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.
Obama is far from a war monger. 60 years of military industrial complex in America pushes the US to war.
Obama is avoiding the “invade & occupy” when it comes to fighting terrorism.
Osama was taken care of in 1 day. That is how it should be.
Iraq was about profiting off of war. Much less profit in the Obama method.
In fact, fighting the assymetric threat, as such, it the only way to combat terrorism: with our brains, not our bombs.
Thank you for your comment, Graham.
President Obama is the Commander in Chief. Even as a candidate in June 2008, he praised the tough diplomacy (Iran-Contra) of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and promised $30 billion to Israel, continued support for the deprivation of Palestinian human rights, and the elimination of the Iranian threat. In June 2009, as the newly elected president, Obama supported the military coup in Honduras.
In August 2009, President Obama bolstered Plan Colombia, creating a bulwark against the Latin American movement for ending US impunity in destabilizing countries like Bolivia and Venezuela. In July 2010, Obama lifted the military assistance ban on U.S. funding for the notorious death squads of the Indonesian military special forces responsible for innumerable murders in West Papua and East Timor.
In December 2011, President Obama promoted the privatization of military death squads in Central America, and through the State Department financed vigilantes to murder opponents of globalization in countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. His current support for genocide in the Congo speaks for itself.