Mali, France And The War On Terror In Africa

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

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 demonstrations taking place around the world in solidarity with Gaza and we plan to join the demonstration in Times Square today, after our conference ends.

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

With an outpouring of great sadness, the world witnessed the passing of one of the great revolutionary leaders of our time, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, who died on Tuesday, March 5, 2013.

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.

President Chavez worked hard to gain the passage of comprehensive labor laws that protect the rights of workers. The new law signed on May 1, 2012 includes provisions prohibiting the unjust dismissal of workers, requiring the payment of severance pay to the employee regardless of the reason for termination of employment, and empowering the Labor Ministry to impose sanctions on businesses that violate the law.

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.

Hugo Chavez was a visionary: a rare leader who cared about his people and envisioned a prosperous society in which all could share in the benefits, not just an exclusive few. President Chavez has left this world, but his legacy remains with us. It is now up to us - those of us who share his noble dream of a just society and are willing to struggle for it - to fight on until the last link in the oppressive chain of imperialistic capitalism is broken.

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?

 I don’t think so. So how come Palestinian solidarity has managed to sink so low that their spokespersons and supporters compete against each other to see who can best eliminate the uniqueness of the Palestinian struggle into just part of a general historical trend such as colonialism or Apartheid?

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.”

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.