Pat Dollard | Young Americans

This is one of Africa’s more stable countries?

Democracy at work

Kenyan caucuses

Unbelievable. I have not idea what to say even. Kenya is down the tubes, as is most of Africa. Remember the colonize video I put up? Well, this just goes to prove my point – Talk is Cheap in Africa. The man with the machete wins. There is no “diplomatic” solution. Someone explain the diplomacy when someone is hacking your family to death. Please tell me. The US, and the world – most importantly the UN, have made the requisite statements of “concern”, but nothing more. Just like Sudan, Rawanda, and almost all of Africa, the people effected by these horrors will have their fate decided by violence.

Let’s not forget the similar issues all throughout Africa still occurring on a daily basis. Could imagine any better reason for us establishing Africa Command? Yet those who would never lift a finger to help anyone would complain of American Imperialism – but at the same time cry about the “crimes against humanity”.

Fear the worst; a Democrat as president…

Here are two conflicting articles. One of them may make you vomit.

Into Africa Without A Map

By David Ignatius

Last week’s tribal violence in Kenya reminds us of the severe social and political problems facing Africa. But is greater involvement by the U.S. military the answer to these African challenges?

The growing U.S. military role in Africa isn’t a hypothetical issue. In one of the sleeper events of 2007, the Pentagon established a new command for the continent, known as AFRICOM. The organization has a commander, Gen. William “Kip” Ward, but it doesn’t yet have a plan for where it will be based or even a clear statement of its role. Right now, it’s a headquarters in search of a mission.

Pentagon officials have offered idealistic but vague explanations of what the new command is supposed to do. “We want to prevent problems from becoming crises, and crises from becoming catastrophes,” said Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant defense secretary for African affairs. Ward said in an interview two months ago with PBS’s Charlie Rose, “We have in our national interest that Africa is a stable continent. That’s what’s in it for us.”

Nobody would argue the need for assisting Africa, especially after the gruesome ethnic killings that left more than 300 Kenyans dead. But how should that assistance be provided? Is the U.S. military the right instrument for the nation-building effort that AFRICOM apparently envisions? Should American soldiers coordinate the digging of wells, the vaccination of animals and other development projects that will come under AFRICOM’s umbrella? Will a larger U.S. military presence check terrorism and instability on the continent, or will it instead become a new magnet for anti-Americanism?

The chaos in Kenya should prompt a serious discussion, better late than never, of these issues. AFRICOM’s mission isn’t well understood, either in America or Africa. Two leading African nations — Nigeria and South Africa — have expressed strong reservations about the greater U.S. military role on the continent. And surely the American experience in Iraq should prompt closer scrutiny of military projects with bold ideals but fuzzy details.

The African command began as a project of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who believed that the military wasn’t well prepared for the kind of stabilization operations it would face in the post-Sept. 11 world. The command was formally established Oct. 1, with a temporary headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany — and the goal of establishing a forward base in Africa by this coming Oct. 1.

But problems surfaced immediately. The first was the $5 billion cost of setting up the forward headquarters, a steep price for a military strapped by Iraq and Afghanistan. A second problem was where to put the headquarters. Liberia was eager to play host, but Pentagon officials believed that West Africa would be too far from the continent’s big security challenges. For now, the Pentagon will probably finesse the headquarters issue by starting with several smaller regional centers — perhaps in Botswana, Liberia and Rwanda — that combine military and civilian operations.

The new command has had bipartisan political backing — who could question the idea of taking Africa more seriously? But behind the scenes, some senior Pentagon officials have been skeptical. “The depth of support is pretty shallow, frankly, and that’s a real hazard. There’s a danger that everything will be done on the cheap,” says Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The real puzzle with AFRICOM is understanding its purpose. Some advocates propose pragmatic strategic goals, from containing China’s influence in Africa to countering terrorism to protecting African oil supplies. But the official rationale is much less specific — in Ward’s formulation, “bringing stability to the continent.” Some Africans worry that these generalities mask a deeper goal of establishing what amounts to American neocolonialism.

What would AFRICOM be doing now in Kenya, say, if it were up and running? Would it intervene to halt the violence between Kikuyus and Luos that exploded last week? Would it work with nongovernmental and relief organizations? Would it operate jointly with the Kenyan military to restore order? Ward says that he does not “envision kinetic operations for United States forces,” but what happens if Kenya spirals toward Rwanda-level genocide?

The U.S. military is so powerful — so blessed with money and logistical skill and leadership — that it’s easy to make it the default answer to problems that are otherwise in the “too hard” category. That’s my worry about AFRICOM. Its nation-building goal sounds noble, but so did European imperialism of 150 years ago to its proponents. Before America sends its soldiers marching off to save Africa, we need more discussion about what this mission is all about.

Kenya Too Important To Let Collapse

By Jonathan Stevenson

Kenya has been the anchor of political stability in East Africa. But in recent days, 300 people have been killed and 100,000 have been displaced in political unrest after the re-election of President Mwai Kibaki amid widely reported voting irregularities.

As America’s key ally in the region, Kenya cannot be allowed to collapse. Mr. Kibaki has acquiesced to a judicial investigation of the elections, but its impartiality is open to doubt. The U.S. must warn Mr. Kibaki that unless he agrees either to a conciliatory accommodation satisfactory to the opposition or to new, legitimate elections, economic sanctions will be in the offing.

Mr. Kibaki’s refusal to budge has only intensified opposition suspicions of government fraud and fueled the violence, much of which has had the flavor of outright ethnic cleansing.

If the opposition’s grievances are left unanswered, civil discord could consume the nation. While complete civil breakdown is unlikely, even partial political debility would diminish Kenya’s sorely needed leadership and clout.

East Africa and the Horn of Africa constitute a strategically critical region that includes a failed state in Somalia, the defiant and repressive Islamist government of Sudan, insurgency-plagued Uganda, two countries ever poised for war in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and slowly rising Islamic radicalism throughout. Always pro-Western, Kenya alone has been consistently active and effective in regional diplomacy. Nairobi furnished crucial political support for the north-south peace process in Sudan - one of Washington’s few recent diplomatic achievements in Africa. Kenya’s steady counterterrorism cooperation has also helped the United States keep a lid on Islamist terrorism in the region. And Kenya’s dogged diplomacy has kept alive prospects of Somalia’s political rehabilitation.

Kenya thus remains America’s indispensable partner. Kenya’s problems are, to be sure, acutely domestic. Deep divisions among its more than 30 tribes were kept to a simmer during the autocratic but politically sturdy 24-year rule of former President Daniel T. arap Moi, a member of the medium-sized Kalenjin tribe. Mr. Kibaki, however - like Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta - is from the Kikuyu tribe, Kenya’s largest and most powerful. The large but less-powerful Luhya and Luo tribes, along with smaller tribes, backed Raila Odinga, a wealthy and charismatic Luo, as a champion of the poor and an antidote to a Kibaki government increasingly regarded as corrupt, incompetent and biased in favor of the Kikuyu.

There is room for a power-sharing compromise. Even if official election results stand, although Mr. Kibaki narrowly won the popular vote, his coalition party was decimated in parliament, emerging with only 37 of 210 seats as several Cabinet ministers were defeated. Yet the Kibaki government has summarily rejected the opposition’s proposal of temporary joint rule and a new election in three months.

Washington has tried mild, bilateral diplomatic measures - bland commendations of peaceful democratic principles and earnest pleas for negotiation - but they have been insufficient to move Mr. Kibaki. Stern demarches and offers of third-party brokerage would also probably fall short, as his government has stated firmly that it will not accept outside mediation. Multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the African Union could nudge Mr. Kibaki toward concessions, but they alone probably won’t be able to produce them.

The most effective political lever in Africa is still economic power. The U.S. and other major powers, bilaterally and through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, have long used threats to withhold economic assistance to cajole African countries - including Kenya - into better governance. The result has been a frustrating seesaw pattern of compliance and backsliding.

But now Kenya has more to lose. Mr. Kibaki is proudest of Kenya’s economic recovery. Since his first election victory in 2002, Kenya has enjoyed 5 percent average annual growth, earned a solid B+ sovereign credit rating, and maintained a comparatively strong currency. After delaying millions of dollars in aid in 2006 because of corruption, the IMF and World Bank resumed lending in 2007. Prolonged political violence could threaten these results as well as the $870 million annual tourist trade and major state commercial transactions such as Kenya’s joint venture with the British giant Vodaphone and a planned $300 million international bond issue.

Acting in concert, the United States, European powers, the European Union and the international financial institutions can establish strong incentives to compromise by ensuring Nairobi that although recalcitrance will be penalized, compromise will be rewarded. Preserving Kenya’s special place in Africa’s geopolitics, as well as its recent domestic advances, warrants the effort.

Jonathan Stevenson is a professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War College.