Blowback Alert

So now the Bush Admin has realised no country that forms it’s foreign policy in some consultation with its citizens wants to engage in illegal occupations, there is a need to draft further peace-keepers.

In classically racist fashion, the Bush administration is targetting African countries to receive funding to train and provide “peacekeepers”. This is problematic for a number of reasons.

So now the Bush Admin has realised no country that forms it’s foreign policy in some consultation with its citizens wants to engage in illegal occupations, there is a need to draft further peace-keepers.

In classically racist fashion, the Bush administration is targetting African countries to receive funding to train and provide “peacekeepers”. This is problematic for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the current “peacekeeping” operations that the U.S. is currently engaged in is an invasion and occupation force, not under the auspices of the U.N. security council (breaking the Geneva 1946 and Hague 1907 conventions). Presumably, if African countries receive such funding for military training, there will be an expectation for them to adopt whatever “peacekeeping” role the U.S. demands – being politically and financially cheaper even than the mercenary force operating in Iraq.

Secondly, lets call this what it is, military funding. On a continent that has been wracked by post-colonial conflict aided by and rewarding first world nations, the introduction of extra weaponry (and all the attendant logistical support, spares, retraining, upgrade costs etc that will likely then be borne by the receiving nations) and standing armies is the last thing Africa needs.

Recent history in Afghanistan should remind us of what happens when excessive military hardware and training was provided to poverty stricken nations with weak political structures. The primary goals (ejection of the U.S.S.R from Afghanistan, provision of peacekeeping troops) quickly degenerate into the regional goals of warlords through the opportunity of military advantage.

Provision of funding to Africa is welcome news, but it should be in the form of education, debt relief, landmine removal and other demilitarisation, not the creation of larger military forces. Prevention of the conflict is preferable to creation of conditions for that conflict.