From Côte d'Ivoire, to Libya, to Mali -- the FUKUS "War on Terror" in Africa, nothing but neocolonialism run amok

As the "usual suspects" (France, the UK and the US) continue their neocolonial incursions into Africa for land, resources and veritable world domination -- the string-pullers prepare for the master distraction of the Puppet-in-Chief's second coronation.

And, as has been the case for his first four years, no "Black Agenda" will be realized anywhere in the world during the next four, if we can't come together and at least --

1. Stop dreamily training our eyes and minds on the Changeling; 
2. Realize our combined "strength-in-numbers" across the diaspora and in Africa;
3. Stop living the definition of insanity (doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results) and, 
4. Begin to understand and recognize the patterns of imperialism which, today, manifest themselves as neocolonialism.

The following video from GlobalResearchTV is a start.  Here in the intro, some of the patterns from the assaults on both, Côte d'Ivoire and Libya are readily apparent:

Henningsen: Mali War Retaliation: World Police Protecting Corporate Interests in Africa

35 foreign hostages held captive at a gas field in Algeria have reportedly been killed in the operation to free them. 15 of the captors are also thought to have died, some people are apparently still being held. The local media suggests Algerian forces attacked a convoy of kidnappers and captives from the air.

Militants first attacked the complex on Wednesday, killing at least two of the staff and seizing dozens. The hostage-takers were demanding an end to the French-led combat action against insurgents in neighboring Mali. And there, the operation has intensified.

French troops are now on the ground in support of a heavy air campaign against Al-Qaeda-linked groups. The army has also received logistical support from its NATO allies, while the EU is preparing to send hundreds of military personnel to train the Malian army. (emphasis mine).

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

from, "Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence"

Delivered April 4 1967

Given what is now transpiring in Algeria and Mali, it's quite obvious that Dr. King, among other true, leaders dedicated to our self-determination, had long ago been prescient about these exact outcomes.  The revolutionary, African leader of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, even more so.

Nkrumah's spirit looms large in the person of Sister Affiong L. Affiong, co-founder of the Pan-African Women's Network Moyo wa Taifa and Executive Director of the Moyo Solidarity Centre based in the UK and Ghana.  I first heard this sister speak on this Sons of Malcolm post.  There, as in the video below, she not only fervently address the patterns of imperialism and neocolonialism, she vociferously calls for the identical solutions to combat them, as articulated by Nkrumah, Lumumba, Malcom and Garvey -- Pan-Africanism.  Do listen carefully, as the sound is not the best:



Dr. John Henrik Clark instructs here that:

"...the Black Race did not come to the United States culturally empty-handed...During the period in West African history -- from the early part of the fourteenth century to the time of the Moorish invasion in 1591, the City of Timbuktu, with the University of Sankore in the Songhay Empire, was the intellectual center of Africa."

The neocolonialist-backed insurgents in Mali have all but erased the great historical ruins of the "The El Dorado of Africa" with the help of imperialism -- I have to wonder if it was by design.

Instead of reading the daily diet of MSM propaganda on Mali, please check out the links below (from bottom-to-top) for a clearer picture of the ongoing recolonization of The Continent.

UPDATE:  Family, this primer (from my favorite source of non-MSM, unbiased information, "The Roving Eye," Pepe Escobar) is instructive of the depths to which FUKUS has gone, and will continue to go, to remain true -- to that aptly coined acronym, in Africa.  A bit long, but well worth the read.

Related:
- Mauritanian Consensus Against French Intervention in Mali
-'THE WAR IS IN MALI, THE TARGET IS ALGERIA' - ABDEL BARI ATWAN
-The Geopolitical Reordering of Africa: US Covert Support to Al Qaeda in Northern Mali, France “Comes to the Rescue”
- Tomgram: Nick Turse, America's Shadow Wars in Africa
- Namibian Government Blames NATO for Mali Unrest
- The Son of Africa claims a continent’s crown jewels

Glenn Greenwald: diplomatically on point -- on both sides of The Pond

I can't say what caused the attacks on the American embassies in both Libya and Cairo.  Was it the  film?  Was it the, "I'm mad as hell and I won't take it anymore!" response to the destruction of a sovereign nation and the decimation of its people by America and the "usual suspects?"  No one can say definitively.  But, Glenn Greenwald has, as Brother Asa over at AfroSpear said to me once, "hit the nail right on the head and through the wall" with his, The tragic consulate killings in Libya and America's hierarchy of human life.

3) It is hard not to notice, and be disturbed by, the vastly different reactions whenever innocent Americans are killed, as opposed to when Americans are doing the killing of innocents. All the rage and denunciations of these murders in Benghazi are fully justified, but one wishes that even a fraction of that rage would be expressed when the US kills innocent men, women and children in the Muslim world, as it frequently does. Typically, though, those deaths are ignored, or at best justified with amoral bureaucratic phrases ("collateral damage") or self-justifying cliches ("war is hell"), which Americans have been trained to recite.

It is understandable that the senseless killing of an ambassador is bigger news than the senseless killing of an unknown, obscure Yemeni or Pakistani child. But it's anything but understandable to regard the former as more tragic than the latter. Yet there's no denying that the same people today most vocally condemning the Benghazi killings are quick and eager to find justification when the killing of innocents is done by their government, rather than aimed at it.

It's as though there are two types of crimes: killing, and then the killing of Americans. The way in which that latter phrase is so often invoked, with such intensity, emotion and scorn, reveals that it is viewed as the supreme crime: this is not just the tragic deaths of individuals, but a blow against the Empire; it therefore sparks particular offense. It is redolent of those in conquered lands being told they will be severely punished because they have raised their hand against a citizen of Rome.

Just compare the way in which the deaths of Americans on 9/11, even more than a decade later, are commemorated with borderline religious solemnity, as opposed to the deaths of the hundreds of thousands of foreign Muslims caused by the US, which are barely ever acknowledged. There is a clear hierarchy of human life being constantly reinforced by this mentality, and it is deeply consequential. (emphasis mine)

Just as we can hardly deny the callousness of Qur'an-burning enthusiast, Terry Jones, nor Hilary Clinton's smirking, "We came, we saw, he died" (I must say again, I can't even believe how stupid I was, to lend any credence to the idea that this woman gave two shits about the rightness or wrongness of anything) -- we've no choice but to accept Glenn's dead-on observation about the killing of Americans being considered a "supreme crime" (with the exception of the murder of Rachel Corrie in Gaza by those who believe that, "America is a thing you can move very easily..."  The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv declined to comment on Israel's "accidental" verdict, and her courageous stand for the Palestinian "Other" has been all but forgotten, except by maybe her family and the true humanitarians among us).

Greenwald is, for the most part, good at peeling away the most partisan of scales.  Here, he points out the sick folly of both Democrat and Republican supporters:

4) The two political parties in the US wasted no time in displaying their vulgar attributes by rushing to squeeze these events for political gain. Democratic partisans immediately announced that "exploiting US deaths" – by which they mean criticizing President Obama – "is ugly, unwise".

That standard is as ludicrous as it is hypocritical. Democrats routinely "exploited US deaths" – in Iraq, Afghanistan, and from 9/11 – in order to attack President Bush and the Republican party, and they were perfectly within their rights to do so. When bad things happen involving US foreign policy, it is perfectly legitimate to speak out against the president and to identify his actions or inaction that one believes are to blame for those outcomes. These are political events, and they are inherently and necessarily "politicized".

It's one thing to object to specific criticisms of Obama here as illegitimate and ugly, as some of those criticisms undoubtedly were (see below). But trying to impose some sort of general prohibition on criticizing Obama – on the ground that Americans have died and this is a crisis – smacks of the worst debate-suppressing tactics of the GOP circa 2003...

But in this case, what the GOP and Mitt Romney did is substantially worse. As the attacks unfolded, Romney quickly issued a statement, based on the response of the US embassy in Egypt, accusing Obama of "sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks" (the Obama White House repudiated the statement from the embassy in Cairo)....

These accusations were all pure fiction and self-evidently ugly; they prompted incredulous condemnations even from media figures who pride themselves on their own neutrality.

But this is the story of the GOP.  Faced with a president whose record is inept and horrible in many key respects, they somehow find a way to be even more inept and horrible themselves. Here, they had a real political opportunity to attack Obama – if US diplomats are killed and embassies stormed, it makes the president appear weak and ineffectual – but they are so drowning in their own blinding extremism and hate-driven bile, so wedded to their tired and moronic political attacks (unpatriotic Democrats love America's Muslim enemies!), that they cannot avoid instantly self-destructing. Within a matter of hours, they managed to turn a politically dangerous situation for Obama into yet more evidence of their unhinged, undisciplined radicalism. (emphasis mine)

Can't disagree with any of that! Nor, any of this:

In sum, one should by all means condemn and mourn the tragic deaths of these Americans in Benghazi. But the deaths would not be in vain if they caused us to pause and reflect much more than we normally do on the impact of the deaths of innocents which America itself routinely causes. (emphasis mine)

IMHO, Salon's loss was The Guardian's gain in Glenn Greenwald.  Hopefully those across The Pond will listen to what he has to say.

~#~

UPDATE: In this discussion on Al-Jazeera's Inside Story, Greenwald, along with former National Security Council official Hillary Mann Levitt and the Muslim scholar at Georgetown, Jonathan Brown is worth watching (at least this "Hillary" has some damned sense!):

Related:
- “The Quiet American”: the death of J. Christopher Stevens
- US deploying warships to Libyan coast (Hmmm)

"Daddy, I thought you said killing people was wrong?"

Oddly, that was the first thought that popped into my head as I sat (yet again) in the doctor's office yesterday morning.  With no other patient in the waiting room but me, and a white, older-than-me, retired military guy - the local morning show was interrupted with this breaking news report: "Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is dead."

When I looked up at the flat-screen from my book, I saw a bloodied body, wrapped in what looked like a white sheet, the corner being pulled back - for all the world to see. The retiree looked at me, saying, "Oh, that's old news!" Apparently he had risen way earlier than I.

All I could do was shake my head and return to sister-friend, Nikky Finney's new book of poetry, "Head Off  & Split."

A little off-topic, but not (I promise to bring you right on back where I started!), how I found her after 35 years - both of us, fully grown into ourselves - was amazingly serendipitous. Last week, I came across a poetry review of Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie's, "Karma's Footsteps" at Chickenbones.  I wondered aloud, "Could this be the same Nikky Finney with whom I went to college?!"

I started to click away, but the question just kept gnawing at me - so I googled her. And the minute I landed on her site, I could see that same, perfectly symmetrical afro-wearing, line-sister I'd known - in the eyes I found there.

Listening to her being interviewed, I couldn't help but feel my own early foot-steps - in sync with hers. It was so wonderfully moving to hear her, expressing feelings and experiences that I'd felt required, to pack away in the recesses of my 18 year-old self, when I left home in search of my "American Dream."

Later, more than halfway through to 55 however, I began to realize that, as proffered, that particular "Dream," required way more than I was willing to give up of myself. So, I began to unpack those tucked-away feelings, smoothing out the wrinkles and wearing them proudly as I continually searched, for what being of my grandmother's Sea Island farm - and Africa - really meant.

I dithered for awhile, not sure whether I should send an email to find out for sure if it was, in fact, Nikky. Finally, thinking, “All she can say is, No!” - I said to myself, “What the hell, go ahead and send it!” She replied with a, "Hey good sister!! It's me! It's me alright! So glad you followed your mind and heart and pushed the SEND button! How you doing?" After a brief email exchange, I told her I was heading right out to get her books - and I did.

Finding Nikky and her poems last week - telling the stories that my new foot-steps had begun to recover and reclaim - was a wonderfully confirming nudge to my ongoing, "looking back, to go forward" journey (versus the Changeling's, "Look forward not back" bullshit advice to e'erybody).

Odder still, when the "breaking news" broke, I was halfway through her, at once, hilarious and sad-in-its-realness poem, "Plunder," about Shrub delivering his final State of the Union address. Here's where I was interrupted:

Repeats. This crescendo, in F major. Lip-syncing
the words better than Milli Vanilli. He palms the
ball again like he really wants to keep shooting.
He knows he should pass but it's the end. It is
midnight of every muscle-hearted wannabe.
Game over & out. With his right hand he fakes
a pass, then imagines a beautiful Michael Jordan
follow-through. His wrist hangs in the air like a
frozen praying mantis. He's feeling Dolly deeper.
"So true, Mr. President, so true!" a loyal fan
shouts. "My fellow Americans - Ain't it funny how
the years will find you searching through your plunder -
looking for all the treasures you gave up." Treasures?
Plunder? Get it? Well, are you with me?

After looking up and seeing the body, the Changeling and his daughters, along with the poem's "Treasures? Plunder?" began to roll around in my head - all at the same time, causing me to shake it as I wondered, "How will he explain this to their not-yet-grown-up selves? How would he put it, that he'd had no problem, paying that very high, "price of the ticket" (being directly involved in yet another killing and all)?" The answer came out, almost before I was done thinking the questions: "That American exceptionalism bullshit, of course!" Just too hilariously sad...

Remembering my countrymen's uproar over showing the bodies of our dead in photos or video, the bile rose up in my throat over the hypocrisy of the mainstream media. They were just a lit-tle, too eager - after a quick, "Warning:  What follows is graphic" - to televise the dead body of Qaddafi.

Some of that, "real American," revengeful, warm and fuzzy shit, I guess. Or maybe, more of that theatrical, pre-election fare (like this little piece of expediency - based, no doubt, on this little piece of we ain't havin' it!  Even though the "leaving" was also "inherited" from Shrub.  Like I said - theater.). Either way it was crass, and unwarranted.

I do wonder though - why, "our enemy," Osama bin-Laden, got the "swim-with-fishes" treatment, while Qaddafi, to whom we, and the other two "usual suspects" had been selling arms and providing military training, got the full-monty. Was it some sort of exclamation point to the Libyans, about who's in charge now? As I said, I shook my head and turned away - because Murder is Murder and, "If it bleeds, it leads" carries absolutely no weight around here.

I'm sure though, as dusk settled in on "Operation Odyssey Dawn" -- 

there was a "whole lotta shakin' going on" yesterday among the puppet, carrying on like his predecessor in the Big House, and  Wannabe King David across the pond at #10 Downing St. (gotta love cartoonist, Leon Kuhn!) - and of course, Little Napoleon-Sarkozy of "Le Gai Paris" (come to think of it, I wonder what story he"ll be telling his just-born, first-daughter?  I kinda doubt it'll be this one).


"People who treat other people as less than human, must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned."

James Baldwin

No doubt about it first-daughters, killing people - especially when they pose no immediate threat to you - IS wrong.  And when your grown-up selves begin to face the truth of the rumors,  I hope you'll go back to your, dear old Dad and ask again - "Daddy, I thought you said killing people was wrong?"  Hopefully, for your sakes, he'll tell you the truth.

"Operation Odyssey Dawn" - a show of imperialism from Hypocritic Oafs

(Yeah, no - "hypocritic" isn't a word - but I know y'all get my meaning!)

Sorry - again - for the interruption of the Africa series (it was life-changing - of course there's more!), but really - if there was ever any doubt about the hypocrisy of the Changeling (Nobel-laureate for peace that he is), Miz SOS and their whole "Change You Can Believe In" administration - they should all be cleared up with the launching of "Operation Odyssey Dawn."  {smdh}

"The Laureate and Libya" - Nate Beeler

The launching brought to mind two observations in a piece I'd read over at Race-Talk regarding another culture and another subject (though still relevant here I think) by contributor, Mikhail Lyubanski:

The assumption is that it is possible to rank-order nations/cultures on some supposedly objective hierarchy of “civilization”...Who gets to decide what is considered “civilized?”

Anyway - a few links from some folks who've been paying attention (because one of MY rants would probably take forever!):

• U.S. Stays Mum as Iraqi Security Forces Kill, Detain and Abuse Protesters
• Libya army transport deal frozen after US approval 
• U.S. Considers Arming Libyan Rebels Months After Approving Major Arms Deal Sought by Qaddafi
• The Invasion of Bahrain
• Yemeni forces massacre dozens of protesters
  UPDATE: The American Dilemma in Libya: To Bomb, Invade, Partition, Or All of the Above
• Military Action Against Libya Is Not Illegal, Not About Democracy and Very Limited
• Libya, Hypocrisy and Betrayal by the United Nations: Death and Destruction. US-NATO's New War in North Africa
• Nations Prepare for Libya No-Fly Zone
• Taking on Gadhafi:  Obama Finally Has His Own War

And how appropriate?!  He announces this foolishness IN BRAZIL - one of the five countries sensibly abstaining from this savior-cum-imperialist piece of work.  I looked at this today...

The Changeling and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff

 
...and I was HOPING she was thinking this!:

P.S.  If you believe the United States is in financial trouble, know that the powers that be (including their figurehead African-American puppet, joining in on an assault on an African country) believe there's nothing better for a recession than a war.