strategic-culture | Although
AFRICOM is mandated to conduct “stability operations,” there is
evidence that the command has engaged in fomenting military coups in
Africa. In 2009, a group of Guinean army officers who attempted to
assassinate Guinea's President, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, were
operating under orders of US Special Forces assigned to the US Africa
Command (AFRICOM) and French military intelligence personnel. Camara,
himself, seized power in a December 2008 coup in following the death of
Guinea's President Lansana Conte.
Camara
had apparently signed a deal with China for that nation to take over
bauxite mining contracts from US and French companies with the promise
that China would refine bauxite into aluminum by building a factory in
Guinea. The Americans and French previously exported raw bauxite to
smelters abroad. The offer of the Chinese to smelter bauxite in Guinea,
with the promise of well-paying jobs for the impoverished nation, was
too much for France and the United States and a "hit" was ordered on
Camara, using assets in the Guinean military trained by AFRICOM in
Guinea, Germany, and the United States.
The
National Security Agency, America’s top signals intelligence
(SIGINT)-gathering agency, has invested hundreds of millions of dollars
in training intercept operators in a number of languages, including
those spoken in Africa. AFRICOM has operated a redundant and dual
linguist training program, mirroring the NSA program. AFRICOM has spent
millions needlessly duplicating the NSA in training speakers and to be
fluent in Bemba, Bete, Ebira, Fon, Gogo, Kalenjin, Kamba, Luba-Katanga,
Mbundu/Umbundu, Nyanja, Sango, Sukuma, Tsonga/Tonga, Amharic, Dinka,
Somali, Tigrinya, and Swahili. This is just one of many examples by
which AFRICOM has served as a complete waste of money in duplicative
efforts undertaken by other government agencies and elements.
The
June 4, 2017 strangling death in Bamako, Mali of US Army Green Beret
Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar by two US Navy SEALs, all deployed under
AFRICOM’s direction, was linked to Melgar’s discovery that the two Navy
personnel were pocketing official funds used by AFRICOM to pay off
informants in the West African country. The fraud was yet another
example of the culture of malfeasance present among AFRICOM’s ranks.
