"America Is at War in Africa" Topic

"What the military will say to a reporter and what is said behind closed doors are two very different things -- especially when it comes to the U.S. military in Africa. For years, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has maintained a veil of secrecy about much of the command's activities and mission locations, consistently downplaying the size, scale, and scope of its efforts. At a recent Pentagon press conference, AFRICOM Commander General David Rodriguez adhered to the typical mantra, assuring the assembled reporters that the United States "has little forward presence" on that continent. Just days earlier, however, the men building the Pentagon's presence there were telling a very different story -- but they weren't speaking with the media. They were speaking to representatives of some of the biggest military engineering firms on the planet. They were planning for the future and the talk was of war.

I recently experienced this phenomenon myself during a media roundtable with Lieutenant General Thomas Bostick, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. When I asked the general to tell me just what his people were building for U.S. forces in Africa, he paused and said in a low voice to the man next to him, "Can you help me out with that?" Lloyd Caldwell, the Corps's director of military programs, whispered back, "Some of that would be close hold" -- in other words, information too sensitive to reveal.

The only thing Bostick seemed eager to tell me about were vague plans to someday test a prototype "structural insulated panel-hut," a new energy-efficient type of barracks being developed by cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He also assured me that his people would get back to me with answers. What I got instead was an "interview" with a spokesman for the Corps who offered little of substance when it came to construction on the African continent. Not much information was available, he said, the projects were tiny, only small amounts of money had been spent so far this year, much of it funneled into humanitarian projects. In short, it seemed as if Africa was a construction backwater, a sleepy place, a vast landmass on which little of interest was happening…"
Full article here.
link

Amicalement
Armand

Old news really.

No real surprise …

Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan now a whole continent wow aiming big this time.

Let's hope not …

We've been hearing inklings of this for a while now…

The article is crap. Spurious, sensationalistic, and no real point.

And yet no one is watching Yemen, apparently.

I guess I really shouldn't be surprised we've been caught napping again.

Looks like the drones/CAS showed up over AQ in Yemen, two days in a row … 14 AQ sent to Allah and @ 3 civilains … Yes, it's too bad about the non-combatant losses … But in a guerilla war, you can't tell the bad guys from the locals [that's the way guerilla warfare works] … And, yes, by design the bad guys move among the locals[read Mao and Che'] … Well IMO, 14 down, a few 100,000 more to go …

In Shift to Africa, US Troops Find Complicated Relationships

"Lt. Col. Lee Magee had been on the ground in Africa for less than four days when the call came in to gather his troops and get on a plane to South Sudan.

The commander of the US Army's 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division — the service's newly minted East Africa Response Force — would soon find himself and his 45 soldiers on an airfield in Juba, the new nation's restive capital, working with local forces and US Embassy staff to stiffen protection at the American diplomatic compound as violence intensified across the country.

Four months after that Dec. 18 flight, a platoon of US soldiers continues to guard the embassy gates, though Magee and the majority of his troops returned to their base in Djibouti in early February.

The East Africa Response Force (EARF) is one component of the service's larger Regionally Aligned Force concept, which marries a brigade with a geographic combatant commander to strengthen the commander's capabilities in both crisis response and in conducting training and security assistance…"
Full article here.
link

Amicalement
Armand

ok

Legion…. Yemen is in Asia.

Just saying :)

Yes but my post was in regard to Mako mentioning Yemen … so … Also CNN just noted 65 AQ KIA'd in Yemen(which is in Asia not Africa you know …) were sent to Allah over the (Easter) weekend by those Drone and CAS strikes … again with Only 3 non-combatant losses … But in a guerilla war, you can't tell the bad guys from the locals [that's the way guerilla warfare works] … And, yes, by design the bad guys move among the locals[read Mao and Che'] … Well IMO, 65 down, a few 100,000 more to go … Hopefully I have properly "qualified" all my statements … but stu will let me know …