as effectively against the new variant” (more on this later)

> It’s already spreading around the world, and travel bans may be needed to prevent the need for another lockdown

We’re already seeing preparations for more “public health measures”, with the press breathlessly quoting “concerned” public health officials. We’re being told that a new lockdown won’t be necessary…as long as we remember to get boosted and wear masks and blah blah blah.

Generally speaking, it’s all fairly boilerplate scary nonsense. Although it is quite funny that the Biden administration has already put a bunch of African nations on a travel ban list, when Biden called Trump a racist for doing the same thing in 2020.

Africa

It’s interesting that the new variant has allegedly come from Africa, perhaps “mutating in the body of an AIDS patient”, since Africa has been the biggest hole in the Covid narrative for well over a year.

Africa is by far the poorest continent, it is densely populated, malnourishment and extreme poverty are endemic across many African nations, and it is home to more AIDS patients than the entire rest of the world combined. And yet, no Covid crisis.

This is a weak point in the story, and always has been.

Last Summer, the UK’s virus modeller-in-chief Neil Ferguson attempted to explain it by arguing that African nations have, on average, younger populations than the rest of the world, and Covid is only a threat to the elderly. But five minutes of common sense debunks that idea.

The reason Africa has a younger population, on average, is that – on average – they are much sicker.

There are diseases endemic to large parts of Africa that are all but wiped out in most of the Western world. Cholera, typhus, yellow fever, tuberculosis, malaria. Access to clean water, and healthcare are also much more limited.

And while it has been nailed into the public mind that being elderly is the biggest risk factor for Covid, that is inaccurate. In fact, the biggest risk factor for dying “of Covid” is, and always has been, already dying of something else.

The truth is that any REAL dangerous respiratory virus would have cut a bloody swath across the entire continent.

Instead, as recently as last week, we were getting articles about how Africa “escaped Covid”, and the continent’s low covid deaths with only 6% of people vaccinated is “mystifying” and “baffling” scientists.

Politically, African nations have shown themselves far less likely to buy into the “pandemic” narrative than their European, Asian or American counterparts. At least two “Covid denying” African presidents – Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi and John Magufuli of Tanzania – have died suddenly in the last year, and seen their successors immediately reverse their covid policies.

So maybe the Omicron Variant is a way of trying to fold Africa into the covid narrative that the other continents have already fully embraced. That will become clear as the story develops.

Of course, it’s also true that being “African” is media shorthand for being scary, relying on the deeply-seated xenophobia of Western audiences. See: “Africanized killer bees”.

But, either way, Africa is the long game. There’s a more obvious, and more cynical, short term agenda here.

The magic pills

Let’s go back to the Guardian’s “Omicron” bullet points, above:

> Scientists are concerned by the number of mutations and the fact some of them have already been linked to an ability to evade existing [vaccine-created] immune protection.

> Scientists expect that recently approved antiviral drugs, such as Merck’s pill, [will work effectively] against the new variant

The “new variant” is already being described as potentially resistant to the vaccines, but NOT the new anti-viral medications.

Pharmaceutical giants Merck and Pfizer are both working on “Covid pills”, which as recently as three days ago, were being hyped up in the press:

US may have a ‘game changer’ new Covid pill soon, but its success will hinge on rapid testing


In the US, an emergency use authorisation can only be issued if there is no effective medication or treatment already available, so the vaccines not being proof against Omicron would be vital to rushing the pills onto the US market, at least.

If Omicron is found to be “resistant to the vaccines”, but NOT the pills, that will give governments an excuse to rush through approving the pills on an EUA, just as they did with the vaccines.

So, you bet your ass that testing is gonna be “rapid”. Super rapid. Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it rapid. Rapid to the point you’re not even sure it definitely happened. And now they have an excuse.

Really, it’s all just more of the same.

A scare before the new year. An excuse to make people believe their Christmas could be in peril. An exercise in flexing their control muscles a bit, milking even more money out of the double-jabbed and boosted crowd, now newly terrified of the Omicron variant, and a nice holiday bump to Pfizer’s ever-inflating stock price.

At this point either you can see the pattern, or you can’t. You’re free of the fear machinery, or you’re not.

There is one potential silver lining here: It feels rushed and frantic. Discovered on Tuesday, named on Friday, travel bans on Saturday. It is hurried, and maybe that’s a reaction to feeling like the “pandemic” is losing its grip on the public mind.

Hopefully, as the narrative becomes more and more absurd, more and more people will wake up to reality.

It has been pointed out that “Omicron” is an anagram of “moronic”.

One wonders if that’s deliberate and they’re making fun of us.

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https://off-guardian.org/2021/11/27/the ... a-problem/
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