AFRICOM: US Going it Alone Again, Naturally

New peace talks aimed at resolving the crisis in Darfur began this weekend in Libya. The prospects don’t look good. Although the Sudanese government agreed to a cease-fire on Saturday, leaders of some of the most potent rebel groups did not even show up.

Congress, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush have all called the situation a genocide. But while the U.S. has given more than $2 billion in aid since 2005, according to Bush, at the same time it’s changed its military position in Africa. You have to ask, is the U.S. repeating its go-it alone style of foreign policy in yet another hotspot?

Since February 2003, when violence broke out in Darfur — an area of the Sudan that is roughly the size of France — more than 200,000 people have been killed, and nearly 3 million have been driven from their homes. Tens of thousands live in refugee camps, sheltered by tattered brown tents. Not only has the situation grown far more complex as rebel groups have splintered, but violence in Chad, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo suggest that Darfur isn’t an isolated issue.

“We all know that Africa cannot fully develop economically, politically or socially where there is violence, the threat of terrorism or fear about the security of legitimate governments and the people they represent,” Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary for African affairs, told Congress in August. Her testimony explained the U.S.’s “new strategic relationship with Africa” by way of Africa Command, or AFRICOM, which will create a permanent U.S. military command on the continent in conjunction with the State Department. To put it simply, the endeavor is an attempt at diplomacy and nation-building backed by military firepower.

The State Department has acknowledged how touchy the notion is, but what may be more worrisome is the idea that, with military might and economic leverage, the U.S. can act alone in this world.

Glancing back at recent history, this has proved to be a dubious strategy at best. Earlier this fall, the climate change talks Bush orchestrated alongside those held by the U.N. turned out to be a disaster. Moreover, flying solo in Iraq has left the U.S. without a friend to help shoulder the burden.

Given the situation in Iraq, and adding the increasingly dire situation in Darfur, can the U.S. really afford to continue to go it alone?

(Originally published in Metro in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Image of Intifada transit refugee camp from USAID.)

Comments

[truthout]

23 February 2007

U.S. Diplomat Sees Progress in Somalia
Ambassador Huddleston cites Ethiopian, U.S. help

By Jim Fisher-Thompson
USINFO Staff Writer

Washington -- Somalia's struggle to form a unified government after 15 years of clan warfare is achieving success, thanks to partners in the Horn of Africa region like Ethiopia and with help from the United Nations, the African Union (AU) and the United States, Ambassador Vicki Huddleston told the Council on Foreign Relations February 22 in Washington.

Huddleston, a former U.S. envoy to Mali and Madagascar, recently served for 15 months as acting ambassador to Ethiopia, whose government, she said, was instrumental in "pressing for dialogue" between the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Islamic Courts Council (ICC), a radical Islamist movement that had wrested control of the country until driven from power by a coalition of TFG and Ethiopian forces in December 2006 after talks failed.

Before that victory, "many warned that if Ethiopia intervened on behalf of the transitional government it would fuel a wider war. They were all wrong," Huddleston told the CFR panel.

Now "Ethiopia's and the Somali government's surprisingly easy victories have given Somalia -- and the West -- a second chance to get things right," said Huddleston, who returned in December 2006 from Addis Ababa.

As it stands now, "we do have a success in Somalia," the diplomat said. After cooperating with the TFG to remove the ICC threat, she added, "about one-third of the Ethiopian troops have already withdrawn. There will be a second phase and third phase of withdrawal that hopefully will coincide with the arrival of AU peacekeepers."

Nations that volunteered troops for the AU force in a move recently approved by the U.N. Security Council include Uganda, Burundi and "possibly Nigeria and Tanzania," Huddleston told the panel.

The United Nations approved a force of 8,000 peacekeepers, of which about 4,000 have been pledged so far. The United States will support the deployment by providing $15 million for airlift and other logistics, she added. (See related article.)

"A window of opportunity has opened" in Somalia, Huddleston said, and "before the Islamists close it by disrupting efforts to stabilize Mogadishu … strong U.S. leadership will prevent Somalia from becoming a haven for al-Qaida terrorism in Africa."

The United States has taken a lead in bringing together the international community in a concerted effort to turn Somalia into a viable state through the International Contact Group on Somalia.

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, who represents the United States in the group, has placed Somalia high on her agenda. After making a number of visits to the region, she recently briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on Africa on the crisis.

After a trip in January, Frazer told the panel, "The most striking lesson I took away from the visit is this: Somalis are ready for peace. While developments on the ground have maintained a frenetic pace, there are many reasons to be hopeful."

"Along with our African and international partners, the United States will remain engaged in supporting … the process of dialogue, while also attending to the humanitarian needs of the Somali people," she said. At the last contact group meeting, Frazer said, the United States pledged $40.5 million in new funding for Somalia.

Somalis themselves are working to achieve national unity, especially on the military level, Huddleston told the CFR panel.

About 10,000 Somalis have been merged into a TFG security force representing all the clans. This is important, she emphasized, because "in the end, whether Somalia succeeds or not will depend on all Somalis" and their ability to govern themselves and provide their own security.

Politically, TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed also took "a great step" in the right direction in organizing a political conference of 3,000 clan leaders from around the country, the diplomat added.

A country not contributing to stability in Somalia, according to Huddleston, is Eritrea, which, she said, "hoped to use the conflict in Somalia to destabilize its archenemy Ethiopia." But this tactic failed, the diplomat told the CFR audience.

The full text of Frazer’s remarks as prepared for delivery to the Africa Subcommittee is available on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Web site.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

[PeterR]

There are one hundred ninty some countries on this earth. The United States stands alone in protection. Can you imagine a world without America? Name one country Andy, that would stand for Liberty as we do. I ask for just one.

[Andy]

Imagining a world without the United States (I imagine that's what you mean by 'America') is a moot point, in the same way I might ask you to imagine a solar system without the planet earth.

Now, to name another country that would stand for Liberty (your capital 'L') as we do, well, if you're asking me to name a country who keeps the same kinds of values as the US, I'll pass as I see this as a useless exercise.

What I take as the aim of your question is: the US is the best, and we stand alone, so we have to fight for what we're about. Nobody is going to help us.

On that point, I have to disagree entirely. The world has changed quite a bit since the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the Cold War. Understanding the US's place in the world will not come from old-world realist theories, that is, where every country is on their own, fighting for survival. This was the predominate thinking thirty years ago, but even a cursory glance at world affairs through the 90's and this decade proves that standing alone in a world that is ever-more connected and interdependent is, to put it bluntly, foolish. More, it is shortsighted and doomed to failure.

Am I suggesting that the US fall in line with all 192 countries on the planet? Absolutely not. It would be naive to suggest that any state unload its own illusions of primacy. That is what a nation does, what gives it culture, what incites its people to innovate, to love life.

What is blatantly clear is that unilateral policy, no matter the issue, has gone the way of the dodo bird. As I mentioned in the article, look at either Bush's bewildering attempt at a climate change conference. The world laughed. (Or scoffed, depending on how you look at it.) And the billions being spent in Iraq, an absolutely dire situation, couldn't make the go-it-alone case any more unappealing.

Lastly, as for protection, with all due respect, don't be silly. Excluding Iraq, the US military budget dwarfs the rest of the industrialized world. A half trillion dollars.

The only reason we spend that money is so that we should never, I repeat, never have to even bring up the issue of protecting ourselves. In essence, that ought to be our ticket to all events multilateral.

[UncleRhemus]

America recognizes the stakes, unchanged since the beginnings of man. They are nothing less than the moral truths at the heart of civilization: The inviolability of innocent human life. The sanctuary of religious conscience. The dignity of the human person as the bearer of inalienable rights endowed by our Creator. The moral superiority of consent over coercion.

St. Thomas Aquinas developed a formal “Just War Doctrine”, which recognizes that Christians must love peace but not shrink from confronting evil. That doctrine has grown in use over the centuries in Western thought to become a moral imperative. Those lacking a sense of history forget diplomacy and negotiations, absent the use or threat of force, rarely resolve armed conflicts by tyrants and totalitarians. An over-emphasis on jawboning and words on paper, and the lofty goals of diplomacy are the Left’s all-purpose solution to every threat to American national security. No matter how dishonest or despicable the nation’s enemies, open-ended talks, along with vacuous promises and shaky guarantees from them, win the day.

Your aim remain secular. The hypocrisy in ignoring Iraq for Danfur, moving like hungry pigeons from one broken issue to the next. Now your mantra is focusing on Iran while remaining ignorant of all history surrounding the failure of Europe’s negotiations with Iran, the UN, and world sanctions.

America remains a beacon because it chooses to stand when others will not. The French got it right with the Statue of Liberty. Nothing has changed.

As for your smug comment describing as a useless exercise………….identifying another country that stands for “capital L” Liberty. I might add that there are 100 Million people enjoying freedom because of the West, led by America in the last 80 years.

As you are enjoying your next Memorial Day Parade, look around at the bystanders. Their first glimpse of America was that of a G.I. and because of that first impression, that is why they chose to be here.

If a quest for Liberty and Freedom for all are now thought to be vices, then no further commentary about Western civilization is necessary.