Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Are Britain and France trying to colonise Africa again?
Published: 2011/05/03 07:04:32 AM

THE rebels spent all their time arguing. No leadership was apparent. They fired in the air on a whim. They spent more time praying to Allah than cleaning their weapons. They were a total rabble.

Sounds like the anti-Gaddafi fighters in Libya. But, no, I am describing my first time in battle with the Mujahedin in Afghanistan in an attack on a Russian-occupied fort near Kabul in 1984. The West helped the Afghan fighters in general and Osama bin Laden in particular. That intervention backfired spectacularly, as the West appreciated on September 11 2001.

Will Western — especially Anglo-French — military intervention in Libya lead to another Afghanistan? British MPs are also warning that the UK could be bogged down in Libya in the same way that a small number of advisers led to the US entanglement in Vietnam. The recent decision to send at least 10 British and 10 French military advisers has stirred up a row. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has said this is not "mission creep", but clearly it is.

British MPs of various parties believe that the government, taking advantage of the parliamentary recess, is stretching the United Nations (UN) mandate over Libya to break the current military stalemate.

Already government statements from Paris, London and Washington have gone beyond the spirit of the UN mandate, by essentially calling for regime change.

Now the dynamic Anglo-French duo, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, are putting "boots on the ground", no matter how much they deny it. Their special forces have already put their booted feet on Libyan sands, as have US Central Intelligence Agency operatives, but now the presence of regular infantry forces has been made public.

The UK may not be in much of a military position to sustain the current effort in Libya, let alone expand it; because Britain, and France, are already sunk in a Vietnam-style quagmire — in Afghanistan. The Western allies are losing that war and a vaguely honourable retreat is the best option. British involvement in a third war in an Islamic state might just force an early withdrawal from the disaster in Afghanistan.

Cameron has nailed his colours to the mast in his commitment to depose Muammar Gaddafi’s tyranny. Another war was the last thing defence planners thought of last year, when they were forced to cut. So should Paris and London leave Gaddafi in place to massacre his own people?

If Gaddafi stays in power it could severely embarrass the Conservative-led coalition and perhaps inspire regime change in London, not Tripoli. Sarkozy has tried to bolster his flagging domestic support with military adventures in both Libya and Côte d’Ivoire. The Bonaparte in built-up shoes could also be toppled. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), bogged down in Afghanistan, could be humiliated if Gaddafi manages to maintain his two-fingered salute to the "crusaders". The Arab Awakening could be stalled. And other African monsters, such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, could be encouraged to accelerate the whole-scale slaughter of their own people.

The humanitarian corridors from Tunisia will help, as will the UK-sponsored sea bridge to Misrata. UN humanitarian intervention has been allowed, says Tripoli. However, the outside world should not expect too much. The large Arab air forces, some arguably better equipped than the British Royal Air Force, especially the Saudis, have not lifted a finger. Egypt’s big army could help by driving in from next door. But it won’t happen. Only French special forces could have ended the stalemate in Côte d’Ivoire, by deposing Laurent Gbagbo, and thus avoid another possible Rwanda. Likewise, only Western forces have the capability and perhaps will to organise the Libyan rebels. The Americans can’t, so that leaves the British and French.

So just 20 military advisers are being sent. They are supposed to advise on military structures, communications and logistics, including how to deliver humanitarian aid. The UK foreign office says they will be "mentors" who will not train or arm the rebels, nor be involved in planning military operations. The latter is exactly what is needed, because even the lowliest British corporal can see what a mess the Benghazi "army" is.

A few good noncommissioned officers from Britain and the French Foreign Legion could make a big difference. But they won’t — officially. More than 800 Nato air sorties may have knocked out a third of Gaddafi’s arsenal, but they can do little on the ground. To prevent a stalemate — a defeat for the West — more quality troops will have to be sent to train and organise from the front. And more arms will have to be sent. I witnessed how a handful of British military officers and noncommissioned officers bravely secured the cease-fire in Rhodesia in 1980, then stayed on to advise the rebels how to make an army. A small number of British officers and men played a crucial role in merging the nine different armies in SA. They quelled potential mutinies and played a major role in the peaceful transition from apartheid. The British army can be a force for good.

It is for the British taxpayers to decide whether it is worth "saving" Libya from the forthcoming disaster. Full British engagement — combat troops — may help to forestall either a Gaddafi or Islamist victory in the country. On the other hand, "crusader" involvement may also precipitate the triumph of al-Qaeda-type franchises in Libya, as well as in Tunisia, Egypt and the Yemen.

Meanwhile, France has been criticised throughout Africa for resuming its role of continental "gendarme", especially in Côte d’Ivoire; Britain has also been lambasted for a so-called return to a colonial rule. This suits paranoid African despots, who prefer to shadow box with long-dead white men in baggy shorts and pith helmets than resolve problems of their own making.

Sarkozy might have done the right thing for the wrong reasons, namely bolstering his own weak electoral base. And London simply didn’t have the money, the men or the equipment, so why did Cameron embrace Sarkozy’s hyperbolic interventionism with such alacrity? Call me naive, but it was both a genuine last-minute humanitarian gesture to save Benghazi’s and Tobruk’s civilians, as well as hard-headed national security interest to prevent another Somalia adjacent to Europe’s soft underbelly. Talk of a new imperialism is sheer nonsense.

The Arab League members, who all detest Gaddafi, did put on a rare display of unity, but did not back their words with military force. Meanwhile, the visit of African Union bosses to Tripoli was obviously a wasted journey. Gaddafi appreciated the apparent solidarity, especially when President Jacob Zuma addressed the mad tyrant as "dear brother leader". Zuma, with all the levers to topple Mugabe overnight, has done nothing to end the monstrous regime in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has slaughtered far more of his own people than the white regime ever managed.

African leaders keep pledging that they want African solutions to African problems, but they rarely provide any. When an African crisis threatens another Rwanda, as Libya possibly and Côte d’Ivoire probably did, then African leaders will have to tolerate prompt Western intervention. Until Africa starts fixing its own continent, Sarkozy’s Legionnaires and Cameron’s recourse to a fine army will have to plug the gap.

• Moorcraft is a former senior instructor at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=141527

Moorcraft, is and has been much more ..

Paul Leslie Moorcraft (born 1948 in Cardiff, Wales) is the Director of the Centre for Foreign Policy
Analysis in London and visiting professor at Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Moorcraft

Then there is AFRICOM .. Pravda's view ..

Africom is the Recolonization of Africa by the U.S. .. http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/02-02-2010/111989-africon_recolonization_africa-0/

and other's ..

AFRICOM: Wrong for Liberia, Disastrous for Africa

By Ezekiel Pajibo and Emira Woods. Edited by John Feffer, July 26, 2007

Just two months after U.S. aerial bombardments began in Somalia, the Bush administration solidified its militaristic engagement with Africa. In February 2007, the Department of Defense announced the creation of a new U.S. Africa Command infrastructure, code name AFRICOM, to “coordinate all U.S. military and security interests throughout the continent.” .. more .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=59092339

In reading Hillary's only China mention in connection to recolonization of Africa ..
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/11/us-clinton-africa-idUSTRE75A0RI20110611 ..
it brought to mind these other ones .. heh, also couldn't help but think of the incessant chatter about Iran .. and China ..

World politics .. lol ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzJY96m3lkg