Last Updated on October 5, 2013
When former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made his fraudulent claims at the United Nations about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, his assistants hung curtains over the famous anti-war painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso, which hung in the lobby outside the UN chambers. Today, as the United States military prepares to escalate its destabilization campaign in Africa, President Obama has sent his newly appointed commander of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), Carter Ham, on a US speaking tour to promote the idea of expanding the war on terror in Africa.
One week prior to General Ham’s speaking tour, U.S. Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh C. Johnson suggested the time is fast approaching when the task of defeating terrorists would become less a military function and more one of law enforcement. Ham’s subsequent tour and the militaristic echo to his remarks sounded by the Wall Street Journal, point to the reality of war — whether on terror or anything else — as a business, conducted on behalf of business, not national security. The counterpoint emanating from the Washington Post demonstrates that Obama’s perceived need to get out ahead on public relations if he wants public support for his war on Africa, not to mention despoiling the continent for his friends on Wall Street, is an accurate one.
As Horace Campbell points out in his lengthy article about the need to dismantle AFRICOM, the United States has always been on the wrong side in Africa–opposing Mandela, assassinating Lumumba, and backing the ruthless Ugandan and Rwandan dictators committing genocide in the Congo. Contrary to the Obama PR campaign, AFRICOM, says Campbell, is the principal obstacle to peace and stability in Africa. Obama the warmonger might not be what Americans voted for, but it’s what they got. Now they have to decide what, if anything, to do about it.
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