THE WISDOM FUND: News & Views
December 24, 2012
The Associated Press

Army Teams Going to Africa As Terror Threat Grows

A U.S. Army brigade will begin sending small teams into as many as 35 African nations early next year, part of an intensifying Pentagon effort to train countries to battle extremists. . . .

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"The New Scramble For Africa: The Crown Jewels," The Wisdom Fund, October 20, 2011

[A fundamental question is how China's model of economic activity in Africa differs from the approach of Western countries, and whether Africa is better off for it. World Bank analyst David Dollar points out that the West has by and large gotten out of hard infrastructure projects, which is where China concentrates its activity, particularly in power and rail.

A 2009 World Bank report estimated that Chinese financial commitments to African infrastructure projects rose from less than $1 billion per year in 2001-2003 to around $1.5 billion per year in 2004-2005, reaching at least $7 billion in 2006. In July 2012, Chinese President Hu Jintao offered $20 billion in loans to African countries over the next three years. The estimate for total Chinese investment from 2010 to 2012 is $101 billion.--Kwei Quartey, "Why Africa is turning to China," atimes.com, December 22, 2012]

Heba Saleh and Kiran Stacey, "West faces 'decades' of conflict in N Africa," ft.com, January 21, 2013

[The targeting of Islamic extremists and al-Qaeda, though, is but a pretext for the U.S. to contain Chinese interests in Africa.--Benn Schreiner, "U.S. Intervention Set to Deepen: Imperial Jockeying in Africa," counterpunch.org, February 20, 2013]

[These include a multi-pronged military and CIA campaign against militants in Somalia, consisting of intelligence operations, a secret prison, helicopter attacks, drone strikes, and U.S. commando raids; a special ops expeditionary force (bolstered by State Department experts) dispatched to help capture or kill Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony and his top commanders in the jungles of the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; a massive influx of funding for counterterrorism operations across East Africa; and, in just the last four years, hundreds of millions of dollars spent arming and training West African troops to serve as American proxies on the continent. From 2010-2012, AFRICOM itself burned through $836 million as it expanded its reach across the region, primarily via programs to mentor, advise, and tutor African militaries.--Nick Turse, "The Terror Diaspora: The US Military and the Unraveling of Africa," truth-out.org, June 18, 2013]

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