Tuesday, October 24, 2017 1:56:24 AM
Trump’s Niger uproar shines light on the U.S.’s murky African wars
"MORE...Top US general reveals new info on Niger ambush"
By Ishaan Tharoor October 24 at 1:00 AM
For days, President Trump has been locked in controversy over his response to the deaths of four Special Forces soldiers ambushed by suspected Islamist militants on Oct. 4 in Niger. Trump drew criticism for his near-two-week silence on the incident — conspicuous given his usual habit of declaiming Islamist perfidy whenever given an opportunity — as well as for what is turning into an unseemly public spat between him and Myeisha Johnson, the pregnant 24-year-old widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the slain soldiers.
[...]
At least 6,000 U.S. troops are deployed across dozens of African countries on a variety of missions, but the largest contingent is an estimated 900 soldiers posted in Niger, where U.S. forces have been operating in a support role for more than half a decade in conjunction with a larger French force that has been stationed in the region in the wake of a 2013 French-led intervention against a rampaging Islamist insurgency in Mali.
But the foreign military presence hasn't stemmed the threat of extremist militancy in a part of the world racked by poverty, poor governance and a history of internecine conflict.
“The part of Niger where U.S. troops were killed is already awash with deadly skirmishes. Islamist militants first took over areas in neighboring Mali, along its border with Niger, in 2012,” my colleague Max Bearak .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/10/23/parts-of-niger-and-mali-are-already-lawless-u-s-strategy-might-make-it-worse/?utm_term=.8ddc1ae1be26 .. notes.
[...]
The White House “probably hasn’t even begun to think through or review or really even know the details of the U.S. military’s footprint in a country like Niger. One could say that they’ve been distracted by other things, but those things are also of their own making,” Matthew Page, a Nigeria expert and former State Department analyst, told the Atlantic .. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/niger-isis-us-soldiers-attack/543531/ . “I think what this illustrates backs up what a lot of us have been saying about Trump’s Africa policy, which is that it’s not even really half-baked. There’s no one home when it comes to Africa policy.”
More .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/10/24/trumps-niger-uproar-shines-light-on-the-u-s-s-murky-african-wars/?utm_term=.b277b7a08f25
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Some scattershot history with what reads now some scattershot - even scatter-brain - personal comment.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110009077
In these post colonial/exploitative times if anyone has any answers it would be gratifying to see them.
"MORE...Top US general reveals new info on Niger ambush"
By Ishaan Tharoor October 24 at 1:00 AM
For days, President Trump has been locked in controversy over his response to the deaths of four Special Forces soldiers ambushed by suspected Islamist militants on Oct. 4 in Niger. Trump drew criticism for his near-two-week silence on the incident — conspicuous given his usual habit of declaiming Islamist perfidy whenever given an opportunity — as well as for what is turning into an unseemly public spat between him and Myeisha Johnson, the pregnant 24-year-old widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the slain soldiers.
[...]
At least 6,000 U.S. troops are deployed across dozens of African countries on a variety of missions, but the largest contingent is an estimated 900 soldiers posted in Niger, where U.S. forces have been operating in a support role for more than half a decade in conjunction with a larger French force that has been stationed in the region in the wake of a 2013 French-led intervention against a rampaging Islamist insurgency in Mali.
But the foreign military presence hasn't stemmed the threat of extremist militancy in a part of the world racked by poverty, poor governance and a history of internecine conflict.
“The part of Niger where U.S. troops were killed is already awash with deadly skirmishes. Islamist militants first took over areas in neighboring Mali, along its border with Niger, in 2012,” my colleague Max Bearak .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/10/23/parts-of-niger-and-mali-are-already-lawless-u-s-strategy-might-make-it-worse/?utm_term=.8ddc1ae1be26 .. notes.
[...]
The White House “probably hasn’t even begun to think through or review or really even know the details of the U.S. military’s footprint in a country like Niger. One could say that they’ve been distracted by other things, but those things are also of their own making,” Matthew Page, a Nigeria expert and former State Department analyst, told the Atlantic .. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/niger-isis-us-soldiers-attack/543531/ . “I think what this illustrates backs up what a lot of us have been saying about Trump’s Africa policy, which is that it’s not even really half-baked. There’s no one home when it comes to Africa policy.”
More .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/10/24/trumps-niger-uproar-shines-light-on-the-u-s-s-murky-african-wars/?utm_term=.b277b7a08f25
--
Some scattershot history with what reads now some scattershot - even scatter-brain - personal comment.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110009077
In these post colonial/exploitative times if anyone has any answers it would be gratifying to see them.
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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