Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Coming Soon: Obama’s Big Move in Central Africa
11 Jan 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

President Obama would have you believe that 100 elite U.S. Special Forces soldiers are running around in the African Bush looking for what’s left of the Lord’s Resistance Army. “The real target is South Sudan, where the United States is setting the stage for an African proxy oil war with China.” The Green Berets are in central Africa to coordinate military operations by Washington’s African clients. “The United States and Europe can no longer compete economically with China in Africa, and must now resort to raw force, through African puppet armies.”

 

Coming Soon: Obama’s Big Move in Central Africa

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“The U.S. needs its own Special Forces units in place to coordinate its puppet African armies.”

It’s now becoming apparent why President Obama sent 100 U.S. Special Forces troops to central Africa, back in October of last year. The president’s official explanation was that the Green Berets would be helping Uganda, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the new nation of South Sudan to hunt for remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The L.R.A., which has a reputation for killing civilians, was driven from its home in Uganda and now numbers only a few hundred scattered fighters. It poses no threat to any government in the region, and is not a plausible cause to dispatch significant numbers of U.S. Special Forces. Obama is using the L.R.A. to give his military mission a humanitarian cloak – that he’s going after rogue bad guys in the bush who threaten African civilians. The actual mission has to be something much larger.

It looks like the real target is South Sudan, where the United States is setting the stage for an African proxy oil war with China. Last July, South Sudan won independence from northern Sudan, a country that has been targeted for regime change by presidents Bush and Obama. Sudan’s oil lies right at the border between North and South, and the fields are under production by Chinese companies. The South Sudanese fought a decades long war against the north, during which they were heavily armed and financed by the U.S., Europeans and Israel. The newly independent nation is among poorest and least developed in the world – and broke. South Sudan is also already engaged ethnic civil wars of its own that have killed or displaced many tens of thousands. But chaos is precisely the environment that Washington prefers, in Africa – so that it can establish a new order that is to U.S. advantage.

“Obama is using the L.R.A. to give his military mission a humanitarian cloak.”

Reporter Thomas C. Mountain, who calls himself the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, points out in a recent article that the United States pays the salaries of South Sudan’s army, and also pays the costs of the thousands of United Nations so-called “peacekeepers” who have been sent to South Sudan to help contain the ethnic violence. Those UN peacekeepers are mostly soldiers from Ethiopia, a U.S. client state that, along with Kenya and Uganda, is waging a proxy war under U.S. sponsorship in Somalia. The Ethiopians worked very closely with U.S. Special Forces, right down to the company level, in the 2006 invasion of Somalia.

Now, in the heart of central Africa where South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Congo, and the Central African Republic meet – all of them U.S. client states – the U.S. needs its own Special Forces units in place to coordinate its puppet African armies, and to keep all of them focused on the larger mission. Reporter Thomas C. Mountain says that mission is to destabilize northern Sudan and China's oil operations, there.

That makes perfect imperial sense. The United States and Europe can no longer compete economically with China in Africa, and must now resort to raw force, through African puppet armies. The U.S. has mobilized all its proxies in East and Central Africa for a big push that will need close coordination on the ground. Obama's Green Berets aren't hunting for the rag-tag Lord’s Resistance Army; they're out to control the resources of half the continent.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20120111_gf_SouthSudan.mp3

More Stories


  • Brittney Griner and the U.S. State
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Brittney Griner and the U.S. State
    14 Dec 2022
    Brittney Griner's ordeal in Russia is over. But she has been secreted away for "reintegration" and the U.S. continues its own brand of international hostage taking.
  • ESSAY: Negroes Speak of War, Langston Hughes, 1933
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Negroes Speak of War, Langston Hughes, 1933
    14 Dec 2022
    What benefits do Black folk get by endorsing or participating in the white man’s war? Revisiting an anti-war statement by Langston Hughes.
  • On International Human Rights Day: Money for Ukraine and War But Austerity for the People
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    On International Human Rights Day: Money for Ukraine and War But Austerity for the People
    14 Dec 2022
    The U.S. does not respect the right to health care, housing, employment, or education while making war on the rest of the world. What does the idea of human rights amount to in this country?
  • Ghost Stories of Capitalism: Racism is REAL, and It’s a Class Struggle
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Ghost Stories of Capitalism: Racism is REAL, and It’s a Class Struggle
    14 Dec 2022
    From culture wars to identity politics, it's easy to get sucked into toxic rhetoric and forget the reality of racism staring the US in the face.
  • If the US Told Rwanda and Uganda to Get Out of Congo, the War Would End
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    If the US Told Rwanda and Uganda to Get Out of Congo, the War Would End
    14 Dec 2022
    Rwanda and Uganda continue their plunder and destabilization of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as proxies of the United States.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us