Pentagon officials are advancing a plan to withdraw virtually all US special forces commandos out of Niger. They are also considering withdrawing seven of eight counter-terrorism units form Africa, and closing several military outposts from across Africa.
Three top Pentagon officials approved the plan already, which would massively draw down the number of troops in Niger. In October,four US troops were killed in an ambush in Niger, which led to the revelation that the Pentagon put 1,200 troops there, without informing Congress.
The officials’ plan is yet to be approved by Defense Secretary James Mattis, but if it does, it will greatly reduce US troops across Africa, leaving substantial presences only in Somalia and Nigeria. Other nations would be back to training-heavy operations
African Command had been keen to send large numbers of troops to any nation in Africa that would accept them, building up what was envisioned to be a large US foothold on the continent. It seems that this is being reconsidered at higher levels of the Pentagon, with Africom only saying that they might be able to send in more troops on a temporary basis in the future.
The American people would be very surprised to find out which side the United States is fighting on in all their various wars . Trump has sure been right about one thing The United States does have fake news .
This is a natural outgrowth of Rumsfeld’s “lily pad” strategy, meant to have a base infrastructure world wide, so the US could dominate anywhere at a moment’s notice. The neocon dream is a world wide hegemony, with no “peer competitors” and nobody likely to become one. Only that is deemed “safe,” but really it is all about the control of the world economy for US financial interests.
Tell us (me) more.. eric!! Please tell us which side (s?) the U.S. is fighting on, if you know…. OR direct us where we can find out. We know the U.S. is helping the state that provided the 911 pilots in their war on helpless, hapless Yemen. Not to mention the lavish financial support that nation’s Royalty and nationals gave to Atta and crew while they were training in Naples Florida. Pink haired stripper escorts and perhaps trips to Abrahsmof”s casino ships… Oh, quite a tale as told by Daniel Hopsticker at madcowprod .com. Look in the archivs at his site to learn more. Much more..!!! We probably will never know all tlhat really happened in Naples at Hoffman Avalon School where the Saudi pilots learned to fly the big jets, but we do know almost all of the hijacker gang members were Saudi. Seems like a good reason not to help them do genocide in Yemen…
The recent US military failures in Africa, consistent with a lack of success elsewhere, is truly symbolic of the crazy US reliance upon militarism. The proposed lessening of the US “footprint” in Africa is especially shocking when compared with China’s huge (and growing) economic presence in Africa, with the fastest growing population and economies in the world. It is estimated that there are more than 10,000 Chinese-owned firms operating in Africa, and an estimated one million Chinese citizens residing in Africa, and these figures are probably low. Many of the Chinese firms are engaged in building infrastructure and in extracting minerals, employing mostly Chinese labor.
The significance of this news item is understated and non-directional. First, there is a new drone base in Niger, not far from the city of Agadez, and no mention of it in this posting. Second, there is a huge deposit of uranium, located in the northern Air Mountain range, which has been mined and processed by the French nuclear agency Areva for decades now and still is, last I heard. These two things are certainly part of the picture, but no mention of their relationship here. Put the drones and the uranium and that SOCOM op together, and what do you get? You get a US/French/NATO defense against Chinese interlopers.
Remember the lie that was spread around by the Bush team, in 2003, about how Saddam Hussein had an angle on uranium from Niger? Where do you suppose it was from? Remember how Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson were ratted out as CIA agents for having exposed that lie, since Saddam actually did not have nuclear energy or weapons development in Iraq, anyway? Well, now bring in AFRICOM and SOCOM and the drone base, and what do you think you get? Certainly, this matrix is known to AQIM, and also to the local indigenous Tuaregs, but neither of them has the wherewithal to use the uranium even if they were somehow able to seize control of the mines and mills and mountain areas. What’s missing from the picture? China, China, China. I mean, let’s have a bit of the truth for once, shall we?
They will just end up somewhere else they have NO business being.
Cut and run baby
None of the US “combatant commands” supposedly defending other countries (except EUCOM) is located in any country where the US taxpayers are financing their defense. AFRICOM is in Europe, while CENTCOM, SOUTHCOM and INDOPACOM and are in the US. No country in the affected area wants them!
And if AFRICOM was a bad idea, and it was, how about the the other clown commands? Why are they not justifiably considered to be just a bunch of worthless military bureaucrats sucking up the budget? As a contrast, Russia and China are doing just fine defending their countries and their interests with fractions of the US waste-of-money budget, and no clown commands.