{"id":25990,"date":"2013-02-25T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T12:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=25990"},"modified":"2013-03-04T19:47:05","modified_gmt":"2013-03-04T19:47:05","slug":"obamas-wars-in-africa-100-military-personnel-in-niger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/02\/obamas-wars-in-africa-100-military-personnel-in-niger\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama\u2019s Wars in Africa: 100 Military Personnel in Niger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>President Obama <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/24-7\/2013\/02\/22\/around-100-us-military-personnel-sent-to\" >sent about<\/a> 100 U.S. military personnel to Niger to support the French mission to root out Islamists in Mali, of which he informed Congress today [22 Feb 2013]. In his State of the Union address last week, Obama pointed to Mali as an example of how the United States\u00a0needs to operate in the global war on terror (term out of use) when he <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/13\/the-never-ending-war-in-afghanistan-and\" >said<\/a> \u201cwe\u2019ll need to help countries like Yemen, Libya, and Somalia provide for their own security and help allies who take the fight to terrorists, as we have in Mali.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was the only mention of Africa (other than in its inclusion in the global war on terror by some other name) in the address, yet the United States has been quite active on the continent. Obama previously sent 100 troops <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/archives\/2011\/10\/18\/obamas-latest-military-adventu\" >to Uganda in late 2011<\/a> to capture the rebel leader Joseph Kony. That search has led U.S. troops <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/20\/us-troops-helping-secure-part-of-central\" >as far west<\/a> as the Central African Republic, in addition to the nearby Congo and the newly independent South Sudan. U.S. military support, of course, was <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/22\/does-toppling-qaddafi-make-us\" >instrumental to regime change in Libya<\/a>, despite lacking any Congressional authorization, and that intervention in Libya, in turn, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/06\/mali-collapse-libyan-blowback-edition\" >fueled<\/a> the instability in Mali and the region.<\/p>\n<p>Last summer, the <i>Washington Post<\/i> outlined <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/14\/americas-secret-wars-in-africa\" >U.S. intelligence operations across Africa<\/a>, which ranges from a forward operating base in Djibouti and drones over Somalia in Africa\u2019s horn to surveillance planes flying out of Ougadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, in West Africa. Niger, where 100 U.S. military personnel are now headed, is also <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/01\/29\/us\/us-plans-base-for-surveillance-drones-in-northwest-africa.html\" >the likeliest candidate<\/a> for a new U.S. drone base in the region.<\/p>\n<p>George W. Bush spent <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/africa\/popular-in-africa-bush-has-given-more-aid-than-any-other-us-president-783387.html\" >more on aid to Africa<\/a> than any president that preceded him. Obama\u2019s legacy may be <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/archives\/2012\/07\/31\/obamas-adventures-in-africa\" >militarizing U.S. policy toward the continent<\/a> more than any predecessor.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/22\/obamas-wars-in-africa-100-military-perso?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28Reason+Online+-+Hit+%26+Run+Blog%29\" >Go to Original \u2013 reason.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Obama sent about 100 U.S. military personnel to Niger to support the French mission in Mali, he informed Congress today [22 Feb 2013]. George W. Bush spent more on aid to Africa than any president that preceded him. Obama\u2019s legacy may be militarizing U.S. policy toward the continent more than any predecessor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,127,65,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism","category-africa","category-anglo-america","category-middle-east-north-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25990","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=25990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}