John Pilger: The Son of Africa Claims a Continent's Crown Jewels

On 14 October, President Barack Obama announced he was sending United States special forces troops to Uganda, to join the civil war there. In the next few months, US combat troops will be sent to South Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic. They will only "engage" for self-defense, says Obama, satirically. With Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent is under way! Obama's decision is described in the press as "highly unusual" and "surprising", even "weird". It is none of these things. It is the logic of American foreign policy since 1945. Take Vietnam. The priority was to halt the influence of China, an imperial rival, and protect Indonesia, which President Nixon called the region's hoard of natural resources - the greatest prize. Vietnam merely got in the way, and the slaughter of more than three million Vietnamese and the devastation and poisoning of their land was the price of of America achieving its goal. Like all America's subsequent invasions, a trail of blood from Latin America to Afghanistan and Iraq, the rationale was usually "self-defense" or "humanitarian", words long emptied of their dictionary meaning. In Africa, says Obama, the "humanitarian mission" is to assist the government of Uganda defeat the Lord's resistance Army (IRA), which has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa. This is an accurate description of the IRA, evoking multiple atrocities administered by the United States, such as the bloodbath in the 1960's following the CIA-arranged murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence leader and first legally elected prime minister, and the CIA coup that installed Mobutu Sese Seko, regarded as Africa's most venal tyrant. Obama's other justification also invites satire: This is the "national security of the United States".