Africa Command in Ethiopian paper
this article appears on the allafrica.com site today.
Quote:
Africa: Bush Approves U.S. Army for Africa
here is an interesting excerpt.
Quote:
UNITED States President George Bush has approved the formation of a U.S. army to permanently operate in Africa, a move viewed by many as part of a wide plan to increase American hegemony on Africa.
The U.S. would have wanted to place the base in Algeria but the government of that country vehemently refused and the U.S. is now scouting for another country, especially one with access to the sea.
Mohamed Bedjaoui, the Algerian Foreign Affairs Minister was yesterday reported in the People's Daily Online as having strongly questioned the motive behind the military venture.
"He questioned why no one had ever proposed for any anti-terror co-operation with Algeria in the 1990s when terrorist violence went rampant and wrought havoc?"
link:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200704030206.html
U.S. Force Aims to Secure Africa
30 April Washington Times - U.S. Force Aims to Secure Africa by Jason Motlagh.
Quote:
The United States hopes by year's end to establish an Africa Command that will anchor military operations across a continent seen to be of increasing strategic importance and threatened by transnational terrorists.
The new force, known informally as AfriCom, will preside over all countries on the continent except Egypt and is expected to be operational by the fall, according to Pentagon officials. They say it is needed to secure vast, lawless areas where terrorists have sought safe haven to regroup and threaten U.S. interests.
"Part of the rationale behind the development of this command is clearly the growing emergence of the strategic importance of Africa from a global ... security and economic standpoint," Rear Adm. Robert Moeller, head of the Africa Command Transition Team, said earlier this month. "This allows us to work more closely with our African partners to ... enhance the stability across the continent." ...
U.S. Africa Command Brings New Concerns
28 May Washington Post - U.S. Africa Command Brings New Concerns by Walter Pincus.
Quote:
The creation of the Defense Department Africa Command, with responsibilities to promote security and government stability in the region, has heightened concerns among African countries and in the U.S. government over the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, according to a newly released study by the Congressional Research Service.
The Africa Command (AFRICOM) was announced in February by the Bush administration and is scheduled to begin operations in October with temporary headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. AFRICOM would have traditional responsibilities of a combat command "to facilitate or lead [U.S.] military operations" on the continent, but would also include "a broader 'soft power' mandate aimed at preemptively reducing conflict and would incorporate a larger civilian component to address those challenges," according to the CRS study...
Find a Fire Hydrant and Mark It
Quote:
There was talk at the begining of the establishment of JTF HOA, when AFRICOM started looking like a possibility, of establishing the senior position in AFRICOM as a psuedo-proconsul. This position would be the senior Civilian Ambassador for the continent, to subordinate all the other Ambassdors to the one. It was/is a radical idea that the DoS would most likely have trouble digesting. BUT it would lend Unity of command and much needed credibility to the AFRICOM combined DoD-DoS concept.
That would be a radical step and one that would run up against the reality of political appointee ambassadors versus career foreign service officers very quickly. The closest we came to having a "pro-consul" in the Rwandan saga was the appointment of Ambassador Richard Bogosian as the "Presidential Envoy to the Great Lakes Region," much like Phillip Habib to the Middle East in the Reagan years. Ambassador Bogosian was able to get some cross-border cooperation going between embassies but it was often a tough sell. Burundi was a problem with the Ambassador there a political appointee. He by the way has a book out this year from University of Texas Press with a chapter dedicated to my behavior as a conspirator envoy of the US Department of Defense. Zaire (Congo) was another problem but in this case a career foreign service officer ambassador who had been chief of mission elsewhere.
I offer all of this because while I believe strongly that Africa Command is a great idea and one long overdue, I have no expectations that a sudden spirit of cooperation is going to blossum between the agencies. To the contrary, there will be (and already is) a backlash of suspicion/angst and general urinating on fire hydrants behavior by the various players because DoD has long minimized its interest in the continent. Creating a command signals a change in attitude and that creates tensions.
Best
Tom
It really is an old idea...
The notion of a DOS counterpart to a combattant commander has been around a long time. I remember it well from the 1980s in Central America. Seemed logical to all of us DOD types. Unfortunately, it runs counter to the desires of both the host country governments and the American ambassadors. No host government is going to do business with the US Regional Ambassador; it will expect to do business with the US through the President's personal rep to the country ie the Ambassador.
You can only get interagency unity of command if the President names a commander with the authority to hire and fire his interagency subordinates. (He also needs to be willing to exercise that authority.) In the absence of that authority, the only thing left is coordination to, hopefully, achieve unity of effort. I would like to see commanders named so that unity of command could be achieved but I have yet to see a President willing to impose that kind of authority - except to ambassadors through the post -JFK appointment letter.
North Africa Reluctant to Host U.S. Command
24 June Washington Post - North Africa Reluctant to Host U.S. Command by Craig Whitlock.
Quote:
A U.S. delegation seeking a home for a new military command in Africa got a chilly reception during a tour of the northern half of the continent this month, running into opposition even in countries that enjoy friendly relations with the Pentagon.
Algeria and Libya separately ruled out hosting the Defense Department's planned Africa Command, known as AFRICOM, and said they were firmly against any of their neighbors doing so either. U.S. diplomats said they were disappointed by the depth of opposition, given that the Bush administration has bolstered ties with both countries on security matters in recent years.
Morocco, which has been mentioned as a possible site for the new command and is one of the strongest U.S. allies in the region, didn't roll out the welcome mat, either. After the U.S. delegation visited Rabat, the capital, on June 11, the Moroccan foreign ministry strongly denied a claim by an opposition political party that the kingdom had already offered to host AFRICOM. A ministry statement called the claim "baseless information."
Rachid Tlemcani, a professor of political science at the University of Algiers, said the stern response from North African governments was a reflection of public opposition to U.S. policies in the predominantly Muslim region...