"Vast New Front" in global war on terrorism -signed for 5 yrs, Sahara

[troubleinwinter]

U.S. takes terror fight to Africa's 'Wild West'
Critics say Saharan plan backs despots, is magnet for trouble

Abidjan, Ivory Coast -- The U.S. government will spend $500 million over five years on an expanded program to secure a vast new front in its global war on terrorism -- the Sahara Desert.

But critics say the region is not a terrorist zone, as some senior U.S. military officers assert, and they warn that a heavy-handed military and social campaign that reinforces authoritarian regimes in North and West Africa could fuel radicalism where it scarcely exists.

The Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative began operations in June to provide military expertise, equipment and development aid to nine Saharan countries where lawless swaths of desert are considered fertile ground for militant Muslim groups involved in smuggling and combat training.

"It's the Wild West all over again," said Maj. Holly Silkman, a public affairs officer at U.S. Special Operations Command Europe, which presides over U.S. security and peacekeeping operations in Europe, former Soviet bloc countries and most of Africa. Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Morocco, Nigeria and Tunisia take part in the initiative.

During the first phase of the program, dubbed Operation Flintlock, 700 U.S. Special Forces troops and 2,100 soldiers from nine North and West African nations led 3,000 ill-equipped Saharan troops in tactical exercises designed to better coordinate security along porous borders and beef up patrols in ungoverned territories.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/27/MNGISGDLR91.DTL

"five years on an expanded program to secure a vast new front in its global war on terrorism" There go your rights for the next five years. We are to be in perpetual war.

[stillcool]

1. everywhere there is oil....

how sad for those already poor people.

[troubleinwinter]

2. How are you feeling about your rights

under a "war president" who has just signed onto war for 5 more years?

[stillcool]

4. It's a whole new world...

with mind blowing realities that exceed my grasp. These last five years have challenged my perception of life to my core. I need frequent breaks from the internet these days to keep away from the edge. It's just nuts.

[mom cat]

5. You are so right.

[DBoon]

3. Ah, the frontier between Eastasia and Eurasia

All of the disputed territories contain valuable minerals, and some of them yield important vegetable products such as rubber which in colder climates it is necessary to synthesize by comparatively expensive methods. But above all they contain a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Whichever power controls equatorial Africa, or the countries of the Middle East, or Southern India, or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies of scores or hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hard-working coolies. The inhabitants of these areas, reduced more or less openly to the status of slaves, pass continually from conqueror to conqueror, and are expended like so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, to control more labour power, to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, and so on indefinitely. It should be noted that the fighting never really moves beyond the edges of the disputed areas. The frontiers of Eurasia flow back and forth between the basin of the Congo and the northern shore of the Mediterranean; the islands of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific are constantly being captured and recaptured by Oceania or by Eastasia; in Mongolia the dividing line between Eurasia and Eastasia is never stable; round the Pole all three powers lay claim to enormous territories which in fact are largely unihabited and unexplored: but the balance of power always remains roughly even, and the territory which forms the heartland of each super-state always remains inviolate.

- 1984

[troubleinwinter]

6. I think they give not a shit about what "the territorries contain"

... or don't.

The pig has SIGNED to five more years of official "war on terra". He can declare "peace and victory" in Iraq.

But he has granted himself war powers for 5 years.

[txindy]

7. "magnet for trouble" describes Junior perfectly

He attracts trouble like standing water attracts mosquitoes in summertime.

[troubleinwinter]

8. I feel safer. Don't you? Whack them terrist squitoes in the Sahara!

[txindy]

11. Better to smoosh them there than over here.

Winged evildoers!

[Oversea Visitor]

9. 5oo million to fight what

Fight the sands in the Sahara
or stir up some shit so US soldiers can go there and die.

After sahara then where
Artic? Amtartic?
Maybe the Pacific Ocean or the Alantic Ocean.

Sigh 500 million to create terrorist more terrorist.
Oh well US is printing money now I guess easy to get money to do all this

[punpirate]

10. This has been coming for a while...

... I found this a year or two ago:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Arc_of_instability

Note the section subtitled, "An Expanding U.S. Presence in Africa."

Cheers.

[troubleinwinter]

14. Thanks for that interesting article.

"The arc of instability is "a swath of territory running from the Caribbean Basin through most of Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Southeast Asia."

[Straight Shooter]

12. "critics say the region is not a terrorist zone ..."

Where have I heard that before?

Oh yeah. Iraq, just before bush the blunderhead invaded.

[sakabatou]

13. Bush wants to chase the Nazis again...

:crazy: