<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<blockquote>
<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><strong>Obama’s Scramble for
Africa</strong> </span><br>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><strong>Secret Wars, Secret Bases,
and the Pentagon’s “New Spice Route” in Africa</strong> </span><br>
By <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/nickturse">Nick Turse</a><br>
<small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175567/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_america%27s_shadow_wars_in_africa_/#more">http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175567/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_america%27s_shadow_wars_in_africa_/#more</a></small><br>
</p>
<p>They call it the New Spice Route, an homage to the medieval trade
network that connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, even if today’s “spice
road” has nothing to do with cinnamon, cloves, or silks. Instead, it’s
a superpower’s superhighway, on which trucks and ships shuttle fuel,
food, and military equipment through a growing maritime and ground
transportation infrastructure to a network of supply depots, tiny
camps, and airfields meant to service a fast-growing U.S. military
presence in Africa. </p>
<p>Few in the U.S. know about this superhighway, or about the dozens
of training missions and joint military exercises being carried out in
nations that most Americans couldn’t locate on a map. Even fewer have
any idea that military officials are invoking the names of Marco Polo
and the Queen of Sheba as they build a bigger military footprint in
Africa. It’s all happening in the shadows of what in a previous
imperial age was known as “the Dark Continent.”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>In East African ports, huge metal shipping containers arrive with
the everyday necessities for a military on the make. They’re then
loaded onto trucks that set off down rutted roads toward dusty bases
and distant outposts.</p>
<p>On the highway from Djibouti to Ethiopia, for example, one can see
the bare outlines of this shadow war at the truck stops where local
drivers take a break from their long-haul routes. The same is true in
other African countries. The nodes of the network tell part of the
story: Manda Bay, Garissa, and Mombasa in Kenya; Kampala and Entebbe in
Uganda; Bangui and Djema in the Central African Republic; Nzara in
South Sudan; Dire Dawa in Ethiopia; and the Pentagon’s showpiece
African base, Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti on the coast of the Gulf of
Aden, among others.</p>
<p>According to Pat Barnes, a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command
(AFRICOM), Camp Lemonnier serves as the only official U.S. base on the
continent. “There are more than 2,000 U.S. personnel stationed there,”
he told TomDispatch recently by email. “The primary AFRICOM
organization at Camp Lemonnier is Combined Joint Task Force -- Horn of
Africa (CJTF-HOA). CJTF-HOA's efforts are focused in East Africa and
they work with partner nations to assist them in strengthening their
defense capabilities.”</p>
<p>Barnes also noted that Department of Defense personnel are
assigned to U.S. embassies across Africa, including 21 individual
Offices of Security Cooperation responsible for facilitating
military-to-military activities with “partner nations.” He
characterized the forces involved as small teams carrying out pinpoint
missions. Barnes did admit that in “several locations in Africa,
AFRICOM has a small and temporary presence of personnel. In all cases,
these military personnel are guests within host-nation facilities, and
work alongside or coordinate with host-nation personnel.”</p>
<p><strong>Shadow Wars<br>
</strong></p>
<p>In 2003, when CJTF-HOA was <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.hoa.africom.mil/pdfFiles/Fact%20Sheet.pdf">first set
up</a> there, it was indeed true that the only major U.S. outpost in
Africa was Camp Lemonnier. In the ensuing years, in quiet and largely
unnoticed ways, the Pentagon and the CIA have been spreading their
forces across the continent. Today -- official designations aside --
the U.S. maintains a surprising number of bases in Africa. And
“strengthening” African armies turns out to be a truly elastic rubric
for what’s going on.</p>
<p>Under President Obama, in fact, operations in Africa have
accelerated far beyond the more limited interventions of the Bush
years: last year’s war in Libya; a regional drone campaign with
missions run out of airports and bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and the
Indian Ocean archipelago nation of Seychelles; a flotilla of 30 ships
in that ocean supporting regional operations; a multi-pronged military
and CIA campaign against militants in Somalia, including intelligence
operations, training for Somali agents, a secret prison, helicopter
attacks, and U.S. commando raids; a massive influx of cash for
counterterrorism operations across East Africa; a possible
old-fashioned air war, carried out on the sly in the region using
manned aircraft; tens of millions of dollars in arms for allied
mercenaries and African troops; and a special ops expeditionary force
(bolstered by State Department experts) dispatched to help capture or
kill Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and his senior
commanders. And this only begins to scratch the surface of
Washington’s fast-expanding plans and activities in the region.</p>
<p>To support these mushrooming missions, near-constant training
operations, and alliance-building joint exercises, outposts of all
sorts are sprouting continent-wide, connected by a sprawling shadow
logistics network. Most American bases in Africa are still small and
austere, but growing ever larger and more permanent in appearance. For
example, photographs from last year of Ethiopia’s Camp Gilbert,
examined by TomDispatch, show a base filled with air-conditioned tents,
metal shipping containers, and 55-gallon drums and other gear strapped
to pallets, but also recreation facilities with TVs and videogames, and
a well-appointed gym filled with stationary bikes, free weights, and
other equipment.</p>
<p><strong>Continental Drift</strong></p>
<p>After 9/11, the U.S. military moved into three major regions in
significant ways: South Asia (primarily Afghanistan), the Middle East
(primarily Iraq), and the Horn of Africa. Today, the U.S. is drawing
down in Afghanistan and has largely left Iraq. Africa, however,
remains a growth opportunity for the Pentagon.</p>
<p>The U.S. is now involved, directly and by proxy, in military and
surveillance operations against an expanding list of regional enemies.
They include al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in North Africa; the
Islamist movement Boko Haram in Nigeria; possible <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=8039&lang=0">al-Qaeda-linked
militants</a> in post-Qaddafi Libya; Joseph Kony’s murderous Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA) in the Central African Republic, Congo, and South
Sudan; Mali’s Islamist <a target="_blank"
href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/07/radical-islamic-rebels-in-mali-destroying-timbuktu-treasures.html">Rebels
of the Ansar Dine</a>, <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/world/asia/al-qaeda-power-shifting-away-from-pakistan.html">al-Shabaab</a>
in Somalia; and guerrillas from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen.</p>
<p>A recent <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-expands-secret-intelligence-operations-in-africa/2012/06/13/gJQAHyvAbV_story.html">investigation</a>
by the <em>Washington Post</em> revealed that contractor-operated
surveillance aircraft based out of Entebbe, Uganda, are scouring the
territory used by Kony’s LRA at the Pentagon’s behest, and that 100 to
200 U.S. commandos share a base with the Kenyan military at Manda Bay.
Additionally, U.S. drones are being flown out of Arba Minch airport in
Ethiopia and from the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, while <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/29/where_the_drones_are?page=full">drones</a>
and <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05/indian-ocean-shadow-war/#more-80589">F-15
fighter-bombers</a> have been operating out of Camp Lemonnier as part
of the shadow wars being waged by the U.S. military and the CIA in
Yemen and Somalia. Surveillance planes used for spy missions over
Mali, Mauritania, and the Sahara desert are also flying missions from
Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, and plans are reportedly in the works for
a similar base in the newborn nation of South Sudan.</p>
<p>U.S. special operations forces are stationed at a string of even
more shadowy forward operating posts on the continent, <a
target="_blank"
href="http://bangordailynews.com/2012/04/30/news/wheres-joseph-kony-us-troops-have-yet-to-find-him/">including</a>
one in Djema in the Central Africa Republic and others in Nzara in
South Sudan and Dungu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The U.S.
also has had <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mysterious-fatal-crash-provides-rare-glimpse-of-us-commandos-in-mali/2012/07/08/gJQAGO71WW_print.html">troops
deployed</a> in Mali, despite having officially suspended military
relations with that country following a coup.</p>
<p>According to research by TomDispatch, the U.S. Navy also has a
forward operating location, manned mostly by Seabees, Civil Affairs
personnel, and force-protection troops, known as Camp Gilbert in Dire
Dawa, Ethiopia. U.S. military documents indicate that there may be
other even lower-profile U.S. facilities in the country. In addition
to Camp Lemonnier, the U.S. military also maintains another
hole-and-corner outpost in Djibouti -- a Navy port facility that lacks
even a name. AFRICOM did not respond to requests for further
information on these posts before this article went to press.</p>
<p>Additionally, U.S. Special Operations Forces are <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/in-africa-us-troops-moving-slowly-against-joseph-kony-and-his-militia/2012/04/16/gIQAtwMKMT_story.html">engaged
in missions</a> against the Lord’s Resistance Army from a rugged camp
in Obo in the Central African Republic, but little is said about that
base either. “U.S. military personnel working with regional militaries
in the hunt for Joseph Kony are guests of the African security forces
comprising the regional counter-LRA effort,” Barnes told me.
“Specifically in Obo, the troops live in a small camp and work with
partner nation troops at a Ugandan facility that operates at the
invitation of the government of the Central African Republic.”</p>
<p>And that’s still just part of the story. U.S. troops are also
working at bases inside Uganda. Earlier this year, elite Force Recon
Marines from the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force 12
(SPMAGTF-12) trained soldiers from the Uganda People's Defense Force,
which not only runs missions in the Central African Republic, but also
acts as a proxy force for the U.S. in Somalia in the battle against the
Islamist militants known as al-Shabaab. They now supply the majority
of the troops to the African Union Mission protecting the
U.S.-supported government in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.</p>
<p>In the spring, Marines from SPMAGTF-12 also trained soldiers from
the Burundi National Defense Force (BNDF), the second-largest
contingent in Somalia. <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.army.mil/article/80723/Texas_National_Guardsmen_inspired_by_Burundi_soldiers/">In
April and May</a>, members of Task Force Raptor, 3rd Squadron, 124th
Cavalry Regiment, of the Texas National Guard took part in a training
mission with the BNDF in Mudubugu, Burundi.</p>
<p>In February, SPMAGTF-12 sent trainers to Djibouti to work with an
elite local army unit, while other Marines traveled to Liberia to focus
on teaching riot-control techniques to Liberia’s military as part of
what is otherwise a State Department-directed effort to rebuild that
force.</p>
<p>In addition, the U.S. is conducting counterterrorism training and
equipping militaries in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Niger,
and Tunisia. AFRICOM also has 14 major joint-training exercises
planned for 2012, including operations in Morocco, Cameroon, Gabon,
Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Senegal, and Nigeria. </p>
<p>The size of U.S. forces conducting these joint exercises and
training missions fluctuates, but Barnes told me that, “on an average
basis, there are approximately 5,000 U.S. Military and DoD personnel
working across the continent” at any one time. Next year, even more
American troops are likely to be on hand as units from the 2nd Brigade
Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, known as the “<a target="_blank"
href="http://www.army.mil/article/82376/Dagger_Brigade_to__align__with_AFRICOM_in_2013/">Dagger
Brigade</a>,” are scheduled to deploy to the region. The roughly <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/06/army-3000-soldiers-serve-in-africa-next-year-060812/">3,000
soldiers</a> in the brigade will be involved in, among other
activities, training missions while acquiring regional expertise.
"Special Forces have a particular capability in this area, but not the
capacity to fulfill the demand; and we think we will be able to fulfill
the demand by using conventional forces," Colonel Andrew Dennis told a
reporter about the deployment.</p>
<p><strong>Air Africa</strong></p>
<p>Last month, the <em>Washington Post</em> <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/contractors-run-us-spying-missions-in-africa/2012/06/14/gJQAvC4RdV_story.html">revealed</a>
that, since at least 2009, the “practice of hiring private companies to
spy on huge expanses of African territory… has been a cornerstone of
the U.S. military’s secret activities on the continent.” Dubbed Tusker
Sand, the project consists of contractors flying from Entebbe airport
in Uganda and a handful of other airfields. They pilot turbo-prop
planes that look innocuous but are packed with sophisticated
surveillance gear.</p>
<p>America’s mercenary spies in Africa are, however, just part of the
story.</p>
<p>While the Pentagon canceled an analogous drone surveillance
program dubbed Tusker Wing, it has spent millions of dollars to upgrade
the civilian airport at <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-drone-base-in-ethiopia-is-operational/2011/10/27/gIQAznKwMM_story.html">Arba
Minch, Ethiopia</a>, to enable drone missions to be flown from it.
Infrastructure to support such operations has been relatively cheap and
easy to construct, but a much more daunting problem looms -- one
intimately connected to the New Spice Route.</p>
<p>“Marco Polo wasn't just an explorer,” Army planner Chris Zahner <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/MarApril12/New_Spice_Africa.html">explained</a>
at a conference in Djibouti last year. “[H]e was also a logistician
developing logistics nodes along the Silk Road. Now let's do something
similar where the Queen of Sheba traveled." Paeans to bygone
luminaries aside, the reasons for pouring resources into sea and ground
supply networks have less to do with history than with Africa’s airport
infrastructure.</p>
<p>Of the 3,300 airfields on the continent identified in a National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency review, the Air Force has surveyed only
303 of them and just 158 of those surveys are current. Of those
airfields that have been checked out, half won’t support the weight of
the C-130 cargo planes that the U.S. military leans heavily on to
transport troops and materiel. These limitations were driven home
during Natural Fire 2010, one of that year’s joint training exercises
hosted by AFRICOM. When C-130s were unable to use an airfield in Gulu,
Uganda, an extra $3 million was spent instead to send in Chinook
helicopters.</p>
<p>In addition, diplomatic clearances and airfield restrictions on
U.S. military aircraft cost the Pentagon time and money, while often
raising local suspicion and ire. In a recent article in the military
trade publication <em>Army Sustainment</em>, Air Force Major Joseph
Gaddis touts an emerging solution: outsourcing. The concept was tested
last year, during another AFRICOM training operation, Atlas Drop 2011.</p>
<p>“Instead of using military airlift to move equipment to and from
the exercise, planners used commercial freight vendors,” writes
Gadddis. “This provided exercise participants with door-to-door
delivery service and eliminated the need for extra personnel to channel
the equipment through freight and customs areas.” Using mercenary
cargo carriers to skirt diplomatic clearance issues and move cargo to
airports that can’t support U.S. C-130s is, however, just one avenue
the Pentagon is pursuing to support its expanding operations in Africa.</p>
<p>Another is construction.</p>
<p><strong>The Great Build-Up</strong></p>
<p>Military contracting documents reveal plans for an investment of
up to $180 million or more in construction at Camp Lemonnier alone.
Chief among the projects will be the laying of 54,500 square meters of
taxiways “to support medium-load aircraft” and the construction of a
185,000 square meter Combat Aircraft Loading Area. In addition, plans
are in the works to erect modular maintenance structures, hangers, and
ammunition storage facilities, all needed for an expanding set of
secret wars in Africa.</p>
<p>Other contracting documents suggest that, in the years to come,
the Pentagon will be investing up to $50 million in new projects at
that base, Kenya’s Camp Simba, and additional unspecified locations in
Africa. Still other solicitation materials suggest future military
construction in Egypt, where the Pentagon already maintains a <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmrc/Pages/namru3.htm">medical
research facility</a>, and still more work in Djibouti.</p>
<p>No less telling are contracting documents indicating a coming
influx of “emergency troop housing” at Camp Lemonnier, including almost
300 additional <a target="_blank"
href="http://usforeignpolicy.about.com/od/africa/ig/Scenes-from-Djibouti.--1q/Container-Living-Units--CLUs--.htm">Containerized
Living Units</a> (CLUs), stackable, air-conditioned living quarters, as
well as latrines and laundry facilities.</p>
<p>Military documents also indicate that a nearly $450,000 exercise
facility was installed at the U.S. base in Entebbe, Uganda, last year.
All of this indicates that, for the Pentagon, its African build-up has
only begun.</p>
<p><strong>The Scramble for Africa</strong></p>
<p>In a <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=8039&lang=0">recent
speech</a> in Arlington, Virginia, AFRICOM Commander General Carter Ham
explained the reasoning behind U.S. operations on the continent: “The
absolute imperative for the United States military [is] to protect
America, Americans, and American interests; in our case, in my case,
[to] protect us from threats that may emerge from the African
continent.” As an example, Ham named the Somali-based al-Shabaab as a
prime threat. “Why do we care about that?” he asked rhetorically.
“Well, al-Qaeda is a global enterprise... we think they very clearly do
present, as an al-Qaeda affiliate... a threat to America and
Americans.” </p>
<p>Fighting <em>them</em> over there, so we don’t need to fight <em>them
</em>here has been a core tenet of American foreign policy for
decades, especially since 9/11. But trying to apply military solutions
to complex political and social problems has regularly led to
unforeseen consequences. For example, last year’s U.S.-supported war
in Libya resulted in masses of well-armed Tuareg mercenaries, who had
been fighting for Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi, heading back to Mali
where they helped destabilize that country. So far, the result has
been a military coup by an <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=156419045">American-trained</a>
officer; a takeover of some areas by Tuareg fighters of the National
Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, who had previously raided Libyan
arms depots; and other parts of the country being seized by the
irregulars of Ansar Dine, the latest al-Qaeda “affiliate” on the
American radar. One military intervention, in other words, led to
three major instances of blowback in a neighboring country in just a
year. </p>
<p>With the Obama administration clearly engaged in a twenty-first
century scramble for Africa, the possibility of successive waves of
overlapping blowback grows exponentially. Mali may only be the
beginning and there’s no telling how any of it will end. In the
meantime, keep your eye on Africa. The U.S. military is going to make
news there for years to come.</p>
<p><em>Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com. An
award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in the </em><a
target="_blank"
href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/24/opinion/la-oe-turse-afghanistan-and-vietnam-20120424">Los
Angeles Times</a>, <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-book-club">the Nation</a>,
<em>and </em><a target="_blank"
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175426/nick_turse_a_secret_war_in_120_countries">regularly</a><em>
at </em><a target="_blank"
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/nickturse/">TomDispatch.</a><em>
He is the author/editor of several books, including the recently
published </em><a target="_blank"
href="https://www.createspace.com/3859968">Terminator Planet: The
First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050</a><em> (with Tom
Engelhardt). This piece is the latest article in his </em><a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175501/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_prisons%2C_drones%2C_and_black_ops_in_afghanistan"><em>series</em></a><em>
on “the changing face of American empire,” which is being underwritten
by </em><a target="_blank" href="http://www.lannan.org/">Lannan
Foundation</a><em>. You can follow him on </em><a target="_blank"
href="http://nickturse.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a><em>. To catch Timothy
MacBain's latest Tomcast audio interview in which he discusses the
Pentagon’s shadowy, but fast-expanding mission in Africa, click <a
target="_blank"
href="http://tomdispatch.blogspot.com/2012/07/and-beat-drones-on.html">here</a>
or download it to your iPod <a target="_blank"
href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=j0SS4Al/iVI&subid=&offerid=146261.1&type=10&tmpid=5573&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Ftomcast-from-tomdispatch-com%2Fid357095817">here</a>.</em></p>
<p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on <a
target="_blank" href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch">Facebook</a>.<em> </em></p>
<p>Copyright 2012 Nick Turse</p>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>