Secret U.S. Wars Endanger Africa

moon of alabama 

Under the pretense of waging their 'war of terror' U.S. Special Forces use lots of money and murky legal authorities to worm themselves into the intestines of Africa. Their secret action is likely to lead to more instability and is endangering the peoples of Africa and their governments.

In a recent interview Seymour Hersh spoke (@2:50m) about U.S. military operations in Africa:

"We have a big special forces community that are active particular in Africa, in lot of places. I think the public knows very little about it. I don't think my president has been briefed on it. I think he isn't interested in it or just doesn't know about it. I know there is concern among some people in the military, high up in the military, in the government, in Washington: 'What are these guys doing? Who is in control?' There is a lack of control among the special forces. Many of them are driven with the idea that they are in a crusade. That they are the Knights of Malta fighting the infidels in the 14th century or 13th century. I mean that's really crazy stuff. So when I hear in the military, what the special operations command says about Mali: 'Here is what happened when four guys died and how.' I am sorry but I think there is much more to the story, there is much more to our presence there, but it is very hard to get that stuff."

The U.S. has only few of its regular military stationed in Africa. But there are plenty of U.S. special forces there, mostly working in secret. They are supposed to be under control of AFRICOM, the imperial U.S. command for that continent.

In 2007 Moon of Alabama commentator b real wrote a three part series, Understanding AFRICOM: A Contextual Reading of Empire's New Combatant Command, which documents how and why AFRICOM came about:

In early February 2007 the White House finally announced a presidential directive to establish by September 2008 a new unified combatant command with an area of responsibility (AOR) solely dedicated to the African continent.
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The U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) will replace the AOR for each of three other geographic combatant commands (there are now a total of six) currently tasked with portions of the second-largest continent, with the small exception of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) retaining AOR for Egypt. Further details on operations have not been made public apart from the usual basic press briefings and the formation of a transition team, though it is not a mystery to identify what role AFRICOM will play in both the U.S. and Africa's future.

Africa is huge with a relatively small population of 1.2 billion, less than India or China. Its 54 countries have various kinds of natural wealth. Next to oil, gas and uranium there are all types of strategic minerals and metals, from cobalt needed for rechargeable batteries to rare earth elements used in electronics. 

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China is making friends in Africa by investing in infrastructure to further development and trade. It is building ports, railways and telecommunication lines. These projects aim at win-win situations where China as well as the host country profit from them.

To counter China the U.S. is using its 'regime change' tools and secret military operations instead of economic cooperation. While its military missions are claimed to be 'to train, advise and assist' with no combat role for U.S. soldiers the reality is much different. A recent attempt to catch the local smuggler/insurgent Doundoun Cheffou in the Niger-Mali border area ended with the death of four Nigerien soldiers, four U.S. soldiers and one Nigerien translator. The local insurgent group claimed to be part of the Islamic State (ISIS) but there is no evidence that it ever communicated with ISIS central or that it was accepted into the ISIS structure.

The incident finally led to more detailed reporting which finds that the operation was under direct control of U.S. special forces who (ab)used the Nigerian military under a secret "rent auxiliaries" program.

Two recent pieces detail the murky legal background and discuss the consequences of such operations. Joe Penny writes in World Politics Review about: The ‘Myths and Lies’ Behind the U.S. Military’s Growing Presence in Africa:

The U.S. military obscures the nature of its actions in Africa through ambiguous language and outright secrecy. It limits the amount of information available about the objectives of its operations, how those operations are carried out, the facilities it uses, and how it partners with governments in the region. At times, this has involved subverting democratic processes in partner countries, an approach that runs counter to years of diplomatic engagement ostensibly designed to strengthen governance institutions.
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Today, the U.S. has a military presence in almost every country in Africa and conducts “advise-and-assist” missions with local counterterrorism units in Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Uganda, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Libya and possibly elsewhere. Officially, though, the U.S. has never led or unilaterally carried out a “capture-kill” mission in the Sahel, the semiarid region south of the Sahara desert that includes Niger; the mission targeting Cheffou was ostensibly led by the Nigeriens.

The U.S. military claims that all the missions in Africa, like the failed one in Niger, are under command of the local forces. But this is simply an obfuscation. The reporting makes clear that the Nigerian soldiers, as well as forces elsewhere, were under direct U.S. command. A similar obfuscation is used when the the U.S. drone base in Agadez is labeled as Nigerien Air Base 201.

There are two legal authorizations the U.S. military uses to operate in Africa and to confuse the public: 10 USC 333 covers 'advise and assist' missions and the related funding of foreign forces:

The Secretary of Defense is authorized to conduct or support a program or programs to provide training and equipment to the national security forces of one or more foreign countries for the purpose of building the capacity of such forces ...

In contrast to the above stands 10 USC 127e which authorizes classified programs to rent foreign forces or militia engaged in operations under U.S. special forces control:

The Secretary of Defense may, with the concurrence of the relevant Chief of Mission, expend up to $100,000,000 during any fiscal year to provide support to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals engaged in supporting or facilitating ongoing military operations by United States special operations forces to combat terrorism.

127e provides money for bribes, for hiring mercenaries and for launching as well as fighting insurgencies. There were two U.S. units involved in the Niger incident. The group that was attacked was on an 'advise and assist' mission under 10 USC 333. But it had been called up in support of the 'capture or kill' mission of another unit under official U.S. command that was run under 10 USC 127e.

Penny finds that these units are in practice interchangeable. In fact all such missions are run with U.S. special forces in the lead. He remarks on the danger of these murky programs:

The gamble that the public, in both America and across Africa, won’t find out about questionable actions, and won’t have the means to challenge them if they do, is becoming increasingly risky. Moreover, the Pentagon’s engagement in Africa—from Niger and Ghana to Djibouti and Somalia—is ramping up at the expense of a coherent diplomatic and economic strategy for the continent, a state of affairs that harms both American and African interests.

In Politco Wesley Morgan further details the (lack of) differences between these programs: Behind the secret U.S. war in Africa:

In repeated public statements, military spokespeople have said the American role in Africa is limited to “advising and assisting” other militaries. But for at least five years, Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other commandos operating under a little-understood authority have planned and controlled certain missions, putting them in charge of their African partner forces.
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The [127e] authority funds classified programs under which African governments essentially loan out units of their militaries for American commando teams to use as surrogates to hunt militants identified as potential threats to American citizens or embassies. That’s instead of having the American commandos help the African troops accomplish their own objectives, as other U.S. special operations teams do in Africa.

There are some 21 programs worldwide run in secrecy under 127e authority. For the host countries they share an inherent problem with other U.S. training missions for foreign militaries. One day these missions end, the U.S. commandos leave and well trained, well equipped groups of militants, no longer used to be under local control, run free to do whatever they learned to do. Such units can easily mutate into criminal enterprises or stage a coup. 

A 2015 study found (pdf) that U.S. training and command of foreign troops endangers the stability of the foreign government:

Training .. alters the balance of power between the military and the regime resulting in greater coup propensity. Using data from 189 countries from 1970-2009 we show the number of military officers trained by the US International Military Education and Training (IMET) and Countering Terrorism Fellowship (CTFP) programs increases the probability of a military coup.
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[A]mong all the countries that received no training from the United States for a particular year, 2.7% experienced a coup. Among those country-years with some training, the percentage is 5.3%, nearly double.

Any government that lets U.S. troops train and/or command its local military doubles the risk of a coup against it. The U.S. missions, especially the secret ones, are also prone to pitch parts of a country's population against others. The U.S. military is notorious for its lack of knowledge about the social fabric and attitudes of foreign populations.

Any government in Africa (and elsewhere) is well advise to reject U.S. training for its forces. It should not agree to 'advise and assist' missions or the even more dangerous secret 'counterterrorism' missions that are prone to create more of what they pretend to fight. The U.S. intent behind its 'generous' training offers is obvious.

Eleven years ago b real concluded:

Expanding the military reach of the most powerful empire the planet has ever known, AFRICOM will be tasked with the responsibility of achieving full-spectrum dominance over mother Africa for fuel. Operating as both energy-protection service and strategic Cold War front, the unified command will concentrate whatever military forces are necessary to keep the furnaces of Empire lit. Whether AFRICOM will succeed in this directive is beside the point, for, while ends may justify the means for the elite in power, their so-called "national interest" payoff, it is regular people who pay the full price at all times. And it does not require a crystal ball or great imagination to realize what the increased militarization of the continent through AFRICOM will bring to the peoples of Africa.

The secret special operations missions are just the start of a process in which the U.S. tries to subjugate all of Africa to its will and to control its resources. The people and governments of Africa should resist these attempts.

Posted by b on July 3, 2018 at 11:20 AM | Permalink

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