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
  • omnibus

Expanding Monstrous US Drone War to Kenya is Bi-Partisan Madness
Netfa Freeman
23 Sep 2020
Expanding Monstrous US Drone War to Kenya is Bi-Partisan Madness
Expanding Monstrous US Drone War to Kenya is Bi-Partisan Madness

The absence of a domestic backlash against US Africa policy is testament to the blind spots of our movement.

“The whole world must begin to see AFRICOM and the militarization of police departments as counterparts.”

Instead of being a remnant of its past, US genocidal repression, labor exploitation and resource plundering against Indigenous and African (Black) people now extends to peoples across the planet. The tyranny of US racial capitalism over Black people stretches to the African motherland, without the bat of an eye by Black misleaders.

Side by side with domestic militarized police repression and racist vigilante violence in reaction to the George Floyd uprisings are persistent US air strikes and “special operations” in Africa. Despite the fact that US military efforts to “combat terrorism” actually encourages it, and that the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) is guilty of untold numbers of civilian deaths, the Pentagon is now seeking authority to expand its drone war into Kenya. This would potentially expand a war zone across the border from Somalia.

Deploying US troops to combat terrorism tends to encourage asymmetric types of resistance like terrorism. The more bombing there is, the more terrorism is inspired, which justifies more bombing.

Just like in cases when US domestic police kill people, the criminals reserve the authority to investigate themselves, which too often means impunity.

“The more bombing there is, the more terrorism is inspired.”

"’Not only does AFRICOM utterly fail at its mission to report civilian casualties in Somalia, it doesn't seem to care about the fate of the numerous families it has completely torn apart,’ Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International's director for East and Southern Africa, said after AFRICOM's last quarterly report on civilian casualties was released on July 28.”

Waging war and militarization is the intransigent response to any form of resistance in both US foreign and domestic policy. Activists protesting fascism and racist policing within the US are met with Gestapo-like arrests and extrajudicial execution by militarized police (murder). 

Concurrently AFRICOM carries out counterpart anti-Black operations in Africa with the complicity of comprador leaders. The Muriel Bowers and Uhuru Kenyattas of the world do not enjoy the popular political legitimacy needed to keep them in power without a MDP and a KDF to impose their authority. Like all compradors they are obliged to the parasitic global capitalist class, not to the people.

In the capital city of the US, Democratic Mayor Bowser postures as being opposed to Republican President Trump on issues of police brutality, while presiding over police killings of her own and insisting on the prosecution of so-called “violent” activists. The violence that the ruling class is concerned with is actually damage to inanimate property of capitalists.

“Activists protesting fascism and racist policing within the US are met with Gestapo-like arrests and extrajudicial execution by militarized police.”

President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya betrays his people’s interest with subservient requests to the racist US President Trump. In addition to AFRICOM’s desire for expanded authorities, President Kenyatta asked Trump during a White House visit in February for additional counterterrorism assistance, including “armed aerial support” to help combat Al Shabaab.

The persistence of the civil disobedience against racist police terror in the US is admirable. That the US, however, can at the same time expand a murderous predator drone war in Africa without a concomitant denunciation shows a collective disconnect in the understanding of the essential problem. The absence of a domestic backlash against US Africa policy is testament to the blind spots of our movement.

How can the US, whose wealth and power is based on economic exploitation and repression of the indigenous and Black working class, gain tacit permission to police our motherland? Imagine another country conducting 46 airstrikes on the US in eight months, as the US has done against Somalia.

The intent to expand Washington’s massively lethal predator drone wars should spark immediate condemnation from decent lawmakers on Capitol Hill, especially Black lawmakers.

“How can the US gain tacit permission to police our motherland?”

And not only does there need to be a mass movement in the US to shut down AFRICOM and the US drone war, this mass movement needs to become inseparably bound with the movement that has swept this country to end murderous police brutality against Black and Brown people. The whole world must begin to see AFRICOM and the militarization of police departments as counterparts. The US public must come to realize that no matter which party controls the legislature, no matter whether the President of the United States is Republican or a Democrat, the greatest existential threat to the planet is the US oligarchy.

“Peace, human cooperation, substantive equality and commitment to People(s)-Centered Human Rights are possible. These values represent the only rational basis for sustaining human life on the planet. Join Black Alliance for Peace at 4 p.m., EST, on September 24th, for our webinar, Full Spectrum Dominance: From AFRICOM to Indo-Pacific Command, where we will discuss and strategize on how we can put a brake on the global bi-partisan war machine.” -Black Alliance for Peace 9/21/2020 Newsletter

Netfa Freeman is an organizer in Pan-African Community Action (PACA) and on the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace. And is also co-host/producer of the WPFW radio show and podcast Voices With Vision.

AFRICOM

Trending

Elizabeth Warren Wants Green Bombs, not a Green New Deal
Parallels Between Black and Palestinian Struggles
Cory Booker Hates Public Schools
Bill Cosby Should Have Been Denounced by Black America Long Ago
The Black Wall Around Barack Obama: Who Does It Protect Him Against?
How Complacency, Complicity of Black Misleadership Class Led to Supreme Court Evisceration of the Voting Rights Act

Related Stories

Global Africa’s Mission: Out-Think and Out-Maneuver Stupid, Violent Imperialists
Mark P. Fancher
Global Africa’s Mission: Out-Think and Out-Maneuver Stupid, Violent Imperialists
18 November 2020
AFRICOM is designed to do only one thing well, and that is to kill Africans. 
AFRICOM: Deadly Deception
Friends of Congo
AFRICOM: Deadly Deception
07 October 2020
AFRICOM's real aim was never peace nor stability but rather, strategic US interests.
Why We Focus on Africa
Black Alliance For Peace
Why We Focus on Africa
30 September 2020
Africa can’t demonstrate independence and power because the entire continent has a giant U.S. military boot on its neck.
AFRICOM Crying Russia in Libya: A Pot and Kettle Syndrome
Netfa Freeman
AFRICOM Crying Russia in Libya: A Pot and Kettle Syndrome
05 August 2020
The US waged unprovoked war against Libya and has militarily occupied Africa, but is still singing its old song that Russia is the aggressor on the
AFRICOM and the Guise of Terrorism
Tunde Osazua
AFRICOM and the Guise of Terrorism
15 July 2020
If AFRICOM’s mission is to fight terrorism, then why have terror attacks increased five-fold since the US began its military occupation of the cont
On African Liberation Day, the Black Alliance for Peace Demands U.S. Shut Down AFRICOM
Black Alliance For Peace
On African Liberation Day, the Black Alliance for Peace Demands U.S. Shut Down AFRICOM
27 May 2020
The US Military Command in Africa allows Washington and its European allies to dominate the continent and its resources.
First Somali Congressperson Legitimizes AFRICOM and US Drone War 
Tunde Osazua and Netfa Freeman
First Somali Congressperson Legitimizes AFRICOM and US Drone War 
13 May 2020
Rep. Omar recently commended the US war machine for increasing the “transparency” and “accountability” of its bombing of her native country.
Violence Has Spiked in Africa Since Founding of AFRICOM, Says Pentagon Study
Nick Turse
Violence Has Spiked in Africa Since Founding of AFRICOM, Says Pentagon Study
31 July 2019
Since AFRICOM was created, key indicators of security and stability in Africa have plummeted.
Revealed: The U.S. Military's 36 Code-Named Operations in Africa
Nick Turse and Sean D. Naylor
Revealed: The U.S. Military's 36 Code-Named Operations in Africa
01 May 2019
Between 2013 and 2017, U.S. special operations forces saw combat in at least 13 African countries.
Black Alliance for Peace Demands Black Caucus Hold Hearings on US Militarization of Africa
Black Alliance For Peace
Black Alliance for Peace Demands Black Caucus Hold Hearings on US Militarization of Africa
03 April 2019
As part of its “US Out of Africa” campaign, BAP collected thousands of signatures demanding Black lawmakers fulfill their responsibilities to Afric

More Stories


  • Trump as Othello in a Corporate Theater
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Trump as Othello in a Corporate Theater
    21 Jan 2021
    Trump the straw man has finally been knocked down, giving the Democrats a victory that costs their corporate masters nothing.
  • The Left Lens: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and American Empire, with Ajamu Baraka
    Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley
    The Left Lens: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and American Empire, with Ajamu Baraka
    20 Jan 2021
    Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday is often celebrated without any regard for his radical political legacy.
  • Freedom Rider: Why the Left Don’t Protest
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Why the Left Don’t Protest
    20 Jan 2021
    The worse the political and economic crisis becomes, the more lethargic the US left behaves – as if generations of collaboration with corporate Democrats has sucked the life out of the left.
  • Return to the Source: Democracy is Dead
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    Return to the Source: Democracy is Dead
    20 Jan 2021
    By what stretch of the imagination can the US be a democracy when ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does? 
  • Uganda: Bobi Wine Rocks the Vote but Museveni Claims Victory
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Uganda: Bobi Wine Rocks the Vote but Museveni Claims Victory
    20 Jan 2021
    Ugandan pop star turned presidential candidate Bobi Wine is not Sankara or Lumumba, but he has risked his life to mount a fierce challenge to the 36-year dictatorship of President Yoweri Museveni.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us