18 replies to this topic

[Miqque Loveland]

US expands ‘shadow war’ in Africa with spy planes, report says


By Dylan Stableford | The Lookout –


The U.S. military is expanding its intelligence-gathering operations across Africa, the Washington Post reports, mainly using small, unarmed planes "equipped with hidden sensors that can record full-motion video, track infrared heat patterns, and vacuum up radio and cellphone signals"—part of a "shadow war" against al-Qaida and other militants.

Approximately a dozen secret U.S. air bases have been established there in the last five years, according to the paper, which "pieced together descriptions of the surveillance network by examining references to it in unclassified military reports, U.S. government contracting documents and diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group."

One of them is in "Ouagadougou (WAH-gah-DOO-goo), the flat, sunbaked capital of Burkina Faso." But the planes often "refuel on isolated airstrips favored by African bush pilots, extending their effective flight range by thousands of miles."

The spy program is overseen by U.S. Special Operations but relies on help from private military contractors and African troops, the Post said. And while it's not technically part of the White House's controversial drone program—which killed Abu Yahya al-Libi, al-Qaida's No. 2, in a drone strike in Pakistan earlier this month—the U.S. military does use a few unmanned spy planes there, too.

"We don't have remotely piloted aircraft in many places other than East Africa, but we could," a senior U.S. military official told the paper. "If there was a need to do so and those assets were available, I'm certain we could get the access and the overflight [permission] that is necessary to do that."
Most, though, "take off the old-fashioned way—with pilots in the cockpit." Why not drones? Conventional aircraft "are cheaper to operate and far less likely to draw attention because they are so similar to the planes used throughout Africa."

http://news.yahoo.co...-140113527.html

So there's that, and so many people starving and fleeing hideous circumstances in the Horn of Africa. Looks to me like the next battlegrounds are being prepared. A whole bunch of countries have fingers in this pie, Belgium and Germany and so forth in addition to the let's-supply-warlords games played by the U.S., UK, Russia and China for decades. If you thought Viet Nam was ugly, just wait.

Investment tip: machetes and water purification tablets.

[Will]

This is old news though Miqque.

ACOTA has been around for a long time, as have other covers and projects.

[Arjan Dirkse]

A whole bunch of countries have fingers in this pie, Belgium and Germany and so forth

Belgium?? That was certainly the case in colonial times, but I don't think Belgium has a lot to do in Africa anymore.

I think in general, people are tired of hearing about Africa in the news. It's usually the same kind of sad, bad news; poverty, sectarian conflict. Although it's a big continent, and some countries are actually doing quite well. I think Rwanda has been making great strides forward, and Botswana is one of the few success stories on the continent.

Edited by Arjan Dirkse, 14 June 2012 - 08:41 PM.

[Johnny Henning]

Africa's all over the news. We had that story about the Algerian rower dropping out of competition with an Israeli. Egypt is in the news all the time. You had the Tunisian and Libyan revolutions. It's Africa all the time.

[garjones]

Belgium?? That was certainly the case in colonial times, but I don't think Belgium has a lot to do in Africa anymore.

I read a great article in Time magazine about the silent war of influence between the US, EU and China on different parts of the world. It involved trade of course and not violent conquest but showed European influence is alive and probably the best hidden of the three.

Not sure about Belgium but France has at least 10 times as many troops in Africa as the USA (which I found in some pointless debate with Ogul about how only the US has any soldiers).

[steveuk]

Africa's all over the news. We had that story about the Algerian rower dropping out of competition with an Israeli. Egypt is in the news all the time. You had the Tunisian and Libyan revolutions. It's Africa all the time.

Tunisia, Libya and Algeria, get lumped in with the Middle East, geographically they're part of North Africa but the news approaches that region in it's own, separate, way.

Areas like Somalia, Burkina Faso and the Sudan are also treated separately.

[Chewy Sun]

american "news" channels and the nightly news of major broadcast networks are useless for anything but the manufactured american news. On "over the airwaves" free tv, I get NHK (japan news station in english), F24 (France news in english), RT (russian super-left news channel in english), and the BBC news is rebroadcast on most PBS stations. If you're not hearing them, you're just not looking very hard.







Chewy............................................... Just because american news doesn't cover africa, doesn't mean the rest of the world isn't paying attention.....

[Arjan Dirkse]

Tunisia, Libya and Algeria, get lumped in with the Middle East, geographically they're part of North Africa but the news approaches that region in it's own, separate, way.

Areas like Somalia, Burkina Faso and the Sudan are also treated separately.

True, when I hear a general statement about Africa I usually assume Sub-Saharan Africa. It's a bit odd, I think many Europeans think of the area of North Africa as being part of Europe culturally, which isn't really fair. Sure there are lots of historical connections, but travelling to Morocco is still a huge culture shock. It really is far more African than European. It's not really Arab either, Berber and Touareg culture is very much alive there.

In geography quizes I always do worse with Africa than any other continent.

[Boston Brian]

This is old news though Miqque.

ACOTA has been around for a long time, as have other covers and projects.

Indeed

It's just at this time in the election cycle it's cool to leak what was once covert

[Miqque Loveland]

See? Mostly, it's non-Americans who are hearing stories occuring in Africa. I'm just off a period where first all I had was spotty broadcast news and the occasional local newspaper; then cable TV which gave back BBC America (dumbed down for Americans, thanky), Deutsche News, and Tokyo Business Report. Now with the internet back, I can access all sorts of papers and news sources. And the world takes on a whole different aspect. Things important here (like the great big fire) are not as important elsewhere (except the fire made the national news Tuesday), and much never ever hinted at here take on the appropriate weight when given attention via internet.

I think this is important. We are dealing with many parochial and primitive countries, and these definitely include Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Burma/Myanmar (A bug Hurrah! for the advances they have made recently), India and China. Countries in Africa still have the "kill the educated" swarms of armed ignorati (to coin a term) and are thus savage, not up to the level of primitive. Many Islamic areas tend to teach reading exactly as far as the Qu'ran,and no farther. I certainly could not conceptualize the world from just reading the Bible, so I must acknowledge the flip side. I suppose I see education as the best, first answer to international and religious discord; although one of the slowest and most difficult to acheive.

When the American "free" press bogs down into the morass it is in today, barely covering the most salacious stories and only the more outrageous acts of politicians, I break out in a cold sweat. Filling the time with barely-concelaed sales stories (go to this restaurant, buy these lawn products) and the occasional heartbreaker (all with the same depressing piano tune) I become actually upset. Our free press was designed and protected to actually bring us news - whether we want it or not. That means active andhonest reporting. That means taking the whole world in as one picture. That means I expect stories about Africa as much as eight minutes on a local sports team changing uniform colors.

Maybe myfriend John Fogerty has something to say.

[Jake]

I'm hearing and reading about Africa all the time, but that may just be a function of work.

[garjones]

See? Mostly, it's non-Americans who are hearing stories occuring in Africa. I'm just off a period where first all I had was spotty broadcast news and the occasional local newspaper; then cable TV which gave back BBC America (dumbed down for Americans, thanky),

BBC have an international 24/7 news channel which airs in pretty much every country as a basic option. For some reason it isn't widely aired in the US, I'm pretty sure that reason is Rupert Murdoch who hates the BBC and managed to get their entertainment channel taken off my local provider as he owns 30% of them.

To be fair all the big new channels have a bias to the area where they're located. I get CNN International, BBC News and Al Jazeera English as the main 3 and I will tend to click on them based on where the story happens. If it's US elections I'll watch CNN, if it's Eurozone crisis I'll watch BBC and for the Arab Spring I watched Al Jazeera.

[Ogul]

Tunisia, Libya and Algeria, get lumped in with the Middle East, geographically they're part of North Africa but the news approaches that region in it's own, separate, way.

When my dad worked at State Department, his division covered "Sub-Saharan Africa," which is, as it says, the entire area south of the Sahara. The northern bit I think was part of the Middle East division's job.

american "news" channels and the nightly news of major broadcast networks are useless for anything but the manufactured american news. On "over the airwaves" free tv, I get NHK (japan news station in english), F24 (France news in english), RT (russian super-left news channel in english), and the BBC news is rebroadcast on most PBS stations. If you're not hearing them, you're just not looking very hard.

PBS Newshour provides what I consider to be solid and unbiased reporting. NHK I like, I watch a lot of it, though they rarely cover Africa much, they're mostly good for anything from India east. I did watch F24 for a while, since my aunt lives over there, and they covered North Africa more than most, since they had colonies there I suppose, but not much central either. That said, I've heard numerous stories about Africa being broadcast on NBC before. Maybe not enough, but well more than there are about South America. They covered the Sudan stuff, and the Zimbabwe stuff a while back, little stories here or there about some drive to fix something. I know one of Lawrence O'Donnell's pet projects was a charity that paid to have people in Malawi make school desks for the students there, so they wouldn't have to sit on the floor, which always seemed to me like a nice idea, but hardly the best use of the funds.

In geography quizes I always do worse with Africa than any other continent.

It doesn't help that so many of those countries names have changed over in the past half-century. I mean, most of Europe, the Americas, and Asia have stayed the same for at least the past hundred years, with just a few countries added to Eastern Europe, the ex-Soviets, and the communist splits in some of the Asian countries.

[garjones]

It doesn't help that so many of those countries names have changed over in the past half-century. I mean, most of Europe, the Americas, and Asia have stayed the same for at least the past hundred years, with just a few countries added to Eastern Europe, the ex-Soviets, and the communist splits in some of the Asian countries.

We did a quiz at work with different continents and I was actually quite bad at Europe because a large chunk of the east didn't exist when I was in school, I was much better at Asia. I was perfect at anything west of Berlin and rubbish at anything to the east. I went back and studied some more so I know my onions now.

[Christian U]

Not sure about Belgium but France has at least 10 times as many troops in Africa as the USA (which I found in some pointless debate with Ogul about how only the US has any soldiers).

Isn't that mainly in UN peacekeeping operations and down to those countries being former French colonies and France feeling responsible, though?

[garjones]

Isn't that mainly in UN peacekeeping operations and down to those countries being former French colonies and France feeling responsible, though?

Sure, I wasn't trying to infer they were planning to invade but just the presence there.

[jamon g]

because they're black.
because the word news indicates something 'new' is going on rather than the same old rot that people don't really want to hear about.

[Ogul]

While a bit incendiary, I think Jamon's second point is closest to the truth, it's a matter of Africa being a mess, but Africa always having been a mess, so there's very little that isn't "dog bites man" about it. "Omg, there was a rigged election that put a military dictator in power?! Stop the presses!" It's a combination of that, and the fact that most African countries pose no threat to us in the west. I mean, the Middle East nobody would give two ####s about if they didn't control a noteworthy portion of the world's oil supply, and if they weren't next to a significant holy land to a large portion of the world's population.

[jamon g]

The only reason the US gives a rats ass about Africa is because it's a hotbed for Islamic extremists, is a great place to sell guns, and China has been bribing corrupt officials with trinkets to give up vast swathes of the continent's mineral wealth. As a bonus China gets black slave labour in hell hole minesites to send them the rare earth metals to make electronics. It's also a great place for private companies to test hiv drugs.