The July military coup in the west African country of Niger has once again brought attention to the fact that the US government runs a global military empire that serves Washington’s special interests, and not the national interest.
Before the coup made news headlines, most Americans – including many serving in Congress – had no idea the US government maintains more than 1,000 troops stationed on several US bases in Niger. But it’s even worse than that. A recent report in The Intercept suggests the Pentagon repeatedly misled Congress about the extent and the cost of the US presence in Niger.
According to The Intercept, “in testimony before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in March, the chief of US Africa Command described Air Base 201 (in Niger) as ‘minimal’ and ‘low cost.’” In fact the US government has spent a quarter of a billion dollars on the base since construction began in 2016.
So when did Congress declare war so as to legalize US military operations in Niger? They didn’t. But as Kelley Vlahos writes in Responsible Statecraft, US troops have been “training” the military in Niger since 2013 and the US government has constructed a number of military bases to “fight terrorism” in the country and region.
Does that mean that the Pentagon is operating in Niger under the 2001 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) meant to track down those who attacked the US on 9/11? It’s a good question and thankfully one being asked by Sen. Rand Paul in a recent letter sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Senator Paul first pointed out in the letter, “the Administration’s limitless interpretation of the 9/11 AUMF and frequent use of Title 10 authorities results in military operations abroad conducted with little Congressional oversight and even less public scrutiny.” Such actions “undermine our Constitution,” he writes as he asks, “in how many countries are US forces conducting operations authorized by the 2001 AUMF.”
Ironically – or maybe not – one of the coup leaders in NIger had been trained by the Pentagon at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. What is the US government training foreign military officers to do, exactly? Overthrow their own governments?
Whatever the case, it appears the coup government in Niger may be seeking a withdrawal of foreign military on its soil. Mass protests against French military presence has led the French government to begin talks with the coup government on withdrawal. There are rumors that the coup government may next request US troops to leave the country.
We should pre-empt their possible request by withdrawing all US troops immediately from Niger (and the rest of Africa) and closing all military bases. The claim that the US government is fighting terrorism in the area is doubtful. After all, in both Libya and in Syria the US government backed terrorist groups against governments it sought to overthrow. President Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan famously wrote to his then-boss Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012 that, “in Syria, al-Qaeda is on our side.”
Congress must step up and exercise its oversight authority to end the counter-productive US military presence in Africa. Our military empire is bankrupting us and turning the rest of the world against us.
The US is chasing chimeras if as they claim they are chasing the perpetuators of the attack on New York. All the perps were caught in the dragnet after the attack then released back to isreal.
Watch the pronouns. “We” are not in Niger. American soldiers commanded by the Military Financial Complex, working to extract the mineral wealth of the area, are in Niger, (and in the rest of Africa). The colonialism that President John F. Kennedy wished to end, (specially in Africa), unfortunately, remains in operation.
In Syria, Libya, and Iraq, American troops are based there to ensure the extraction (stealing) of Oil from these Nations – that have repeatedly asked for American, and other European Nations to withdraw their occupying soldiers, (troops that are foreign to the area).
Imperialism, by any other analysis, is continued by the United States, European, and the Zionist Entity.
“We” are not in Niger, but our Rulers are.
These wars, coups, & occupations are admission fees for belonging to NATO and the U.N. Since European countries have been vastly overpopulated, resource depleted, and land scarce, they have had parasitic behavior for well over a thousand years. It is just a way of life for them. They never got over 1776. They never will either.
The legacy of JFK is a joke in poor taste.
The ‘Green Berets’ of the army work under the motto: ‘to free the oppressed’. In reality, they mostly exist to train proxy warriors doing the bidding of the GAE.
Immoral and dishonorable work on behalf of an unworthy regime. They should drop the lofty pretences.
Couldn’t agree more. Remove all American troops from Africa. Do business where profitable, but end this constant wasting of time and money. Trip wires everywhere, waiting for an excuse for another war.
Unclear. If the “legacy” is in poor taste, WHICH legacy? The legacy of those who denigrate all Kennedys, or the legacy of those who found the Kennedys to be worthy American Patriots, who attempted to maintain World Peace (Cuban Missile Crisis – danger of WW III – averted through a negotiated settlement), as an example.
President J F Kennedy argued with those who went along with recognizing the independence of all Africa’s colonies, (with the EXCEPTION of South Africa). South Africa was the most developed of all the African colonies; but it was denied its sovereign independence. We recall now, (2023), that South Africa was needed, by our foreign Masters, as a place to develop their Nuclear weapons. Additionally, it remained a profitable source of diamonds & gold, (mines owned by De Beers, & other Zionist Oligarchs).
The Kennedy brothers were ASSASSINATED. South Africa was directly ruled in a Fascist-Imperialist manner, as a colony, with tens of thousands of prisoners, for another 28 years.
It is often obscured that our Finest leaders (not perfect-like us, – but the best we had), were all ASSASSINATED. Yes, and by similar methods, (BULLETS to the head). The Kennedys, M L King, Malcolm X, and John Lennon were executed similarly, & by the same Oligarchs.
I have some sympathy and admiration for R F Kennedy Jr., who is making a charge, and telling many truths.
The truth, is that, as a teenager, I had no idea what to do when my President, John F. Kennedy, was killed in a “Murder Most Foul” (Dylan‘s song title). Surely, the citizens of a Free & Sovereign Nation do not kill, or suffer its/our President, and other leaders, to be physically eliminated, (one after another).
“legacy” ????
*[Is there another Nation on this planet which has so many of its best leaders ASSASSINATED?]
I certainly am not joking, In any kind of taste.
It’s a staging area for drones to attack targets in southern Libya and prevent it from becoming a thriving terrorist hideout plotting attacks against US targets in Europe. Do you want to see US military personnel walking around carefree in Italy suddenly get attacked?
Not only “terrorists’ were always US proxies, but in Sahel, they receive weapons supposedly sent to Ukraine.
That is a little bit, partially true, but anyway, no matter what, for blacks, Whites, and coloreds in S. Africa, that beat all hell out of being ruled by, errr … Nigers.
A few months ago, Peak Stupidity had an 8 part series named Cry the Deconstructed Country about the ruination of S. Africa, first gradually, now suddenly.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4: Anecdote on Anti-Apartheid
Part 5: Cold and Hot Wars, and the Commies, of course
Part 6: Africa Wins
Part 7: 1st World Memories of Suid Afrikaanse Lugdiens
Part 8: As Falls S. Africa…
So, let’s get the story on South Africa straight, Mr. Durruti. The millions of Bantu blacks came LONG AFTER the Boers. It was the only decent country – and by far the only 1st World one – south of the Sahara due solely to the fact that White people settled, built, and ran the place.
The rest of the continent is a nest of shitholes, better off during colonization, but, no that’s not the White man’s burden, and surely not the broke American taxpayers’ burden.
Let it become the Yellow Man’s burden, and we’ll hear 50 years from now the bitching from the Nigers.
In support of your comment.
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/the-sovereign-state-of-good-hope-what-you-need-to-know/
Of course, that doesn’t fit the greater geopolitical narrative now being produced.
Why Niger (and all the other pointless military adventures)? A century ago,William James saw it as a matter of human psychology. As a psychodynamic theoretician (I believe that our conscious thoughts constitute only a partial slice of our mental life), I will agree with James’s analysis. In fact, I will go even further and agree with John Fowles. Fowles said that men think war will cause women to take them seriously; to not laugh at them.
To all distorters of History & Racist Scumbags like you: Go Fuck yourself!
Oh yeah, really? Why don’t you take a tour now, Durruti? If that’s too much, perhaps you are not too lazy to do a little reading on the place. It’s going to hell fast. Railroad tracks are being torn up for scrap steel, greatly impacting transportation, while the biggest power company is run by embezzlers. Think the place is going to remain decent? It’s been the 3rd World a while over there, and it’s getting worse quickly.
I don’t care what names you think will hurt me, Mr. Durruti. You think that this nation even, will somehow go back to the Constitutional Republic it was, but it won’t with the 50 million newcomers (along with the usual suspects) who don’t really care about any of that.
The truth is the truth, asshole. If you read the last of those posts, you’ll see that my worry is that this country could go the same way as South Africa. It’ll take truth-tellers who will tell it like it is, ending the black worship in this country, not pearl-clutching panty-bunched guys like you, to get us on any kind of right track.
Thanks, Curmudgeon. The big picture is grim. An originally-S.African guy named Michael Witken wrote a long article after his first visit there in 10 years called SOUTH AFRICA AT WAR WITH ITSELF.
Just a small excerpt:
I know, I’m a racist for pointing all this out, but here are 2 more excerpts from this former S. African visitor to his formerly 1st World home:
On the new racism:
What’s up, Doc?
Without the White man in charge and dominating technical work, Africa wins again.
A couple of more excerpts from that article:
More on the racial aspect:
What’s up, Doc? Face it, without the White man running things and comprising a big share of the technical workforce, Africa wins again.
The army trains its soldiers going abroad at the J.F. Kennedy Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg. They are indoctrinated to see it as perfectly normal to destabilize countries and force regime change on unwilling states.
The emphasis is on producing officers who will not pass judgement on Empire business. They graduate to be morally retarded.
Some current projects are training East Europeans to sabotage Russian infrastructure, and Syrian dissidents to attack their homeland. Fomenting terrorism is what normal people call it.
America is in Niger because,
They the fifth largest supplier of uranium in the world, and, have massive oil reserves.
Should the US pull out? Hell yes!
JFK was unaware that our military had nuclear weapons pointed at the Soviet Union . If you take a listen to the President’s tapes at the National Archives it’s hard to tell if he knew for sure , or not .
The reason Krushchev chose to install his weapons in Cuba was due to us having Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy , aimed right as Moscow .
Krushchev called OUR bluff , not the other way around . The rooskies left Cuba with the agreement that Kennedy removed the Jupiter missiles from Turkey and Italy . Which he did .
I’m not saying Kennedy was wrong or right . I’m arguing that Kennedy was not this tough guy , who by God didn’t put up with that commie shit .
Kennedy was vehemently anti war . His time during WW2 and his tour of Europe after the war forever influenced his politics . He is the guy that said no to Vietnam.
History tells this same lie over and over about Kennedy . It’s easy to see that most historians flat out lie . Krushchev felt threatened by the United States, as he should have . He decided he wasn’t going to wait around for us to nuke Moscow , so he did what any cornered dog would do , he went on the defensive. He got exactly what he wanted , no more nukes aimed at his country.
So yes , JKF kept us from nuclear war , due to losing the pissing contest with the USSR.
USA produces its own oil, it does not need any oil from those shitholes. Murica goes to these places because the elites believe in the White Man’s burden, American style, a part of Roosevelt’s dream to make the whole World like Suburban America. Except that there was this Jewish guy, whose name I forgot, a top strategist, who actually opposed the invasion of Iraq. A jew opposing Iraq…because he rightfully thought that this would make Iran stronger which he did not want.
The Jewish strategist guy said (in a top level discussion in Washington) that to convert Iraq and Afghanistan into first world countries, some kind of Middle Eastern America, would take three centuries and was only possible if about 3/4ths of the males in those places were killed off. Joe Biden who then supported the Iraq invasion called the Jewish guy “racist”.
I predicted once the rest of the world ran the Dutch out of there the country would fall to pieces.
The effects of ‘humanitarian’ efforts.
Same thing happened in Rhodesia.
I have to take exception to Dr Pauls comments here regarding us needing to be ‘at war’ with Nigeria to station troops there. Nowhere do I see where the USA invaded the country, so I presume that government consented to it.
Jokem, I did forget to include Rhodesia as not the “only decent country” and “only 1st world one”. It had been the breadbasket of Africa when it was run by White people (English). Just as with S. Africa a decade or so later, huge world influence and pressure – with no small amount of Commie infiltration – finally got to them, and they let it be run by the black people. It became Zimbabwe, a shithole that is best known for it’s record hyperinflation.
Per the Constitution, there need be a declared war for American military forces to be in Niger. (I assume you meant Niger, as per this column, but, hell, it could be anywhere on this Earth.)
Because it’s there.
So the troops in Europe are there because we have declared war?
South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, too?
You got my point, Jokem. America has no business quartering troops in any of these places for that same Constitutional reason.
About Korea, BTW: Do you know that it’s been 70 years this summer that 25-30 thousand American troops have been in Korea – not the same guys, mind you – started after the Korean War ended? It would take only 1/2 of these troops to fully guard the southern border of America 24/7/1900 miles! See Border control maintenance vs. defending some Koreans from other Koreans.
More precisely, the downside belongs to you and the upside to them.
Because your leaders do not want to stop PLUNDERING, that should be clear to all.
Durruti, I have a feeling you may get something out of the following comment, that I posted a little while ago in another JFK related thread here in UR:
https://www.unz.com/article/another-magical-jfk-assassination-pseudo-debate-and-limited-hangout/#comment-6155771
Hopefully some of the other readers in this thread will find it enlightening also.
Syria, Iraq, & Libya, are no more “shitholes” that our USA. They are Nations, with a citizenry who deserve peace & prosperity, & respect, just the same as our much abused people. From Maui, to Chicago, to East Palestine, our citizens are being denied protection, potable water, functioning infrastructure, and Political Representation.
The “shits” are the Foreign Oligarchs who control our economy, spit on our Constitution, and treat us as SLAVES.
Without Love, Respect for All, and the basic Humility a Free Citizenry is capable of achieving, WE THE PEOPLE will be unable to RISE and restore our Republic, (which was brutally destroyed in the Coup D’état of November 22, 1963).
The true “shithole” is our occupied & Gauleiter gov’t in Washington DC, that is filled with panicked & fearful servants of our Foreign Masters.
God Bless Robert Kennedy Jr., but he cannot succeed, any more than his Father, and Uncle, unless-
We Must Rise! There is no other way!
Your entire comment is accurate, well researched, and worthy of further circulation. One must identify the murderers, in order to bring them to justice.
Dylan’s song adds emotion to the struggle for JUSTICE.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=dylan+murder+most+foul&qpvt=dylan+murder+most+foul&mid=C0AAF0A13D70384B18D9C0AAF0A13D70384B18D9&&FORM=VRDGAR
Your Friend:
Dr. Peter J. Antonsen – nom de guerre, Durruti
Statesman Ron Paul, Senator Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, Jesse Ventura, Cynthia McKinney, —-
This is the time to unite with Robert Kennedy Jr., (Dennis Kucinich – Campaign Manager), and attempt construction of a Resurgence Political Movement. For those who still dream of a ‘3rd Political Party’ effort, Quit smoking the Marijuana, sober up. There are 2 political GANGS in America. Kennedy‘s charge against the dominant one, (Democrats), is a daring, brilliant political move. He is EXPOSING it’s leaders, one by one. He is opening up our Political Options.
Understand??? The Republicans have only the Orange Marshmallow (Casino Trump). If he attempts to oppose Kennedy, he will expose his CORRUPTION to the Republican Ranks, and IMPELL them to vote/support Kennedy.
*The opportunity is here. This may be the Movement we need, to break the Political Bonds that imprison us. Listen to the entire video. Listen carefully to every word – spoken by all the participants. THINK!!! It is no accident that this website’s Gatekeeper controllers (or their guest writers), have not discussed the MOST IMPORTANT POLITICAL MOVEMENT in our Nation’s history in 60 years. How? Why? have they missed this? Yes: my articles are banned from this website.
Video Link
Sorry Achmed, I don’t get your point. Congress approved stationing troops there, right? We have permission from the owning countries also, right?
About Korea vs (I assume) Mexico. I am having a hard time believing you do not see the difference.
1) We are not at war with Mexico.
2) Mexico is not a Nuclear Power.
3) Mexico has not tried to invade the USA or taken captive any of our naval vessels on the high seas.
4) Mexico is ruled by a somewhat corrupt (but not despotic) government.
5) I suppose I could go on, but the reasons are so obvious anyone should be able to see the difference.
A discussion about whether troops should be stationed there and whether the USA ought to be the worlds policeman may be worth it, but it is not a constitutional issue as far as I can see.
P.S.
The war has not ended…
If you want to see it, Jokem, go ahead and read the document yourself. It’s pretty short, but scan down to Article I, Section 8, para. 11.
Yes, indeed, there’s a very big difference between the Koreas and Mexico:
Something like 3 million people a year are pouring across America’s southern border – with Mexico – from that country, C/S America, Africa, China, Haiti, you freaking name it! In Korea, no people are invading America, and no Koreans will ever BE invading America IN KOREA.*
.
* Across the US southern or northern border, I wouldn’t expect it particularly, but who knows?
I hate to say it, Jokem, but honestly, your points (2), (3), and (4) sound like the words of a Neocon. I appreciate your having written comments under Libertarian/Constitutionalist Ron Paul for quite some time, and I would expect you agree with him a lot.
He would most certainly NOT agree with you on your numerical points. Unfortunately, I doubt Dr. Paul even knows his column appears here, much less would have time to read our comments. ;-}
I am not sure which is paragraph 11, but OK, will address both.
Congress has declared war in many cases in our history. Harry Truman jumped the gun in the case of Korea, so I presume if the first phrase is what you have issue with, then you have a point. I will say Congress followed up after the fact and ‘corrected’ that error.
As for the second phrase, Congress has this budget battle every year, but eventually appropriates the money. Each appropriation is ‘supposed’ to be for a 1 year period, I have never seen it go for 2 and certainly not longer than 2.
I am not sure how to state this, but each year is a separate appropriation and does not count as an extension of the prior years budget. It may look like that, but without the approval of Congress, the money stops.
And the vast majority are doing that to do productive work. I can’t see how that is an ‘invasion’.
GASP! All right, this means WAR! I am contacting Congress right now! ;->
My point being to underscore the difference in the threat level between the two countries and how Congress looks at Kim Jong Ugh as a dire threat, and rightly so.
https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=9ee1dd7b64c7dddbJmltdHM9MTY5NDkwODgwMCZpZ3VpZD0wODk1ZTFhYS0wYjc4LTY1ZTUtMDAwYy1mMjI1MGEwOTY0NGUmaW5zaWQ9NTIwNg&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=0895e1aa-0b78-65e5-000c-f2250a09644e&psq=fox+news+marjorie+taylor+green&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZm94bmV3cy5jb20vcG9saXRpY3MvaG91c2UtcmVtb3Zlcy1yZXAtbWFyam9yaWUtdGF5bG9yLWdyZWVuZS1mcm9tLWNvbW1pdHRlZXMtaW4tdW5wcmVjZWRlbnRlZC12b3Rl&ntb=1
Our Nation’s Totalitarian political system is well established. The habits of Tyranny are automatically applied. There is not even a pretense of respect for the Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and its 1st (most important) of all the Amendments.
From demented individuals, wheeled around by controllers, to individuals in Sweat Shirts, (who are unable to achieve Dress Decorum), to a Demented Gauleiter ‘President,’ to a Governor who cannot guarantee the victims of the Maui fire their Home Ownership (he wishes to remove the locals -victims) and establish a ‘National Park’ to replace where families once lived, to Congresswoman Margarie Taylor Green being thrown off Congressional committees (simply for voicing her views, her opposing views), We see the damage to our LIBERTY that is accrued when a Nation has its best leaders ASSASSINATED, its partially resisting handful of elected Representatives marginalized-intimidated, and its Citizens incapable of response.
* I refer to my earlier comment, #33.