F William Engdahl: ''Mali and AFRICOM’s Africa Agenda: Target China

From Phantom Report
By F William Engdahl

''On January 20 Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron announced his country’s curious resolve to dedicate itself to deal with “the terrorism threat” in Mali and north Africa. Cameron declared, “It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months, and it requires a response that…has an absolutely iron resolve…” [1] Britain in its colonial heyday never had a stake in Mali. Until it won independence in 1960, Mali was a French colony.''

''Mali itself, like much of Africa is rich in raw materials. It has large reserves of gold, uranium and most recently, though western oil companies try to hide it, oil, lots of oil. The French preferred to ignore Mali’s vast resources, keeping it a poor subsistence agriculture country. Under the deposed democratically-elected President Amadou Toumani Toure, for the first time the government initiated a systematic mapping of the vast wealth under its soil. According to Mamadou Igor Diarra, previous mining minister, Malian soil contains copper, uranium, phosphate, bauxite, gems and in particular, a large percentage of gold in addition to oil and gas. Thus, Mali is one of the countries in the world with the most raw materials. With its gold mining, the country is already one of the leading exploiters directly behind South Africa and Ghana. [6] Two thirds of France’s electricity is from nuclear power and sources of new uranium are essential. Presently, France draws significant uranium imports from neighboring Niger.''

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''More than 300 UK troops set for Mali mission''

From The Telegraph

"We have an absolute duty to intervene wherever there is a threat to Britain's national security and the security of Britain's interests around the world and this is exactly such a case. This is a well-judged, well-leveraged intervention that will deliver efficiently a result that is in Britain's national interest."

British troops will be able to fire in "self defence" only during their deployment in Bamako, the Malian capital, where they are being protected by the French, Mr Hammond said.''

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William Engdahl: ''Mali a US operation with France as a junior partner''

From VoltaireNet.org

''As French soldiers pour into Mali in the fight to push back the advancing Islamist militants, questions have been raised as to the motives behind the intervention.

Author William Engdahl told RT the US was using France as a scapegoat to save face.

RT: At a time when France and the rest of the Eurozone are trying to weather the economic crisis, what’s Paris seeking to gain by getting involved in another conflict overseas?

William Engdahl: Well, I think the intervention in Mali is another follow-up to the French role in other destabilizations that we’ve seen, especially in Libya last year with the toppling of the Gadhafi regime. In a sense this is French neocolonialism in action.''

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Pepe Escobar: ''Burn, burn - Africa's Afghanistan''

From Asia Times Online

...........''Mali is crucial to AFRICOM and to the Pentagon's overall MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) outlook. Months before 9/11 I had the privilege to crisscross Mali on the road - and by the (Niger) river - and hang out, especially in Mopti and Timbuktu, with the awesome Tuaregs, who gave me a crash course in Northwest Africa. I saw Wahhabi and Pakistani preachers all over the place. I saw the Tuaregs progressively squeezed out. I saw an Afghanistan in the making. And it was not very hard to follow the money sipping tea in the Sahara. Mali borders Algeria, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Guinea. The spectacular Inner Niger delta is in central Mali - just south of the Sahara. Mali overflows with gold, uranium, bauxite, iron, manganese, tin and copper. And - Pipelineistan beckons! - there's plenty of unexplored oil in northern Mali.''

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America Invades Africa: ''The Resource War and the Conquest of Mali''

From Global Research


''The United States African Command (AFRICOM) was created in 2007 under then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the Bush Administration as a Military Command center that covers the entire continent of Africa.  They wanted to create a permanent footprint in Africa to maintain the peace and security it desires that is deemed beneficial for US interests.''

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''The Secret War Between China and the US for Africa's Oil Riches''

From OilPrice.com
By Zachary Fillingham

''In the struggle to secure energy resources, the great powers consider all states to be fair game. Indeed, this is precisely what characterizes American foreign policy in the modern era. When it comes to economic and geopolitical interests, Washington seldom differentiates between democratic leaders and despots, especially when those interests involve oil. Currently, the stakes are high in the rush to secure oil resources and nowhere is this more evident than in the Sino-American rivalry in Africa. Both states are competing to secure their share of oil supplies in order to quench their addiction to the coveted ‘black gold.’''

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''Libya Fiasco Exposes Chain of Incompetent Generals In Charge At the Pentagon''

From All Africa Via 'There are no Sunglasses'

''The extramarital affair cited for the resignation of CIA chief Gen Petraeus is insignificant by far compared to his belonging to a section of US military and intelligence elite pursuing a complex right-wing global agenda.

Carter Ham has been removed as head of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). General Petraeus resigned from the CIA on November 9. Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette was reassigned on October 26 as the commander of the USS John C. Stennis strike group. These three changes at the top of the US military establishment are all related to the failed NATO intervention in North Africa and the subsequent war and killings that have been unleashed by militias in Libya, especially in Benghazi.''

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''America and the Politics of Genocide in Africa''

From URUKNET
By Glen Ford

''On Tuesday, the vast majority of African Americans cast their votes for a man whose hands are soaked in the blood of millions of Congolese. Barack Obama, like his predecessors George Bush and Bill Clinton, has pulled the strings, paid the cash, and sent the weapons that Uganda and Rwanda have used to cause the deaths of six million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo since invading that country in 1996. Various organs of the United Nations have repeatedly found America’s two top allies in Black Africa complicit in the Congo genocide, and on every occasion, the U.S. and Great Britain have protected the mass murderers. And why not? The genocide in Congo is the deliberate result of American and British policy. Uganda and Rwanda are merely henchmen, who commit mass murder in return for a cut of Congo’s vast stores of mineral resources. Western businesses are the ultimate beneficiaries.''

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''US Special Forces To Be Deployed To Half the Countries of Africa Within 6 Months''

i thought we were broke?................From 'There are no Sunglasses'

''Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahue, commanding general of Army Africa and Southern European Task Force, said the 2/1 soldiers are slated to participate in 96 activities in 34 countries, “more than half of the continent’s nations,” during the first six months of their usage.''

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''AFRICOM and the Recolonisation of Africa''

From Modern Ghana via Phantom Report............read more

''AFRICOM, literally known as ”The United States Africa Command”(USAFRICOM) is one of nine Unified Combatant Commands of the United States Armed Forces headquartered at Kelley barracks, Stuttgart in Germany.

AFRICOM was created by George W Bush by Presidential Order in 2007 to cordinate US military activities throughout Africa and is directly responsible for U:S military operations and military relations with 53 african nations – an area of responsibility covering the whole of Africa except Egypt.''

 http://www.phantomreport.com/

''Imperialists prepare for war in Mali''

From 'There are no Sunglasses'

''Western imperialist states, with the support of the United Nations Security Council, are preparing for a full-scale military intervention in the West African state of Mali. Since March, the country has been in a severe political crisis after a military coup and its effective partitioning into north and south.''

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''Report Reveals Why Ellen Wants Africom in Liberia''

another military base?............From All Africa

''Report gathered by this paper has revealed that Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's interest in hosting in Liberia a base for the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) appears to have had more to do with protecting the George Soros and Rothschild mining operations in West Africa than in championing stability and human rights.''

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Africa: ''The Dragon's Gift for Africa''

From All Africa

"Scramble for Africa", "New Chinese imperialism," "Neo-colonialism", "New colonizer", "Trojan horse", "Yellow Peril", these are some of the terms the West racked their brains to tarnish China's aid to Africa in an attempt to systematically implant the notion of an enemy (China) in the minds of the African population as Benedict M Louw pointed out in New Era on 03 Aug 2012. Western propaganda is really an evil-driven device.

However, like most of the African people, there are some Westerners who are not fooled by such propaganda because they simply understand one truth, that fact speaks louder. Like "The book China Returns to Africa A Rising Power and a Continent Embrace", edited by Christopher Alden, et al, "The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa" is another authoritative book composed by an American professor in the International Development Programme at American University's School of International Service, Deborah Brautigam who did her PhD thesis about China's aid to Africa.''

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''China and India - Rivals in Africa''

From Deutsche Welle

''The growing influence of China and India in Africa is being watched with skepticism. Many see the rising Asian economic powers as new colonial masters exploiting resource-rich Africa solely for their own benefit.''

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''White House widening covert war in North Africa''

i thought we were broke..........From Houston Chronicle

''Small teams of special operations forces arrived at American embassies throughout North Africa in the months before militants launched the fiery attack that killed the U.S. ambassador in Libya. The soldiers' mission: Set up a network that could quickly strike a terrorist target or rescue a hostage.''

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Pepe Escobar: "Brother Obama, where art thou?''

From Asia Times

''Libya is now militia hell - from neighborhood-watch outfits to mini-armies. They won't disarm. They refuse to be part of government security forces because their logic is tribal. They're fighting one another. No weak central government in car-bomb-infested Tripoli will rein them in.

Another way to put it is that "liberated" Libya is now warlord country. Home of vendettas in the desert and tribal pogroms against other tribes - and even whole towns.''

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''How China bleeds South Africa dry''

From Business Day Live

''A report put out last week by the University of East Anglia in Britain says 77000 factory jobs were lost in SA between 2001 and 2010 because of an influx of cheap Chinese products.

Ten years ago manufacturing, which is the second- biggest sector in the local economy, contributed 19% of GDP. Today it contributes 15% and this is falling sharply.

The stark truth is that China is killing SA's manufacturing sector. And the SA government is allowing it to do so through a combination of naivety, incompetence, susceptibility to flattery and ideology.''

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''U.S. Militarism In Africa: Humanitarian Missions Or Imperialist Aggression?''

From Strategic Culture

''With specific reference to Africa, the U.S. government after World War II paid lip service to the anti-colonial struggle, but in actuality supported the perpetuation of the status-quo. Although relationships between the U.S. administration and progressive African states were established in Ghana, Guinea, Algeria, Egypt, Tanzania and others, nonetheless, it became obvious even during the 1950s and 1960s, and was documented later, that successive Washington administrations were more concerned about containing Soviet, Chinese and Cuban influence than assisting a genuine process of de-colonization and independence.''

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'' Africa’s Love-Hate Relationship with China''

From Diplomatic Courier

''Is China good for Africa or bad? That seems to be the never-ending debate from international development and investment policy experts and organizations. In much of the western world at least, this conversation frequently involves a mention of how negative and one-sided China’s involvement in the continent has been. After all, their companies built hospitals that had to be torn down after the walls cracked in Angola and roads that were swept away by rain in Zambia. While many of the criticisms of this giant’s interests are valid, demonizing the Chinese involvement fails to consider how the opportunity to wield such power became possible and ignores very similar policies by American allies.''

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''Sectarian Tensions in Tunisia Reflect Larger Geopolitical Rivalry''

From Al-Monitor

''Is antagonism toward Tunisia's minority Shiites motivated by religion or politics? Synda Tajine argues it's a proxy in the fight for leadership among Arab countries between the U.S.-aligned Gulf states and those defending the Syrian regime, led by Iran.''

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