A regional US army command tasked with looking down terrorists throughout Africa appears to be way more serious about waging psychological operations focusing on the American public, the Pentagon and the White Home. How curious.
Most international locations on the earth divide their very own territory in army areas of duty. Not so the US, whose combatant instructions span the complete globe – and past. Certainly one of these, the Africa Command (AFRICOM) is chargeable for the complete African continent – apart from Egypt, which by some means ended up within the realm of the neighboring Central Command (CENTCOM).
Tasked with going after terrorist teams like Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS), AFRICOM has lately targeted its efforts on utilizing pleasant journalists, media leak and bombastic social media statements to bypass its army and civilian superiors and foyer in Washington for extra energy, affect and cash.
“As soon as is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Thrice is enemy motion,” goes a quote attributed to James Bond creator Ian Fleming. So it was undoubtedly noticeable when AFRICOM made a 3rd bid to draw consideration in below a month.
On Wednesday, the left-progressive journal Nation printed an unique story primarily based on an AFRICOM doc exhibiting that the command was apprehensive about President Donald Trump freezing US funding for the World Well being Group and the way China may exploit that for increasing its affect in Africa. Journalist Ken Klippenstein says the doc, dated April 23, was leaked to him.
Trump's resolution to defund the World Well being Group could possibly be so devastating to Africa that even the Pentagon is anxious, per AFRICOM assembly readout leaked to me:https://t.co/Lvy7VxDn1D pic.twitter.com/ybJjvoHfv0
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) Might 27, 2020
The leak got here solely a day after AFRICOM posted a sequence of tweets accusing Russia of sending fighter jets to Libya. Certainly one of them quoted its commander, Basic Charles Townsend, saying that they “watched as Russia flew fourth technology jet fighters to Libya – each step of the best way.”
Besides no proof of this was truly supplied, and AFRICOM’s assertion certified the declare with weasel-words similar to “assessed” and “possible.” Russian officers have dismissed the declare as ridiculous, particularly the half about supposedly camouflaging the fighters’ origins by giving them a contemporary paint job in Syria.
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AFRICOM has been very sore about Moscow’s alleged army presence in Libya – the place its personal troops withdrew from in March 2019, per Trump’s orders – claiming that Russia is “destabilizing” Libya and making worse the “migration disaster affecting Europe.” In Tuesday’s assertion, it accused Russia of not being “serious about what’s greatest for the Libyan individuals” however “working to realize their very own strategic objectives as an alternative.”
That’s a bit wealthy, contemplating that it was the US and its NATO allies that carried out the 2011 regime-change intervention, turning Libya from essentially the most affluent nation in Africa right into a hellhole infested with warlords, terrorists and slavers ever since.
Whereas leaking to The Nation appealed to the American left, AFRICOM has beforehand reached out to the precise as nicely. Again in April, the command used a pleasant reporter on the conservative Washington Examiner to say that the (alleged) Russian presence in Libya is “extra harmful than ISIS,” which truly operated in Libya at one cut-off date.
“We consider that there might be a necessity sooner or later, a possibility for us to get again into Libya once more,” the unnamed official was truly quoted as saying at one level, freely giving the endgame.
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Between bombastic tweets, nameless insinuations to pleasant conservative reporters and leaks to liberal ones, the image that emerges is of AFRICOM waging a psychological operation (psyop), a propaganda struggle on the US public bypassing the Joint Chiefs, the Pentagon and even the commander in chief himself to foyer for a much bigger piece of the army pie.
This may increasingly appear far-fetched, but it surely is not strictly talking with out precedent. Some may keep in mind Basic Phillip ‘Bwana’ Breedlove, who headed the European Command till Might 2016. Emails from his private account – printed in July 2016, following his retirement from the US army – revealed months of effort to foyer the Pentagon and the White Home to offer EUCOM extra consideration, together with spinning tall tales a couple of “Russian invasion” of Ukraine. The emails additionally revealed how Washington-based lobbyists recognized the precise means of approaching sure officers and the very best channels for influencing the Obama administration when it got here to Ukraine – notably, Vice President Joe Biden.
At one level, Breedlove even accused Moscow of “weaponizing migration in an try to overwhelm European buildings and break European resolve” – simply as AFRICOM is doing now.
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All of which raises the query: when did combatant instructions – a company system invented throughout WWII to streamline command, management and communication between varied branches of the army – morph into de facto feudal fiefdoms, with their commanders as barons extra targeted on currying favor in Washington than doing their precise job within the subject?
In AFRICOM’s case, that job actually includes looking down terrorists – or serving to locals accomplish that themselves, for the reason that command is headquartered in Germany and has only some precise bases in Africa. Not that any of that’s going nicely in any respect. So AFRICOM shifted its deal with the house entrance as an alternative.
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One attainable rationalization could also be cash. Again in February, a rumor started spreading round Washington that the Trump administration was contemplating “zeroing out” AFRICOM’s funds. Each the rumor itself and the reported reactions to it have been hotly denied, however which may simply assist shed some gentle on Townsend’s gambit. As with every paperwork, survival is the very best precedence.
