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Department of State adds $s to Africom
The discussion of military U.S. meddling in Africa is centered around AFRICOM, the U.S. military command for Africa with headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany and under the control of the Defense Department [Question to Berlin: How is having that command in our country serving German interests?]
But part of the money for U.S. military action is burried within the State Department’s budget. Via Danger Room we learn of a current State Department solicitation for military base preparation and other services in Africa:
The Department of State (DOS), Bureau of African Affair’s Africa Peacekeeping Program (AFRICAP) program covers much of the security assistance work being requested throughout the continent of Africa.
The program enhances African countries ability to conduct peacekeeping
operations and builds African capacities for crisis management and
counter terrorism. One of the program’s key objectives is regional
peace and stability.
…
DOS uses its peacekeeping operations (PKO) funds to advance that goal by undertaking training of armed forces, enhancing their ability to deploy by land, air and sea. AFRICAP contractors also work with regional organizations to enhance their abilities to prevent, manage, and resolve conflict and supporting peacekeeping and peace building operations.
We can think of some examples here. Like the bloody U.S. coup in Somalia via Ethiopian proxy forces which were trained by U.S. military. Such training will now be privatized:
The program encompasses logistics support, construction, military training and advising, maritime security capacity building, equipment procurement, operational deployment for peacekeeping troops, aerial surveillance and conference facilitation. Potential contractors must possess a broad range of functional regional expertise and logistics support capabilities. The intent is to have contractors on call to undertake a wide range of diverse projects, including setting up operational bases to support peacekeeping operations in hostile environments, military training and to providing a range of technical assistance and equipment for African militaries and peace support operations.
Setting up operational bases in hostile environment is definitely not a civilian mission. It requires fighting. The State Departments request for offers is obviously asking for mercenaries. The budget is $1+ billion for a five year contract. Currently Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE) and DynCorp International already have a contract for logistic work in Africa. State is now asking others to join:
Our anticipated acquisition strategy includes making multiple awards including 3 to large businesses and 1 to a service disabled, veteran owned or 8(a) firm.
The invitation to bid seems to perfectly fit to Blackwater. Erik Prince, the Blackwater founder and CEO is a veteran. Blackwater recently bought and refurbished a ship that could be used for maritime security capacity building at the coast of Nigeria or elsewhere.
Last year, Blackwater purchased the former National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration ship M/V McArthur, which was launched in 1966. Since then, [retired Coast Guard captain] Ridenour and his crew have refurbished the ship, which now includes capacity for several rigid hull inflatable boats and a flight deck and hangar that can house two helicopters. Like the Pistris vessels, the McArthur has room for 20-foot modular containers. With a crew of 13, the McArthur can deploy with up to 42 government, military, or nongovernmental personnel.
Blackwater has developed into a complete armed force including a Navy, Air-Force and mobile ground troops:
Several aviation-related Web sites have reported that the company, which already owns more than 20 aircraft, is seeking to acquire a Super Tucano light combat plane from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer.
The propeller-driven planes, which can be outfitted with up to 1-1/2 tons of machine guns, bombs and missiles, are used by Brazil and Colombia to battle insurgents and drug smugglers. Blackwater is buying a two-seat model to be used for pilot training, the Web reports said.
Meanwhile, Blackwater has developed a remotely piloted airship, equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance and communications gear, and is marketing it for use in combat, coastal patrol, and port and border security. It also has an armored personnel carrier in production.
But will Africans welcome that company’s work for peace and stability?
What is that anyhow? We might learn that from a U.S. military conference on Stability Operations and State Building which:
will look at theoretical, intellectual, and moral foundations of state-building as derived from the Age of Enlightenment, ethical norms, and religious values from various societies.
Ahh – the White Man’s burdon – spreading Enlightenment, ethical norms and religious values – for convinience now outsourced to Blackwater goons.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.
This is heady stuff. Or, as we call it here in the UESLA drawing room, “a great draught of Hesitation.”
Hesitation is what the beast thrives upon.
No one would hesitate to stop a pirate or a mugger or a rapist from carrying out his scheme. People drop what they’re doing and intervene. But when a great, hulking psychopathic creature like an international corporation goes after dark-skinned natives for their resources, lives and labor, everyone hesitates. There’s talk, sure. But they are not stopped. That’s what counts.
They are not stopped.
Talk about your Get Out of Jail Free Card! Your ‘Do As You Will’ Card! “The Times says it’s not a mugger, dear, it’s a respected corporation, with a shiny logo and tens of billions at their disposal. They must know what they’re doing. Besides, who’s going to stop them? You?”
This is why we say the Upper East Side Liberation Army has no enemies, only opportunities. We are the clever few who have come to the conclusion that the whole world is an oyster, and it may as well be ours as yours, thank you very much. Sorry about the mess, of course, but then you weren’t really guarding your possessions or your liberty all that well, now were you, old bean? Strictly business, and all that. Now, off you go. Best of luck to you, out there in the fields. Looks like a hot one today.
Here at UESLA, we are well aware that this kind of thing is wrong, on so many moral and ethical and spiritual levels. We do discuss it. We do. The discussion takes all of two seconds, and the bulk of that is taken up by a weary “tsk tsk.” Well, of course it’s wrong, and inhuman, and all the rest! Jeezus Haitch — treating human beings like chattel and cattle and pieces and parts! It’s disastrous, and damned unproductive in the long term as well. Yep. There it is. Tsk Tsk.
Right exactly there it is. It is how the world is run, right now.
Here’s the shape of things:
The American Empire is currently the single biggest, strongest, richest, most unrestrained business conglomerate to ever exist anywhere in human history, or in geological time. It is The Nation among about two hundred. The 800-pound gorilla. America (plus its allies and cohorts and followers) effectively runs the whole place, or very close to it.
All 200 of these nations are competing within am overarching capitalist enterprise system for a finite set of nature’s resources. The possession and use of those resources will get them — or keep them — a bit ahead of the next nation on the highway to power and prosperity. None of these 200 are willing to approach their present or future prospects other than under this competitive system. No one is really singing “Kumbaya,” even if they are standing there singing it. They are competing without restraint night and day.
You may compare our planetary civilization to 200 persons, of varying talents, backgrounds, wealth, and capabilities steaming upon the open waters in a cruise ship that has no agreed upon captain, no staff, no janitors, and no grease monkeys to man the pumps or the engine room. As you can imagine, it’s a lively place. There are leaks springing up in the most surprising places, the steering is getting more erratic, there’s a lot of fighting, and someone needs to clean up the men’s room, stat.
What happens is that the strongest, fastest, cleverest, meanest people will soon enough find themselves in possession of the better arrangements on board, and in power over those who are just looking to be safe and secure, or who haven’t the will or the means to hold on to their space and their resources. These clever folk send the less clever people to man the pumps, mop the floors, and clean up the men’s room — all on the threat of going without any supper or shelter. That’s how things are run aboard the good ship Earth.
Did we mention there’s a lot of fighting? A whole lot.
It’s neither moral nor pretty nor strictly necessary, but this is how humans behave when they are left to share and share alike. They fight. They will fight with knives in phone booths, if that’s what it takes to carry the day.
To carry the day. Just to carry the day. The one day.
Meanwhile, who is making any attempt to carry the voyage itself off with success, or with simple survival? Who is asking where our civilization is going? Who is asking where our species is headed, or what we have done to other species? Only the dreamers. Only songwriters and sages, only poets and professors and punks without a penny to their name.
Spaceship Earth is our common vehicle, and all 200 passengers are in full blood to carry the one day if it takes hand grenades in phone booths this time around. If it takes nuclear weapons, as a business decision, then that business decision will be made. If somebody’s GDP requires it, it will just have to be done.
All just to carry the day, to carry the figures from the day before to the bottom line this morning, and to make those figures grow by 3% per annum — even if we have to kill sleeping babies to make it happen.
That’s madness. That’s corporatism run amok. That’s capitalism with its chains and restraints removed. That is its true face. That is the face glowers down upon every plant and creature and human being on the planet this morning. It’s a normal day.
In such an environment of unrestrained combat for position, possession, power, and privilege do you suppose it is wise to call for restraint? To call for hesitation in our methods? To go uncertain into that phone booth? Hell no.
No nation will do that. No nation that does that stands a chance. They will not be left in possession of a single grain of rice. Not under this civilization.
All of which is to illustrate, to say, that the only way out of this capitalist combat, this escalating predicament our species has created for ourselves is to quit it wholesale. Get the planet in sustainable, prosperous order — and not by one nation or another conquering all others and calling the results peaceful, by Gawd.
Under the current global civilization, calling for restraint in America’s capitalist adventurism is absurd. That merely leaves the phone booth to whomever else wants it, and gives them the advantage of resources America could have claimed first. That will come back to bite us, under the current civilization.
Under the current global civilization, whomever we leave those resources to will prosper against us, and all the sooner come for our resources. The beast must be fed, must eat its every competitor or be eaten itself. The beast cannot stop fighting, cannot stop feeding, or it dies. Yet, fighting for those resources only perpetuates this strange civilization of ours. It’s not
like our species wins. It’s not like our planet prospers. No one wins. Some people just come out a bit ahead, for a bit.
The cure is to govern our only planet differently. To chain the murderous beast we call by the name capitalism so that it serves our long term survival instead of merely winning us the phone booth for the day.
It is not a political question, then. It is a species question, and a spiritual question. That murderous beast is called greed, is called envy, is called rage, is called lust. Is called human.
That’s us. That’s the face. That’s our face as a species. We glower upon our own existence, we make dim our own future. We persecute our species unto the grave, every day.
It isn’t someone else who calls us to Africa, and to wherever else we need to go to get the best, and to stay on top, and to be first. It is our American Dream, it is our beast that calls us
to the phone booth again, and again.
America isn’t going to hesitate, not while it is in the ring with the other 200.
The call should not be to hesitate. It should be to absolutely stop this madness.
Posted by: UESLA | Feb 12 2008 18:28 utc | 7
this focuses on DoD, rather than DoS, but it had some interesting info that deserves wider dissemination
Private military industry continues to grow
In October, leaders in the private military security industry — ArmorGroup, DynCorp, MPRI, and several others — gathered at the Phoenix Park Hotel near the Capitol for the annual three-day summit of their trade group, the International Peace Operations Association. Panel speakers and members of the audience debated the future of nation-building efforts in failed states. Almost snapping to attention, the former military officers who dominate this industry introduced themselves in sincere baritones of “Lieutenant Colonel So-and-So, retired,” or “Major So-and-So, retired.” The one active-duty soldier I met handing out his business card that day, Army Lt. Col. James Boozell, a branch chief of the Stability Operations/Irregular Warfare Division at the Pentagon, said that the U.S. military was in fact experiencing a “watershed” moment in its 200-plus-year history — nation building was now a core military mission to be led by the Army.
“The Air Force has determined they can do very little from 80,000 feet,” Boozell deadpanned as he sat on a panel, “and the Navy has determined they can do even less nation building from 30 miles offshore.” The audience chuckled as Boozell, clicking through his slide show, added that “stability operations” — as the Pentagon and its contractors refer to nation building and peacekeeping — would be as critical to the U.S. military as combat operations, a heresy that just a decade ago inspired disdain for then-President Clinton from military officers and disparagement from presidential candidate George W. Bush, who denounced nation building in one of the 2000 presidential debates.
…
In November 2005, Defense Department directive 3000.05 declared that stability operations were now a “core” mission of the U.S. military, in coordination with the State Department, “to help establish order that advances U.S. interests and values” in failing states.
[w/ some requiring more than a push to “level” the playing field]
In February 2008, the military is expected to roll out its updated Operations Field Manual 3-0, which places equal emphasis on offense, defense, and stability operations.
…
..as The Washington Post reported in November, Gen. Petraeus returned to Washington to help pick the next 40 brigadier generals who will lead the Army. That move made it clear that Petraeus’s specialties — counterinsurgency and stability operations — are here to stay. “It’s unprecedented for the commander of an active theater to be brought back to head something like a brigadier generals [promotion] board,” retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, former head of the Army War College, told The Post.
But perhaps the most intriguing recent “first” is that the officer tapped to head the new stability operations division in the Pentagon, Col. Simon P. Wolsey, whose title is division chief of stability and irregular warfare, is British. It took nine months, 384 e-mails, 10 contentious meetings of top-ranking officers, and an open letter from the deputy chief of staff of the Army, Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace, to obtain security clearances for Wolsey. But for the first time in U.S. history, a foreign officer holds a U.S. command billet.
Wolsey, who is now halfway through a three-year tour commanding the new division, says it was simply luck that he was offered the post as he finished at the U.S. Army War College. The Army chief of staff wanted a soldier who could think outside the box, said Boozell, who is Wolsey’s deputy. And it didn’t hurt that Wolsey understood the subtleties of nation building — particularly British colonialism’s successes and failures. He also points out that the British army possesses a different mind-set, which is the other reason he was tapped: It doesn’t have the same reluctance toward nation building that the U.S. Army has.
what century are these people living in?
Rather than creating a separate branch of the Army for stability operations, all incoming soldiers will have an extra three weeks of basic training to incorporate nation building into their war-fighting toolbox, Boozell explains enthusiastically. And officers will be hypereducated in stability operations throughout their careers, returning to military universities to refine the lessons they first experienced in the field. “The military cannot design specialized forces to do nothing but stability operations. If you do, the bill to the taxpayer would be monumental,” he said. “And the threat to national security would be unacceptable” because too few war fighters would be left. (One of the proposals on the table had been to convert 50 percent of the Army’s 527,000-plus soldiers into a stability operations force.)
Wolsey adds that once his new division is up and running, the Army intends to consult with international nongovernmental organizations and international institutions such as the World Bank. The Pentagon’s stability operations directive calls for coordination “with relevant U.S. departments and agencies, foreign governments and security forces, international organizations, NGOs, and private sector individuals.”
let’s do away w/ such transparent euphemisms as “stability operations”, “nation building”, and “helping africans help themselves” and assign a true name to these programs – imperialism. pure, naked imperialism wrapped in the colonialist’s infinite kindness & desire to raise up the natives from their wretched state(s).
Posted by: b real | Feb 13 2008 4:10 utc | 12
reading thru a usmc doc put out earlier this year known as “the long war brief”. html version here; pdf avail thru the small wars site.
in the forward, usmc commandant gen conway starts it off w/
Marines,
Our Marine Corps is fully engaged in a generational struggle against fanatical extremists; the challenges we face are of global scale and scope. This is a multi-faceted Long War, and it will not be won by one battle, in one country, or by one method. As the demands of combat operations in Iraq diminish, our Corps will continue to face adversaries that threaten our national interests and oppose our way of life.
haven’t read thru the entire doc yet, but it basically is stating that the marine corps are going to be heavily involved in nation-building.
The Marine Corps has faced these kinds of opponents before. From the Philippine Insurrection and the numerous small wars in Central America, to the counterinsurgency challenges of the Vietnam War, we have cataloged extensive lessons based on experience fighting irregular opponents. Major conventional combat operations such as those experienced during World War I, World War II, Korea, specific battles in Vietnam, and Operation Desert Storm are currently more the exception than the rule. As such, the Marine Corps must continue to be a balanced, general purpose force, capable of operating at the lower end of the operational spectrum, while retaining the agility to rapidly shift across the full range of military operations and be simultaneously successful at the high end of the spectrum.
that spectrum is outlined as:
Continuum of Military Operations
Phase 0: Shape the Environment. This phase involves those joint, interagency and multinational activities conducted on an ongoing, routine basis to assure or solidify friendly relationships and alliances and/or deter potential adversaries.
Phase 1: Deter the Enemy. This phase focuses on deterring specific opponents by demonstrating the capability and resolve to apply force in pursuit of U.S. interests. These actions will likely build upon Phase 0 activities and may include a show of force or initiatives that would facilitate deployment, employment, and sustainment of additional forces within the region.
Phase 2: Seize the Initiative. Hostilities commence during this phase. Combat power is applied to delay, impede, halt, or dislodge the adversary as well as to gain access to theater infrastructure and enhance friendly freedom of action. Concurrently, assistance is provided to relieve conditions that precipitated the crisis in order to promote stability.
Phase 3: Dominate the Enemy. The focus during this phase is on the exploitation, pursuit, and destruction of the enemy in order to break the opponent’s will for organized resistance. Stability operations will also be conducted as needed to facilitate transition to the next phase.
Phase 4: Stabilize the Environment. The priority during this phase will be on stability operations, the reconstitution of infrastructure, and the restoration of services. This phase concludes with the transfer of regional authority to a legitimate civil entity.
Phase 5: Enable Civil Authority. Legitimate civil authorities are enabled in their efforts to provide essential services to the populace. These activities include required coordination activities by U.S. military forces with multinational, interagency, and non-governmental organizations while promoting a favorable attitude among the populace toward U.S. and host nation objectives.
emphasis added by me in that last phase to draw attention to the important bit there. later in the doc, it states
Marine Corps will likely have a prominent role in seeking to mitigate the instability that could impact our national interests. The best way to militarily address these drivers of instability and their effects is to mitigate the underlying conditions that make them possible. This critical segment of the struggle for influence is executed through the shaping and the enabling of civil authority/governance phases of operations.
from a “Pre-Decisional Draft Working Papers” powerpoint presentation on the “Long War Concept”, one can read that these drivers are identified as follows:
Future global threat environment will be characterized by the following drivers of instability:
Terrorism / Irregular Warfare
Ideological / Religious Extremism
Poorly / ungoverned spaces
Globalization
Economics / Poverty / Health Crisis
Rise of China / India
Natural Resource Competition (water, energy, etc.)
Science & Technology competition / advancements
Changing Demographics (“youth bulge”, aging populations, etc.)
Environmental Factors (climate change, natural disasters, etc.)
Crime
the long war brief doc contains the exact same list w/ the exclusion of “Rise of China / India”, which didn’t make it past the draft stage apparently, at least as part of a “Midrange Threat Estimate”.
currently, the marine corps is geared toward phases 2-4 and the focus of new changes w/i the usmc is to realign their training toward phases 1 & 5.
in that regard,
..the demands of the Long War require the introduction of a new capability provider — the SC MAGTF [Security Cooperation Marine Air-Ground Task Force].
…
The SC MAGTF will be tasked with building partner nation security capacity and supporting partner nation security efforts in a specific regional area.
from the powerpoint presentation,
The Long War plan provides for a deployment rotation based on 27 active component infantry battalions with 9 deployed and 18 at home. Of these 9 battalions, 3 will be on UDP [Unit Deployment Program] to PACOM, 3 will be afloat with a MEU [Marine expeditionary unit], and 3 will be performing as SC MAGTF in CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM.
the long war brief doc contains a vignette that leads off w/
The year is 2010. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have stabilized to a steady state wherein the force commitments are reduced and combat advisors conduct routine capacity building missions in support of indigenous military forces. However, Africa has continued to experience steady economic decline with crushing poverty, government corruption, epidemic level medical emergencies, and ethnic conflict creating conditions that threaten US interests and regional security. The US Government has taken the lead for the international community in an effort to bring the continent out of this state of continuous crisis. The Marine Corps, as our Nation’s Force in Readiness, is poised to address the security aspects of these challenges.
and concludes w/
This vignette has shown how a Marine infantry battalion with supporting aviation and logistics assets might be employed in the future across a full range of military operations. Within less than 5 days, the Marines of 1st Battalion 2nd Marines have gone from conducting capacity building, humanitarian assistance, foreign internal defense, and counterterrorism spread across several thousand miles of African territory, to a coalesced infantry battalion ready for high intensity combat operations. This vignette has shown how the use of naval sea-basing, pre-positioned equipment, and strategic distributed operations might be employed in a manner that establishes favorable security conditions, secures strategic access, and strengthens existing and emerging alliances and partnerships in an uncertain world.
again, in five days the marines go from capacity-building to infantry operations on the second-largest continent on the planet.
africans – do not let these people into your homes
Posted by: b real | Mar 8 2008 6:42 utc | 21
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