By Horace G. Campbell
 |
| Map of Mali |
Imminent threat is a
term used in international law to justify a preemptive military strike. This
concept of imminent threat had been articulated prior to the war against the
people of Iraq by the George W Bush Administration when the peoples of the world
were bombarded with information that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass
destruction (WMD). Ten years after the destruction of Iraq with millions killed
or displaced, we now know that the case for war had been presented with dubious
evidence.
Today, there is a new propaganda war, that Jihadists across the Sahel
pose an imminent threat to the United States. Recently, U.S. Senator
Christopher Coons, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee stated in
Bamako, Mali, that al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) posed a “‘very real
threat’ to Africa, the United States and the wider world.”
Who or what is this
AQIM? What are its origins? What are their sources of sustenance, finance and
logistics?
These questions are
not raised when the hype about imminent threat is being bandied about in the
media. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have been prolific in
carrying stories about the new threats of terrorism from Africa. Those who do
not know about Africa would be carried away by these incessant stories about
terrorism in the Sahel, Al Queda in the Horn of Africa and the spread of
Islamic terrorists across the length and breadth of Africa.
This idea that AQIM
was on the verge of taking over Mali and West Africa had been promoted by
France to justify the military intervention under the banner of Operation
Serval. France had dispatched approximately 4000 troops to repel Jihadists who
had taken over Northern Mali. After these Jihadists seized a number of towns
and desecrated important cultural centers, international opinion was
sufficiently outraged to mute criticisms of the French intervention.
Progressive African opinion was divided over this invasion of Mali as France
promoted the idea through a massive propaganda and disinformation campaign that
it was ‘invited’ by the government of Mali. Furthermore, select pictures of
Malian citizens celebrating the routing of the Jihadists from towns that had
been seized since January 12 gave legitimacy to the idea that Africans welcomed
the French military intervention. After this ‘successful’ intervention, western
media outlets are replete with stories that it is the alliance between France
and her allies along with the United States that can protect this region of
Africa (from Mauritania to Sudan) from being overrun by terrorists. I will
argue in this submission that the French intervention is also part of a wider
struggle within the Western world and within the foreign policy establishment
in Washington.
In a written
testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Army Gen. David M. Rodriguez,
who has been nominated to be the next leader of the Pentagon’s Africa Command,
estimated that the U.S. military needs to increase its intelligence-gathering
and spying missions in Africa by nearly 15-fold. Members of the Senate Armed
Services Committee who support the expansion of the budget of the Pentagon at a
moment of financial crisis for the majority of citizens on the planet pressed
General Rodriquez to spell out how the United States will respond to threats
and crisis in Africa in the future. This call to beef up the Africa Command is
coming from the same section of the foreign and military establishment that
opposes Chuck Hagel to become the next Secretary of Defense in the United
States.
We are informed by
the biographers of Petraeus that General David Rodriquez was mentored by
General David Petraues. Even though both Petraeus and General John Allen have
been diminished by scandals relating to their conduct, their ideas about terror
and counter terror still hold a lot of sway among sections of the foreign and
military establishment. This establishment is torn asunder because the United
States cannot continue to finance a large military budget without greater
austerity imposed on the US society. Black and brown citizens along with other
sections of the working poor have borne the brunt of the austerity measures and
the transfer of wealth from the poor to the top one per cent inside the United
States. These sections of the population have borne the brunt of police harassment
and killings. From this domestic policy flowed the foreign policy imperative to
kill indiscriminately with drones.
 |
| John Brennan, CIA Director |
In the context of the
confirmation of John Brennan as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) a section of the media was able to get its hands on a Department of
Justice white paper, which spells out exactly why it’s perfectly alright for
the U.S. to enact extrajudicial assassination of its own citizens by drone
strikes. Here was another instance where the idea of imminent threat was being
used to justify killings. In the face of the massive anti-war sentiments in the
USA, the Pentagon and the CIA resorted to fighting using Special Forces and
drones. These drone strikes have killed thousands of persons in Africa and Asia
with President Obama giving himself the authority to dispense with human life
without trials. One only has to be a suspected terrorist to be targeted. The
document is titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S.
Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated
Force.” The Memo from the Department of Justice said that its definition of
“imminent threat” doesn’t require “clear evidence that a specific attack on
U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future .”
In the consciousness
of the establishment of the United States, Africans had been demonized for
decades. Now, with the divisions inside that establishment over its future, and
the future projection of military force, Africa is now being conjured again as
the scene of instability, violence and terrorism. We will argue in this
contribution that it is urgent for the peace and social justice forces
internationally to mobilize against this planned remilitarization of Africa.
Just as how, ten years after the war against Iraq, we know that the WMD threat
was fabricated, it is urgent that the peace forces inside the United States
expose the linkages between the military, the Algerian DRS and the Jihadists.
This conclusion of this intervention will reassert the claim that it is only
the unity of the peoples of Africa across the artificial borders that can start
to resolve the outstanding questions of the divisions of peoples such as the
Tuareg in differing states. Until the unification of Africa, the Tuaregs will
be like the Kurds, manipulated by external forces to suit their own interests.
MALI AND THE
TRADITIONS OF PAN AFRICANISM AND UNITY
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| Map of Africa |
When the Malian
singer Fatoumata Diawara gathered together the cultural artists in Mali on
January 17, 2013 at the Voices United for Mali press conference and sang for
peace, she was taking the leadership in calling for the people of Africa to
join together to bring peace to Mali. She was carrying forward a deep tendency
of popular organizing among the people of Mali. The society of Mali sits at the
crossroads of numerous tendencies in Africa. One of the proudest tendencies has
been the intellectual and cultural history that boasts the archive of the
Africa’s contribution to the intellectual culture of humanity with one of the
oldest of the institutions centered in the city of Timbuktu. It was this proud
tradition that shepherded the reconquest of the independence of the region of
West Africa that had been invaded by France after 1830. Because of the cultural
and political strength of the independent states beyond the Coast, the imperial
penetration of France beyond the coastal areas could only gain ground after the
collective military scramble that resulted in the Berlin Conference of 1885.
When France was
weakened by World War II, the peoples of West Africa organized to regain their
independence and it was in this region where there were the loudest calls for
the establishment of a United States of Africa- then called Union of
Independent African States. Soon after the independence of Ghana in 1957, the
leaders of Ghana, Guinea and Mali proclaimed a unity based on Pan-African
cooperation.
Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sekou Toure started this union that was
later joined by Modibo Keïta of Mali. Mark DeLancey in his bibliographical
essay on the The Ghana – Guinea – Mali Union: exposed the deep interest in that
elementary Union and the deployment of western intellectuals to understand the
internal dynamics of that Pan African experiment. [1] After the western
intellectuals came the military interventions. First Ghana met the fate of the
removal of Nkrumah in 1966 and then in 1968 General Moussa Traoré organized a
coup d’état against Modibo Keïta, and sent him to prison in the northern Malian
town of Kidal.
 |
| Ahmed Sekou Toure |
Moussa Traore with the
support of external ‘donors’ dominated the politics of Mali until 1991 when he
was removed by an uprising of workers, students and others groups that had
fought for the removal of the military from the center of Malian politics.
After the overthrow of Traore, Alpha Konare carried forward the Pan African
traditions of Mali and went on to become the first Chairperson of the African
Union Commission (2003-2008). On the international stage, Konaré worked for
peace and integration in the West African region. Among the people of Mali, he
understood that the outstanding problems of the place of the Tuareg could not
be settled outside of the context of unity and so he worked hard for African
unity, serving as president of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
in 1999 and of the West African Monetary Union (UEMOA) in 2000. Leaders such as
Keita and Konare were feared by western powers and France maintained a strong
military presence in Africa with permanent bases in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal,
Gabon, Chad and Djibouti.
FRENCH MILITARY
INTERVENTIONS IN AFRICA
In the book, France
Soldiers and Africa, Anthony Clayton laid out in graphic detail the military
system of France and its impact on both France and Africa. One of the little
known aspects of this militarization of Africa was how the French intellectual
culture was negatively affected by the history of military engagement and
interventions. Between 1960 and 2012 France had undertaken more than one
hundred military interventions in Africa. The lowest point of this engagement
and its intellectual variant was when France invaded Central Africa to assist
those who were carrying out genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
 |
| French Dictator Francois Hollande |
The embarrassment of
shepherding the genocidaires to Zaire and the aftermath of war and
destabilization of the entire Eastern African region had led to a temporary
retreat by France with the military intellectuals propagating the view that
France was reviewing its military policies towards Africa and was going to
reform her security policy in Africa, claiming to mark the start of a ‘new
African politics’.
Nearly fifteen years
after the appearance of the book by Clayton, Christopher Griffin wrote a
detailed study, French Military Interventions in Africa: French Grand Strategy
and Defense Policy since Decolonization. The importance of this study was in
the full documentation of how this Grand Strategy was connected by three
circles, (a) the national independence of French foreign and defense policy,
(b) European defense and (c) a global or geostrategic defense of France’s
overseas territories, the DOM-TOM, and other regions and states outside of
Europe where French national interests were at stake, primarily in sub-Saharan
Africa.
This study of Griffin
was written before two major events that changed the world. The first was the
capitalist depression and the financial crisis within Europe and North America
(after 2008). The second was the revolutionary upheavals within Africa that
toppled the regimes of Tunisia and Egypt.
Both of these seismic
changes in the international system affected the projection of force by France
and this was most clearly manifest in the manipulations by France in relation
to the intervention in Libya.[2] Despite the catastrophic failure of that
intervention and the instability that has ensued in Africa (with the deepening
military engagements in the Sahara), the momentum for French military
activities are driven not only by the grand strategy, but by the necessity to
draw the United States and the United States Africa Command into a closer
alliance, with the US underwriting the intervention by France. The alliance and
cooperation between the COIN strategists of the US military and the former
colonial generals of France have been well documented and epitomized by the
correspondence between General David Petraeus and the late Gen. Marcel Bigeard,
1916-2010. Bigeard had been the quintessential colonial military torturer whose
life and exploits followed the colonial and neo-colonial history of France in
Africa and IndoChina.
The fall of Petraeus
after the elections in the United States in November 2012 had provided one
opportunity for the top military brass in the United States to rethink its
future, especially at a moment when the crisis of capitalism demanded deep cuts
in the military budget. The intervention by France was part of a larger
strategy to influence the debate inside the foreign and military policy
establishment about whether the war on terror is coming to an end.
Those who are
promoting a continuous war on terror have been propagating the idea that West
Africa has become a hot bed of terrorism and that the terrorists in the Maghreb
threaten the vital interests of the United States. Those who have followed the
expenditures of the United States since 2003 in the Trans Sahara Counterterrorism
Partnership (TSCTP) and later the US Africa Command will know that of the more
than half a billion dollars that was spent, the money went to train many of the
forces that are now called terrorist have been trained by the United States.
Even from within the corridors of the media in Washington DC writers such as
Walter Pincus have documented the huge expenditures of the US military in Mali
since 2002. In the same period when the hype of weapons of mass destruction was
being propagated by the Bush administration, another fiction was being
presented. This was the idea that terrorists were spreading out from
Afghanistan and spreading terror from Asia through the Horn of Africa and over
to West Africa. This was presented as the banana theory of terrorism and
documented in the book, The Dark Sahara: America’s War on Terror in Africa. [3]
 |
| Map of West Africa |
Pincus wrote about
the monies spent after 2002 in the counterterror offensives in Mali and West
Africa. “With that money, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) sent U.S. Special Forces
training units to work with the Mali military.” The fear was that Islamic
fighters driven from Afghanistan would settle in northern Mali. Air Force Maj.
Gen. Jeffrey B. Kohler, then head of planning at EUCOM, said, “We’re helping to
teach them [the Malian military] how to control this area themselves so they
can keep it from being used by terrorists.” [4]
Figures now produced
by varying agencies in the USA show that in the counterterror offensives, Mali
was the largest recipient of US funds amounting to more than half a billion
dollars. The Pentagon had started out with the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) but
by 2005, the PSI was replaced by the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership
(TSCTP), a partnership of State, Defense and the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) meant to focus on improving individual country and regional
capabilities in northwest Africa.
As one writer in the
USA summed up this relationship between the USA and the corrupt military
establishment in Mali, “In the past decade, the U.S. alone has poured close to
$1 billion into Mali, including development aid as well as military training to
battle an al-Qaida offshoot in the north. In doing so, the U.S. unwittingly
also helped prepare the soldiers for the coup: Sanogo himself benefited from
six training missions in the U.S., the State Department confirmed, starting in
1998 when he was sent to an infantry training course at Fort Benning, Ga. He
returned in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2008 and 2010 to attend some of the most
prestigious military institutions in America, including the Defense Language
Institute at the Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. He took a basic officer course
at Quantico, Virginia, and learned to use a light-armored vehicle at Camp
Pendleton, Calif.”
The aid packages to Mali
represented a systematic buildup of the US military involvement in the Sahel
region, with a focus on Mali because of the strong history of popular struggles
for democratic change in Mali. As far back as November 2009, in his testimony
before the Senate Subcommittee on Africa hearing on ‘Counter-terrorism in the
Sahel’ on 17 November 2009, Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson
identified Mali – along with Algeria, Mali, and Mauritania – as one of the ‘key
countries’ in the region for the US counter-terrorism strategy. “We believe
that our work with Mali to support more professional units capable of improving
the security environment in the country will have future benefits if they are
sustained”, he stated.
The current
insecurity in Mali is a direct result of the US military presence and the
instability represents one more piece of evidence why Africans must be more
forthright in opposing the expansion of the US Africa Command. It was when the
full extent of the US engagement with the forces in combat became known that
the lame duck leader of AFRICOM, General Carter Ham, admitted, “We made
mistakes.” [5]
USA ON THE WRONG SIDE
OF HISTORY
 |
| United States President Hussein Obama |
The US foreign policy
establishment was always on the defensive in relation to the formulation of
policies towards Africa, because their domestic policy towards Africans has
been dominated by racism. During the era of colonialism and apartheid the US
foreign policy was informed by the support for the white racist regimes in
Africa and for dictators. From the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1960 to
the execution of Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011, the US hard interests have
been dominated by oil, needs of finance capital (IMF), wars, and global US
diplomatic and military hegemony. The US Africa Command is the latest iteration
of the combination of these hard interests with the counter-terrorism discourse
losing its luster. During the period of the support for apartheid, when the
peoples of Angola were about to defeat the South African racist army at Cuito
Cuanavale, the United States mounted Operation Flintlock to give support to the
white racist regime.
In the era of
‘counterterror, Operation Flintlock was again launched to spread instability
and corruption in the Sahel. Operation Flintlock exercises were held in Mali in
2007 and 2008. In 2009, Mali got equipment worth $5 million, including 37 “new
Land Cruiser pickup trucks, along with powerful communications equipment” for
the desert, according to a U.S. statement. Mali also got $1 million in U.S.
mine-detector equipment.
WHO OR WHAT IS AQIM?
For this author, AQIM
has the same status as the weapons of mass destruction that was supposed to be
in Iraq. From the time of the launch of the Pan Sahel Initiative, the United
States had partnered with repressive regimes in the region of North and West
Africa. Moammar Gaddaffi had gone out of his way to ingratiate himself with the
United States associating with the war on terror, until the United States and
France turned to the very same jihadists to remove Gaddafi. The names and
personalities have been changing over the past ten years but there is a certain
consistency with which there has been shifting allegiances in North Africa. One
allegiance that has been constant has been the relationship between the US
military and intelligence services with the Algeria Secret Police DRS
(Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité) Department of Intelligence and
Security (DRS).
 |
| Late Libyan Leader Muammar Al Gaddafi |
From the period of
the well documented Dirty War in Algeria that started in 1992, there has been
documented evidence of the fabrication of terrorism by this DRS. Habib
Souaïdia, a former military officer from Algeria has written for posterity the
role of the DRS in the ‘netherworld of torture, murder and terrorism. [6] The
book by Souaidia about the world of the Generals of the DRS had been written
before September 11, 2001. After the Global War on Terror was declared by
George W. Bush, the neo-conservatives embraced the DRS as an ally and partner
to fight terrorism. Haliburton entered into the lucrative business of building
defense institutions as well as profiting from the oil and gas business in
Algeria. The collusion between the firms such as Haliburton and the DRS has
been documented.
Although the complex linkages between terrorism, corruption
and a section of the politico-military power concealed the exact base for
support for AQIM, from inside the national Security apparatus in Washington
there were writers who exposed the overlap between governments, smugglers, drug
dealers and those who were dubbed as terrorists. [7]
Western news agencies
such as the BBC have been running stories on “Mali’s main Islamist militants.”
These stories have listed five main Islamists groups in Mali and the Sahel. The
sixth group is from time to time listed with the groups that are called
Jihadists.
These are:
1. Ansar Dine –
identified as one movement with a number of Tuareg fighters who returned from
Libya after fighting alongside Muammar Gaddafi’s troops.
2. Islamic Movement
for Azawad – an offshoot of Ansar Dine which says it rejects “terrorism” and
wants dialogue
3. Al-Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – al-Qaeda’s North African wing, with roots in Algeria
4. Movement for Unity
and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao) – an AQIM splinter group whose aim is to
spread jihad to the whole of West Africa
5. Signed-in-Blood
Battalion – an AQIM offshoot committed to a global jihad and responsible for
Algerian gas facility siege.
6. The National
Movement Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) is a secular Tuareg group which seeks
independence for a homeland they call Azawad [8]
The shifting
alliances of these so-called jihadists that were supposed to have threatened
Bamako , West Africa and the world are then reproduced by other western
journalists without the kind of critical examination of the roots of these
organizations. Given the history of the US counter-terror operations and the
shifting alliances it would be important for the Senate Armed Services
Committee to investigate the claim of Jeremy Keenan that “at the heart of AQIM
is the DRS.” [9]
African progressives
have to seriously investigate the relationship between the DRS and these
so-called jihadists because Algeria has been one of the strongest supporters of
the African Union and the African Liberation Project. Up to today the diplomats
of Algeria are held in the highest regard within the corridors of the African
Union and the Algerian leadership has gained praise for its unstinting support
for the independence of Western Sahara. From the period of the internal war
against Islamists in 1992, there had been numerous stories about the DRS and
its role in corruption and torture. Algeria and the DRS consider the Sahel to
be the backyard of Algeria and hence it has been difficult to separate drug
traffickers, smugglers of cigarettes, Jihadists, and corrupt secret services in
this region.
From the evidence
provided by the Government Accountable Office of the United States, the large
sums of money expended by the United States in Mali since 2005 went to support
some of the regional barons who were involved in underground channels that
overlapped with the jihadists. A leader of the so called jihadists called Iyad
Ag Ghaly has enjoyed the support of leaders inside and outside of Mali
functioning at one moment as the envoy of Mali in Saudi Arabia. [10] An unflattering
profile of Iyad Ag Ghaly, ‘Mali’s whisky-drinking rebel turned Islamist chief,’
[11] gives some indication of the interpenetration between terror, counter
terror, the world of drug dealers, kidnappers and organized mafia groups.
African progressives
and intellectuals will have to work hard to expose the linkages between Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, the United States conservatives and the jihadists across West
Africa. One direct result of the Libya intervention was the reality that
France, the United States and Britain financed the Islamist forces who they are
now supposed to be fighting. For the past sixty years, France intervened
militarily ostensibly to protect French nationals but in the main, these
interventions have been to support corrupt and unpopular leaders.
When General Gen.
David M. Rodriguez, who is poised to become the next leader of the Pentagon’s
Africa Command, estimated that the U.S. military needs to increase its
intelligence-gathering and spying missions in Africa, it is important to point
out that the Obama administration is empowering a general who was mentored by
General David Petraeus.
WHAT LESSONS MUST BE
LEARNT FROM THE PRESENT INSTABILITY IN MALI?
 |
| President John Dramani Mahama of Ghana |
There are many
lessons to be learnt from the role of France, the United States and Britain in
North and West Africa. From Africa, one of the most important lessons is to
draw from the discourse on imminent threat to be able to isolate those corrupt
officials who participate with external forces in counter-terror activities.
And then, ten years later turn around and start to fight wars against the very
same forces that they have trained and nurtured. There was no time when the
forces of the jihadists numbered more than 6000. It is clear that France jumped
the gun to intervene pre-empting the deployment of the forces of ECOWAS.
International pundits blamed Africans for their slowness in responding to the
takeover of Northern Mali. Experience from Sierra Leone and from Liberia
pointed to the capabilities of forces from ECOWAS, especially Nigeria, to
eradicate forces of military destabilization.
There are divisions
between progressive Africans as to the danger that was presented by AQIM. These
divisions should not divert attention from the fact that the Tuaregs have real
grievances all across the region of the Sahel. The challenges of resolving the
outstanding questions of self-determination and autonomy for the Tuareg in this
region cannot be carried out in the context of the present borders. The French
intellectuals and military understand this and hence, France has presented
itself as a supporter of the Tuareg while jumping in to fight other sections of
the Tuareg.
The African people
know full well that the so-called jihadists have been those who were trained
and supported by the USA, the DRS with finance from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. In
reality, in order to root out terror in Africa, it will be necessary to excise
the sources of funding that is flowing to the Wahabists. The bulk of the
weapons and finance for these jihadists come from allies of the USA where the
Wahabist forces are financially and militarily well endowed.
The entire Sahara
region abuts the revolutionary zone of Egypt. Every society in North Africa is
threatened by revolutionary uprisings. The inequalities and exploitation of the
poor all across the region have provided fertile ground for revolutionary
openings. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the USA understand the potential for change
after Tahrir Square, hence the tremendous investments to remilitarize this
entire region.
BEYOND THE IMMINENT
THREAT
 |
| North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) |
Ten years after the
war in Iraq and two years after the NATO intervention in Libya, the western
media is again preparing citizens of the West for an escalation of military
destabilization of Africa. Since last November, there has not been a week when
the western media did not carry a story about how AQIM threatens the west. From
these reports, carried especially in the Washington Post and the New York
Times, one may be forgiven if one forgets that there is another dynamic at work
in Africa, that of a new force of economic dynamism across the continent.
The recent report
about the location of US surveillance drones in Niger was another instance of
hyping the so-called terror threat from Africa. The reporting in the New York
Times on ‘U.S. Weighs Base for Spy Drones in North Africa’ was part of a wider
ongoing debate within the Administration about the future of the US military
budget. The New York Times is part of this debate and is on the side of those
who want to see the maintenance of the high military budget. In the past 50
years there has not been a major war or deployment of US military force that
the New York Times opposed. This organization supported the war in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya and now the expansion of western military intervention in North
Africa. The reporting in my opinion is part of the effort to promote the idea
that Africa is a hotbed of terrorist activity and that the rag tag groups that
are called jihadists are a threat to the United States.
This is patently
false.
What needs to be done
is for there to be a clear assessment of how much the US military supported
some of these same groups that they are now fighting. When Jeh Charles Johnson,
the Defense Department’s general counsel, gave a speech in Oxford in November
to say that the war on terror is not endless and that there will be a time when
this mopping up of terrorists will be a police operation, the New York Times
did not give this story the same exposure as European papers. The item was
front and center for British newspapers such as the Guardian. In his speech Jeh
Johnson held that, ‘When that point is reached, the primary responsibility for
mopping up scattered remnants of the group and unaffiliated terrorists will
fall to United States law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and pressing
questions will arise about what to do with any military detainees who are still
being held without trial as wartime prisoners.’
‘I do believe that on
the present course, there will come a tipping point — a tipping point at which
so many of the leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda and its affiliates have been
killed or captured and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a
strategic attack against the United States, such that Al Qaeda as we know it,
the organization that our Congress authorized the military to pursue in 2001,
has been effectively destroyed.’
Jeh Johnson did not
survive in the pentagon much longer after this speech. The present struggles
over the next Secretary of Defense in the United States is intricately linked to
the struggle of whether the CIA and the military can continue to create
terrorists and then turn around and fight them. One indication of this tension
in the administration was exposed when Senator John McCain questioned Leon
Panetta (Outgoing Secretary of Defences) on the US military support for those
fighting the Assad regime. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services
Committee in early February, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta acknowledged
that he and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey,
had supported a plan last year to arm carefully vetted Syrian rebels. But it
was ultimately vetoed by the White House, Mr. Panetta said, although it was
developed by David H. Petraeus, the C.I.A. director at the time, and backed by
Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state.’ [12]
The CIA had been
using Libya as a base for the recruitment of jihadists to fight in Syria. Some
of the very same groups that had been trained by the CIA are now fighting in
Mali.
This kind of duplicity
is not new in Africa. For the past twenty years, the Pentagon and the CIA have
been fighting on both sides in Somalia. When insiders from the western
establishment warn that there is a new phase of a war on terror in Africa,
serious policy makers in Africa and beyond should take serious note. It has now
devolved to the integrated East African Community to bring in Somalia and carry
out a process of demilitarization.
Such a process of demilitarization weakens
the hands of those in the USA who see Africa as a hotbed of terrorism. The
present struggles in Mali require new commitment for social and economic
transformation in Africa, especially incorruptible leaders who can resist drug
dealers, jihadists and smugglers. It is in Nigeria where the forces of destabilization
are most active because these forces understand that a democratic and committed
Nigeria will be a major force for unity and emancipation in Africa.
* Horace G Campbell
is a professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse
University in Syracuse, NY. He has a book coming out in March titled, ‘Global
NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya’.
END NOTES
[i] Mark Delancey,
“The Ghana – Guinea – Mali Union: A Bibliographic Essay” African Studies
Bulletin > Vol. 9, No. 2, Sep., 1966 ,
[ii] Horace Campbell,
Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya, Monthly Review Press, New
York 2013
[iii] Jeremy Keenan,
The Dark Sahara: America’s War on Terror in Africa, Pluto Press London 2009
[iv] Walter Pincus,
“Mali insurgency followed 10 years of U.S. counterterrorism programs,”
Washington Post, January 16, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/b5q8epq
[v]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21195371
[vi] NICHOLAS LE
QUESNE, Algeria’s Shameful war, Time Magazine, April 16, 2001 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,105720,00.html
[vii] John Schindler,
“The Ugly truth about Algeria.” The National Interest 10 July 2012.
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-ugly-truth-about-algeria-7146
[viii] BBC , Mali
Crisis: Key Players, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17582909
[ix] Jeremy Keenan,
‘Secret hand’ in French Sahel raid,” Al Jazeera, August 29, 2010,
http://www.aljazeera.com/focus/2010/08/201085183329292214.html
See also John
Schindler, “Algeria’s hidden hand.” The National Interest 22 January 2013.
http://tinyurl.com/bzfw5se and Jeremy Keenan, “A New Phase in the War on
Terror?: “ International State Crime Initiative, February 14, 2013,
http://tinyurl.com/a5p3kl7
[x] Peter Beumont,
“The man who could determine whether the west is drawn into Mali’s war,”
Guardian UK, October 27, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/bjz4xat
[xi] Leela Jacinto,
“Mali’s whisky-drinking rebel turned Islamist chief,”
http://tinyurl.com/8g547nm
[xii] Michael Gordon
and Mark Landler, “ Senate Hearing Draws Out a Rift in U.S. Policy on Syria,”
New York Times, February 7, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/ase9347
Changing the
imperialist game
By Sara Flounders
Excerpts from a talk by Sara Flounders, a Workers World Party
secretariat member, at the Nov. 17-18, 2012, WWP national conference in New
York. See video at youtube.com/wwpvideo.
In
response to Israel’s latest bombardment of Gaza, a handful of Palestinian
missiles from Gaza struck Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the last two days. This is
a monumental political and military development!
For
more than six decades, Israel, with U.S. backing and diplomatic support, has
relentlessly bombed, raided and seized the land of the Palestinian people with
impunity. They have blockaded and starved Gaza. Israeli drones buzz
relentlessly above Gaza. With the Pentagon’s help, Israel is second in the world
with the most sophisticated and precise weaponry.
The
new Palestinian Fajr-5 rockets might be small or symbolic compared to the
arsenal of super weapons held by the Zionist state. But these Palestinian
missiles are a game changer.
Imagine
what it took to smuggle such rockets over hundreds of miles, through countless
hands, to disassemble them and transport them through miles of tunnels into
Gaza, then reassemble these precision mechanisms. Imagine keeping them hidden
for months in an area as densely populated as Gaza and under Israeli drones
that buzz endlessly day and night.
The
Israeli military can create enormous destruction. Yet the tide is certainly not
going Israel’s way. The Israeli military is being forced to consider what kind
of new Palestinian anti-tank weapons might be facing them if they launch a
ground offensive.
We
support the right of the Palestinian people to defend themselves by firing
rockets, digging tunnels, planting mines, organizing popular armed resistance
forces.
We
salute the Anonymous activists who today launched an international cyberattack
defacing and disabling many Israeli websites, including databases of the
foreign ministry and Bank of Jerusalem, which they claim was wiped clean.
Israel
acts as an extension of Pentagon and CIA power in the Middle East. So it is a
big problem that the Zionists cannot defeat Gaza, with the population of
Brooklyn.
Israel
serves another purpose for Wall Street domination. Today, Israel, with U.S.
support, is deliberately risking and threatening a wider war against Iran.
In
today’s internal struggle, the masses are kept in the dark when generals,
admirals, corporate heads and politicians are pushed out for supposedly
“inappropriate conduct.” Of course they are never charged with crimes against
humanity.
U.S. imperialism’s failures
U.S. imperialism is held together by a monstrous military machine of global terror. In this stage of decline and decay it is important for us as revolutionary Marxists to understand what U.S. imperialism cannot do.
The
Pentagon can send U.S. forces around the world. They can set up a city in a box
— with housing, hot showers, large kitchens, warm beds, media and internet. But
after Hurricane Sandy they were incapable of setting up emergency generators in
major New York City hospitals, even though the U.S. military, Red Cross and
Federal Emergency Management Agency had all the materials on hand.
They
can assassinate a Palestinian leader on a crowded street in Gaza with a drone.
But they can’t find a 92-year-old, blind, diabetic grandmother who was
evacuated from a flooded, freezing nursing home and dumped in a school
auditorium.
They
can send police with dogs and helicopters into oppressed city neighborhoods.
But they can’t send search and rescue missions into the same neighborhoods.
As we
saw in the destruction following Hurricane Sandy, all the fantastic material
infrastructure exists and is at hand for emergency assistance for millions. But
there is no mechanism for delivery. Because this system is incapable of serving
our needs. It exists only to maximize profits for a ruthless handful.
That
is why multibillionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to close Goldwater
Hospital, a major long-term-care hospital on Roosevelt Island and spend $100
million of NYC money to help build an Israeli Weapons Facility with Technion to
design high-tech drones at the same site.
Are we
going to allow that?
Earlier,
I said that rockets used in self-defense by Palestinians resisting Israeli
bombing was a game changer.
But
the real game changer is the consciousness that against this vicious system the
only choice is to fight back. Once the oppressed grasp this reality, they will
learn to use every weapon, accept every hardship, make every sacrifice. This is
our contribution to the struggle for the liberation of this planet from a
ruthless predatory system
Hugo Chavez: Breaking
the chains of imperialism
By Yuram Abdullah Weiler
All who value human rights and democracy, which does
not include the Washington regime, will miss his inspired leadership.
A staunch fighter against US hegemony in the Americas,
President Chavez warned, “But as we all must know, the imperial threat against
our beloved Homeland [Venezuela] is alive and latent.”
No sooner had news of his untimely death been
announced when lackeys from the US were caught busily trying to stir up a
military coup against the Venezuelan government. Vice President Nicholas Maduro
announced that a US Air Force attaché and another embassy official were being
expelled for plotting to destabilize the government. Previously, the US had
attempted a coup in April 2002, but President Chavez managed to return to
office within 2 days.
Standing firm against the US oil giants, President
Chavez nationalized Exxon Mobil’s Venezuelan heavy oil assets in the Orinoco
Belt in 2007, and came out the winner against them in the subsequent
litigation. Predictably in response to his death, the well-oiled capitalists of
Wall Street rejoiced with an orgy of record highs on the New York stock
exchange, accompanied no doubt by wild dreams of “reclaiming” Venezuela.
Joining in the right-wing rapture were US politicians from both factions of the
corporate party, who greeted the tragic news gleefully. With typical Republican
vitriol, Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) stated, “His death dents the alliance
of anti-US leftist leaders in South America.”
Particularly noteworthy for its vileness was the
statement by Congressman Tom Cotton (R-AR), who acrimoniously declared, “After
the welcome news of Hugo Chavez’s death… I look forward to working in the House
to promote a free, democratic, and pro-American government in Venezuela.” US
President Obama, displaying a minimal facade of respect, stated, “At this
challenging time of President Hugo Chavez’s passing, the United States
reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interest in developing
a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government.”
One US official, Representative José E. Serrano (D-NY) broke away from pack of
foul-mouthed US political vultures vomiting their venom and actually spoke
reverently and candidly about the deceased Venezuelan leader:
“He believed that the government of the country should
be used to empower the masses, not the few. He understood democracy and basic
human desires for a dignified life. His legacy in his nation, and in the
hemisphere, will be assured as the people he inspired continue to strive for a
better life for the poor and downtrodden.”
Constantly demeaned in the capitalist-dominated
Western media who referred to him as a “theatrical leader,” a “showman,”
“insane” or worse, President Chavez left a substantial legacy of progress in
his country. Over the last decade in Venezuela, poverty fell by over 20
percent, income inequality is down over 2 percent as measured on the Gini
index, the unemployment rate was halved, medical services have been expanded to
communities that never before had even a clinic, and the country has been
recognized as a leader in providing free internet access for its citizens.
This has been accomplished as a result of President
Chavez’s enlightened leadership, which has created a government that invests 60
percent of its income in social programs for the benefit of its population,
instead of for the benefit of the moneyed elite. At the funeral, Reverend Jesse
Jackson eulogized him, saying, “Hugo fed the hungry. He lifted the poor. He
raised their hopes. He helped them realize their dreams.”
Among his list of humanitarian programs was providing
free heating oil to poor Americans who could not afford the high prices charged
by the price-gouging US oil companies. Initiated in 2005 after the dismal failure
of the Bush administration to help victims of hurricane Katrina, the program,
which helps some 400,000 people, is a lifeline for the retired, elderly and
those who otherwise would have to depend on the poorly funded LIEAP (Low Income
Energy Assistance Program) that has been subject to 25% budget cuts by the
Obama administration.
When torrential rains in late 2010 left over 130,000
Venezuelans homeless, President Chavez responded with an initiative named the
Great Housing Mission whose goal is to provide 2 million affordable housing
units for needy families within seven years. With almost 300,000 units already
under construction, the program is diametrically opposed to the US response to
the 2008 financial crisis, which provided bailouts to prop up the same
financial institutions that caused the foreclosure flood in the first place by
their predatory lending practices and unethical trading in mortgage-backed
bonds and derivatives.
In short, President Chavez wisely invested in his
fellow citizens while Obama greedily invested in his fellow bankers.
The wisdom of President Chavez’s economic policies can
be judged by the results: Despite a lagging world economy, Venezuela has posted
8 successive quarters of GDP growth with the last quarter of 2012 at an enviable
5.2 percent; unemployment continues to fall as minimum wages have risen every
year; and the oil sector grew at a rate of 1.6 percent while the construction,
finance, transportation, community services/non profits, and communications
sectors all grew at rates exceeding that of the GDP.
Again, compare these statistics with the abysmal
record of the United States, whose 2012 4th quarter GDP grew a sickly 0.1
percent, with 12 out of 22 industrial sectors contributing to the “slowdown”
led by retail trade and durable goods, and whose people are suffering from a
4-percent decline in their disposable income in January 2013. In stark contrast
to the otherwise pathetic US economy is the 2012 3rd quarter $68.1-billion
increase in profits of US financial corporations, which are still doing quite
well, judging by the record highs on Wall Street.
President Chavez leaves a country behind that proudly
sets the standard for other countries when it comes to holding fair and
transparent democratic elections. The most recent presidential election on
October 7, 2012 was witnessed by a team of 245 lawyers, election officials,
academics and elected representatives from around the world, and saw a voter
turnout of over 80 percent. The Venezuelan electoral system, praised for its
“professionalism and technical expertise,” boasts sophisticated voting machines
that identify voters by fingerprinting which must coincide with the
individual’s identity number, thereby practically eliminating the possibility
of election fraud.
While the US struggles to pass sensible reforms to its
all too permissive gun ownership laws, Venezuela under President Chavez
destroyed over 50,000 seized firearms in 2012. He also instituted the
“Venezuela Full of Life” program, which imposed a one-year ban on the importing
of firearms and ammunition, in order to enhance the safety and security of the
citizenry. Organized under the Chavez administration in 2009, the Bolivarian
National Police has played a leading role in public safety, crime prevention
and community engagement.
Another notable accomplishment by President Chavez is
the inclusion of the rights of indigenous people under the Venezuelan
constitution. Ratified in 1999, Article 119 states:
“The State recognizes the existence of native peoples
and communities, their social, political and economic organization, their
cultures, practices and customs, languages and religions, as well as their
habitat and original rights to the lands they ancestrally and traditionally
occupy, and which are necessary to develop and guarantee their way of life.”
Additionally, indigenous people are guaranteed
representation in the Venezuelan National Assembly, while in the US, Native
peoples are excluded from representation by Article 1 Section 2 of the
constitution, which only apportions full personhood to free “persons,” meaning
whites.
Additionally, discrimination based on nationality, sexual orientation, membership in a labor union, prior criminal record, or any type of handicap is prohibited. Compare this to US labor law, where draconian “Right to Work” laws undermine employees’ ability to organize, and “At Will” employment practices allow an employer to fire an employee for virtually any reason. Of course there are restrictions, but the legal burden of proof is upon the employee who rarely can afford proper legal representation.
Zionism worse than Apartheid, Colonialism
Once involved with Palestinian Solidarity you have to accept that Jews are
special and so is their suffering; Jews are like no other people, their
Holocaust is like no other genocide and anti-Semitism, is the vilest form of
racism the world has ever known and so on and so forth.
But when it comes to the Palestinians,
the exact opposite is the case. For some reason we are expected to believe that
the Palestinians are not special at all -- they are just like everyone else.
Palestinians have not been subject to a unique, racist, nationalist and
expansionist Jewish nationalist movement, instead, we must all agree that, just
like the Indians and the Africans, the Palestinian ordeal results from
run-of-the-mill 19th century colonialism - just more of the same old boring
Apartheid.
So, Jews, Zionists and Israelis are
exceptional, like no one else, while Palestinians are always somehow, ordinary,
always part of some greater political narrative, always just like everyone
else. Their suffering is never due to the particularity of Jewish nationalism,
or Jewish racism, or even AIPAC dominating USA foreign policy; no, the
Palestinian is always a victim of a dull, banal dynamic - general, abstract and
totally lacking in particularity.
This raises some serious questions.
Can you think of any other liberation
or solidarity movement that prides itself in being boring, ordinary and dull?
Can you think of any other solidarity movement that downgrades its subject into
just one more meaningless exhibit in a museum of materialist historical
happenings? I don’t think so! Did the black South Africans see themselves as
being like everyone else? Did Martin Luther King believe his brothers and
sisters to be inherently undistinguishable?
The answer is simple.
Palestinian Solidarity is an occupied zone and, like all such occupied zones,
must dedicate itself to the fight against ‘anti Semitism’. Dutifully united
against racism, but for one reason or another, the movement is almost
indifferent towards the fate of millions of Palestinians living in refugee
camps and their right of return to their homeland.
But all this can change. Palestinians
and their supporters could begin to see their cause for what it is, unique and
distinctive. Nor need this be all that difficult. After all, if Jewish
nationalism is inherently exceptional as Zionists proclaim, is it not only
natural that the victims of such a distinctive racist endeavor are at least,
themselves, just as distinctive.So far, Palestine solidarity has failed to
liberate Palestine, but it has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams in creating
a Palestine Solidarity Industry, and one largely funded by liberal Zionists. We
have been very productive in schlepping activists around the world promoting
‘boycotts’ and ‘sanctions’ meanwhile Israel trade with Britain is booming and
Hummus Tzabar is clearly apparent in every British grocery store.
All those attempts to reduce Palestinian ordeal into a dated, dull, generalized materialist narrative should be exposed for what they are - an attempt to appease liberal Zionists. Palestinian suffering is actually unique in history at least as unique as the Zionist project.
Yesterday I came across this from South African minister, Ronnie Kasrils. In a
comment on Israeli Apartheid he said: “This is much worse than Apartheid….
Israeli measures, the brutality, make apartheid look like a picnic. We never
had jets attacking our townships; we never had sieges that lasted months after
months. We never had tanks destroying houses.”
All those attempts to reduce Palestinian ordeal into a dated, dull, generalized materialist narrative should be exposed for what they are - an attempt to appease liberal Zionists. Palestinian suffering is actually unique in history at least as unique as the Zionist project.
Kasrils is dead right. It is much worse than Apartheid
and far more sophisticated than colonialism. And why? Because what the Zionists
did and are doing is neither Apartheid, nor is it colonialism. Apartheid wanted
to exploit the Africans while Israel wants the Palestinians gone. Colonialism
is an exchange between a mother and a settler state. Israel never had a mother
State, though it may well have had a few ‘surrogate mothers’.
Now is the time to look at the unique ordeal of the Palestinian people. Similarly, now is the time to look at the Zionist crime in the light of Jewish culture and identity politics.
Can the solidarity movement meet this challenge? Probably, but like Palestine, it must first, itself, be liberated.
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