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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
posted 3 October 2007
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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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John
Coltrane, "Alabama" /
Kalamu ya Salaam, "Alabama"
/
A Love Supreme
A Blues for the Birmingham Four
/ Eulogy for the Young Victims
/ Six Dead After Church
Bombing
Audio:
My Story, My Song (Featuring blues guitarist Walter Wolfman Washington)
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Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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