{"id":100808,"date":"2017-10-30T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2017-10-30T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=100808"},"modified":"2017-11-06T09:44:25","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T09:44:25","slug":"the-us-military-is-conducting-secret-missions-all-over-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/10\/the-us-military-is-conducting-secret-missions-all-over-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The US Military Is Conducting Secret Missions All Over Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

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25 Oct 2017 – <\/em>U.S. troops are now conducting 3,500 exercises, programs, and engagements per year, an average of nearly 10 missions per day, on the African continent, according to the U.S. military\u2019s top commander for Africa, General Thomas Waldhauser. The latest numbers, which the Pentagon confirmed to VICE News, represent a dramatic increase in U.S. military activity throughout Africa in the past decade, and the latest signal of America\u2019s deepening and complicated ties on the continent.<\/p>\n

With the White House and the Pentagon facing questions about an Oct. 4 ambush in Niger in which four U.S. Special Forces soldiers were killed, Secretary of Defense James Mattis reportedly indicated to two<\/a> senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee Friday that these numbers are only likely to increase as the U.S. military shifts even greater attention to counterterrorism in Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe huge increase in U.S. military missions in Africa over the past few years represents nothing less than a shadow war being waged on the continent.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to see more actions in Africa, not less,\u201d said Sen. Lindsey Graham after the briefing. \u201cYou\u2019re going to see more aggression by the United States toward our enemies, not less; you\u2019re going to have decisions being made not in the White House but out in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the U.S. military has already seen significant action in Africa, where its growth has been sudden and explosive. When U.S. Africa Command, the umbrella organization for U.S. military operations on the continent, first became operational in 2008, it inherited 172 missions, activities, programs, and exercises from other combatant commands. Five years in, that number shot up to 546<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s figure of 3,500 marks an astounding 1,900 percent increase since the command was activated less than a decade ago, and suggests a major expansion of U.S. military activities on the African continent. (VICE News requested 2016 numbers, but AFRICOM failed to answer phone calls or respond to email requests.)<\/p>\n

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A U.S. special forces soldier trains Nigerian soldiers during Flintlock 2016, a U.S.-led international training exercise with African militaries in Thies, Senegal.
REUTERS\/Sylvain Cherkaoui<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe huge increase in U.S. military missions in Africa over the past few years represents nothing less than a shadow war being waged on the continent,\u201d said William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.<\/p>\n

These developments stand in stark contrast to early assurances that AFRICOM\u2019s efforts would be focused on diplomacy and aid. In the opening days of the command, the assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, Theresa Whelan,\u00a0said<\/a> it would not \u201creflect a U.S. intent to engage kinetically in Africa.\u201d AFRICOM, she said, was not \u201cabout fighting wars.\u201d<\/p>\n

But an increasing number of AFRICOM\u2019s missions have the appearance of just that. The command has launched<\/a> 500 airstrikes<\/a> in Libya in the last year alone, and U.S. forces have regularly<\/a> carried out<\/a> drone attacks and commando raids in Somalia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen push comes to shove training missions can easily cross the line into combat operations.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThis military-heavy policy,\u201d said Hartung, \u201crisks drawing the United States more deeply into local and regional conflicts in Africa and generating a backlash that could actually aid terrorist organizations in their recruitment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more<\/em><\/strong>: <\/em><\/strong>The U.S. is waging a massive shadow war in Africa, exclusive documents reveal<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Officially, the Pentagon says the 3,500 missions consist primarily of training and advisory efforts to build the \u201cdefense capabilities\u201d of local partner forces, including the use of counterterrorism assistance efforts such as the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program and Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, according to spokesperson Maj. Audricia Harris. (Harris also confirmed that Waldhauser\u2019s figures were accurate).<\/p>\n

These programs are aimed at a plethora of terror groups that have sprung up across the continent since the 2000s, including 19 \u201cactive militant Islamist groups,\u201d \u00a0\u2014 such as al Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin region, and the Islamic State group in the Greater Sahara \u2014 \u00a0in AFRICOM\u2019s area of operations, according to the Pentagon\u2019s Africa Center for Strategic Studies. The ultimate aim, according to AFRICOM, is to defeat \u201ctransnational threats in order to advance U.S. national interests and promote regional security, stability, and prosperity.\u201d<\/p>\n

But AFRICOM uses extremely broad language to describe training missions, including those in which troops <\/a>are killed in action. Missions carried out under the rubric of \u201csecurity assistance,\u201d \u201csecurity cooperation,\u201d \u201ctrain-and-equip\u201d or \u201cbuilding partner capacity\u201d \u2014 can be indistinguishable from actual combat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a significant increase in U.S. military training to the African continent in recent years.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThere is a notion,, in some circles at least, that training missions are \u2018safe,\u2019 and that U.S. troops are not exposed to the same level of risk as if they were engaged in direct combat,\u201d said Hartung. \u201cThere may be an element of truth in this, but when push comes to shove, training missions can easily cross the line into combat operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May, for example, a Navy SEAL was killed<\/a> by al Shabaab militants in Somalia while \u201cassisting partner forces,\u201d according to AFRICOM. Earlier this month, four Special Forces soldiers were killed<\/a> in an ambush while providing \u201cadvice and assistance\u201d to local forces in Niger.<\/p>\n

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A U.S. special forces soldier trains Nigerian soldiers in first aid during Flintlock 2016, a U.S.-led international training exercise with African militaries in Thies, Senegal, February 11, 2016. REUTERS\/Sylvain Cherkaoui<\/p><\/div>\n

U.S. troop deaths or scandals are frequently the only mechanism by which Americans come to know about military deployments to African nations like Niger, which according to Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Audricia Harris is home to more than 800 U.S. military personnel.<\/p>\n

But Niger is hardly exceptional. Every day, 5,000 to 6,000 U.S. personnel are deployed<\/a> across the African continent.<\/p>\n

These near-constant<\/a> training<\/a> exercises<\/a>, missions, and activities with troops from Benin and Burkina Faso, Cameroon<\/a> and Chad, Gabon and Guinea Bissau, not to mention Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, the Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Togo and Uganda<\/a>, among other nations, remain largely unknown to most Americans. So is the string of U.S. bases and outposts stretching from Djibouti<\/a> to Tunisia<\/a>, Cameroon<\/a> to Kenya<\/a>, Ghana<\/a> to Niger<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a significant increase in U.S. military training to the African continent in recent years,\u201d Colby Goodman, the director of the Security Assistance Monitor, which tracks U.S. spending on foreign militaries, told VICE News. The number of African troops trained by U.S. military personnel jumped 89 percent, Goodman notes, from 22,825 trained in 2014 to at least 42,815 individuals a year later.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we run the risk of working ourselves in more deeply \u2014 building dependence, rather than independence.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even before Mattis informed Sen. Graham and Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, there were indications that the counterterror missions would expand. This month, Donald Yamamoto, the acting assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the Trump administration\u2019s proposed $5.2 billion African aid budget would address \u201ckey priorities\u201d such as \u201cassist[ing] partner nations to defeat ISIS branches and affiliates and other terrorist organization threats and networks in Mali and the Sahel, Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin, Somalia and the Horn of Africa, and elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, the acting U.S. Army Africa commander, Brig. Gen. Gene LeBoeuf, noted<\/a> that so-called \u201ctheater security cooperation\u201d activities \u2014 missions designed<\/a> to \u201cbuild relationships that promote specified U.S. interests\u201d \u2014 are set to rise from 186 this year to 271 in 2018, with about 80 percent taking place in the Lake Chad Basin nations of Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, and Niger. The recent attack on U.S. forces in Niger, believed to have been carried out by the Mali-based Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, suggest these missions pose increasing risks.<\/p>\n

Experts warn this surge in U.S. military activities lacks strategic planning, and that providing training and equipment to such poor nations with fragile governments can result in greater instability.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, it\u2019s very easy for our activities to overwhelm a country\u2019s absorptive capacity for aid, which tends to result in elevated levels of corruption,\u201d said Rebecca Zimmerman, a national security and foreign policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. \u201cNext, by disproportionately funding the military and security apparatuses of these governments, we run the risk of militarizing or securitizing the country \u2014 elevating the militaries to a place of increased power relative to civilian government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zimmerman warned this is particularly risky \u201cin countries where there is inadequate civilian control of the military.\u201d In 2012, for example, a U.S.-trained Army captain, Amadou Sanogo, overthrew<\/a> Mali\u2019s elected government. Two years later, Lt. Col. Isaac Zida, another U.S.-trained officer, seized power<\/a> in Burkina Faso.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith all of this,\u201d Zimmerman said, \u201cI think we run the risk of working ourselves in more deeply \u2014 building dependence rather than independence \u2014 which will make it hard for our forces to eventually conclude their mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spokespersons for Africa Command would not comment about the missions or such concerns, ignoring multiple emails from, and even hanging up on, this reporter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. government would do well to do serious risk assessments about its military activities in Africa,\u201d Goodman warned. \u201cThese risk assessments must include the risks of U.S. military activities contributing to terrorist recruitment, especially in the Sahel, through increased U.S. military presence and by supporting corrupt military forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hartung shared similar concerns and said it was critical for the public to stay informed of the military\u2019s often quiet expansion. \u201cCongress and the public need to pay more attention to far-flung U.S. military train-and-equip missions, both in Africa and globally. They can too often sow the seeds of greater U.S. military involvement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

____________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Nick Turse is an award-winning investigative journalist and a contributing writer for <\/em>The Intercept, reporting on national security and foreign policy. He is the author, most recently, of <\/em>Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead, War and Survival in South Sudan, as well as T<\/em>omorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, and <\/em>Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. He has written for <\/em>The New York Times, <\/em>Los Angeles Times<\/a>, <\/em>San Francisco Chronicle, <\/em>The\u00a0Nation<\/a>,\u00a0and <\/em>Village Voice, among other publications. He has received a Ridenhour Prize for Investigative Reporting, a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Turse is a fellow at <\/em>The Nation Institute and the managing editor of <\/em>tomdispatch.com<\/a>.<\/em> Twitter<\/em>: @nickturse<\/a> – Securedrop<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 vice.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 Oct 2017 – U.S. troops are now conducting 3,500 exercises, programs, and engagements per year, an average of nearly 10 missions per day, on the African continent, according to the U.S. military\u2019s top commander for Africa, General Thomas Waldhauser. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,127,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism","category-africa","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}