AFRICOM Will Not Be in Africa

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


africa_1890.jpg

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), a new organizational construct intended to unify the entire African continent (except Egypt) under a single U.S. commander, is due to become fully operational later this year. Since its founding in October 2007, it has been based in an old German military barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, until a suitable African location can be found to house its command infrastructure. But according to the BBC, AFRICOM has now stopped searching for a permanent home due to a lack of interest among all but one of the 53 African nations falling under its area of responsiblity:

Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua announced in November that he would not allow his country to host an Africom base and that he was also opposed to any such bases in West Africa.

South Africa and Libya have also voiced strong reservations.

Only Liberia, which has historic links to the US, has offered to host it.

There has been concern that Africom is really an attempt to protect US oil and mineral interests in Africa, amid growing competition for resources from Asian economies, says the BBC’s Alex Last in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

Then there are fears about the continent being drawn into the US war on terror, our correspondent adds.

At a press conference held earlier today in Ghana, the latest stop on President Bush’s tour through Africa, the U.S. commander-in-chief tried to reassure his African audience about American intentions on the continent. An excerpt from the transcript on AFRICOM’s website:

We do not contemplate adding new bases. In other words, the purpose of this is not to add military bases. I know there’s rumors in Ghana, ‘All Bush is coming to do is try to convince you to put a big military base here.’ That’s baloney. (Laughter.) Or as we say in Texas, that’s bull. (Laughter.) Mr. President (Kufuor) made it clear to me, he said, look, we — you’re not going to build in any bases in Ghana. I said, I understand; nor do we want to. Now, that doesn’t mean we won’t develop some kind of office somewhere in Africa.

Unless that office is to be located in Liberia, it’s unlikely to open any time soon.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate