It was inevitable that the US would turn its eye towards Africa and now that it has eventually been directed itself towards the Dark Continent, apprehension and skepticism have risen to the surface. Anywhere the US goes, misery follows or so goes the dictum and the continent that is already steeped in poverty and economic crisis is looking towards a scary future with the US presence there.
American interest in Africa is mainly for three reasons: oil, terrorism and instability. The first factor, that is oil, is the most important and it is under the pretext of solving Africa’s plethora of problems that the US would try to get more oil deals. The announcement that the Pentagon has launched a new command center for military operations in the continent might have been accepted with cheers by the Americans, but for those who side with the African interests, this indeed does signal something more than just military operations.
The initiative to lend the US more integrated approach to Africa, known as Africom, was conceived in February this year and for the moment will be based in Stuttgart, Germany. What the Pentagon says is that under this new programme, it will be able to fight the extremists and warlords in the continent more easily and with better facilities. It says that the US is worried over the seemingly unending military problems and warfare that the entire Africa is confronting.
But scratch the surface and you shall come up with darker intensions beneath. Most observers suggest that the ousting of Saddam Hussein from Iraq was an act taken to supply the US with better oil facility and the talk is that the Africom initiative too is made to extract more oil from Africa, At the moment, the US gets only 10% of its oil from Africa and it is eager to increase that percentage. The US does have self-invested interest in trying to help Africa combat military operations and it now all depends on how African leaders carry on with it.
Image Source: All Africa
Source: BBC
