How many Americans know their military has opened up a dedicated command center to keep Africa under its thumb? Far too few. Moreover, none of us had a say in this aggressive and expensive expansion of capacity to project violence onto the world's poorest continent. Yet, from its provisional base in Stuttgart, Germany, "Africom" will cast an imperialistic shadow over 900 million people more in need of medicine and job-creating capital than jackboots. Is this really the face our nation wants to present to Africa's vast population?
The BBC reports that "the Pentagon has yet to find an African country willing to host the headquarters for Africom, despite a considerable amount of shopping around." The message is clear: Africans have rejected US military tutelage because they perceive a threat. Americans should listen, and shut down Africom. Humanity, diplomacy and the reality of scarce resources practically demand it.
5 comments:
The people or our nation need to learn that other nations don't need or want our "help." Here's an interesting video by a congressional candidate in Illinois' 10th district:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYc4nsWMtgg
Thank you, Joe.
I watched the video and I wish David Kalbfleisch all the best in his campaign to win Illinois' 10th Congressional District.
Michael Blaine
Both the post and Joe's comment are inane in the extreme. The notion that "Africans have rejected US military tutelage because they perceive a threat," is complete idiocy. Almost all of the free African governments would like more, not less, US military assistance, while the many African kleptocracies do indeed sense a threat from America. It's disgusting that rich, Western leftists like Michael and Joe say that US efforts around the world should cease and the many millions under the protection of those policies should be left to the wolves. You're both moral reprobates.
While Michael and Joe speak with incredulity about how an African nation could possibly want our "help" (Joe's words), warlords in various nations continue to inflict starvation, death and destruction on the masses. That your hatred of any use of American influence trumps your willingness to see an Africa free of genocide and economic hardship speaks volumes about your moral compass. Its time to grow up children.
Have you been to Africa, Michael? I have and trust me; 'Saving Darfur' is easy to say, but that would translate into 'Invading Sudan. Diplomacy? Been going on for a half-century. A million dead in Rwanda, God knows in the Sudan, and 3 million in the Congo and still continuing. And the U.S. is not responsible for ANY of it, but the French could answer a few questions.
If you've got a concrete way to solve it, I'd like to hear it. If not, until you get on a plane and look into the eyes of kids who have seen their parents dismembered by machetes, you kind of are out of your league talking about 'American jackboots in Africa'. There are a bunch of people over there who would LOVE to see some of the 'Africom menace'; just not the dictators in power.
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