Independent
geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser examines the effect of the Obama
administration on Africa. What he finds is less hope and change, and
more chaos and death.
by Eric
Draitser of stopimperialism.org
The
corporate media is predictably churning out nauseating retrospectives
of Obama’s presidency, gently soothing Americans to sleep with
fairy tales about the progressive accomplishments of President Hope
and Change.
But amid the
selective memory and doublethink which passes for sophisticated
punditry within the controlled media matrix, let us not forget that
in Africa the name Barack Obama is now synonymous with
destabilization, death, and destruction.
The
collective gasps of liberals grow to a deafening roar at the mere
suggestion that Obama is more sinner than saint, but perhaps it would
be useful to review the facts and the record rather than the
carefully constructed mythos being shoehorned into history books
under the broad heading of “Legacy.”
‘Africa’s
future is up to Africans’
In the
summer of 2009, little more than six months after being inaugurated,
President Obama stood before the Ghanaian Parliament to deliver a
speech intended to set the tone for his administration’s Africa
policy. In addressing a crowd of hundreds in the Ghanaian capital, he
was, in fact, speaking directly to millions of Africans all over the
continent and throughout the diaspora. For if Obama represented Hope
and Change for the people of the United States, that was doubly true
for African people.
In that
mostly forgettable speech, Obama declared:
“We
must start from the simple premise that Africa’s future is up to
Africans … the West is not responsible for the destruction of the
Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children
are enlisted as combatants.”
Building
prosperity, shedding corruption and tyranny, and taking on poverty
and disease, he said “can only be done if you take
responsibility for your future. And it won’t be easy. It will take
time and effort. There will be suffering and setbacks. But I can
promise you this: America will be with you every step of the way, as
a partner, as a friend.”
Despite
being the First Black President, Obama’s words and deeds with
respect to Africa perfectly embody “the White Man’s Burden” —
that desire to help those poor, lowly wretches whose poverty,
corruption, disease, and violence must be the product of some natural
deficiency. Surely, five centuries of colonialism, combined with
Obama-style imperial arrogance, had nothing to do with it.
But let us
take Obama’s words at face value and evaluate whether Obama was
able to live up to those high-minded and idealistic goals throughout
his two terms in office.
Obama
repeatedly stressed African agency, arguing that the United States
and the West cannot solve Africa’s problems for her. Instead, he
argued that the United States will be a “partner” and a “friend.”
And yet, within two years of the pledge to let Africans resolve their
own problems, U.S.-NATO jets were dropping bombs on Libya in support
of al-Qaida-linked terrorists who would topple and brutally
assassinate Moammar Gadhafi, perhaps the single strongest voice for
African independence and self-sufficiency.
Considering
the tens of thousands of deaths and the utter destruction and
dissolution of Libya into warring tribal militias and multiple
fragmented governments barely able to be called legitimate, it is
particularly galling that Obama stood before the United Nations and
declared the U.S.-NATO war on Libya to be a success. Exactly one
month before Gadhafi’s heinous torture and assassination, Obama
arrogantly stated on Sept. 20, 2011:
“This
is how the international community should work in the 21st century —
more nations bearing the responsibility and the costs of meeting
global challenges. In fact, this is the very purpose of this United
Nations. So every nation represented here today can take pride in the
innocent lives we saved and in helping Libyans reclaim their country.
It was the right thing to do.”
Yes, the
very same president who two years earlier proclaimed that “Africa’s
future is up to Africans” was a champion of French, British,
Italian, and U.S. military forces imposing their will on a prosperous
and independent African nation, transforming it into a chaotic and
bloody failed state. So much for Hope and Change.
But of
course the tragic story of Libya does not stop with just the
destruction of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the assassination of
Gadhafi. Rather, the war on Libya opened the floodgates for weapons
smuggling, terrorism and destabilization all over the African
continent. According to a 2013 report by the U.N. Security Council’s
Group of Experts:
“Cases,
both proven and under investigation, of illicit transfers from Libya
in violation of the embargo cover more than 12 countries and include
heavy and light weapons, including man-portable air defense systems,
small arms and related ammunition and explosives and mines.”
The report
continued, warning that “illicit flows from the country are
fueling [sic] existing conflicts in Africa and the Levant and
enriching the arsenals of a range of non-State actors, including
terrorist groups.”
“The
proliferation of weapons from Libya continues at an alarming rate.”
Indeed,
those weapons flowing from Libya have directly fueled the civil war
in Mali, facilitated the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria, empowered the
terror group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, and led to the rise of
terrorist gangs and death squads in Burkina Faso, Central African
Republic, and elsewhere on the continent. In effect, Obama’s war on
Libya was the opening salvo of a continent-wide destabilization the
effects of which are still being felt today and likely will continue
to be felt for years, if not decades, to come.
With these
troubling facts in mind, we return to Obama’s speech in Ghana,
where he haughtily pronounced that the West is not responsible for
Africa’s problems. Naturally, any student of colonialism and
African history would immediately object to such selective memory.
One wonders whether decades from now, when the legacy of the wars and
terrorism that grew out of Obama’s policies is still being felt,
another president will stand before Africa and again chastise her for
not solving her own problems.
Obama:
The smiling face of neo-colonialism
Were Obama’s
crimes against peace in Africa limited only to the war on Libya and
its effects, one could simply call it a blunder of historical
proportions. But Obama had much more blood to spill in Africa while
expanding the U.S. military footprint there.
Primary
among these initiatives to grow the U.S. military presence in Africa
was the expansion of the U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM. In June of
2013, Ebrahim Shabbir Deen of the Johannesburg-based Afro-Middle East
Centre noted:
“[AFRICOM]
has surreptitiously managed to infuse itself into various African
militaries. This has been accomplished mainly through
military-to-military partnerships which the command has with
fifty-one of Africa’s fifty-five states. In many instances, these
partnerships involve African militaries ceding operational command to
AFRICOM.”
In fact,
while President George W. Bush was responsible for the establishment
of AFRICOM, it was Obama who expanded it into a continental military
force into which national military forces have been subsumed. In
effect, Obama was able to make African nations, and especially their
militaries, into wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pentagon and U.S.
military-industrial complex. But it’s ok, Obama did it with a smile
and with the credibility of the “native son” of the continent.
Similarly,
Obama is directly responsible for the ongoing bloodshed in South
Sudan, where he championed the separatism which led to the creation
of that country and the predictable civil war which has followed.
Obama declared in 2011 upon the formal independence of South Sudan
that: “Today is a reminder that after the darkness of war, the
light of a new dawn is possible. A proud flag flies over Juba and the
map of the world has been redrawn.” But Obama may have spoken
too soon, as the darkness of war drags on in the devastated country
where a “new dawn” seems about as likely as Obama admitting his
failure.
And while
Obama, as usual, waxed poetic about independence and freedom, the
reality is that his backing of South Sudan was more about gaining a
geopolitical advantage against China than about high-minded ideals.
Similarly,
Obama used the expanded capabilities of U.S. military and CIA in
Africa to greatly increase the Pentagon and Langley’s presence in
Somalia. As Jeremy Scahill reported in The Nation in December of
2014:
“The
CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence
agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force
capable of snatch operations and targeted ‘combat’ operations
against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close
ties to Al Qaeda. As part of its expanding counterterrorism program
in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement
of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters … Some
of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and
rendered by plane to Mogadishu.”
It should be
noted that the policies — the crimes against peace — highlighted
here represent only a fraction of the eight years of Obama policies
on the continent; a complete accounting of Obama’s crimes against
Africa would likely require a book-length analysis. The intent here
is to illustrate that the man who stood before Africa professing to
be a friend was as much friend to Africa as the hangman is to the
condemned.
Were it
someone other than the first black president, perhaps there might
have been an outcry at the rape and plunder of the continent, the
militarization and destabilization of Africa. And yet, throughout the
past eight years, there has been a deafening silence from liberals
whose ideals and values apparently extend only as far as party
loyalty allows.
In a
beautifully precise term coined by Glen Ford, executive editor of
Black Agenda Report, Obama represented not the lesser, but “the
more effective,” evil. And when it came to Africa, that was doubly
true. Who but Obama could have destroyed nations, fomented terrorism,
plundered the wealth, and militarized and destabilized the entire
continent all while flashing a hypnotic grin?
For the
African people, however, Obama’s perfect teeth and intoxicating
smile hide a forked tongue. And as for Obama’s Africa “legacy,”
it can be found in the graveyards of Libya, Nigeria, and beyond.
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