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GUEST: Conn Hallinan, Analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus and a regular columnist for the Daily Planet

This February 7th, President Bush announced the formation of a new US African military command, or AFRICOM. As a Pentagon command for the continent of Africa, AFRICOM will host its huge base of operations in a country yet to be determined. According to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, the initiative aims to promote security, and stabilize governments throughout the region, which ostensibly means tracking and militarily crushing what Washington deems are “terrorist hotspots” throughout the continent. While all the details about AFRICOM are not yet available, the command is scheduled to be fully operational by September 2008. The AFRICOM announcement is seen as a sign of heightened US interest in the continent. However, analysts skeptical of Pentagon goals believe that the build up of American military presence in Africa is motivated more by natural resources. African countries are projected to supply a quarter of all oil imports to the United States by the year 2015 and West Africa alone accounts for 15 percent of the world’s oil supply.

Read Conn Hallinan’s article, “Into Africa,” here: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4079