Why was it there in the first place I wonder?
To surveil (and maybe to bomb) Islamic extremists that have a foothold in the region? The entire article is about why they’re there…
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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If you believe anything the U.S. has to say about fighting Islamic extremists after Iraq and Afghanistan...
Well that certainly seems like shitty counter insurgency. It doesn't effect the material reasons that led to insurgents and creates more martyrs which increases recruitment and helps align the civilian population with the insurgency. The vietnamese knew this 50 years ago which is one of the reasons the US got its ass handed to it, has the US not learned it still?
Outside of the tactic not being effective though, why is the US interested in doing counterinsurgency in the region?
I would imagine western intelligence is very useful in fighting Isis. It certainly has been a huge boon for Ukraine in their war. As for why the west is interested in stopping the spread of Islamic extremism in Africa, foreign safe harbors for extremists often end up being training grounds for terrorists that attack the west.
Uh... Hate to break it to you, champ, but no one has trained, funded, and armed more Islamic extremists than the US. Maybe the US should GTFO of the places that it completely fucked up and let the sovereign nations that are impacted deal with it themselves. If those nations need help, maybe the US and Europe can start to return the trillions of dollars it stole from the continent.
I won’t disagree that the US has short-sightedly funded a lot of mujahideen fighters including recently some questionable groups in Syria, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re directly opposed to the Islamists in Saharan Africa. As for your suggestion that the US return the money they stole (despite the fact that they weren’t really involved in African colonialism), they account for over a fifth of all aid to Africa.
I won’t disagree that the US has short-sightedly funded a lot of mujahideen fighters including recently some questionable groups in Syria, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re directly opposed to the Islamists in Saharan Africa.
"This time it's different, I swear, just give me one more undeclared forever war"
The US wasn't involved in African colonialism? Aside from the fact that they profited immensely from the slave trade they were part of the Berlin Conference. Then followed all of the neocolonialism where they participated in ensuring European/American control over natural resources through coups, support for puppet regimes, etc.
As for aid to Africa, for every dollar of aid the US sends to Africa, more than twice that amount is extracted from Africa. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/14/aid-in-reverse-how-poor-countries-develop-rich-countries
You can't just diminish the US's role in literally creating modern terrorism and just wave it off by saying they are definitely out there fighting the good fight. And you can't say that because the US wasn't part of the initial colonization of African that it doesn't benefit from and participate in the theft of billions from the continent annually. You have to actually do the research into the history and present-day and at least try to understand the whole thing instead of just believing what Western PR firms say.
Yes, the US gives aid as part of the cover they need to extract more. The wealth the West is loaning to Africa is literally Africa wealth. Why should the West be charging massive amounts of interest and fees and attaching political strings to loans of money to Africa when that money is Africa's in the first place? The idea that colonialism is over and the US isn't part of it is just refusal to engage in the contemporary understanding of neocolonialism and how it looks, behaves, and how destructive it is.
Yes, the US is fighting ISIS but the US also gave rise to ISIS. The US should not be there fighting ISIS because whatever comes next will be worse. ISIS is already the 3rd generation of terrorism spawned through blow back against US policy, strategy, and tactics. You really want to see the 4th generation? Because that's what's going to emerge from the US fighting ISIS. The US doesn't give a shit about the impact of terrorism in Africa and Asia. They fucking created it on purpose, and it has proven to be an incredibly lucrative phenomenon for them. They love being able to whip everyone into a blood frenzy with the topic.
And lest you think this was an old mistake from the before times: https://www.law.georgetown.edu/environmental-law-review/blog/an-old-enemy-the-regressive-tendencies-of-american-foreign-policy/
The CIA is still working with extremists and terrorists - training, arming, and organizing them - for geostrategic aims, mostly fighting communism and securing oil and mineral profits.
So. Yeah. Fuck the US. They need to get the fuck out of Africa and they along with the rest of the North Atlantic need to begin the process of reparations. And that's going to be in the trillions of dollars just for the last 50 years so they need to get started now as it will take decades for them to find ways to give back to Africa what they stole.
The US was a regional power with far less influence as compared to today when the Berlin Conference happened, and the result of their participation was Liberia. Conflating that with Europe’s scramble for Africa is disingenuous. Also, I don’t think the US is fighting the good fight, I think they do what every state actor does, which is act in their own self interest. China certainly isn’t working on their belt and road initiative because they think it’s a nice thing for the world. You won’t find me going to bat for the CIA or the corporate world.
I still think African states turning to Russia/Wagner and China’s sphere are in for a rude awakening.
Conflating that with Europe’s scramble for Africa is disingenuous
For every dollar the global South receives in aid, fourteen dollars are extracted in unequal exchange alone. The Berlin Conference is one historical event. The historical process is still ongoing and the US has taken the lead role in that process. That process being the continuous dominance of the world by European powers. The English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Belgian, and Portuguese were all competing for the lead role in the process, Spain and England became the top two contenders, they met in the Americas with the French, and then the English settlers won the battle for control of the most land, resources, and people. Those settlers established the USA and took the lead role in the process.
To claim that because the US was weaker at the exact time of the Berlin Conference is to distract from the historical process that the US benefits from and uses to extract trillions of dollars of wealth from the people they oppress as part of the continued oppression started by the Europeans during the Age of Discovery.
China certainly isn’t working on their belt and road initiative because they think it’s a nice thing for the world.
China's theory of action is significantly different from the West's. In the West, their theory of action is that dominance of the super majority of the world is in their self-interest, complete with extraction of hyperprofits from workers, mass murder, hard power projection, forced underdevelopment of the global South, and dumping all waste and externalities on the world's majority. China's theory of action is that a multi-polar world with far more even development and a focus on diplomacy, peace, autonomy of sovereign nations, and economic collaboration is in their self-interest. The BRI is absolutely in China's self-interest, but it is not a Western imperialist project. Only the West thinks it is because the West projects all of its evils onto its opponents. The analysis has been done multiple times - China is not engaged in any debt trapping the way the West is.
I still think African states turning to Russia/Wagner and China’s sphere are in for a rude awakening.
I think you imagine that Russia/China are going to "do a Westy" on them. Think about what that says about the West. And when it doesn't materialize, you can finally have that change of perspective you need.
Realize that the US (and many other European states), as well as Taiwan, opposed the end of apartheid in South Africa while Cuba and China supported the end of apartheid. South Africa didn't even officially recognize China until Hong Kong was returned from the British, because the economic and political ties the British imposed on South Africa and the rest of its territory were so critical to the functioning of SA that losing ties to Hong Kong was unthinkable, so they recognized China in order to keep trading with the British financial infrastructure that the colonial power had installed on the island.
Nothing could be worse for Africa than what it suffered under the process of Western imperialism, including the historical period of US control of that process. 600 years of non-stop super exploitation, mass murder, subjugation, apartheid, indoctrination, forced underdevelopment, enslavement, environmental devastation, brutal collective punishment, systematized physical, psychological, and sexual torture... Whatever rude awakening you think they'll get, it'll be a dream compared to what the West did to it.
China doesn’t engage in debt traps?
Seems to me they’re doing it plenty and obfuscating as much as they can. State capitalism is still capitalism and they sure seem to have bought into the predatory loan part. But hey, like I said, they’re just working in their own self interest.
If China could be the unipolar power of the world they would go for it. They talk about a multipolar future because it sounds nice while they strong arm all their neighbors over their imaginary nine dotted line. I don’t expect China and Russia to ‘do a westy’, they’re already doing their own brand of selfish foreign policy.
I find it’s fascinating how you can harp on the west for their myriad of sins while ignoring Chinese state capitalism which extracts wealth in the same manner you criticize and Russian oligarchical kleptocracy just because the west sucks too. Both nations have imperial holdings, ask the Chechens or the Tibetans. At least I’m able to criticize my country’s bullshit without being locked up.
China doesn’t engage in debt traps?
Correct. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/
The Atlantic is well know for its hardline pro European propaganda and you can read their analysis.
Seems to me they’re doing it plenty and obfuscating as much as they can.
That's what the West does, and the West is losing. China doesn't want to lose like the West loses, so they are doing something different. Stop projecting.
State capitalism is still capitalism
This is not a useful analysis. State capitalism has different class characteristics.
they sure seem to have bought into the predatory loan part.
Stop projecting.
like I said, they’re just working in their own self interest.
Which is to not fail by following what the West has done.
If China could be the unipolar power of the world they would go for it.
Stop projecting. There is nothing in their writing, politics, rhetoric, or theory that would lead to this conclusion. The only way to come to this conclusion is to image that they are just as fucked up as Europe is but better at hiding it. This is silly.
They talk about a multipolar future because it sounds nice while they strong arm all their neighbors over their imaginary nine dotted line. I don’t expect China and Russia to ‘do a westy’, they’re already doing their own brand of selfish foreign policy.
False equivalency. Pushing the West out of the Pacific is not the same as the West invading the Pacific. This is the same argument that slaves killing their masters is just as violent, or worse, then masters dominating their slaves.
I find it’s fascinating how you can harp on the west for their myriad of sins while ignoring Chinese state capitalism which extracts wealth in the same manner you criticize
You wouldn't find it fascinating if you actually studied the topic. Instead your are mystified that someone else doesn't have the same propaganda-informed ignorance that you have. That's not fascinating, it's pedestrian. Raise your standards.
Russian oligarchical kleptocracy
Is terrible. It is still better for them to expand their sphere of influence for Western oligarchical kleptocracy to maintain it's dominance over the world. Nothing has been worse for the world than the West.
Both nations have imperial holdings, ask the Chechens or the Tibetans. At least I’m able to criticize my country’s bullshit without being locked up.
The Tibetans who speak their native language from preschool through university? Why don't you ask the Tibetans who live in Tibet whether they'd rather be in a Chinese autonomous region or in an Indian Reservation? The Tibetans are in far better shape than even most mainland Americans, let alone the people that the genocidal Europeans still dominate and destroy today. You know why you, personally, can criticize your country's bullshit without being locked up? 1) your voice doesn't matter, 2) you're privileged. But that's just you. There are plenty of political prisoners throughout white controlled lands, people who critique the government get locked up pretty regularly, or beaten, or assassinated. But because they're black, or indigenous, you don't remember them or even consider it the same thing. Meanwhile in China, there's plenty of criticism happening all the time within the country and people don't get locked up. It's almost like there's a nuanced position on the topic. What's the net result of that nuance? China imprisons far less of its own people than the US does AND 95% of Chinese people approve of their government and that's been true for all 15 years that Harvard has been conducting their immense study.
You keep projecting to make yourself feel better. It doesn't matter. The West will collapse under its own contradictions and China will not become the new West, because China knows that becoming the new West is the path to ruin. And the proof is here: we're all watching the West slowly dying.
Probably to spread peace, love, and brotherhood to Islamic Extremists, or something like that.
Oh. My. This is quite an interesting precedent. Let's hope we start to see more of this. A new angle on dismantling the machine.
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Because the US is the worst extremist in the world, killing and torturing more people, more systematically, more continuously, and with munitions that poison the land enough to kill the children and the grandchildren who will be born there for decades later.
The US needs to be stopped.
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After the U.S. spent the last 20 years indiscriminately killing hundreds of thousands of people (at minimum!) throughout the world under the guise of fighting Islamic extremists, it's disgusting to trot out concern for lives as a defense of continuing the same failed policies.
Considering the number of people the US and Europe have killed in Africa is orders of magnitude higher than the number of people killed by Islamic extremists, and considering the US and Europe trained, funded, and armed many of the Islamic extremists that are causing the harm you're so worried about, I would say it's not bizarre at all.
What's bizarre is continuing to pretend that the solution to violent extremism is more violent power and military occupation by the imperialists of the continent when it was those imperialists who created the violent extremism in the first place.
Despite what they might tell you, the US has zero interest in fixing the problems they caused. The blowback is valuable to them. They keep the cycle of violence going and it keeps generating opportunities to project their power and generate ultraprofits.
Good point, wondering that too..
If you read the article it will tell you all about why the US military is there
The article doesn’t mention that Niger is also the prime supplier of Uranium for the French nuclear powerplants (and probably for more EU countries). Like it or not, that’s an important aspect of Western presence as well.
You’re right, it is no doubt a factor. I will say I think this Niger coup along with the other coups that have happened in the region over the past decade are France reaping what it sowed in terms of their post colonial foreign policy in the region. France urging respect for the democratic government in Niger falls flat when they’ve supported coups in the region in the not so distant past.