Obama in Africa: A Major Disappointment

Africans are screwing up, and if they want more American aid, they’ve got to get their act together. This is the Obama analysis–simplistic, myopic, patronizing, implicitly threatening, just what we expected and got from George Bush. Like Bush, evidence based-reality takes a back seat to whatever reality a president chooses to concoct.

For the past decade, it’s been widely agreed that the US has three overriding interests in Africa: exploiting natural resources, above all oil and gas; fighting Islamists; and competing with China. In all cases, Africa is merely a pawn, something to be used to pursue America’s interests, not Africa’s. African development and everything related to it are secondary matters.
Substantively, nothing Obama has committed himself to alters these priorities, especially his strong endorsement of the suspiciously vague new US military command structure for Africa, called AFRICOM. But the Americans have been unable to persuade a single African country except ever-cooperative Liberia to host the base for this structure, all fearing the increasing militarization of US-African relations. Given that they’re a gang of corrupt leaders who govern poorly, this should surely send Obama a pretty clear message.

The Nation