US Military and Africom: Between the rocks and the crusaders http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72174

'The Western bombardment of Gaddafi’s forces in Libya has become an opportunistic public relations ploy for the US Africa Command and a new inroad for US military stronghold on the continent,' writes Horace Campbell.The Western bombardment of Gaddafi’s forces in Libya has become an opportunistic public relations ploy for the US Africa Command and a new inroad for US military stronghold on the continent. This involvement of Africom in the bombardment is now serving to expose the contradictions and deceit that have surrounded the formation of this combatant command, which has been presented by US policy makers as a front for military humanitarian assistance to Africa in coordination with the US Department of State and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Attempts by the USA to re-militarise its engagement with Africa is extremely dangerous, given the fact that the US does not have any positive or credible tradition of genuine assistance to freedom fighters and liberation movements in Africa.In the face of the public opposition from African thinkers and opinion makers, the forward planners for the Crusaders moved to spend money among struggling academics to promote an ideological onslaught to legitimize the US Africa Command. Beside this intense work among social scientists, the forward planners among the Crusaders decided to employ the services of propaganda firms to fan the flames of Islamophobia in Africa. Africom has embarked on a massive public relations campaign to sell itself as a force for humanitarianism and development in Africa. Hence, for the past two years, almost all aspects of the US foreign policy in Africa have been subordinated to the Pentagon.