Post by RPankn on Apr 1, 2004 3:52:01 GMT -5
By Ritt Goldstein
Africa's Maghreb and Sahel regions recently exploded into world view with allegations that the Madrid bombers were tied to those areas' "al Qaeda" groups. And while United States concerns about terrorism in the region have been increasingly voiced, critics of the administration of President George W Bush say that the ongoing US pursuit of energy resources lies behind them. As early as the fall of 2002, Britain's Economist magazine charged that oil "is the only American interest in Africa".
In a fall 2003 interview with Asia Times Online, noted US security analyst Michael Klare, author of Resource Wars, had warned of America's potential African involvement. When queried as to where the next oil flash point might be after Iraq, Klare replied: "I've been looking at Africa. It's heating up over there."
Illustrating the basis for such statements, in 2001 Vice President thingy Cheney's report on a US National Energy Policy declared Africa to be one of America's "fastest-growing sources of oil and gas". By February 1, 2002, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Walter Kansteiner, declared: "This [African oil] has become of national strategic interest to us." And a December 2001 report by the US National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2015, forecast that by 2015 a full quarter of US oil imports would come from Africa.
During this past February, a handful of top US generals visited Africa in separate and far from usual trips. They included the US's European commander, Marine General James L Jones, as well as the European deputy commander, Air Force, General Charles Wald. And excluding the region known as the Horn of Africa, the US European Command oversees the US's African actions.
The trips occurred against a widely reported backdrop of increasing pressures from US industry and conservative policy groups to secure energy sources outside the Middle East.
Over the past several months, the US has been in the process of dispatching Special Forces troops to the countries of Africa's Sahel - Mauritania, Chad, Mali and Niger. The effort is part of a program dubbed the Pan Sahel Initiative, designed to provide anti-terrorism training to the region's military. Others have termed it a program to train regional armies.
More here: www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FC30Aa02.html
Africa's Maghreb and Sahel regions recently exploded into world view with allegations that the Madrid bombers were tied to those areas' "al Qaeda" groups. And while United States concerns about terrorism in the region have been increasingly voiced, critics of the administration of President George W Bush say that the ongoing US pursuit of energy resources lies behind them. As early as the fall of 2002, Britain's Economist magazine charged that oil "is the only American interest in Africa".
In a fall 2003 interview with Asia Times Online, noted US security analyst Michael Klare, author of Resource Wars, had warned of America's potential African involvement. When queried as to where the next oil flash point might be after Iraq, Klare replied: "I've been looking at Africa. It's heating up over there."
Illustrating the basis for such statements, in 2001 Vice President thingy Cheney's report on a US National Energy Policy declared Africa to be one of America's "fastest-growing sources of oil and gas". By February 1, 2002, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Walter Kansteiner, declared: "This [African oil] has become of national strategic interest to us." And a December 2001 report by the US National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2015, forecast that by 2015 a full quarter of US oil imports would come from Africa.
During this past February, a handful of top US generals visited Africa in separate and far from usual trips. They included the US's European commander, Marine General James L Jones, as well as the European deputy commander, Air Force, General Charles Wald. And excluding the region known as the Horn of Africa, the US European Command oversees the US's African actions.
The trips occurred against a widely reported backdrop of increasing pressures from US industry and conservative policy groups to secure energy sources outside the Middle East.
Over the past several months, the US has been in the process of dispatching Special Forces troops to the countries of Africa's Sahel - Mauritania, Chad, Mali and Niger. The effort is part of a program dubbed the Pan Sahel Initiative, designed to provide anti-terrorism training to the region's military. Others have termed it a program to train regional armies.
More here: www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FC30Aa02.html