Factual Dispatch #58: Killmonger Worldwide
Coup-in-a-box, posture locations, and being a good neighbor
I’m concerned the Pentagon might be creating Unnecessary Revolutions through its officer training program. Not through arming the rebels or deploying our troops, but by creating wave after wave of the MCU’s Killmonger that go back home (or to Haiti, for some reason it’s always Haiti), see the state of things, and think “Yea, we can run this. Arrest the president, get the Tanks.”
The Niger junta includes at least five soldiers who were trained by the USA. There have been 8 coups in Africa since 2020, and with two coming in a single month this year. Niger, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, another destabilization in Sudan, and Mali had two since Aug 2020. That is…a lot of coups, too many coups as it were. Incredibly, I think the USA isn’t responsible for it directly, but we’re not…not making them worse.
The allure of backing foreign militia/extremists/fascists is multi-faceted. They do all the work and you have people on the inside when it’s all done. Until you don’t, as most famously illustrated by Manuel Noriega, the CIA asset-then-autocrat of Panama. (Fun fact! Before he rose through the ranks of the Panamanian military, he disrupted trade unions for United Fruit Company)
Conspiracy theorists and anti-government Gribbles can go on for hours about how the USA has helped overthrow dozens of governments around the world. Sometimes by funding insurgent groups, sometimes by swinging elections, and sometimes by straight up freeing the shit out of them. Providing one side with Pentagon table scraps can swing the tide of most conflicts, just ask Russia in the mid-80s or mid-20s.
But, we used to legitimately “defend” democracy, whatever that meant. In 1991, the first democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was replaced with military rule, and a three year reign of terror, including arrest and torture of over 5000 Aristide supporters. So, year after the events of Black Hawk Down, in 1994 , we pushed 25,000 of all forces to “retake Haiti.” But the junta didn’t think they would, because one member of the military junta was CIA, feeding us info on the regime. A generation later, the USA admitted that a “a small few” of the Colombian military that assassinated the Haitian president a few years ago, were trained by the US military, with some even being DEA and FBI informants. This time, around we had no hand in it, except having taught or funded people who had a hand in it, in the past.
After graduation from the Apex Technical School for Revolution, whoever the Pentagon trains, gets to keep the tools and go home. We can keep F-22s out of the hands of our closest allies, but we somehow can’t keep a running list of who the DEA, CIA, FBI, and Pentagon use as informants, train for regime change, or have sold weapons to.
We’re not orchestrating these, but we’ve taught masterclasses on how to hundreds of military officers over the years, which seems…fraught. Given the luxurious levels of vetting, transparency, and due diligence the Pentagon is known for (Editor’s Note: Please excuse the seething sarcasm, our writer was given tea and head pats.), maybe arming <Insert Officer Name Here> with the “How to Lose A Government In 30 Days” Handbook is something we should maybe do…less? So that we don’t roll the Revolution Dice whenever a new class graduates from the Killmonger Bootcamp.
Maybe the military doesn’t care and is using the fog of DIY rebellion to build out permanent drone posts in Africa. Quick question, am I the last person to find out the US Air Force has a $250 million base in Africa? Air Base 201, along with 11-17 other “posture locations,” some of which are “enduring bases,” both incredible euphemisms for “military installation on foreign soil.
Without wading into the wider head-assery of the “world’s policeman” arguments, Congress should probably be in the loop if we’re going to drop half a billion for a dozen Air Force bases on a DIFFERENT fucking continent. But hey, since we’re on continent with all of these resources, maybe the Air Force can provide relief efforts for the first earthquake in Northern Africa in 120 years. But given their anemic response to the Hawaii wildfires, I won’t hold my breath. Here’s some Palestinian folk-breakbeat to play you out.
Keep Your Head Up,
T