With Enemies Like These, Who Needs Allies?

Mogadishu taken

The Union of Islamic Courts has abandoned Mogadishu without a fight and retreated South, vowing to make a stand on more tennable ground.

MSNBC is reporting that 4 men wanted for bombing a US embassy are with them, leading me to suspect that CJTF Horn of Africa (which includes 2 infantry companies, 1 marine and 1 army, elements of the 5th Special Forces Group, and a Marine heavy helicopter squadron) either has been or will be involved and the report is probably a justification incase that becomes public.

The Ethiopians intend to pursue the UIC, and the Kenyan border is shut, effectively creating a hammer and anvil operation, although the Kenyans are "officially" sitting this war out.

This does raise some questions in my mind about the murmurings of a surge in the Gulf. The 5th Fleet has put in a request for forces and is fixing to get an extra carrier- it's already got an expeditionary strike group which it isn't using in Iraq. It would be too difficult for us to throw an elbow at the UIC while we were in the area and swear up and down that it wasn't us, or at least that it was smaller than what it really was- it wouldn't fool anyone but the American public, but that's who the US Government spends most of its time fooling.

I'd be looking out for the possibility of terrorist captures in Africa soon, and possibly a very impressive "Ethiopian" second effort if things in Somalia should degenerate in a month or two.

politics.abovetopsecret.com...

Oh look, it's in the news again. After Bush "quietly" upped aid to Africa, not coincidentally doing it in ways that channeled funding to Christian groups in Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, etc under the guise of funding for AIDS education, among other things, his media machine had decided its no longer time to be quiet about it.

Aren't we charitable?

As I've said throughout my observation of these events, when something is getting media attention, especially in Africa, which we generally ignore, there is a reason- an agenda the people are being conditioned to support.

EXCELLENT work Vagabond.

"But, do you really think this administration might fake a tape from bin Laden just to start a war?" she queried naively.

I mean I can see them taking out the towers, but faking a tape?!

Why fake it? Bin Laden has always had a price for the USA before, hasn't he?
The CIA has a LONG history of copiously tying up the loose ends. It's amazing that ANYBODY survived the Kennedy thing. You've gotta kill the president, the fall guy, the fall guy's assassin, the brother- it seems like everytime somebody kills somebody else for the CIA, that person in turn gets taken care of-

Yet we let Bin Laden outlive his usefulness? Not sure I buy it.

[edit on 4-1-2007 by The Vagabond]

Excellent post.

This ties in neatly with a statement from a US Govt official a couple of years ago that the US was aiming to source 25% of its oil from Africa within 10 years.

The U.S. National Intelligence Council projects U.S. oil supplies from West Africa will increase to 25% by 2015. This would surpass U.S. oil imports from the entire Persian Gulf.

www.africaaction.org...

So 'terrorism' relocates to Africa and the US has to, reluctantly, increase its military presence in the region to 'keep America safe' and the securing of oil resources is just a happy by-product?

You've got to hand it to these shadowy figures in the US administration - they may fight dirty but they do think ahead!

I was right to search high and low for which US Navy vessels might be in the area. BBC is now confirming USN patrols off the coast "to prevent escape".

I have had very poor luck identifying what we might have in the area, unless we pulled the Iwo Jima strike group from the Gulf for the job. Anybody else happen to be in the know. I'm operating from a bit of a disadvantage here because I don't normally take the time to keep up with our deployment cycles, etc and so I'm basically starting from scratch on identifying what would be there, and naturally all of the sources are at least 2 months behind the times, and most ESG homepages seem to be down, no doubt for security reasons.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Is anybody listening to me yet? Somebody has to have an opinion on this.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
MSNBC is reporting that 4 men wanted for bombing a US embassy are with them, leading me to suspect that CJTF Horn of Africa (which includes 2 infantry companies, 1 marine and 1 army, elements of the 5th Special Forces Group, and a Marine heavy helicopter squadron) either has been or will be involved and the report is probably a justification incase that becomes public.

I told you so!

US air-strike on Somalia!!! No reports of US ground action yet.

US launches air strike in Somalia

The US has launched an air strike against members of a suspected al-Qaeda cell in a village in southern Somalia.
The targets were reported to have been tracked by aerial reconnaissance and then attacked by a US gunship based on a US military base near Djibouti.

The US believes that the members of al-Qaeda held responsible by for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa have been hiding in Somalia.

The Somali transitional government says several people were killed in the raid.

news.bbc.co.uk...



[edit on 9/1/2007 by Strangerous]

I don't think anybody cares. It's just Africa.

Sure this was was predicted simply by following the assumption that the US would kill people for economic and strategic gain, thus demonstrating that this has PNAC written all over it, but people die in Africa all the time and it's not on TV, so I don't think I should expect too many responses.

It's only wrong for the Bush administration to sneak around the world using military force under false pretenses in parts of the world that TV news networks care about.

Well I'm responding and providing news updates, but you're ignoring me!!????

So at least one person cares!

I appologize my friend. I did not mean to be ignoring you, I was basically lamenting outloud for both of our sakes.

Since we are both here, although history suggests that we'll have relatively little company, we might as well probe things a bit more.

The most immediate question is what exactly are they going to do with Somalia to keep it from turning into.... well, Somalia again.

It seems to me that the United States has resolved to play a background role in this one, almost certainly for internal political reasons, which leaves basically Ethiopia and hopefully the AU... unless India steps up to the plate.

I think that will be a major test of my theory. If India backs our play here the whole scenario I've been proposing seems far less fringe, but if they don't, it looks more like we're trying to gain leverage over them that they would rather we didn't have.

So I guess the thing to do is see what's been going on in India and the AU that might be of relevance. Get back to you soon.

No worries - wondered if I was on 'ignore'.

It is an interesting situation. I think previously African resources were either marginal (oil), obtainable elsewhere (timber) or could be obtained by trade on the open market.


As the appetite for these resources has grown China has moved to exploit its relationship with African countries ("we don't care how you rule your country, we'll support you with our UN SC veto, as long as you give us your resources"). This has clearly rattled the US and to some extent the EU.

I can imagine the EU find Africa difficult with our various colonial histories never far away and it seems to me Africa has been passed to the US as the a sphere of influence for the western powers.

I think it's a two-fold exercise; 1 secure resources, 2 limit China's expansion by diverting their resources.

When I first heard the oil statement linked above I predicted privately a rise in 'terrorism' and 3rd party wars in the region as it seems to me this is now US SOP in grabbing influence / resources. That seems to be coming true.

I heard that one of Bolton's final acts was to push through the removal of the UN arms embargo on Somalia before he left office. That suggests to me the US has Somalia firmly in its sights and will increasingly meddle in their affairs for its own ends.

Given the recent US experience in Somalia I'm sure they've realised that as direct US intervention is doomed and therefore I can only see it being via 3rd parties - Ethiopia does seem to be fulfilling this role but I don't know how closely aligned they are to the US. I think the US has moved from 'improving' Africa to an approach much closer to that of China - the US signed an oil deal with one of the Guineas (West Quinea??) that completely ignores that regime's bloody, torturing dictatorship - I'm sure there are many more such arrangements in the offing.

I think over the next few years we'll all become increasingly familiar with Africa, its politics and the inevitable tragedies to come.

Cheers

S

Equitorial Guinnea, if I'm not mistaken, is the one we've been all over, definately as an attempt to cut in on China, which is always happy to look the other way (toward the skeletons in its own closet perhaps).

I also believe that this might go slightly farther than just blunting China's edge though. I think the US may actually be ready to start "nation building" (read puppet building) again. Not only is that where the money is, it's where the power is, and we're talking power you can't buy- the power to manipulate the long term world labor supply on a whim in whatever way screws China the worst.


Oh and incidentally, I just found out that we have pulled the USS Eisenhower out of the Persian Gulf, even though it's supposedly the only carrier in the region right now. Apparently we've had it there for a few days, since it seems like at least one of her destroyers has been there since the New Year. This may prove to be a bit bigger than one airstrike.

Originally posted by xpert11
Meddling in Africa is a waste of time

No it isn't.

First of all I'd like to compliment Vaga as this is a terrific thread!
China is becoming predominantly dependent on the resources-rich African continent while America is gradually losing power. While we Westerners are trying ''to bring democracy to the Middle East'' and dealing with the ''war on terrorism'', China steadily continues to build up a massive war machine and plunder the African continent. In exchange for labor and resources, Africans are given cheap Chinese cars, televisions and so on.

Any direct US approach would inevitably result in unfavorable conditions for the US (Dollar speculation, oil prices etc.). By clandestinely cutting off the resource supplies from the African continent to China, China will become more dependent on the Western world again. China is a growing threat; it won't last forever till they take over the position as the world's number one superpower. Meanwhile the US will try to prevent this. A strategy that might take decades.

There is now a US/French/African war on terror which effectively spans the entire Sahel, dividing Sub-Saharan Africa from Northern Africa.

I've started working on the latest developments and maps and predictions will be coming soon.

[Fixed Link]


[edit on 7/28/2010 by yeahright]

reply to post by The Vagabond


I have only read the OP so I am sorry if this is has been pointed out before.

Your basic premises is that because of Bin Laden’s audiotape talking about attacks in Somalia and Sudan you think this may be used as a justification to continue the war on terror in those two states. Bin Laden has some history with Somalia, some people say he might have had a minimal role regarding some Somalis who were present during the battle of Mogadishu. As for Sudan, well he spent allot of time there before being chucked out in 1996 but still has a base of followers in that part of the world. There have been reports of US SF units conducting operations in both these states targeting Al’qa’ida and other terrorist group leaders. I think that is what Bin Laden was referring to those operations and not hinting at them being the future battle grounds for the war on terrorism. The reason he never mentioned Iran, quite simple, he is ideologically opposed to Iran. Another problem i have with your theory is that your source is very old (2006).

reply to post by kevinunknown


My OP is from July 1st 2006. I have followed this off and on since then, updating and revising my theory as I learned more and as news came out.

The gist of where I am now is this:
From Morocco and Mauritania, through Mali and Algeria, meeting in Niger, and going on to Chad and Ethiopia and Djibouti, there is a wall of nations with which the US has military cooperation. The only holes in this wall are Sudan and Somalia. The independence of Southern Sudan has been in the works for years now, and I have been covering events which seem to pertain to that in this thread. Somalia has already been invaded once with US assistance.

The aim does not appear to be to establish a functioning regional community as I once thought. I see a frontier emerging between two or three sections of Africa, and a number of explanations for several parts, but however it goes several nations are pretty clearly in trouble. I am short on time and will elaborate as soon as I can.

reply to post by The Vagabond


Right i see sorry i just read the op without looking at the date. Don’t worry about elaborating or further explaining yourself i am sure it will come up again at some point.

Man vagabond I knew it was a good idea to look into older threads to add to the history forum. So first off, its been a couple years so let me refresh the props 2 U BRUH! for calling that shot man!

Now that you have given us an insight into a bit of the methodology of how propaganda sells and it coincides with certain events, we can continue to apply this modeling to guesstimate where to concentrate our research into the next hotspots. great read man, i read it years back as a lurker, its been a decade now.

Man, how our world view changes with the things we learn huh??

This may even be the drawdown that should have came earlier in the Middle East. Clearly we werent quite ready to yield it back to our rivals??? Was this a lack of will, or effort??

I suppose its more a game of, its either one or the other. We cannot run a domain of influence in Africa and M.E. at the same time??

looks like they are at it again!

originally posted by: AmericanRealist
here is video from the inside after it happened. Crazy stuff. Looks like the public is getting conditioned for another attempt at Somalia. Probably Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips wants to finally fulfill that contract? They are patient, but only for so long.

"According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown..." (Fineman, Mark. "The Oil Factor in Somalia." Los Angeles Times. 18 January 1993, p. 1).

Its all probably just a coincidence though, I am sure.