Portside

Zimbabwe is in a precarious position. Its immediate future rests under the sword of Damocles. The threads of democracy have to be thickened. One hopes the chronicle of its demise cannot be foretold.

For at least five years, ...Green Berets, Navy SEALs, ... and other commandos have been involved in reconnaissance and “direct action” combat raids ... in Somalia, Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Tunisia.

Ethiopia agreed to a border commission study that awarded most of the territory disputed by the two countries to Eritrea, ending a state of conflict that followed a 1998-2000 war that cost 80,000 lives and displaced more than 6 million people.

What are U.S. forces doing in Niger? Apart from the uranium that accounts for over 70% of Niger’s exports, there’s little of economic interest to the United States there. The real appeal is location, location, location.

Far from accepting defeat, Western tobacco companies like British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris International (PMI) have instead set their sights on Africa to protect their profit margins.

What is euphemistically referred to as “modernity” is marked with the indelible stain of what might be termed the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism, with the bloody process of human bondage as the driving and animating force of this abject horror.

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The situation in Zimbabwe is one of a dissatisfied ruling elite using their monopoly on violence to manipulate and control society. This will not change the fundamentally oppressive, and inegalitarian structures of that society.

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"In fact, according to data supplied by US Special Operations Command, there are now more special operations personnel devoted to Africa than anywhere except the Middle East."