AFRICOM starting from scratch at Germany facility

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By Charlie Coon, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, March 11, 2007

STUTTGART, Germany – If Africa Command gets it right, it would help stabilize teetering nations, strengthen others’ abilities to fight terrorism, lessen the scourge of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and smooth the road for humanitarians.

But Africa is a big continent — three and a half times the size of the U.S. — and the military’s new command has only about 50 people working for it, housed inside one bare-boned, three-story building.

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In the coming months, AFRICOM has to fine-tune its mission and essentially create itself. To put it another way, the staff has to build its own boat, then set sail in it.

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The military has stressed that much of the command’s activities will be non-militaristic. In recent years, for example, U.S. troops have increasingly been performing medical, dental and other humanitarian efforts in Africa, in addition to working one-on-one with African troops to sharpen their military skills.

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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=44223