AFRICOM Now Has Its Air Force

The USAF became autonomous branch of the US armed forces on September 18, 1947. Previously, the air services were shared between the Army, in the case of the terrestrial operations, and by the Naval, in operations from aircraft carriers. The first precedent for the USAF goes back to August 1907

The United States Air Force (USAF) had a party with all the bells and whistles this fall as it put the last touches on the initiation of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). On September 18, the date that marks the official birth of the USAF*, this new operation was inaugurated at a base in Ramstein, Germany, as the “air force for Africa.”

During the inauguration of this new arm of the Pentagon, in the center that houses the Air Force for Europe, General William E. “Kip” Ward, the head of AFRICOM, highlighted the history of the USAF in Africa. He pointed out that its first secretary, Stuart Symington, started the well-known Seventeenth Air Force (17 AF), which began operations in Morocco in 1953, but was deactivated in 1996 after several missions. That effort was the “main facilitator” for this new command, he noted.

Major General Ronald R. Ladnier, the unit commander, also framed that initiative as the beginning of AFRICOM, announced by the Department of Defense in 2007 as the answer to the growing interest in the African continent by US foreign policy, given the continent’s abundant oil.

Ward, trying to disguise the interventionist nature of the military/corporate-oil initiative, emphasized that the mission of the reactivated 17-AF (Air Forces Africa) is to contribute to existing Washington initiatives in the region. These, he said, are guided to assure “peace, stability, development and the war against the terrorism.”

Nevertheless, he hit on the truth when he noted the force’s actions would be “in support of American foreign policy” with regard to the continent.

This is nothing new. The African Growth and Opportunity Act, designed under the Clinton administration and emphasizing trade and investments by transnational corporations active in the region, pursued the same objective as AFRICOM: the control of energy and mineral resources – one of the biggest foreign policy concerns of the White House. Because of this problem, the USA would even have license to deploy its troops on the continent. Now the matter is even better defined, because the Pentagon now has its own mechanisms to assure the presence of its armed forces.

Although it is not still known whether AFRICOM will be able to have a base on the continent by October 1, it has been carrying out joint military exercises and creating the necessary infrastructure. At the same time they are undertaking humanitarian programs to hide the true interests of world hegemony.

Therefore, always in tune with the US foreign policy, it would not be unexpected to see or hear of the bombardment of some area for the control of oil wells, uranium, gold, or diamonds, among so many other riches. This force could also put an end to any nationalist government that seeks to affect the interests of American transnationals operating there.

“You will be US ambassadors in everything that you do,” said Ward. The ample record of terror by the USAF —with a quite fateful slogan that reveals it aggressive essence: “above everything”— and its bombings of Korea, Vietnam, Serbia, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, allow us to see “how attached to the desires for peace" it is – this time in Africa.