Tomgram: Nick Turse, The U.S. Military Pivots to Africa and That Continent
Goes Down the Drain
By Nick Turse
Posted on August 2, 2016, Printed on August 2, 2016
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176171/ ;
Someday, someone will write a history of the U.S. national security state in
the twenty-first century and, if the first decade and a half are any
yardstick, it will be called something like State of Failure. After all,
almost 15 years after the U.S. invaded the Talibans Afghanistan, launching
the second American Afghan War of the past half-century, U.S. troops are
still there, their withdrawal halted, their rules of engagement once again
widened to allow American troops and air power to accompany allied Afghan
forces into battle, and the Taliban on the rise, having taken more territory
(and briefly one northern provincial capital) than at any time since that
movement was crushed in the invasion of 2001.
Thirteen years after George W. Bush and his top officials, dreaming of
controlling the oil heartlands, launched the invasion of Saddam Husseins
Iraq (the second Iraq War of our era), Washington is now in the third
iteration of the same, with 6,000 troops (and thousands of private
contractors) back in that country and a vast air campaign underway to
destroy the Islamic State. With modest numbers of special operations troops
on the ground and another major air campaign, Washington is also now
enmeshed in a complex and so far disastrous war in Syria. And if you
havent been counting, thats three wars gone wrong.
Then, of course, there was the American (and NATO) intervention in Libya in
2011, which cracked that autocratic country open and made way for the rise
of Islamic extremist movements there, as well as the most powerful Islamic
State franchise outside Syria and Iraq. Today, plans are evidently being
drawn up for yet more air strikes, special operations raids, and the like
there. Toss in as well Washingtons never-ending drone war in Pakistans
tribal borderlands, its disastrous attempt to corral al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula in Yemen (leading to a grim and horrifying Saudi-led,
American-supported internecine conflict in that country), and the unending
attempt to destroy al-Shabaab in Somalia, and you have at least seven wars
and conflicts in the Greater Middle East, all about to be handed on by
President Obama to the next president with no end in sight, no real
successes, nothing. In these same years Islamic terror movements have only
spread and grown stronger under the pressure of the American war machine.
Its not as if Washington doesnt know this. Its quite obvious and, as
TomDispatch Managing Editor Nick Turse, author of the highly praised Next
Time They'll Come to Count the Dead, points out today in his latest report
on the U.S. militarys pivot to Africa, the pattern is only intensifying,
something clearly recognized by key American commanders. Whats strange,
however, is that none of this seems to have caused anyone in the national
security state or the military to reconsider the last 15 years of
military-first policies, of bombs dropped, troops dispatched, drones sent
in, and what the results were across the Greater Middle East and now Africa.
There is no serious recalibration, no real rethinking. The response to 15
years of striking failure in a vast region remains more of the same. State
of failure indeed! Tom
Breaking the Camouflage Wall of Silence
When AFRICOM Evaluates Itself, the News Is Grim
By Nick Turse
Its rare to hear one top military commander publicly badmouth another, call
attention to his faults, or simply point out his shortcomings. Despite a
seemingly endless supply of debacles from strategic setbacks to quagmire
conflicts since 9/11, the top brass rarely criticize each other or, even in
retirement, utter a word about the failings of their predecessors or
successors. Think of it as the camouflage wall of silence. You may loathe
him. You may badmouth him behind closed doors. You may have secretly hoped
for his career to implode. But publicly point out failures? Thats left to
those further down the chain of command.
And yet thats effectively exactly what newly installed U.S. Africa Command
(AFRICOM) chief, General Thomas Waldhauser, did earlier this year in a
statement to the Senate Arms Services Committee (SASC). Its just that no
one, almost certainly including Waldhauser himself, seemed to notice or
recognize it for the criticism it was, including the people tasked with
oversight of military operations and those in the media.
Over these last years, the number of personnel, missions, dollars spent, and
special ops training efforts as well as drone bases and other outposts on
the continent have all multiplied. At the same time, incoming AFRICOM
commanders have been publicly warning about the escalating perils and
challenges from terror groups that menace the commands area of operations.
Almost no one, however -- neither those senators nor the media -- has raised
pointed questions, no less demanded frank answers, about why such crises on
the continent have so perfectly mirrored American military expansion.
Asked earlier this year about the difficulties hed face if confirmed,
Waldhauser was blunt: A major challenge is effectively countering violent
extremist organizations, especially the growth of al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia, and ISIL in Libya.
That should have been a déjà vu moment for some of those senators. Three
years earlier, the man previously nominated to lead AFRICOM, General David
Rodriguez, was asked the same question. His reply was suspiciously similar:
A major challenge is effectively countering violent extremist
organizations, especially the growth of Mali as an al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb safe haven, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and al-Shabaab in Somalia.
All that had changed between 2013 and 2016, it seemed, was the addition of
one more significant threat.
In the midst of Rodriguezs 2016 victory lap (as he was concluding 40 years
of military service), Waldhauser publicly drew attention to just how
ineffective his run as AFRICOM chief had been. Some might call it unkind --
a slap in the face for a decorated old soldier -- but perhaps turnabout is
fair play. After all, in 2013, Rodriguez did much the same to his
predecessor, General Carter Ham, when he offered his warning about the
challenges on the continent.
Three years before that, in 2010, Ham appeared before the same committee and
said, I believe that the extremist threat that's emerging from East Africa
is probably the greatest concern that Africa Command will face in the near
future. Ham expressed no worry about threats posed by al-Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb or Boko Haram. ISIL in Libya didnt even exist. And even
that greatest concern, al-Shabaab, was, Ham noted, primarily focused on
internal matters in Somalia.
In other words, over these last years, each incoming AFRICOM commander has
offered a more dismal and dire assessment of the situation facing the U.S.
military than his predecessor. Ham drew attention to only one major terror
threat, Rodriguez to three, and Waldhauser to four.
His Own Worst Critic
That said, Waldhauser isnt the only AFRICOM chief to point a finger at
Rodriguezs checkered record. Another American general cast an even darker
shadow on the outgoing commanders three-year run overseeing Washingtons
shadow war in Africa:
AFRICOMs priorities on the continent for the next several years will be...
in East Africa to improve stability there. Most of that is built around the
threat of al-Shabaab. And then, in the North and West Africa is really
built around the challenges from Libya down to northern Mali and that region
and that instability there creates many challenges... And then after that is
the West Africa, really about the Boko Haram and the problem in Nigeria that
is, unfortunately, crossing the boundary into Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. So
those are the big challenges and then just the normal ones that continue to
be a challenge are the Gulf of Guinea... as well as countering the Lords
Resistance Army...
That critic was, in fact, General David Rodriguez himself in an AFRICOM
promotional video released on multiple social media platforms last month.
It was posted on the very day that his command also touted its more than 30
major exercises and more than 1,000 military to military engagements
between 2013 and 2015. It was hardly a surprise, however, that these two
posts and the obvious conclusion to be drawn from them -- just how little
AFRICOMS growing set of ambitious continent-wide activities mattered when
it came to the spread of terror movements -- went unattended and uncommented
upon.
Waldhauser and Rodriguez have not, however, been alone in pointing out
increased insecurity on the continent. Terrorism and violent extremism are
major sources of instability in Africa, Assistant Secretary Linda
Thomas-Greenfield of the State Departments Bureau of African Affairs told
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May. Terrorist organizations
such as al-Shabaab, Boko Haram (which now calls itself the Islamic State in
West Africa), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and al-Murabitoun are
conducting asymmetric campaigns that cause significant loss of innocent life
and create potentially long-term humanitarian crises.
National intelligence director James Clapper, who called the continent a
hothouse for the emergence of extremist and rebel groups in 2014, spoke of
the dangers posed by the Lord's Resistance Army and al-Shabaab, as well as
terror threats in Egypt, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, and Tunisia, and instability
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Congo, Burundi, the
Central African Republic, and South Sudan before the Senate Armed Services
Committee earlier this year.
And then theres Brigadier General Donald Bolduc who heads Special
Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA), the most elite U.S. troops on the
continent. He painted a picture that was grimmer still. Last November,
during a closed door presentation at the annual Special Operations Command
Africa Commanders Conference in Garmisch, Germany, the SOCAFRICA chief drew
attention not just to the threats of al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, Boko Haram, ISIL, and the Lords Resistance Army, but also another
43 malign groups operating in Africa, according to another set of
documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.
The growth of terror groups from the one named by Ham in 2010 to the 48
mentioned by Bolduc in 2015 is as remarkable as it has been unremarked upon,
a record so bleak that it demands a congressional investigation that will,
of course, never take place.
Questions Unasked, Questions Unanswered
U.S. Africa Command boasts that it neutralizes transnational threats and
prevents and mitigates conflict, while training local allies and proxies
in order to promote regional security, stability, and prosperity.
Rodriguezs tenure was, however, marked by the very opposite: increasing
numbers of lethal terror attacks across the continent including those in
Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte
d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger,
Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Tunisia. In fact, data from the National
Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the
University of Maryland shows that attacks have spiked over the last decade,
roughly coinciding with AFRICOMs establishment. In 2007, just before it
became an independent command, there were fewer than 400 such incidents
annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the number reached nearly 2,000.
While these statistics may be damning, they are no more so than the words of
AFRICOMs own chiefs. Yet the senators who are supposed to provide
oversight havent seemed to bat an eye, let alone ask the obvious questions
about why terror groups and terror attacks are proliferating as U.S.
operations, bases, manpower, and engagement across the continent grow.
(Note that this is, of course, the same Senate committee that Rodriguez
misled, whether purposefully or inadvertently, earlier this year when it
came to the number of U.S. military missions in Africa without -- again --
either apparent notice or any repercussions.)
In an era of too-big-to fail generals, an age in which top commanders from
winless wars retire to take prominent posts at influential institutions and
cash in with cushy jobs on corporate boards, AFRICOM chiefs have faced
neither hard questions nor repercussions for the deteriorating situation.
(Similar records -- heavy on setbacks, short on victories -- have been
produced by Washingtons war chiefs in Afghanistan and Iraq for the past 15
years and they, too, have never led to official calls for any sort of
accountability.)
Rodriguez is now planning on resting at his northern Virginia home for a few
months and, as he told Stars and Stripes, seeing what comes next.
U.S. Africa Command failed to respond to multiple requests for an interview
with Rodriguez, but if he follows in the footsteps of the marquee names
among fellow retired four-stars of his generation, like David Petraeus and
Stanley McChrystal, hell supplement his six-figure pension with one or more
lucrative private sector posts.
What comes next for AFRICOM will play out on the continent and in briefings
before the Senate Armed Services Committee for years to come. If history is
any guide, the number of terror groups on the continent will not decrease,
the senators will fail to ask why this is so, and the media will follow
their lead.
During his final days in command, AFRICOM released several more short videos
of Rodriguez holding forth on varioius issues. In one of the last of these,
the old soldier praised the whole team for accomplishing a tremendous
amount over the last several years. What exactly that was went unsaid,
though it certainly wasnt achieving AFRICOMs mandate to neutraliz[e]
transnational threats. But what Rodriguez said next made a lot of sense.
He noted that AFRICOM wasnt alone in it -- whatever it was. Washington,
D.C., he said, had played a key role, too. In that, he couldnt have been
more on target. The increasingly bleak outlook in Africa cant simply be
laid at the feet of AFRICOMs commanders. Again and again, theyve been
upfront about the deteriorating situation. Washington has just preferred to
look the other way.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch, a fellow at the Nation
Institute, and a contributing writer for the Intercept. He is the author of
the New York Times bestseller Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American
War in Vietnam. His latest book is Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead:
War and Survival in South Sudan. His website is NickTurse.com.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest
Dispatch Book, Nick Turses Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead, and
Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars,
and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2016 Nick Turse
© 2016 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176171
Tomgram: Nick Turse, The U.S. Military Pivots to Africa and That Continent
Goes Down the Drain
By Nick Turse
Posted on August 2, 2016, Printed on August 2, 2016
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176171/ ;
Someday, someone will write a history of the U.S. national security state in
the twenty-first century and, if the first decade and a half are any
yardstick, it will be called something like State of Failure. After all,
almost 15 years after the U.S. invaded the Talibans Afghanistan, launching
the second American Afghan War of the past half-century, U.S. troops are
still there, their withdrawal halted, their rules of engagement once again
widened to allow American troops and air power to accompany allied Afghan
forces into battle, and the Taliban on the rise, having taken more territory
(and briefly one northern provincial capital) than at any time since that
movement was crushed in the invasion of 2001.
Thirteen years after George W. Bush and his top officials, dreaming of
controlling the oil heartlands, launched the invasion of Saddam Husseins
Iraq (the second Iraq War of our era), Washington is now in the third
iteration of the same, with 6,000 troops (and thousands of private
contractors) back in that country and a vast air campaign underway to
destroy the Islamic State. With modest numbers of special operations troops
on the ground and another major air campaign, Washington is also now
enmeshed in a complex and so far disastrous war in Syria. And if you havent
been counting, thats three wars gone wrong.
Then, of course, there was the American (and NATO) intervention in Libya in
2011, which cracked that autocratic country open and made way for the rise
of Islamic extremist movements there, as well as the most powerful Islamic
State franchise outside Syria and Iraq. Today, plans are evidently being
drawn up for yet more air strikes, special operations raids, and the like
there. Toss in as well Washingtons never-ending drone war in Pakistans
tribal borderlands, its disastrous attempt to corral al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula in Yemen (leading to a grim and horrifying Saudi-led,
American-supported internecine conflict in that country), and the unending
attempt to destroy al-Shabaab in Somalia, and you have at least seven wars
and conflicts in the Greater Middle East, all about to be handed on by
President Obama to the next president with no end in sight, no real
successes, nothing. In these same years Islamic terror movements have only
spread and grown stronger under the pressure of the American war machine.
Its not as if Washington doesnt know this. Its quite obvious and, as
TomDispatch Managing Editor Nick Turse, author of the highly praised Next
Time They'll Come to Count the Dead, points out today in his latest report
on the U.S. militarys pivot to Africa, the pattern is only intensifying,
something clearly recognized by key American commanders. Whats strange,
however, is that none of this seems to have caused anyone in the national
security state or the military to reconsider the last 15 years of
military-first policies, of bombs dropped, troops dispatched, drones sent
in, and what the results were across the Greater Middle East and now Africa.
There is no serious recalibration, no real rethinking. The response to 15
years of striking failure in a vast region remains more of the same. State
of failure indeed! Tom
Breaking the Camouflage Wall of Silence
When AFRICOM Evaluates Itself, the News Is Grim
By Nick Turse
Its rare to hear one top military commander publicly badmouth another, call
attention to his faults, or simply point out his shortcomings. Despite a
seemingly endless supply of debacles from strategic setbacks to quagmire
conflicts since 9/11, the top brass rarely criticize each other or, even in
retirement, utter a word about the failings of their predecessors or
successors. Think of it as the camouflage wall of silence. You may loathe
him. You may badmouth him behind closed doors. You may have secretly hoped
for his career to implode. But publicly point out failures? Thats left to
those further down the chain of command.
And yet thats effectively exactly what newly installed U.S. Africa Command
(AFRICOM) chief, General Thomas Waldhauser, did earlier this year in a
statement to the Senate Arms Services Committee (SASC). Its just that no
one, almost certainly including Waldhauser himself, seemed to notice or
recognize it for the criticism it was, including the people tasked with
oversight of military operations and those in the media.
Over these last years, the number of personnel, missions, dollars spent, and
special ops training efforts as well as drone bases and other outposts on
the continent have all multiplied. At the same time, incoming AFRICOM
commanders have been publicly warning about the escalating perils and
challenges from terror groups that menace the commands area of operations.
Almost no one, however -- neither those senators nor the media -- has raised
pointed questions, no less demanded frank answers, about why such crises on
the continent have so perfectly mirrored American military expansion.
Asked earlier this year about the difficulties hed face if confirmed,
Waldhauser was blunt: A major challenge is effectively countering violent
extremist organizations, especially the growth of al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia, and ISIL in Libya.
That should have been a déjà vu moment for some of those senators. Three
years earlier, the man previously nominated to lead AFRICOM, General David
Rodriguez, was asked the same question. His reply was suspiciously similar:
A major challenge is effectively countering violent extremist
organizations, especially the growth of Mali as an al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb safe haven, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and al-Shabaab in Somalia.
All that had changed between 2013 and 2016, it seemed, was the addition of
one more significant threat.
In the midst of Rodriguezs 2016 victory lap (as he was concluding 40 years
of military service), Waldhauser publicly drew attention to just how
ineffective his run as AFRICOM chief had been. Some might call it unkind --
a slap in the face for a decorated old soldier -- but perhaps turnabout is
fair play. After all, in 2013, Rodriguez did much the same to his
predecessor, General Carter Ham, when he offered his warning about the
challenges on the continent.
Three years before that, in 2010, Ham appeared before the same committee and
said, I believe that the extremist threat that's emerging from East Africa
is probably the greatest concern that Africa Command will face in the near
future. Ham expressed no worry about threats posed by al-Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb or Boko Haram. ISIL in Libya didnt even exist. And even
that greatest concern, al-Shabaab, was, Ham noted, primarily focused on
internal matters in Somalia.
In other words, over these last years, each incoming AFRICOM commander has
offered a more dismal and dire assessment of the situation facing the U.S.
military than his predecessor. Ham drew attention to only one major terror
threat, Rodriguez to three, and Waldhauser to four.
His Own Worst Critic
That said, Waldhauser isnt the only AFRICOM chief to point a finger at
Rodriguezs checkered record. Another American general cast an even darker
shadow on the outgoing commanders three-year run overseeing Washingtons
shadow war in Africa:
AFRICOMs priorities on the continent for the next several years will be...
in East Africa to improve stability there. Most of that is built around the
threat of al-Shabaab. And then, in the North and West Africa is really built
around the challenges from Libya down to northern Mali and that region and
that instability there creates many challenges... And then after that is the
West Africa, really about the Boko Haram and the problem in Nigeria that is,
unfortunately, crossing the boundary into Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. So
those are the big challenges and then just the normal ones that continue to
be a challenge are the Gulf of Guinea... as well as countering the Lords
Resistance Army...
That critic was, in fact, General David Rodriguez himself in an AFRICOM
promotional video released on multiple social media platforms last month. It
was posted on the very day that his command also touted its more than 30
major exercises and more than 1,000 military to military engagements
between 2013 and 2015. It was hardly a surprise, however, that these two
posts and the obvious conclusion to be drawn from them -- just how little
AFRICOMS growing set of ambitious continent-wide activities mattered when
it came to the spread of terror movements -- went unattended and uncommented
upon.
Waldhauser and Rodriguez have not, however, been alone in pointing out
increased insecurity on the continent. Terrorism and violent extremism are
major sources of instability in Africa, Assistant Secretary Linda
Thomas-Greenfield of the State Departments Bureau of African Affairs told
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May. Terrorist organizations such
as al-Shabaab, Boko Haram (which now calls itself the Islamic State in West
Africa), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and al-Murabitoun are
conducting asymmetric campaigns that cause significant loss of innocent life
and create potentially long-term humanitarian crises.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608466485/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608466485/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20National
intelligence director James Clapper, who called the continent a hothouse
for the emergence of extremist and rebel groups in 2014, spoke of the
dangers posed by the Lord's Resistance Army and al-Shabaab, as well as
terror threats in Egypt, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, and Tunisia, and instability
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Congo, Burundi, the
Central African Republic, and South Sudan before the Senate Armed Services
Committee earlier this year.
And then theres Brigadier General Donald Bolduc who heads Special
Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA), the most elite U.S. troops on the
continent. He painted a picture that was grimmer still. Last November,
during a closed door presentation at the annual Special Operations Command
Africa Commanders Conference in Garmisch, Germany, the SOCAFRICA chief drew
attention not just to the threats of al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, Boko Haram, ISIL, and the Lords Resistance Army, but also another
43 malign groups operating in Africa, according to another set of
documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.
The growth of terror groups from the one named by Ham in 2010 to the 48
mentioned by Bolduc in 2015 is as remarkable as it has been unremarked upon,
a record so bleak that it demands a congressional investigation that will,
of course, never take place.
Questions Unasked, Questions Unanswered
U.S. Africa Command boasts that it neutralizes transnational threats and
prevents and mitigates conflict, while training local allies and proxies
in order to promote regional security, stability, and prosperity.
Rodriguezs tenure was, however, marked by the very opposite: increasing
numbers of lethal terror attacks across the continent including those in
Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte
d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger,
Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Tunisia. In fact, data from the National
Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the
University of Maryland shows that attacks have spiked over the last decade,
roughly coinciding with AFRICOMs establishment. In 2007, just before it
became an independent command, there were fewer than 400 such incidents
annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the number reached nearly 2,000.
While these statistics may be damning, they are no more so than the words of
AFRICOMs own chiefs. Yet the senators who are supposed to provide oversight
havent seemed to bat an eye, let alone ask the obvious questions about why
terror groups and terror attacks are proliferating as U.S. operations,
bases, manpower, and engagement across the continent grow. (Note that this
is, of course, the same Senate committee that Rodriguez misled, whether
purposefully or inadvertently, earlier this year when it came to the number
of U.S. military missions in Africa without -- again -- either apparent
notice or any repercussions.)
In an era of too-big-to fail generals, an age in which top commanders from
winless wars retire to take prominent posts at influential institutions and
cash in with cushy jobs on corporate boards, AFRICOM chiefs have faced
neither hard questions nor repercussions for the deteriorating situation.
(Similar records -- heavy on setbacks, short on victories -- have been
produced by Washingtons war chiefs in Afghanistan and Iraq for the past 15
years and they, too, have never led to official calls for any sort of
accountability.)
Rodriguez is now planning on resting at his northern Virginia home for a few
months and, as he told Stars and Stripes, seeing what comes next.
U.S. Africa Command failed to respond to multiple requests for an interview
with Rodriguez, but if he follows in the footsteps of the marquee names
among fellow retired four-stars of his generation, like David Petraeus and
Stanley McChrystal, hell supplement his six-figure pension with one or more
lucrative private sector posts.
What comes next for AFRICOM will play out on the continent and in briefings
before the Senate Armed Services Committee for years to come. If history is
any guide, the number of terror groups on the continent will not decrease,
the senators will fail to ask why this is so, and the media will follow
their lead.
During his final days in command, AFRICOM released several more short videos
of Rodriguez holding forth on varioius issues. In one of the last of these,
the old soldier praised the whole team for accomplishing a tremendous
amount over the last several years. What exactly that was went unsaid,
though it certainly wasnt achieving AFRICOMs mandate to neutraliz[e]
transnational threats. But what Rodriguez said next made a lot of sense. He
noted that AFRICOM wasnt alone in it -- whatever it was. Washington, D.C.,
he said, had played a key role, too. In that, he couldnt have been more on
target. The increasingly bleak outlook in Africa cant simply be laid at the
feet of AFRICOMs commanders. Again and again, theyve been upfront about
the deteriorating situation. Washington has just preferred to look the other
way.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch, a fellow at the Nation
Institute, and a contributing writer for the Intercept. He is the author of
the New York Times bestseller Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American
War in Vietnam. His latest book is Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead:
War and Survival in South Sudan. His website is NickTurse.com.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest
Dispatch Book, Nick Turses Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead, and
Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars,
and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2016 Nick Turse
© 2016 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176171
