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The African 'Star Wars'
It is the Pentagon's Africom versus China's web of investments - the ultimate prize: Africa's natural resources.
From energy wars to water wars, the 21st century will be determined by a fierce battle for the world's remaining natural resources. The chessboard is global. The stakes are tremendous. Most battles will be invisible. All will be crucial.
In resource-rich Africa, a complex subplot of the New Great Game in Eurasia is already in effect. It's all about three major intertwined developments:
1) The coming of age of the African Union (AU) in the early 2000s.
2) China's investment offencive in Africa throughout the 2000s.
3) The onset of the Pentagon's African Command (Africom) in 2007.
Beijing clearly sees that the Anglo-French-American bombing of Libya – apart from its myriad geopolitical implications – has risked billions of dollars in Chinese investments, not to mention forcing the (smooth) evacuation of more than 35,000 Chinese working across the country.
And crucially, depending on the outcome – as in renegotiated energy contracts by a pliable, pro-Western government – it may also seriously jeopardise Chinese oil imports (3 per cent of total Chinese imports in 2010).
No wonder the China Military, a People's Liberation Army (PLA) newspaper, as well as sectors in academia, are now openly arguing that China needs to drop Deng Xiaoping's "low-profile" policy and bet on a sprawling armed forces to defend its strategic interests worldwide (these assets already total over $1.2 trillion).
Now compare it with a close examination of Africom's strategy, which reveals as the proverbial hidden agenda the energy angle and a determined push to isolate China from northern Africa.
One report titled "China's New Security Strategy in Africa" actually betrays the Pentagon's fear of the PLA eventually sending troops to Africa to protect Chinese interests.
It won't happen in Libya. It's not about to happen in Sudan. But further on down the road, all bets are off.
Meddle is our middle name
The Pentagon has in fact been meddling in Africa's affairs for more than half a century. According to a 2010 US Congressional Research Service study, this happened no less than 46 times before the current Libya civil war.
Among other exploits, the Pentagon invested in a botched large-scale invasion of Somalia and backed the infamous, genocide-related Rwanda regime.
The Bill Clinton administration raised hell in Liberia, Gabon, Congo and Sierra Leone, bombed Sudan, and sent "advisers" to Ethiopia to back dodgy clients grabbing a piece of Somalia (by the way, Somalia has been at war for 20 years).
The September 2002 National Security Strategy (NSS), conceived by the Bush administration, is explicit; Africa is a "strategic priority in fighting terrorism".
Yet, the never-say-die "war on terror" is a sideshow in the Pentagon's vast militarisation agenda, which favours client regimes, setting up military bases, and training of mercenaries – "cooperative partnerships" in Pentagon newspeak.
Africom has some sort of military "partnership" – bilateral agreements – with most of Africa's 53 countries, not to mention fuzzy multilateral schemes such as West African Standby Force and Africa Partnership Station.
American warships have dropped by virtually every African nation except for those bordering the Mediterranean.
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Show AllIt is looking more and more like "protecting the people" in Libya is really more about helping the international banking community gain a foothold to 'grab' the economy, while removing China's foothold to control the resources.
Hmmmm.
FYI, the Pentagon funds the training of children soldiers in Africa whom are employed immediately. The Pentagon also funds the training of children soldiers in the USA using warmongering video games, whom are employed later. The neural pathways to the subconscious minds of the young don't filter what goes into the subconscious where it is ready to be activated.
In 1915 WEB DuBois traced the origins of WW I back to the struggle of the European powers for colonies in Africa. The same logic is being followed by the 21st century colonial powers.
Read it and weep:
http://www.webdubois.org/dbAfricanRWar.html
Planet Could Be 'Unrecognizable' by 2050, Experts Say
February 20, 2011 Yahoo News
At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) it was warned that a growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an unrecognizable world by 2050. Global population is projected to reach nine billion by 2050, "with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia," said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.
To feed all those mouths, "we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000," said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund.
But incomes are also expected to rise over the next 40 years -- tripling globally and quintupling in developing nations -- and add more strain to global food supplies.
People tend to move up the food chain as their incomes rise, consuming more meat than they might have when they made less money. Seven pounds of grain are required to produce a pound of meat, and around three to four pounds of grain to produce a pound of cheese or eggs.
Population experts called for more funding for family planning programs to help control the growth in the number of humans, especially in developing nations.
http://www.overpopulation.org/solutions.html
Spam anyone? What does this have to do with Escobar's article?
RE: population
“Capitalism's ecological failures, [Lewis] Mumford argued [in the 1973 edition of "The Condition of Man"], were related to its economic failures. It had been built on three forms of expansion: land expansion, population expansion and industrial expansion. All three had reached their limits as a strategy of wealth creation, falling into ecological and economic contradictions.
...Continuation of capitalist economic industrialization was now possible only through a waste economy and at a direct cost to life.” (From the introduction to “The Ecological Revolution” by John Bellamy Foster)
~~~~~
"A waste economy and at a direct cost to life." That's where we are at now.
eze: if you really care about population and the environment, you should be focusing on an anti-capitalist (revolutionary) program.
Overpopulation and increasing global demands for Africa's resources has nothing to do with Pepe Escobar's article??
Why not let the people decide direct democratically whether they want more or less capitalism or socialism when studies show that they average better decisions than politicians do?
RE: Why not let the people decide direct democratically whether they want more or less capitalism or socialism...
I don't know what to make of this statement. Are you that naive? Do you really think it is just a matter of making a convincing argument? Direct democracy is the most radical and revolutionary political concept that exists. It should be clear that I am all for that. Direct democracy is the last thing that any ruling class would allow. They will, and have already, killed millions to prevent it. That it makes the most sense is irrelevant to the few who profit from exploiting the many.
Does realizing that direct democracy is the best solution mean that one is naive to say so?
Growing affluence, not likely. The purpose of the international oligarchs is to rip off as much as they can from the world population without killing the beast.
As regards the 9B world population in 2050, that's a fantasy. Climate change and rapid depletion of life sustaining resources will cause the great dying off of humans long before that date is reached.
Faggedaboudit.
As I've earlier posted about this fabulous article directly on the Aljazeera site:
This excellent and revealing article by the always insightful Pepe Escobar, is amazing in its own right --- but would really 'connect the dots' if Escobar expanded on the connection with the global Empire's war plans contained in Thomas Barnett's 2004 Naval War College strategy and book, "The Pentagon's New Map"; which draws a devastating picture of the "Old Core" (US, UK, Euro, Japan, Israel 'global Empire') taking over the entire 5000 mile swath of "Gap" (territories/countries) from Mauritania to the very boarders of India and China --- and doing so preemptively relative to the "New Core" (read BRIC).
This un-debated hidden factor is whether the ruling-elite global corporate/financial/militarist Empire which now has ‘captured’ and almost fully controls our former government, by hiding behind the facade of its bought and owned TWO-Party “Vichy” sham of faux-democratic government and equally “Vichy” corporatist media, is actually planning and executing its military intervention in Libya, Yemen, Syria, as well as all Africa as a ‘kick-off’ element of the global war planning strategy contained in Thomas Barnett’s 2004 Naval War College (and ‘hot read’ national security state) book, “The Pentagon’s New Map” —- which outlines the use of “Leviathan” military influence to cut a 5000 mile swath across the entire N. African, Middle Eastern, and SW Asian countries of the “Crescent of Unrest” from Mauritania to the Afpak’s boarder with India.
This nasty possibility seems to comport very significantly with the ‘hint’ of intelligence information that no less than CIA connected ‘journalist’ Bob Woodward mentioned a few weeks ago on “Meet the Press” when he said:
MR. WOODWARD: “I’m not sure whether it’s unrest, an upheaval, whether these are revolutions. But in a 5,000 mile area from Mauritania to Afghanistan, you have to kind of put all this together. The president has a mammoth management problem. There is deep unhappiness, as there should be, about do we know what’s going on in these countries? And the intelligence agencies are scrambling because they cover the leaders and not the people who are the revolutionaries or the rebels or the people involved in this upheaval.”
Pepe, I strongly believe that both your position and that of Professor Juan Cole would be more complete and balanced if the sleeping issue of Barnett’s strategy for the “Gap” being subsumed into the “Old Core” (his more polite term for the US centered Western global Empire) were to be seriously considered in any debate about the supposedly progressive, but more reactionary intervention in Libya, Yemen, the greater Middle East AND all of Africa.
Sincerely,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Liberty & democracy over violent empire -- People's Party 2012
"'The Pentagon's New Map'—which outlines the use of 'Leviathan' military influence to cut a 5,000-mile swath across the entire N. African, Middle Eastern, and SW Asian countries of the 'Crescent of Unrest' from Mauritania to the Afpak border with India."
So, it used to be an "Arc of Instability". Now it's a "Crescent of Unrest". It so happens that the crescent is a symbol of one of the major religions. It so happens that this religion is the dominant one in a large part of the targeted area. It is the religion which, the Shrub assured us, the war on Iraq was not about.
Of course the great American bumpkinproletariat is oblivious to this point, but don't worry, that can and will be remedied.
As always, great catch, Alan. I know every time Bob Woodward opens his mouth, it's time to duck. That bastard is Empire's wind-sock pump primer. My dad had to work with him back in BW's Naval Ordinance Lab days and told us he was "a shiv-sticking bastard that would sell his own mother to widow f___kn', Spam makers".
Great article by Pepe Escobar - as usual!
Incidentally, I read through the comments following the article on al Jazeera. I was surprised to see that very many seemed to portray a US MSM bias, that is, they were very right wing.
Remember too that Libya owns its Central bank , has 150 tonnes of Gold stockpiled and has 10's of billions of dollars of capital in its sovereign wealth fund.
Libya was pushing for Arab and African countries to shift to their own Currency much like Latin American countries suggest.
This is all about the theft of wealth, be it resources or land or gold. It has not changed much since the Spanish Empire were stealing from the Incas and the British Empire stealing from the Spanish.
Theft is THE core value of capitalism.
african command, the new afrika corps. i presume moustaches on the little bush boy or barry would have been too obvious.
Bravo. An excellent exposure of extreme irony, woodman!
Yes, today's first truly successful, and most importantly, HIDDEN global Empire, which calls its controlling arm Africa Command, is orders of magnitude more powerful (and guileful) than that limited Afrika Korps of the mere 'global wannabe' Nazi Empire.
http://www.africom.mil/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrika_Korps
Hitler and Goebbels would weep in their graves with admiration for the success of the TWO-Party "Vichy" that this 21st century entrenched, but hidden, global Empire has used so much more successfully than the Nazi Empire's crude, first generation, thinly veiled, and SINGLE-Party "Vichy" only in France (c. 1940).
In fact, a dead Goebbels might roll over in his grave and say to his Fuhrer, "You mean all I had to do was to use a TWO-Party "Vichy" EVERYWHERE to fool all the people all the time? I have failed you. Please shoot me, mein Fuhrer."
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Liberty & democracy over violent empire -- People's Party 2012
If the following is not a global Empire's map of the world, I don't no what would more clearly show the current (but well disguised) nature of the ruling-elite global corporate/financial/militarist Empire that has totally captured our former country --- and is quietly hiding behind the facade of its TWO-Party "Vichy" sham of faux-democratic government.
http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2009/0109_unifiedcommand/
I'm actually a bit surprised the military arm of this disguised global Empire has even allowed this clear 'map of global Empire' to be this visible to citizens on the internet ---- and would not be surprised to see such access to be 'disappeared' when the propaganda arm of the Empire realizes that it shows too much.
I would also not be surprised to see the underlying global Empire drop the pre-fix US from all of these Empire military Command zones, and just use the terminology; NorthCom, SouthCom, EUCom, CentCom, PaCom, AfriKom, StratCom, SoCom, JFCom, PRCom, etc. when speaking privately within the Empire itself about the 'private interests' within the Empire's AORs (areas of responsibility) --- compared to any fleeting 'public interests', which are, even now, nothing but a charade.
It boarders on an amazing feat of Empire-induced self-deception that the majority of American prole-citizens can still believe that they live in a country, a nation-state, a sovereign nation, even a democracy --- rather than face the reality that they are but subjects of a disguised (and violent) global Empire.
How can such appeasements and tricks of the mind function among supposedly thinking people?
Well, as Margaret Atwood said in her dystopian novel, "The Handmaiden's Tale", the human mind is very adaptable even to oppression. And as accounts of Jewish prisoners in Nazi camps documents, there was 'hope' that things would somehow not turn out as deadly as they obviously were for others, and some maintained hope even there.
Well, some in NorthCom, even today, seem to be able to maintain false "hope for change", as recently promised and ployfully employed by our current faux-emperor/president, Obama.
But others, and thankfully, a growing number of others, seem to intuitively understand the warning that Hannah Arendt offered of the inexorable danger of all empires, when she said:
"Empire abroad entails tyranny at home".
So the "still stuck on stupid" can take false-pride (and even patriotism) in the power of what they falsely-think of as "their Empire" --- just as vicarious sports nuts think of the power and root for "their NASCAR star", or "their WWF hero" --- but surely the informed and thinking among us, will increasingly recognize and confront the fast evolving, though still hidden, global Empire problem "Right here in River City", and start to act in solidarity "Against Empire" (Parenti) before we find ourselves (and our children and grandchildren) trapped in a real holocaust of a situation that will never get better by just 'hoping'.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Liberty & democracy over violent empire -- People's Party 2012.
"Break the 'Vichy' facade of this global Empire"