Cameron Duodu
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18th November, 2011
OH GOD, SAVE US FROM IGNORAMUSES!
Would you have believed that at this very moment, when both the Arab world and Pakistan, are trying to come to terms with the news that the US has used “drones” – or pilotless planes -- to kill many people considered as “terrorists” by the US, in Pakistan and Yemen, some Ghanaians are advocating the creation of a US military base in Ghana?
Yes! One of these fellows wrote to an Internet forum that Mills could get us “a US base 50 miles from Tamale, which will build a state of the art military hospital, that the residents can use as well. We could also get an airport that has a civilian wing the country can use. And an infrastructure plan to be put in place to support an army of Ghanaian businesses, ranging from hotels to food production outfits, to support the complex. The security agreements to be negotiated would permit us to secure our interests, wherever they maybe, as we help the America effort.”
Now, this Internet debate has arisen because there is confusion in Africa about exactly what the US intends to do on the continent with “Africom”, the military command the US has established in Germany to operate a military “partnership” with Africa. For instance, the commander of Africom, General William "Kip" Ward, told a group of Ghanaian journalists who were invited to Africom headquarters in Germany in February 2010, that “we want you to know [about Africom]; we don't want you to be wondering about it. We want it to be very well understood,”
Gen Ward went on: “In no way do we envision directing the navies of Africa, the armies of Africa, the air forces of Africa, the governments of Africa, to do anything that they would not do for themselves…. There is no intention of setting up bases in Africa.”
Yet, on 21 September 2011, the Washington Post carried a report headlined “ U.S. assembling secret drone bases in Africa, Arabian Peninsula”. The report showed the picture of a “drone” (pilotless military aircraft) with the caption: “The Seychelles, where the U.S. had temporarily stationed MQ-9s under the operational authority of U.S. Africa Command, now houses a base where a small fleet of “hunter-killer” drones operates.”
The Washington Post report went on: “The Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, U.S. officials said. “One of the installations is being established in Ethiopia, a U.S. ally in the fight against al-Shabab, the Somali militant group that controls much of that country. Another base is in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, where a small fleet of “hunter-killer” drones resumed operations this month, after an experimental mission demonstrated that the unmanned aircraft could effectively patrol Somalia from there.
“The U.S. military also has flown drones over Somalia and Yemen, from bases in Djibouti, a tiny African nation at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.”
The Washington Post added that the “rapid expansion of the undeclared drone wars is a reflection of the growing alarm with which U.S. officials view the activities of al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Somalia… The U.S. government is known to have used drones to carry out lethal attacks in at least six countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.
“The negotiations that preceded the establishment of the base in the Republic of Seychelles illustrate the efforts the United States is making to broaden the range of its drone weapons. The island nation of 85,000 people has hosted a small fleet of MQ-9 Reaper drones operated by the U.S. Navy and Air Force since September 2009. U.S. and Seychellois officials have previously acknowledged the drones’ presence' but have said that their primary mission was to track pirates in regional waters. But classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the unmanned aircraft have also conducted counterterrorism missions over Somalia, about 800 miles to the northwest.
“The cables, obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, reveal that U.S. officials asked leaders in the Seychelles to keep the counterterrorism missions secret,” the Washington Post reported.
The Seychelles drone operation has “a relatively small footprint,” the Washington Post revealed. Based in a hangar located about a quarter-mile from the main passenger terminal at the airport, it includes between three and four Reapers and about 100 U.S. military personnel and contractors.
Overall, the cluster of bases “reflects an effort to have wider geographic coverage, greater leverage with countries in the region and backup facilities, if individual airstrips are forced to close.”
So, how does all this square with the statement of the Africom commander that the US has “no intention of setting up bases in Africa”? That is how the US operates in military matters. It says one thing, then does another. One fine day, the relatively insignificant “training” operations the US has been carrying out in “partnership” with the Ghana armed will assume great importance because – God forbid – the US has identified Al Qaeda elements in Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad (all countries with a latent potential for Islamic militancy) and the US needs to target them with drones from Ghana.
Far-fetched? We should hope so. Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (North Africa) is known to operate already in Mauritania and Niger, and it appears as if there is now a link between the deadly Boko Haram Islamic sect in Nigeria, and Al Qaeda in Somalia. (Shortly before it carried out a dastardly attack on the UN headquarters in Abuja, a Boko Haram operative was quoted as revealing that the organisation had sent people for training in Somalia, and that they had just returned to Nigeria. )
The question is: if Al Qaeda suspected that it was being attacked by drones flown from Ghana, how would it react? Quite frankly, I shudder to think of the situation that would confront us. Nigeria, whose security budget is probably bigger than our entire gross domestic product (GDP) is currently floundering in its attempt to combat Boko Haram. The intelligence community in Nigeria is under enormous pressure over its inability effectively to tackle Boko Haram, which has killed scores of people with impunity. Indeed, fear of Boko Haram reduced the celebration of Nigeria’s 51st anniversary of independence on 1 October 2011 to a mere farce
Ghana needs anything that is capable of introducing such strains into the operations of our security agencies like it needs a hole in the head. The subtext of the disarray in the Nigerian security services is that there are officials within all the security organisations who are sympathetic to some of the ideals preached by Boko Haram. Unless one is a Muslim, it is difficult to see where the attraction lies in an ideology that condemns all Western education and culture, as Boko Haram does.
Indeed, fortunately for us in Ghana, we have a fairly tolerant, if not homogenous, society. What would happen to us if Al Qaeda were to invade our society and turn some of our Islamic brothers into Talibans?
First, our army and security services could be infected with the diseases that Nigerian is being exposed to right now. The same disease that is plaguing Nigeria – a divided national security system – is also affecting Pakistan, a country which the US considers an "ally" in its war on Al Qaeda. Those who think economic aid is all that matters should note that although on paper, Pakistan is currently receiving around $3.16 billion a year from the US, yet the [then] chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, accused Pakistan a few weeks ago of supporting a militant group called the Haqqani, in its attack on the US embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Pakistan, a US ally, supported a militant group to attack the embassy of its ally, the US, in Kabul? Eh? Truth or fantasy? Truth, I think. The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has no need to live in a world of fantasy.
If that is not a catastrophic failure in relationships between the US and Pakistan, who, I repeat, are allies, what is? Yet that is the nature of the territory, as far as most military-political alliances go. The US had an alliance with the South Vietnamese government in the 1970s. But in the end, the US abandoned the South Vietnamese government in order to pave the way for an agreement with North Vietnam and stop Americans being killed on Vietnamese soil.
The clear lesson of history, therefore, is this: if you want to remain friendly with the USA, keep its military at arm’s length. But of course, ignorant people among us don’t know any of this, and that is why they think it would be profitable, or a good idea, to have a US military base in Ghana. On the contrary, It would destroy the traditional friendship between the two countries for scores of years to come.
If you are minded to doubt that, just read about the relationship between Americans soldiers and the Japanese community at the American base in Okinawa. And do remember that it was the US that, after nuking Japan, helped it to rise to become one of the leading economic powers in the world, and -- one of America's greatest friends in Asia.
Yes! One of these fellows wrote to an Internet forum that Mills could get us “a US base 50 miles from Tamale, which will build a state of the art military hospital, that the residents can use as well. We could also get an airport that has a civilian wing the country can use. And an infrastructure plan to be put in place to support an army of Ghanaian businesses, ranging from hotels to food production outfits, to support the complex. The security agreements to be negotiated would permit us to secure our interests, wherever they maybe, as we help the America effort.”
Now, this Internet debate has arisen because there is confusion in Africa about exactly what the US intends to do on the continent with “Africom”, the military command the US has established in Germany to operate a military “partnership” with Africa. For instance, the commander of Africom, General William "Kip" Ward, told a group of Ghanaian journalists who were invited to Africom headquarters in Germany in February 2010, that “we want you to know [about Africom]; we don't want you to be wondering about it. We want it to be very well understood,”
Gen Ward went on: “In no way do we envision directing the navies of Africa, the armies of Africa, the air forces of Africa, the governments of Africa, to do anything that they would not do for themselves…. There is no intention of setting up bases in Africa.”
Yet, on 21 September 2011, the Washington Post carried a report headlined “ U.S. assembling secret drone bases in Africa, Arabian Peninsula”. The report showed the picture of a “drone” (pilotless military aircraft) with the caption: “The Seychelles, where the U.S. had temporarily stationed MQ-9s under the operational authority of U.S. Africa Command, now houses a base where a small fleet of “hunter-killer” drones operates.”
The Washington Post report went on: “The Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, U.S. officials said. “One of the installations is being established in Ethiopia, a U.S. ally in the fight against al-Shabab, the Somali militant group that controls much of that country. Another base is in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, where a small fleet of “hunter-killer” drones resumed operations this month, after an experimental mission demonstrated that the unmanned aircraft could effectively patrol Somalia from there.
“The U.S. military also has flown drones over Somalia and Yemen, from bases in Djibouti, a tiny African nation at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.”
The Washington Post added that the “rapid expansion of the undeclared drone wars is a reflection of the growing alarm with which U.S. officials view the activities of al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Somalia… The U.S. government is known to have used drones to carry out lethal attacks in at least six countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.
“The negotiations that preceded the establishment of the base in the Republic of Seychelles illustrate the efforts the United States is making to broaden the range of its drone weapons. The island nation of 85,000 people has hosted a small fleet of MQ-9 Reaper drones operated by the U.S. Navy and Air Force since September 2009. U.S. and Seychellois officials have previously acknowledged the drones’ presence' but have said that their primary mission was to track pirates in regional waters. But classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the unmanned aircraft have also conducted counterterrorism missions over Somalia, about 800 miles to the northwest.
“The cables, obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, reveal that U.S. officials asked leaders in the Seychelles to keep the counterterrorism missions secret,” the Washington Post reported.
The Seychelles drone operation has “a relatively small footprint,” the Washington Post revealed. Based in a hangar located about a quarter-mile from the main passenger terminal at the airport, it includes between three and four Reapers and about 100 U.S. military personnel and contractors.
Overall, the cluster of bases “reflects an effort to have wider geographic coverage, greater leverage with countries in the region and backup facilities, if individual airstrips are forced to close.”
So, how does all this square with the statement of the Africom commander that the US has “no intention of setting up bases in Africa”? That is how the US operates in military matters. It says one thing, then does another. One fine day, the relatively insignificant “training” operations the US has been carrying out in “partnership” with the Ghana armed will assume great importance because – God forbid – the US has identified Al Qaeda elements in Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad (all countries with a latent potential for Islamic militancy) and the US needs to target them with drones from Ghana.
Far-fetched? We should hope so. Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (North Africa) is known to operate already in Mauritania and Niger, and it appears as if there is now a link between the deadly Boko Haram Islamic sect in Nigeria, and Al Qaeda in Somalia. (Shortly before it carried out a dastardly attack on the UN headquarters in Abuja, a Boko Haram operative was quoted as revealing that the organisation had sent people for training in Somalia, and that they had just returned to Nigeria. )
The question is: if Al Qaeda suspected that it was being attacked by drones flown from Ghana, how would it react? Quite frankly, I shudder to think of the situation that would confront us. Nigeria, whose security budget is probably bigger than our entire gross domestic product (GDP) is currently floundering in its attempt to combat Boko Haram. The intelligence community in Nigeria is under enormous pressure over its inability effectively to tackle Boko Haram, which has killed scores of people with impunity. Indeed, fear of Boko Haram reduced the celebration of Nigeria’s 51st anniversary of independence on 1 October 2011 to a mere farce
Ghana needs anything that is capable of introducing such strains into the operations of our security agencies like it needs a hole in the head. The subtext of the disarray in the Nigerian security services is that there are officials within all the security organisations who are sympathetic to some of the ideals preached by Boko Haram. Unless one is a Muslim, it is difficult to see where the attraction lies in an ideology that condemns all Western education and culture, as Boko Haram does.
Indeed, fortunately for us in Ghana, we have a fairly tolerant, if not homogenous, society. What would happen to us if Al Qaeda were to invade our society and turn some of our Islamic brothers into Talibans?
First, our army and security services could be infected with the diseases that Nigerian is being exposed to right now. The same disease that is plaguing Nigeria – a divided national security system – is also affecting Pakistan, a country which the US considers an "ally" in its war on Al Qaeda. Those who think economic aid is all that matters should note that although on paper, Pakistan is currently receiving around $3.16 billion a year from the US, yet the [then] chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, accused Pakistan a few weeks ago of supporting a militant group called the Haqqani, in its attack on the US embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Pakistan, a US ally, supported a militant group to attack the embassy of its ally, the US, in Kabul? Eh? Truth or fantasy? Truth, I think. The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has no need to live in a world of fantasy.
If that is not a catastrophic failure in relationships between the US and Pakistan, who, I repeat, are allies, what is? Yet that is the nature of the territory, as far as most military-political alliances go. The US had an alliance with the South Vietnamese government in the 1970s. But in the end, the US abandoned the South Vietnamese government in order to pave the way for an agreement with North Vietnam and stop Americans being killed on Vietnamese soil.
The clear lesson of history, therefore, is this: if you want to remain friendly with the USA, keep its military at arm’s length. But of course, ignorant people among us don’t know any of this, and that is why they think it would be profitable, or a good idea, to have a US military base in Ghana. On the contrary, It would destroy the traditional friendship between the two countries for scores of years to come.
If you are minded to doubt that, just read about the relationship between Americans soldiers and the Japanese community at the American base in Okinawa. And do remember that it was the US that, after nuking Japan, helped it to rise to become one of the leading economic powers in the world, and -- one of America's greatest friends in Asia.
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