Quote Originally Posted by LawVol View Post
Africa right now is a complete mess. AIDS, poverty, weak central governments, and a growing disgruntled Muslim population are just a few of the things that make this area ripe for use as a terrorist haven. Increasing our use of the Air Force as a provider of humanitarian aid would allow us to preempt a terrorist foothold and create a positive view of the US (similar to our use of positive propaganda in the Cold War). This, in turn, better prepares the AF for assisting with stability operations. Imagine what Iraq would look like now if we had an AF that was trained, ready, able, and willing to enter Iraq to reestablish electrical power, water, medical facilities, and the like. We had a small window to meet the needs of the population post-OIF I, for a variety of reasons we failed. One of those could have been filled by the AF.

With Africa, we could prevent the next Operation Africa Freedom by laying the groundwork for positive change. Think of it as prepping the battlefield, only this time we're trying to avoid the battle a la Sun Tzu.

Let me know if this is completely out in left field or does this make sense?


I disagree.

Africa has been a mess for a long time now and there have been many foreign millitary interventions for humanitarian reasons.


I think that best thing for Africa is not to directly intervene and stop this cycle of dependency on the West whenever violence breaks out. Africans are going to have to learn as a group of nations to resolve conflicts in the region themselves. The recent creation of the African Union Peacekeeping Force is a step in the right direction and should be supported. Hopefully as the Africans are now directly involved and responsible for resolving conflicts, they will have an incentive not to allow conflicts to explode because it is they that will have to do the dirty work.