Just two months after U.S. aerial bombardments began in Somalia, the Bush administration solidified its militaristic engagement with Africa. In February 2007, the Department of Defense announced the creation of a new U.S. Africa Command infrastructure, code name AFRICOM, to “coordinate all U.S. military and security interests throughout the continent.”
It’s all but official. Paul Wolfowitz, the neocon who helped give us the Iraq War only to be sidelined to the World Bank where he ended his presidency mired in a corruption scandal that led to his forced resignation, will officially step down on June 30. The next day, on July 1, he will be replaced by Robert Zoellick, another neocon who advocated invading Iraq in the 1990s. This is a man who ran amok in his role as U.S. Trade Representative.
Banner of hands for Darfur, from September 9, 2006 rally in Washington, DC. Courtesy of Genocide Intervention Network.
The sudden defeat of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) by the Ethiopian army and their U.S. backers proved easier then expected. A reported 15,000 Ethiopian troops and U.S. aerial bombardment succeeded in installing the Transitional Federal Government, two years after its formation in neighboring Kenya.
The Bush administration’s Cuba policy has reached a dead end, with no hope of success. Its objective is nothing less than to bring down the Castro regime. Or, as then-Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega put it on October 2, 2003: "The President is determined to see the end of the Castro regime and the dismantling of the apparatus that has kept him in office for so long."
Five years ago the Bush administration launched its war on terror without end. About 90% of Americans applauded. The administration has been ramping up the fear to win elections ever since. This strategy is no longer working. Soon the talk shows and editorial pages will be chewing over exit polling to opine about the impact of the war on the election. But it’s already clear that decisive majorities of Americans have had enough of a militarized, unilateral foreign policy.
On the fifth anniversary of the launch of the U.S.-led war against Afghanistan, the Taliban is on the offensive, much of the countryside is in the hands of warlords and opium magnates, U.S. casualties are mounting, and many, if not most, Afghans are actually worse off now than they were before the U.S. invasion.
On the fifth anniversary of the launch of the U.S.-led war against Afghanistan, the Taliban is on the offensive, much of the countryside is in the hands of warlords and opium magnates, U.S. casualties are mounting, and many, if not most, Afghans are actually worse off now than they were before the U.S. invasion.
The common wisdom circulating in Washington these days is that the United States is too bogged down in Iraq to consider risky military action against Iran orÂGod forbidÂNorth Korea. Policy analysts describe the U.S. military as Âover-burdened or Âstretched to the limit. The presumption is that the Pentagon is telling President Bush that it can’t really undertake another major military contingency.
The UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire to the fighting in Lebanon is certainly good news in terms of ending the carnage. Passed on August 11, Resolution 1701 is also a marked improvement over the original U.S. draft and contains some positive language. Both sides, for instance, are called upon to honor Âa full cessation of hostilities. And Israel must provide the UN with maps of landmines planted in southern Lebanon during IsraelÂs 22-year occupation that ended in 2000.