U.S. Push to Seize Control of Africa's Gulf of Guinea Oil

By Glen Ford

According to recent reports, Nigeria's government is organizing other African states to block the U.S. from establishing a military base in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea. The nations of the region have every reason to be alarmed. U.S. "strategic planners"—which is another way of saying "imperialists"—have marked the Gulf for deep penetration and  eventual subjugation, as Washington's plans for global resource domination continue, unabated. Already, the Sahel region in the north of Africa is saturated with American military forces. Looking south, the Americans claim there is not a large enough military presence to "secure" the huge, largely untapped oil and gas reserves of the Gulf of Guinea, bordered by Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Sao Tome and Principe. In reality, the Gulf needs protection from no one—except the rapacious United States. 

The U.S. insists it needs to place submarines and warships in the Gulf, and to secure basing rights onshore to service its naval presence there. Of course, there is no enemy on the horizon to defend against—no Al Qaida fleet with Osama bin Laden at the helm—that would necessitate such a militarization of the Gulf of Guinea. What the United States is really doing, is telegraphing its own invasion plans for the region, to grab the oil. 

Nigeria is not the ideal focus of resistance to U.S. encroachment on African resources, despite its large military and the biggest population in Black Africa. Nigeria is perhaps the most kleptocratic state on the planet, a government and ruling class dominated by thieves. But now, the Nigerian gangster classes, in and out of uniform, face a threat from an even bigger thief: the U.S., a rogue superpower that steals whole nations.  Compared to the Americans, the Nigerian godfathers are small-time, corner criminals. And they are scared.

After the African Internet news service ThisDay reported Nigeria's efforts to resist the U.S. onslaught, in mid-September, officials in the capital city of Abuja began to "soft-peddle" the threat posed by Uncle Sam, and to put out assurances that Nigeria and other African states would provide all the "security" that is necessary to guard the Gulf. That's understandable. The American game plan throughout the developing world is to claim that Washington must come to the rescue when "failed states" are incapable of providing security for precious resources. If you are not already a failed state, the U.S. will make you one.

The Iraqi model is the most recent. Having destroyed the Iraqi regime, and then declared its successor a "failed state," growing sectors of the American ruling class advocate the dismemberment of Iraq into three, easily manageable parts, none of which would be capable of defending the national oil patrimony. Nigeria, should it try to frustrate American greed for energy, could be deemed an "artificial" nation, a "failed state" made up of four or five distinct countries, whose peoples must be "liberated" from each other. The same could be said of almost every nation in Africa, where colonialists drew the lines of borders. Africans must now draw their own lines, in the Gulf of Guinea, to keep the United States from "protecting" them into oblivion.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.

Source: Black Agenda Report

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Say No to Africom—With little scrutiny from Democrats in Congress and nary a whimper of protest from the liberal establishment, the United States will soon establish permanent military bases in sub-Saharan Africa. An alarming step forward in the militarization of the African continent, the US Africa Command (Africom) will oversee all US military and security interests throughout the region, excluding Egypt. Africom is set to launch by September 2008 and the Senate recently confirmed Gen. William "Kip" Ward as its first commander. Danny Glover & Nicole Lee. The Nation

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It is good that the Africans themselves know what is dangerous about this military incursion that would be a violation of our territorial independence.—Michael

Predators roam over the globe these days, like hyenas with empty bellies. What they cannot loosen by cunning; they are willing to seize by tooth and claw.  Africa has for a generation been weak with quarrels in his huts and compounds. His sons go each his way, like the sons of Ezeulu. But the critical decisions were made when he was a child. He was not tall enough to look far above the forest to discern what or when bringers of ill winds were liable to come his way, bellies filled with bile and guile, and prepare for the worst. The horses are now rumbling. Shutting the gates with idle palaver, I'm afraid will not turn back these horses who now ride the winds, like Israeli gunships in Palestine. I see the sons of Africa, as in the last 40 years, poke out their chest proudly, but each making his own separate pact with he who has the sharper tooth or the most cunning.—Rudy

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posted 3 October 2007