{"id":191272,"date":"2021-09-13T12:00:04","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T11:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=191272"},"modified":"2021-08-27T12:28:50","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T11:28:50","slug":"africa-and-the-war-on-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/09\/africa-and-the-war-on-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa and the War on Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"

I.\u00a0 Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Map by Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis.<\/p><\/div>\n

Africa is a continent that is often misunderstood.<\/a>[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Outsiders routinely describe it as a place plagued by poverty, corruption, and violence.\u00a0 Although these calamities have affected many African countries, these conditions are by no means universal, and internal actors are not solely responsible.\u00a0 Numerous challenges facing the continent today are the product of colonial political and economic practices, Cold War alliances, and outside intervention in African political and economic systems during the decolonization and post-independence periods.\u00a0 Since the end of the Cold War, the externally-driven war on terror has had a particularly devastating impact on the continent and its people.\u00a0 Western countries, while claiming to promote democracy, self-determination, and human rights, have played an outsized role in interventions that have suppressed indigenous voices and ignored popular will.<\/p>\n

To understand the war on terror in Africa, it must be placed in historical context.\u00a0 At the close of World War II, the Cold War intensified, and African struggles for independence escalated.\u00a0 European colonial powers and Cold War superpowers attempted to control the decolonization process.\u00a0 While claiming to champion democracy and self-determination, Western powers deployed military might to promote friendly governments that catered to their own political and economic interests.\u00a0 They considered Africa to be their privileged domain and justified their interventions by harkening to the \u201ccommunist threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the Cold War, U.S. Africa policy continued to emphasize military security over humanitarian concerns.\u00a0 However, it paid some attention to the causes of instability and developed programs that focused on the eradication of poverty and disease and the promotion of good governance.\u00a0 The Bush administration\u2019s President\u2019s Malaria Initiative and President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Obama administration\u2019s Global Health Initiative (GHI) are cases in point.\u00a0 In the post\u2013Cold War period, the United States offered two new rationales for its interference: the response to instability, with a secondary responsibility to protect civilian lives, and the \u201cwar on terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Nigerien soldiers receiving counterterrorism training from U.S. Army Special Forces in March 2017. Later that year, four U.S. Army Special Forces, unfamiliar with the area, were ambushed and killed by violent extremists. Diffa, Niger, March 3, 2017. Photo by U.S. Army Specialist Zayid Ballesteros.<\/p><\/div>\n

The war on terror, like its Cold War predecessor, has boosted foreign military presence in Africa and increased external support for repressive regimes.\u00a0 U.S. involvement has been especially pronounced.\u00a0 Successive presidential administrations have focused on countries with valuable energy resources and those deemed susceptible to terrorist infiltration.\u00a0 U.S. military aid, arms purchases, and abandoned Cold War weapons have led to intensified violence.\u00a0 Like the war on communism, the war on terror has strengthened autocratic regimes that have abused civilian populations and even increased local support for violent opposition groups.<\/p>\n

Case studies from across the continent provide evidence that external military and covert operations have not promoted African security.\u00a0 Rather, they frequently have exacerbated tensions and frustrated prospects for peace.\u00a0 U.S. intervention in Somalia on the Horn, Libya on the Mediterranean coast, and Mali and Niger in the Western Sahel exemplify these trends.\u00a0 The cases of Somalia and Libya are examined below.<\/p>\n

II.\u00a0The Cold War <\/strong>Roots of the War on Terror<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The two current rationales for foreign intervention have very different roots.\u00a0 The first, which justifies external interference as a legitimate response to instability and the endangerment of civilian lives, can be traced to post-World War II recognition that peace, justice, and respect for human rights are required for a stable international order.\u00a0 The second, which exchanged the war on communism with a war on terror, originated in the Cold War struggle between capitalism and communism.<\/p>\n

During the Cold War, the United States deployed religion in the battle against communism.\u00a0 In Europe, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) bolstered conservative Christian parties in an effort to blunt the appeal of communism to populations devastated by World War II.\u00a0 In the Middle East, the CIA impeded radical nationalism by shoring up autocratic regimes that opposed communism and offered access to the region\u2019s oil riches.\u00a0 Where nationalists overthrew pro-Western strongmen, their secular governments, such as Gamal Abdel Nasser\u2019s in Egypt (1952\u201370), were opposed by Islamists, who believed that a nation\u2019s social, political, and legal order should be grounded in Islamic principles.\u00a0 The secular regimes responded with repression, arresting and imprisoning local Islamists and forcing others into exile.<\/p>\n

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to advance its regional interests, the United States marshalled support from a Muslim minority who opposed the Soviet occupation with violence.\u00a0 Working with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other allies, the United States mobilized a multinational coalition that recruited, trained, armed, and financed Muslim militants worldwide to fight the Soviet presence.\u00a0 After Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the militants scattered with their arms and training to countries across the globe, where they established new organizations and spearheaded countless insurgencies, primarily against Muslim states they deemed impious.\u00a0 These Soviet-Afghan War veterans played prominent roles in most of the extremist groups that appeared in Africa and the Middle East in the decades that followed.<\/p>\n

Osama bin Laden, founder and patron of al-Qaeda, was among the most prominent of the Soviet-Afghan War veterans who launched the emerging terrorist networks.\u00a0 As the Soviet Union declined and collapsed, Bin Laden and his associates targeted the United States \u2013 as the last remaining superpower and patron of impious Muslim regimes.\u00a0 Al-Qaeda was responsible for a number of attacks on U.S. citizens and property, which culminated in the September 11, 2001, strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Young boy in Beni, North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, playing near a United Nations vehicle, December 5, 2014.
Photo by Abel Kavanagh\/MONUSCO.<\/p><\/div>\n

III.\u00a0 9\/11 and the War on Terror<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Like the war on communism, the war on terror has strengthened autocratic regimes that have abused civilian populations and even increased local support for violent opposition groups.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The war on terror paradigm is largely identified with the George W. Bush presidency.\u00a0 However, it emerged during the Bill Clinton administration and played a significant role in the Africa policies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump.\u00a0 During all four administrations, perceived national interests, embracing political, economic, and strategic dominance, were key factors in determining where the United States chose to intervene or not intervene.\u00a0 The responsibility to protect paradigm increasingly served as a rationale for intervention only when other interests were also at stake.<\/p>\n

Before the September 11, 2001 attacks, the war on terror played only a minor role in U.S. Africa policy.\u00a0 The 1993 U.S. military intervention in Somalia, for instance, was triggered by the threat of regional instability and a growing concern with the protection of civilian lives in a region deemed critical to U.S. interests.\u00a0 Although the United States provided significant monetary and material support to United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations in the 1990s, after the Somalia debacle (see below) it avoided multinational ventures that might involve U.S. troops, and it actively blocked UN intervention to stop the 1994 Rwanda genocide because it did not consider Rwanda a place of strategic or economic value.<\/p>\n

After 9\/11, the George W. Bush administration\u2019s war on terror became the new anticommunism.\u00a0 Just as domestic unrest sparked by local grievances was mistaken for communist aggression during the Cold War, the misnomer, \u201cinternational terrorism,\u201d was used to explain disparate civil disturbances in the first decades of the twenty-first century.\u00a0 In Africa, autocrats who had appealed to the West by harkening to the communist menace were replaced by new strongmen who won Western support by joining the fight against terrorism.\u00a0 In both cases, unpopular leaders used U.S. military aid to suppress internal dissent, and U.S. policies undermined the goals they purported to promote.\u00a0 Instead of bringing peace and stability, U.S. counterterrorism policies strengthened repressive regimes and opened the door to domestic warlords and foreign occupiers.\u00a0 As unrest intensified, violent extremists seized the opportunity to harness local grievances and gain a foothold in territories they previously had not penetrated.<\/p>\n

Following the 2001 attacks, U.S. Africa policy was reassessed, with three important results.\u00a0 First, Washington paid more attention to poverty and political dysfunction.\u00a0 Poor nations with weak state institutions were viewed as likely breeding grounds for political extremism \u2013 now characterized as terrorism rather than communism.\u00a0 The United States bolstered African economies, strengthened military alliances, opened military bases, and provided money, training, hardware, and equipment to dozens of strategically located African countries that were considered vulnerable to terrorist activity.\u00a0 It also provided air support in conventional military actions and engaged in a growing number of covert military operations.<\/p>\n

Second, the securitization of U.S. Africa policy privileged military security over broader forms of human security that focused on poverty, disease, climate change, and governance.\u00a0 The Pentagon took charge of humanitarian and development assistance programs that replaced others under civilian authority.\u00a0 The counterterrorism programs of the Defense Department and the CIA encroached upon, and largely supplanted, the human security\/human rights agenda of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).\u00a0 Their programs, established in response to terrorism, were often inadequate for the peacekeeping and peace-building tasks now under their authority.<\/p>\n

Third, target countries were chosen according to new criteria.\u00a0 The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 sparked violence and instability that threatened U.S. access to its customary sources of foreign oil, and the anti-foreign insurgency was characterized as a terrorist menace.\u00a0 Africa felt the ripple effects as Washington focused increasingly on countries that were either rich in oil and natural gas or strategic to the war on terror.\u00a0 Such countries were often controlled by corrupt, authoritarian regimes that distributed resource proceeds to cronies and loyalists and deployed U.S. military equipment and training against political opponents and community activists.\u00a0 In many cases, U.S. aid increased domestic repression and intensified local grievances.<\/p>\n

The 9\/11 attacks marked the beginning of a new era of U.S. military intervention, first in Central Asia and the Middle East, and then in Africa. During the Cold War, the United States had confounded radical African and Arab nationalism with communism and implicated itself in conflicts it did not understand.\u00a0 It supported brutal regimes and insurgencies, whose abuse of local populations had catastrophic results.\u00a0 When the U.S. government launched the war on terror, simplistic views again prevailed.\u00a0 Many in the government viewed the world\u2019s 1.8 billion Muslims as a monolith and failed to distinguish between nonviolent Muslims with conservative religious beliefs and a tiny minority who used violence to achieve their ends.\u00a0 They made no distinction between those with longstanding local grievances who targeted tyrannical regimes and a much smaller group who attacked the countries that supported these rulers, oppressed Muslims, or defiled Muslim holy lands.<\/p>\n

After 9\/11, the Bush administration expanded unconventional military actions in Africa, deploying U.S. Special Operations Forces and launching unmanned drones outside of established war zones.\u00a0 The International Commission of Jurists condemned as \u201clegally and conceptually flawed\u201d the U.S. government\u2019s \u201cconflation of acts of terrorism with acts of war\u201d and concluded that \u201cthe use of the war paradigm has given a spurious justification to a range of serious human rights and humanitarian law violations.\u201d<\/a>[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

While Washington professed support for \u201cAfrican solutions for African problems,\u201d successive U.S. administrations used African soldiers to implement American solutions to protect American interests.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The 2007 establishment of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), a unified military command that oversees U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine activities in Africa, signaled the growing importance of Africa to U.S. security concerns. Previously, responsibility for U.S. military activities on the continent had been divided between the European, Central, and Pacific Commands, underscoring Africa\u2019s peripheral status in the broader geopolitical arena.\u00a0 As in the past, U.S. rather than African security concerns dominated AFRICOM\u2019s agenda.\u00a0 While Washington professed support for \u201cAfrican solutions for African problems,\u201d successive U.S. administrations used African soldiers to implement American solutions to protect American interests.<\/p>\n

Countering al-Qaeda\u2019s expansion topped new U.S. security concerns in Africa.\u00a0 By the second decade after 9\/11, al-Qaeda had developed two important branches in Africa:\u00a0 al-Shabaab (The Youth), which was based in Somalia and launched attacks in the Greater Horn; and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which was active in North Africa and the Western Sahel.\u00a0 Al-Qaeda also supported a number of local affiliates and associated organizations, most of which had emerged in response to local grievances and had sought political, material, and propaganda aid after they were established.<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s secondary concern was the expansion of the Islamic State, which had emerged in response to the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq in 2003.\u00a0 The U.S. invasion, ouster of Saddam Hussein, and military occupation ignited a local insurgency led by the Jordanian-Palestinian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who transformed his local organization into al-Qaeda in Iraq.\u00a0 After Zarqawi\u2019s death in a U.S. airstrike in 2006, his successors dubbed the al-Qaeda branch and associated groups the Islamic State in Iraq.\u00a0 Under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who developed his ideas in a U.S. internment camp, the Islamic State mobilized recruits among the Sunni minority that had been favored under Saddam Hussein but was marginalized after his overthrow.\u00a0 While local jihadist groups have aspired to establish or purify a Muslim state within a given country, the Islamic State strives to establish a global caliphate that would unite Muslims in a single political entity.\u00a0 African organizations that have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State leader, like those associated with al-Qaeda, ordinarily emerged from local conditions and only later established ties to the international jihadist organization.<\/p>\n

IV.\u00a0 Misconceiving Islam<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Since 9\/11, the U.S.-led war on terror has inspired or reinforced many misconceptions about Islam.\u00a0 The emergence of diverse political movements operating under Islam\u2019s banner has led to much confusion over how to distinguish them.\u00a0 Terms with different meanings are often used interchangeably.\u00a0 Disparate groups are lumped together and terminology apt for one is used to describe the whole.\u00a0 For instance, Islamism, an ideology and movement focusing on social, political, and religious life, has been confused with Islamic fundamentalism, which concerns religious doctrine.\u00a0 Political Islam \u2013 one aspect of Islamism \u2013 is often wrongly described as political terrorism.\u00a0 Only a tiny minority of Muslims worldwide condone political terrorism, while the vast majority disavow its association with their religion.\u00a0 Finally, the Arabic word jihad is regularly mistranslated as \u201choly war\u201d and linked with images of death by the sword.\u00a0 In Islam, however, there are three meanings of jihad, two of them nonviolent.\u00a0 The following definitions lay the groundwork for a more accurate understanding of contemporary Islam.<\/p>\n

Islam<\/em> is the name of a world religion with two main branches, Sunni and Shi\u2019a.<\/p>\n

Islamic fundamentalism<\/em> refers to Islamic beliefs that reject recent religious innovations and advocate a return to basic religious principles and the strict application of religious law.\u00a0 The vast majority of Islamic fundamentalists are law-abiding and oppose violent jihad.<\/p>\n

Islamism<\/em> is a twentieth century social, political, and religious ideology and movement that arose in response to European colonialism and the intrusion of Western culture.\u00a0 Its followers strive to establish a social, political, and legal order that is rooted in Islamic principles.\u00a0 They focus on social and political change rather than on religious doctrine and work within the system to achieve their ends. Islamists, in contrast to jihadis (defined below), reject the use of violence.<\/p>\n

Political Islam<\/em> is sometimes used synonymously with Islamism, even though it constitutes only one aspect of a complex ideology and movement.<\/p>\n

Jihad<\/em> means effort or struggle.\u00a0 In Islamic doctrine, it has three meanings:\u00a0 first, the inner spiritual struggle to live as a good Muslim; second, the struggle to build and purify the Muslim community; and third, the struggle to defend the faith from outsiders.\u00a0 The first meaning is the most important and lays the foundations for the other two.\u00a0 Most Muslims believe that preaching and proselytizing are the best ways to achieve their goals.\u00a0 However, Western observers have generally reduced all forms of jihad to one, wrongly defined as a \u201choly war\u201d against nonbelievers.\u00a0 Ironically, the concept of holy war originated among Christians in medieval Europe to justify crusades against Muslims in the Holy Land; it has no direct counterpart in established Islamic thought.<\/p>\n

Jihadism<\/em>, is a term that emerged in the West after 9\/11.\u00a0 It refers to a minority insurgent movement that broke from Islamism and employs violence in the name of religion.\u00a0 Nourished by deep social, political, and economic inequalities and persecution, its adherents are primarily young men who are alienated from mainstream society. Initially, jihadis targeted local secular and Muslim regimes that they considered impure.\u00a0 More recently, a small minority of jihadis have widened their targets to include non-Muslim states that back the impure Muslim regimes.\u00a0 Commentators in the United States often overlook these distinctions, merging Islamism and jihadism under the misleading rubric of \u201cIslamic terrorism,\u201d which wrongly associates religious doctrine with terrorist activity.<\/p>\n

Muslims who engage in terrorism and claim religious justification for these activities are a small minority of Muslims worldwide, and their actions are strongly condemned by the majority.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In sum, Islamic fundamentalism, Islamism, and political Islam are not equivalent to Islamic terrorism.\u00a0 Muslims who engage in terrorism and claim religious justification for these activities are a small minority of Muslims worldwide, and their actions are strongly condemned by the majority.\u00a0 Although these violent extremists deploy the language of religion to justify their actions, their turn to terrorism was often sparked by social, political, and economic grievances rather than religion.\u00a0 When establishment figures in the U.S. view all of these movements as a threat to Western societies and thus base militaristic policies on caricatures and misconceptions, they victimize innocent civilians, intensify hostility toward the United States, and heighten U.S. insecurity.<\/p>\n

V.\u00a0 Case studies: Somalia and Libya<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The U.S. war on terror has undermined U.S. interests.\u00a0 It has also been catastrophic for Africa. Evidence from across the continent supports these claims.\u00a0 The cases of Somalia in the east and Libya in the north exemplify the pattern of U.S. actions subverting both U.S. and African interests.<\/p>\n

Somalia<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The war on terror in Somalia, as elsewhere, is rooted in Cold War policies and practices.\u00a0 During that period, Mohammed Siad Barre\u2019s repressive regime played on superpower rivalries, relying first on the Soviet Union and then on the United States.\u00a0 As the Cold War waned and Siad Barre was no longer valued as a regional policeman, Washington, citing Siad Barre\u2019s human rights abuses, suspended military and economic aid.\u00a0 In 1991, warlords and their militias overthrew the weakened regime.\u00a0 The central government collapsed, state institutions and basic services crumbled, the formal economy ceased to function, and southern Somalia disintegrated into fiefdoms ruled by rival warlords and their militias.\u00a0 Islamists, who had been repressed by the Siad Barre regime, challenged the warlords for control.<\/p>\n

War-induced famine, worsened by drought, threatened the lives of much of the population.\u00a0 Concerned about regional instability, first the United Nations, and then the United States, intervened.\u00a0 In 1992, the UN Security Council authorized the establishment of a US-led multinational military task force to ensure the delivery of humanitarian relief.\u00a0 In 1993, another UN mission, also led by the United States, permitted military personnel to forcibly disarm and arrest Somali warlords and militia members.\u00a0 As a result, the United States took sides in what had become a civil war \u2013 favoring one warlord and opposing another.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

U.S. Marines participate in a UN Task Force search for Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid\u2019s weapons. Mogadishu, January 7, 1993.
Photo by U.S. Navy photographer Terry C. Mitchell.<\/p><\/div>\n

As the United States embroiled itself in Somalia\u2019s war, it generated enormous resentment within the civilian population.\u00a0 When U.S. Special Operations Forces attempted to capture key militia leaders in October 1993, and Somali militias shot down two Black Hawk helicopters, angry crowds attacked the surviving soldiers and their rescuers.\u00a0 Eighteen U.S. troops and some one thousand Somali men, women, and children were killed in the ensuing violence.\u00a0 Having stirred up the hornets\u2019 nest, the United States and UN hastily withdrew from Somalia, and the turmoil intensified.\u00a0 The emergence of al-Qaeda in East Africa in the mid-1990s sparked new U.S. concerns.\u00a0 Al-Qaeda\u2013sponsored bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the organization\u2019s attacks on the United States in September 2001 led to increased U.S. collaboration with Ethiopia, Somalia\u2019s regional nemesis.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Somalia, Islamist groups that had been repressed by the Siad Barre regime gained widespread popular support by providing essential social services no longer furnished by the government.\u00a0 They offered schools, medical care, and courts to enforce law and order in a violent war zone.\u00a0 The Somali public supported these efforts, and business owners financed their activities. Some Islamist groups, like secular movements before them, strove to build a Greater Somalia, uniting ethnic Somalis who had been separated by regional and colonial states.\u00a0 Ethiopia, whose territory included a significant Somali population, grew alarmed.\u00a0 Warning that Somalia could become an al-Qaeda outpost, Washington joined Somali warlords and the Ethiopian government in opposing Islamist advances.<\/p>\n

Foreign imposition of a corrupt, Ethiopian-backed government (2004), CIA support for a new warlord coalition in violation of a UN arms embargo (February\u2013June 2006), and a U.S.-sanctioned Ethiopian invasion and occupation (July 2006\u2013January 2009) resulted in an anti-foreign backlash that intensified popular support for al-Shabaab, which was transformed from a youth militia organized to defend the Islamic courts into a violent jihadist organization that quickly gained the support of al-Qaeda. Somali veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War assumed an important leadership role.<\/p>\n

The fallout from foreign intervention rapidly turned the Somali conflict into a regional conflagration.\u00a0 Whereas the UN tacitly condoned the Ethiopian offensive, the United States actively supported it, referring to the invasion as a legitimate response to aggression by Somali Muslim extremists.\u00a0 Joining forces with those who opposed Islamist influence, Washington launched a low-intensity war against al-Shabaab operatives, deploying both private contractors and U.S. Special Operations Forces.\u00a0 U.S. personnel trained and advised African partners, participated in raids, and interrogated prisoners. U.S. drones and air strikes targeted and killed key al-Shabaab leaders, who were quickly replaced by others.\u00a0 These actions turned al-Shabaab\u2019s attention to the West.\u00a0 The organization began to target Western aid workers, journalists, and Somalis who worked with them.<\/p>\n

The joint Ethiopian-U.S. operation resulted in an increase, rather than a decrease, in chaos and violence.\u00a0 Within weeks of the foreign invasion, a homegrown insurgency had begun, rallying al-Shabaab and other Islamic courts militias, clans that had been marginalized by the foreign-backed government, and a wide range of groups that benefited from anarchy, including warlord militias, hired gunmen, arms and drug traffickers, smugglers, and profiteers.\u00a0 Responding to al-Qaeda\u2019s call, fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arabian Peninsula joined the Somali insurgents.\u00a0 As al-Shabaab took control of large swaths of central and southern Somalia, the UN and African Union intervened, neighboring countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya interceded to push their own agendas concerning territorial boundaries and Muslim populations, and al-Shabaab extended its targets to include them.\u00a0 Within a decade, two new extremist organizations emerged and pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State.<\/p>\n

Rather than paving the way for stability, the U.S.-led war on terror provoked an insurgency in Somalia that consumed thousands of civilian lives and destabilized the region.\u00a0 Human rights organizations accused all sides of war crimes.\u00a0 Human Rights Watch charged that \u201cthe Ethiopian forces . . . appeared to conduct deliberate attacks on civilians, particularly attacks on hospitals.\u201d<\/a>[3]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 They also bombed densely populated areas and collectively punished civilians, raping and killing with impunity.\u00a0 Insurgents had engaged in assassinations and summary executions and mounted attacks from crowded neighborhoods that bore the brunt of Ethiopian and Somali government retaliation.\u00a0 Multiple peace initiatives failed. Somali civil society had not been included in the negotiations.\u00a0 The ensuing agreements, which did not address the underlying grievances, gained little internal support, and a succession of weak, foreign-backed governments could not provide even basic services and security.\u00a0 The vicious cycle of brutality by opposing forces intensified, trapping civilians in the crossfire. In short, U.S. support for the unaccountable Somali government brought greater mayhem, rather than peace, to the region.<\/p>\n

Libya<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In Libya, as in Somalia, the foreign-backed war on terror brought greater insecurity to the region \u2013 not peace. Once again, the United States played a leading role.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The war on terror in Libya was also rooted in the Cold War, when the autocratic government of Muammar Qaddafi assumed power.\u00a0 Qaddafi\u2019s anti-imperialist rhetoric, socialist policies, nationalization of the Western-dominated oil industry, and the presence of Soviet arms and advisors convinced the U.S. that Libya was a Soviet proxy \u2013 despite the regime\u2019s repression of communists.\u00a0 To maintain his grip on power, Qaddafi, governed through family, clan, and tribal ties, and promoted social cleavages that kept potential rivals weak.\u00a0 He destroyed any institution that might challenge him. As a result, Libya had no parliament, trade unions, political parties, or nongovernmental organizations.<\/p>\n

After the Cold War, Libya and Western countries found common cause in their shared opposition to those who embraced violent jihad, including Libyan veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War.\u00a0 Determined to end Libya\u2019s pariah status and to revive foreign investment in the oil industry, Gaddafi cooperated with the West on counterterrorism issues.\u00a0 He renounced terrorism, destroyed Libya\u2019s biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons stockpiles, and abandoned its weapons of mass destruction programs. UN and European Union arms embargoes and U.S. economic sanctions were lifted.\u00a0 European and U.S. interests began to invest heavily in Libyan oil and natural gas exploration and production, and European countries helped Libya upgrade its military. In exchange for billions of dollars in trade, investment, and weapons deals, Qaddafi helped European countries staunch the flow of illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe \u2013 halting African refugees and job-seekers on Libyan shores, where they were herded into detention camps and low-wage employment.<\/p>\n

Qaddafi\u2019s attempts to work with the West were thwarted by the Arab Spring (2011\u201313).\u00a0 As prodemocracy demonstrators and rebel movements ousted repressive rulers across North Africa and the Middle East, foreign nations and multigovernmental organizations allied with forces they hoped would protect their interests.\u00a0 International terrorist networks led by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, took advantage of local grievances to support a wide range of violent extremists, including drug smugglers, human traffickers, and petty criminals, as well as indigenous groups fighting secular or supposedly impious Muslim governments.<\/p>\n

In February 2011, inspired by popular uprisings elsewhere in the region, Libyan protesters and insurgents began an all-out rebellion against the Qaddafi regime.\u00a0 Qaddafi\u2019s foreign allies quickly abandoned him.\u00a0 The UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo.\u00a0 The Arab League suspended Libya\u2019s membership and initiated contact with Libyan rebels.\u00a0 Western governments imposed economic sanctions and froze Libyan assets.\u00a0 As Qaddafi turned his military against civilian and insurgent strongholds, rebel leaders urged the international community to impose a no-fly zone that would prevent the Libyan air force from attacking civilians.\u00a0 The result was a UN-authorized, NATO-led military intervention \u2013 ostensibly to protect civilian lives, but with regime change as an unofficial objective.<\/p>\n

In October 2011, a U.S. Predator drone and a French warplane fired on Qaddafi\u2019s convoy, enabling rebel forces to capture and execute the ousted ruler.\u00a0 Without institutions to fill the power vacuum, regime change provoked the collapse of the social order.\u00a0 Qaddafi\u2019s departure unleashed score-settling and retribution by groups pitted against one another during his tenure.\u00a0 Local militias, warlords, and violent extremists moved into the power vacuum, seizing unprotected weapons from Qaddafi\u2019s arsenals and absorbing his crack military troops and mercenaries.<\/p>\n

What had begun as peaceful protests devolved into a violent conflict between allies and opponents of the old regime and between factions within these camps.\u00a0 Radical youth challenged elders who had served the Qaddafi government.\u00a0 Rival towns fought to control of Libya\u2019s vast oil, natural gas, and gold reserves as well its energy infrastructure, ports, airports, and central bank.\u00a0 Moderate Islamists struggled with secularists, and both groups opposed violent extremists, including Libyan veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War and foreign fighters who had answered al-Qaeda\u2019s call to join the rebellion.<\/p>\n

By 2014, Libya had become a new hub for al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and was deeply embroiled in civil war.\u00a0 The UN Security Council did not authorize a peacekeeping operation to support peacekeeping or nation-building.\u00a0 Its mission failed to protect civilians from further violence or to safeguard Qaddafi\u2019s weapons stockpiles. Libyan arms flooded into neighboring countries and made their way to insurgencies in North Africa, the Western Sahel, the Horn, and the Middle East, arming secular insurgents, religious extremists, and criminals.<\/p>\n

In Libya, as in Somalia, the foreign-backed war on terror brought greater insecurity to the region \u2013 not peace.\u00a0 Once again, the United States played a leading role.<\/p>\n

VI.\u00a0 Lessons learned<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What lessons can be learned from the recent history of U.S. military intervention in Africa?<\/p>\n

Most importantly, military solutions don\u2019t work.\u00a0 U.S. drone and missile strikes have killed countless unarmed civilians, increasing local support for insurgent forces.\u00a0 Military successes have been short-lived, as violent extremists have regrouped and shifted their focus to unprotected civilians.\u00a0 Local governments backed by the United States and its allies rarely address the structural problems that triggered the conflicts.\u00a0 As a result, civilian populations, neglected by their governments, have sometimes turned to extremist groups for income, basic services, and protection that their governments have not provided.\u00a0 Peace agreements, imposed from above and outside, have failed to give voice to affected populations.\u00a0 Jihadist organizations have been denied a seat at the bargaining table, even though they are critical parties to the conflicts.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, most of the accords have collapsed.<\/p>\n

Contrary to popular U.S. stereotypes, religion and ethnicity are not the root causes of African conflicts. Deeper structural inequalities are at work: poverty, underdevelopment, and political repression \u2013 as well as the devastating impact of climate change. The encroaching desert in Darfur (western Sudan) has pitted herders against farmers in the struggle for water and usable land; the drying up of Lake Chad has devastated fishing and agriculture in four countries and sparked the Boko Haram insurgency; and the destruction of the fishing industry by foreign trawlers has led to piracy off the coast of Somalia, are cases in point.<\/p>\n

U.S. Africa policies, developed during the Cold War, were conceived by leaders and proponents of the military-industrial complex.\u00a0 Marked by militarism and misunderstanding, they have failed to identify the true factors that undermine human security.\u00a0 As a result, U.S. Africa policy has offered wrong-headed solutions that often exacerbate the problem.\u00a0 The post-9\/11 war on terror has led to particularly grievous results.<\/p>\n

If the issue is not how many troops, planes, and drones the U.S. should supply, what should the U.S. do?<\/p>\n

To promote an effective response to violent extremism in Africa, the United States needs to revamp its approach in four important ways.<\/p>\n

To promote an effective response to violent extremism in Africa, the United States needs to revamp its approach in four important ways.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First,<\/strong> the U.S. must broaden its understanding of \u201cnational interests\u201d and \u201cnational security.\u201d\u00a0 Like President Trump\u2019s America firsters, establishment liberals tend to view U.S. national security primarily in military terms that focus on the maintenance of U.S. global power and interests against perceived threats.\u00a0 Instead, the United States should embrace a more exacting concept of global human security that includes access to good food, water, health care, education, employment, physical security, and respect for human rights, civil liberties, and the environment as factors critical to human well-being.\u00a0 The safeguarding of global human security is a precondition for U.S. security.\u00a0 It requires a multidimensional approach that addresses and remedies the root causes of problems that threat the world today.<\/p>\n

Second,<\/strong> the U.S. needs to acknowledge that it does not have the answers and to seek out those who do.\u00a0 Grassroots endeavors \u2013 organized by African-led agricultural cooperatives, trade unions, and women\u2019s and youth groups \u2013 are already addressing the grievances that spring from poverty and inequality and the conflicts that result.\u00a0 They have lived the experience and have developed the best solutions.\u00a0 They must guide U.S. policy choices.<\/p>\n

Since the early 1990s, African pro-democracy movements have demanded better education, employment, health care, clean water, sanitation, electricity, and roads, along with programs to rehabilitate rank-and-file fighters and counter future violent extremism.\u00a0 They have insisted on the need for responsive, democratic governments that respect the rule of law, eliminate corruption, and address climate change, pollution, and the inequitable distribution of resources.\u00a0 They have called for an end to harsh counterinsurgency campaigns and to the impunity of military and police personnel who have engaged in human rights abuses.\u00a0 Their voices should be heard, and their experiences and solutions should be seriously considered.<\/p>\n

Third,<\/strong> the United States and its allies should support local peace initiatives that include all affected parties. Key actors, including Islamist and jihadist groups, should not be sidelined at their discretion.<\/p>\n

Finally, the United States should withdraw its support for corrupt, repressive regimes and instead advance U.S. and multilateral initiatives that promote democracy, human rights, and economic, environmental, and climate justice.<\/p>\n

The only path to greater U.S. security is greater human security worldwide.\u00a0 History has shown that there will be no peace if underlying grievances are not addressed, if domestic and foreign militaries continue to victimize local populations, and if dysfunctional states fail to provide basic services.\u00a0 Boko Haram, for example, will not be effectively countered as long as the Nigerian government continues to brutalize and punish local populations.\u00a0 These concerns are longstanding, and there are no easy fixes or short-term solutions.\u00a0 Although fundamental political, economic, and social transformations will take decades, they are the only solution to crises in Africa and the global south.<\/p>\n

Endnotes<\/strong>:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

<\/a>[1]<\/a> Material for this article is derived from Elizabeth Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War: Sovereignty, Responsibility and the War on Terror<\/em> (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2018), and from Elizabeth Schmidt, \u201cLessons from Africa: Military Intervention Fails to Counter Terrorism,\u201d Foreign Policy in Focus<\/em> (FPIF), March 26, 2020, https:\/\/fpif.org\/lessons-from-africa-military-intervention-fails-to-counter-terrorism<\/a>. A free PDF download of the book is available through Open Access, found on the Ohio University Press website: https:\/\/www.ohioswallow.com\/book\/Foreign+Intervention+in+Africa+after+the+Cold+War<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>[2]<\/a> Assessing Damage, Urging Action: Report of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Human Rights<\/em> (Geneva: International Commission of Jurists, 2009), 49.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[3]<\/a> Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked: Civilians Under Siege in Mogadishu<\/em> (August 13, 2007), p. 5, https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2007\/08\/13\/shell-shocked\/civilians-under-siege-mogadishu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Schmidt is professor emeritus of history at Loyola University Maryland.\u00a0 A scholar-activist, she has written about U.S. involvement in apartheid South Africa, women under colonialism in Zimbabwe, the nationalist movement in Guinea, and foreign intervention in Africa from the Cold War to the war on terror.\u00a0 Her books include:\u00a0 <\/em>Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War: Sovereignty, Responsibility, and the War on Terror (2018<\/em>); Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror (2013<\/em>); Cold War and Decolonization in Guinea, 1946-1958 (2007<\/em>); Mobilizing the Masses: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939-1958 (2005<\/em>); Peasants, Traders, and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939 (1992<\/em>); and Decoding Corporate Camouflage: U.S. Business Support for Apartheid (1980<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 peacehistory-usfp.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To understand the war on terror in Africa, it must be placed in historical context. At the close of WWII, the Cold War intensified and African struggles for independence escalated. European colonial powers and Cold War superpowers attempted to control the decolonization process. Western powers deployed military might to promote friendly governments that catered to their own political and economic interests and justified their interventions with the \u201ccommunist threat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":191276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[241],"tags":[237,131,813,532,405,550,2187,276,433,1126,1050,112,880,70,492,172],"class_list":["post-191272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-the-week","tag-africa","tag-africom","tag-cold-war","tag-colonialism","tag-colonization","tag-corruption","tag-decolonization","tag-democracy","tag-europe","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-pentagon","tag-state-terrorism","tag-usa","tag-war-on-terror","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191272","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=191272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}