Talk:United States Africa Command

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A fact from United States Africa Command appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on February 11, 2007.

Contents 1 USAFRICOM vs. AFRICOM 2 Stand up? 3 African opposition to a high-profile military establishment 4 This page reads like a military press release

[edit] USAFRICOM vs. AFRICOM

The acronym "AFRICOM" commonly resolves to a few other organizations, including an alliance of African museums, and an ISP based out of Zimbabawe. Therefore, I suggest people use "USAFRICOM" as the acronym for the U.S. military command structure. --Petercorless 06:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

That is the proper full military acronym anyway... 153.103.190.11 19:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stand up?

What does "Bush had made the decision on 2006-12-15 to stand-up the new command." and "The President, on the 15th of December, made the decision to stand it up"[1] mean? Create, mobilize, "forceful prevention"? -- Jeandré, 2007-02-10t17:41z

'Stand up' is Western/english military slang for establish, or form for the first time.

Buckshot06 05:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Such as 'As Iraqis Stand Up, We Will Stand Down,' Bush Tells Nation. To "stand up" a unit means to mobilize and officially authorize, man and equip. It's an actual formal term in military jargon, and is not "slang." --Petercorless 05:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, we learn a new thing every day. Where would I find an official DOD definition of 'stand up'? Cheers Buckshot06 06:03, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't find a DOD definition, though I found plenty of DOD uses, which I cited in in a delightful new article: Stand up (military)... Enjoy! --Petercorless 07:45, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] African opposition to a high-profile military establishment

African governments may well support the war on terror, but, having thrown off British, French, Portuguese and white South African rule, African public opinion does not support the establishment of any new high-profile military bases or headquarters on the continent and African opposition to any such thing is entirely predictable (and I'm sure the State Department would have told the Department of Defence just that). Rexparry sydney 01:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This page reads like a military press release

There is well-documented, well-founded concern in Africa about the role of Africom. This page hardly reflects those realities.

This is from the March webpage of the UN's IRIN: "AFRICOM will focus on military training and counter-terrorism WASHINGTON, 14 March 2008 (IRIN) - In a key briefing to Congress on 13 March, General William “Kip” Ward, head of the US Command for Africa, AFRICOM, devoted only 15 seconds of his four-and-a-half minute opening remarks to a possible humanitarian role.

Focusing instead on military training, security and counter-terrorism, his remarks came in sharp contrast to a year ago when officials announced that the command would concentrate on humanitarian assistance, alarming many aid agencies, which were concerned that US military involvement in humanitarian aid would undermine their neutrality."

This sure seems like a sideways move to continue the quasi-legal role the US has played in Somalia and Kenya and other African nations when it ignores national boundaries to target suspected terrorists in those countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.133.138.141 (talk • contribs)

Please be bold. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• Get over yourself. 155.85.58.253 (talk) 15:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Look, at the risk of sounding like a US apologist I'll try to explain. U.S. Unified Combatant Commands, like AFRICOM, are mechanisms to direct worldwide U.S. military operations, rather than the single services, which obviously do the admin. They run all U.S. military operations in their area. Now Africa for a long time hasn't seen much US military activity, at least in contrast to Asia and Europe. It's been a little bit of United States Army Special Forces training etc, the awful debacle in Somalia, but apart from that, it's mostly been supporting humanitarian aid and the UN (eg, are you aware the USAF did virtually all the airlift for the UN during the Congo Crisis in the 1960s).

So when they decided Africa was getting important enough to untangle the administrative mess that had three separate unified commands tripping over each others' heels (as when Anthony Zinni, CinCCENT, and CINCEUR had to hold a mini-summit between each other to determine policies over Africa(Dana Priest, 'The Mission,' 2003, pp.180-181), they decided one of the nice lines for the media would be to play up the humanitarian angle, which, in fairness, they're doing a lot of, along with the US idea of trying to build up better countries (pity that that US idea is so often expressed as building up the armed forces!) However, make no mistake, this is a military outfit, and it is only because they see, at the moment, that their goals can be be carried out best by a bunch of programmes which are humanitarian-heavy and military-lite that this line is being taken. If, to take a hypothetical example, the PRC were to decide to try to deny the oil resources of the Gulf of Guinea to the USA ten-fifteen years down the track, you'd see a full Operation Desert Storm happen. I'm not trying to put something over on you here - please try to understand, this is an attempt to explain; the humanitarian aid business was real, but a small part overemphasised - this will be, if necessary, as much a warfighting command as CENTCOM during the Gulf War.

Rereading your remarks, to exactly address your point, that quasi-legal (completely legal, or completely illegal, depending on whose countries' lawyers you talk to; we're living in an anarchic international system governed by national interests, just like before 1914), anyway that quasi-legal role was part of the command's task when it was envisaged, is part of the command's task, and will continue to be, in common with all the other unified combatant commands. They just don't advertise it. (Technically there may be a bunfight between SOCOM and AFRICOM on who has the responsibility, but I don't think you're really worried about that.)

Hope that helps. Buckshot06 (talk) 09:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)