WASHINGTON - On Aug. 6, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Somali President
Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in Kenya and pledged to provide more military aid and
training to the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
At a joint press conference after the meeting, Clinton said that the U.S. will
"continue to provide equipment and training to the TFG."
It's
time for some straight talk on U.S. foreign policy as it relates to
Africa. While Obama administration officials and African Military
Command (AFRICOM) representatives insist that U.S. foreign policy
towards Africa isn't being militarized, the evidence seems to suggest
otherwise. While Africans condemned U.S. military policy in Africa
under the Bush administration, the Obama administration has not only
mirrored Bush's approach, but has in fact enhanced it. President George
W.
At the end of President Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony, civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery invoked the hope of a day "when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors." No one expects such a utopian vision to materialize any time soon. But both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have spoken eloquently of the need to emphasize diplomacy over a narrow military agenda.
"You give me money,
I don't care who you are." It was late October, and Zimbabwe's defense
attaché, a soft-spoken, thick-shouldered lieutenant colonel, was
explaining his country's freewheeling approach to business in the
banquet room of the Liaison hotel on Capitol Hill. Mingling around him
were representatives from some of the world's best-known private
security and military contracting firms, gathered to explore their
prospects in the industry's next frontier: Africa.
