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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Apr 01 2011 - 18:35:25 EST
The Conquest of Africa: NATO Wages War On Third Continent
by Rick Rozoff
http://www.globalresearch.ca/coverStoryPictures2/24057.jpg
<http://www.globalresearch.ca> Global Research, April 1, 2011
At its summit in Lisbon, Portugal last November the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization adopted its first strategic concept for the 21st century, one
in keeping with its expansion into not only a pan-European but a self-styled
international military force.
In addition to subordinating all of Europe to a U.S.-dominated interceptor
missile system, complementing the new U.S. Cyber Command in waging
cyberwarfare defensive and offensive, and erasing whatever distinction
remained between NATO and European Union military functions on the continent
and globally, the world's only military bloc endorsed the nearly
ten-year-old war in Afghanistan as its prime mission and affirmed its
commitment to ongoing operations in the Balkans.
Almost all of the approximately 150,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan are
currently under the command of the NATO-run International Security
Assistance Force, which is also conducting deadly helicopter gunship raids
and artillery attacks inside neighboring Pakistan.
The war in South Asia is NATO's first armed conflict outside Europe and its
first ground war. Its bombing campaign in Bosnia in 1995 and 78-day air war
against Yugoslavia four years later were its first hostile military actions.
NATO is now waging a war in a third continent, Africa.
The Alliance's summit last year placed particular emphasis on consolidating
partnerships with nations outside Europe and North America; military
relations and agreements with, counting NATO members and partners alike,
over a third of the 192 members of the United Nations.
Mechanisms employed to extend NATO's influence and operations worldwide
include the Partnership for Peace, Mediterranean Dialogue, Istanbul
Cooperation Initiative, the Contact Countries format, the NATO-Afghanistan-
Pakistan Tripartite Commission and the NATO-Russia Council.
Five of the seven members of the Mediterranean Dialogue - Algeria, Egypt,
Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia - are African states.
With U.S. Africa Command achieving full operational capability on October 1,
2008, the whole continent has been placed under an American overseas
military command (Egypt remains in U.S. Central Command's area of
responsibility) , with plans underway to replicate that arrangement with
NATO. [1]
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) assumed control of what is now a 12-day war
against Libya, the only North African nation not subordinated to AFRICOM or
CENTCOM and to binding NATO obligations, through its Joint Task Force
Odyssey Dawn.
With NATO assuming direct command of the war - air and cruise missile
strikes, a naval blockade of the country, on-the-ground operations in
conjunction with anti-government insurgents and afterward independently -
AFRICOM and NATO are being merged into one warfighting force.
In addition to that unprecedented integration, two members of NATO's
Istanbul Cooperation Initiative - Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - are
providing warplanes for Operation Odyssey Dawn and in the process engaging
in a joint campaign with both NATO and AFRICOM for the first time. (The
United Arab Emirates is one of 48 Troop Contributing Nations for NATO's
Afghan war and Bahrain, another Istanbul Cooperation Initiative partner, is
supplying security forces for the International Security Assistance Force.
Mediterranean Dialogue member Egypt is also an unofficial force contributor
for NATO in Afghanistan. )
When on March 28 President Barack Obama repeatedly mentioned the
international community and "international partners" and the "broad
coalition" conducting the war against Libya along with the Pentagon, he
could only cite eleven allies so involved: "[N]ations like the United
Kingdom, France, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain, Greece, and
Turkey...all of whom have fought by our side for decades [and] Arab partners
like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates."
Nevertheless, Washington has brought together North American and European
NATO allies with Persian Gulf partners for a war in Africa, the latest step
in solidifying an international military alliance under U.S. control,
complementing the building of an Asia-Pacific NATO, consolidating military
partnerships in the Persian Gulf and throughout the Middle East and
integrating former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus
and Central Asia into the Pentagon-NATO network.
Military operations currently under AFRICOM's Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn
and within hours to be transferred to NATO have included over 1,800 sorties
and 214 Tomahawk cruise missile attacks since the beginning of the war on
March 19.
NATO's Lisbon summit declaration of last November highlighted an expanding
role for the bloc in Africa, including supporting the African Union Mission
in Somalia (AMISOM), for which it has airlifted thousands of Ugandan troops
for combat in the nation's capital, the Operation Ocean Shield naval
operation off the Horn of Africa and the operationalization of the African
Standby Force, modeled after the NATO Response Force.
In twelve years the U.S. has used NATO for the war against Yugoslavia - the
first unprovoked attack against a sovereign European nation since World War
Two - a nearly decade-long air and ground war in Asia, and now the opening
stages of a war in Africa. None of those wars were launched either to defend
a member of NATO or in the so-called Euro-Atlantic area the military bloc
arrogates to itself the right to protect.
21st century NATO is a global military strike force to be employed wherever
its leading member states, the U.S. in the first case, choose to use it.
Other nations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Caucasus and even what
is left of unsubjugated Europe had best take note of the fact.
Note
1) Africa: Global NATO Seeks To Recruit 50 New Military Partners
Stop NATO, February 20, 2011
<http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/africa-global-nato-seeks-to-recr
uit-50-new-military-partners> http://rickrozoff. wordpress. com/2011/
02/20/africa- global-nato- seeks-to- recruit-50- new-military- partners
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages> http://groups. yahoo.com/
group/stopnato/ messages
Stop NATO website and articles:
<http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/> http://rickrozoff. wordpress. com
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Africom - Latest U.S. Bid to Recolonise the Continent
by Tichaona Nhamoyebonde
http://www.globalresearch.ca/coverStoryPictures/16869.jpg
<http://www.globalresearch.ca> Global Research, January 9, 2010
African revolutionaries now have to sleep with one eye open because the
United States of America is not stopping at anything in its bid to establish
Africom, a highly-equipped US army that will be permanently resident in
Africa to oversee the country's imperialist interests.
Towards the end of last year, the US government intensified its efforts to
bring a permanent army to settle in Africa, dubbed the African Command
(Africom) as a latest tool for the subtle recolonisation of Africa.
Just before end of last year, General William E. Garret, Commander US Army
for Africa, met with defence attaches from all African embassies in
Washington to lure them into selling the idea of an American army based in
Africa to their governments. Latest reports from the White House this
January indicate that 75 percent of the army's establishment work has been
done through a military unit based in Stuttgart, Germany, and that what is
left is to get an African country to host the army and get things moving.
Liberia and Morocco have offered to host Africom while the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) has closed out any possibility of any of its
member states hosting the US army.
Other individual countries have remained quiet.
Liberia has longstanding ties with the US due to its slave history while
errant Morocco, which is not a member of the African Union and does not hold
elections, might want the US army to assist it to suppress any future
democratic uprising.
SADC's refusal is a small victory for the people of Africa in their struggle
for total independence but the rest of the regional blocs in Africa are yet
to come up with a common position. This is worrying.
The US itself wanted a more strategic country than Morocco and Liberia since
the army will be the epicentre of influencing, articulating and safeguarding
US foreign and economic policies. The other danger is that Africom will open
up Africa as a battleground between America and anti-US terrorist groups.
Africom is a smokescreen behind which America wants to hide its means to
secure Africa's oil and other natural resources, nothing more.
African leaders must not forget that military might has been used by America
and Europe again and again as the only effective way of accomplishing their
agenda in ensuring that governments in each country are run by people who
toe their line.
By virtue of its being resident in Africa, Africom will ensure that America
has its tentacles easily reaching every African country and influencing
every event to the American advantage.
By hosting the army, Africa will have sub-contracted its military
independence to America and will have accepted the process that starts its
recolonisation through an army that can subdue any attempts by Africa to
show its own military prowess.
The major question is: Who will remove Africom once it is established? By
what means?
By its origin Africom will be technically and financially superior to any
African country's army and will dictate the pace for regime change in any
country at will and also give depth, direction and impetus to the US natural
resource exploitation scheme.
There is no doubt that as soon as the army gets operational in Africa, all
the gains of independence will be reversed.
If the current leadership in Africa succumbs to the whims of the US and
accept the operation of this army in Africa, they will go down in the annals
of history as that generation of politicians who accepted the evil to
prevail.
Even William Shakespeare would turn and twist in his grave and say: "I told
you guys that it takes good men to do nothing for evil to prevail."
We must not forget that Africans, who are still smarting from
colonialism-induced humiliation, subjugation, brutality and inferiority
complex, do not need to be taken back to another form of colonialism, albeit
subtle.
Africom has been controversial on the continent ever since former US
president George W. Bush first announced it in February 2007.
African leaders must not forget that under the Barack Obama administration,
US policy towards Africa and the rest of the developing world has not
changed an inch. It remains militaristic and materialistic.
Officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations argue that the major
objective of Africom is to professionalise security forces in key countries
across Africa.
However, both administrations do not attempt to address the impact of the
setting up of Africom on minority parties, governments and strong leaders
considered errant or whether the US will not use Africom to promote friendly
dictators.
Training and weapons programmes and arms transfers from Ukraine to
Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Ethiopia and the transitional government in
Somalia, clearly indicate the use of military might to maintain influence in
governments in Africa, remains a priority of US foreign policy.
Ukraine's current leadership was put into power by the US under the Orange
Revolution and is being given a free role to supply weaponry in African
conflicts.
African leaders must show solidarity and block every move by America to set
up its bases in the motherland unless they want to see a new round of
colonisation.
Kwame Nkrumah, Robert Mugabe, Sam Nujoma, Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere,
Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Kenneth Kaunda, Augustino Neto and Samora Machel,
among others, will have fought liberation wars for nothing, if Africom is
allowed a base in Africa.
Thousands of Africans who died in colonial prisons and in war fronts during
the liberation struggles, will have shed their blood for nothing if Africa
is recolonised.
Why should the current crop of African leaders accept systematic
recolonisation when they have learnt a lot from colonialism, apartheid and
racism? Why should the current crop of African leaders fail to stand measure
for measure against the US administration and tell it straight in the face
that Africa does not need a foreign army since the AU is working out its own
army.
African leaders do not need prophets from Mars to know that US's fascination
with oil, the war on terrorism and the military will now be centred on
Africa, after that escapade in Iraq.
Tichaona Nhamoyebonde is a political scientist based in Cape Town, South
Africa.
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