Losing Africa

There's a fairly large continent just south of the Middle East, where Islamic fundamentalism has been taking root for some time, where two of the largest coordinated terrorist attacks prior to 9/11 occurred. Perhaps you might have heard of it. It's called Africa.

To the Bush Administration, it doesn't ring a bell:

The Bush administration and Congress have slashed millions of dollars of military aid to African nations in recent years, moves that Pentagon officials and senior military commanders say have undermined American efforts to combat terrorist threats in Africa and to counter expanding Chinese influence there.

Since 2003, Washington has shut down Pentagon programs to train and equip militaries in a handful of African nations because they have declined to sign agreements exempting American troops from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

But the policy, which was designed to protect American troops, has instead angered senior military officials, who say the cuts in military aid are shortsighted and have weakened counterterrorism efforts in places where the threat of international terrorism is said to be most acute [...]

Last year, the United States cut off $13 million for training and equipping troops in Kenya, where operatives of Al Qaeda killed 224 people when they bombed the American Embassy compound in Nairobi in 1998.

In 2003, the flow of $309,000 annually was suspended to Mali, where Pentagon officials contend an Algerian separatist group with ties to Al Qaeda — known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or G.S.P.C. — has established a base. Money has also been cut for Tanzania, Niger and several other African nations.

Citing Kenya as an example, Pentagon officials say it makes little sense to ask for Kenya’s support in fighting terrorism while denying it the money it needs for training and equipping troops.

“Kenya is a key partner in our counterterrorism strategy and our goals in Africa,’’ a Pentagon official who works on Africa strategy said. “This hurts us, there’s no question about it.”

To give you an idea of just what is happening in parts of Africa right now, there's this little pickle called a regional war:

Thousands of Somalis have staged a rally in Mogadishu calling on Ethiopian troops to leave their country.

The demonstrators burnt Ethiopian flags at a protest in the capital, which since June has been run by the powerful Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

The UIC has vowed to expel Ethiopian troops who are deployed to assist the weak transitional Somali government.

As well as the government's Baidoa base, Ethiopian troops have also been seen in another central town, Wajid.

Ethiopia and the transitional government have refused to confirm Ethiopian troops are on Somali soil.

Placards carried by protesters at the rally in a Mogadishu stadium bore slogans such as "Down with the Addis Ababa regime" and "We are ready for holy war against Ethiopia".

The monomania which has attended out decision to go into Iraq has caused so many problems for us around the world, and in Africa they are quite acute. By ignoring what is going on in Africa, we risk getting completely shut out of the region. China is becoming a major player in Africa through investment. In addition, fragile governments who are about a step away from succumbing into a type of fundamentalist state like Somalia aren't receiving any tactical or financial aid from the US; in fact, it's quite the opposite. Africa might not seem strategically significant, but aside from the oil revenues in many countries there, you have a population of angry and frustrated men stricken with inescapable poverty. In other words, a terrorist recruiting center.

These are things which are concurrently happening in Latin America as well, as Chinese investment has exploded over there. One major mistake in international relations like Iraq costs you greatly in lives and treasure, but it also takes your foreign policy out of balance, and at a time when the global war on terror is presumably global, that's a big problem.