{"id":177716,"date":"2019-07-03T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/07\/03\/its-a-self-licking-ice-cream-cone\/"},"modified":"2019-07-03T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T01:00:00","slug":"its-a-self-licking-ice-cream-cone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/07\/03\/its-a-self-licking-ice-cream-cone\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Self Licking Ice Cream Cone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the US Military has established a base on the continent for Africa Command, violence and terrorism has exploded on the continent<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Since U.S. Africa Command began operations in 2008, the number of U.S. military personnel on the African continent has jumped 170 percent, from 2,600<\/a> to 7,000<\/a>. The number of military missions, activities, programs, and exercises there<\/a> has risen 1,900 percent, from 172 to 3,500. Drone strikes have soared<\/a> and the number of commandos deployed<\/a> has increased exponentially along with the size and scope of AFRICOM\u2019s constellation of bases<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The U.S. military has recently conducted 36 named operations and activities<\/a> in Africa, more than any other region of the world<\/a>, including the Greater Middle East. Troops scattered across Africa regularly advise, train, and partner with local forces; gather intelligence; conduct surveillance; and carry out airstrikes and ground raids focused on \u201ccountering violent extremists<\/a> on the African continent.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

There are now roughly 24 \u201cactive militant Islamist groups\u201d operating on the continent, up from just five in 2010, the analysis found. Today, 13 African countries face attacks from these groups \u2014 a 160 percent increase over that same time span. In fact, the number of \u201cviolent events<\/a>\u201d across the continent has jumped 960 percent, from 288 in 2009 to 3,050 in 2018, according to the Africa Center\u2019s analysis. <\/p>\n

While a variety of factors have likely contributed to the rise in violence, some experts say that the overlap between the command\u2019s existence and growing unrest is not a coincidence. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe sharp increase in terrorist incidents in Africa underscores the fact that the Pentagon\u2019s overly militarized approach to the problem has been a dismal failure,\u201d said William Hartung, the director of the arms and security project at the Center for International Policy. \u201cIf anything, attempting to eradicate terrorism by force may be exacerbating the problem, provoking a terrorist backlash and serving as a recruiting tool for extremist groups.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not a failure, it’s just that the US military is not in it to succeed.  Their goal is to generate sortees, theater ribbons, promotions, and a justification for an ever increasing budgets.<\/p>\n

Bleeding hearts will call this a failure, but there are military careers to be made here, baby.<\/p>\n

Seriously, this has got to be the most wastefully run empire ever.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the US Military has established a base on the continent for Africa Command, violence and terrorism has exploded on the continent: Since U.S. Africa Command began operations in 2008, the number of U.S. military personnel on the African continent has jumped 170 percent, from 2,600 to 7,000. The number of military missions, activities, programs, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[459,364,379,494],"class_list":["post-177716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-africa","tag-evil","tag-military","tag-statistics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}