US President George W. Bush is winding up his tour of Africa in Liberia. His penultimate stop - Ghana - was the scene of a press conference where, without prompting, he answered his own question. Here's today's Washington Post (be sure to check out the video clip)
"The purpose of this is not to add military bases," Bush said without being asked at the opening of a session with reporters here. "I know there's rumors in Ghana -- 'All Bush is coming to do is try to convince you to put a big military base here.' That's baloney. Or as we say in Texas, that's bull."
"Baloney," for English As A Foreign Language readers, is American for "nonsense." "Bull" is short for bullsh.. but you've probably learned that one already. Anyway, if Bush wanted to dispel rumors, he need not have exerted himself: Africa had been prepared for the non-news - all week.
On the eve of the President's departure for Africa, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley told reporters "No AFRICOM Announcement Expected During President's Africa Trip."
Then on Monday, the BBC cited AFRICOM Commander General William Ward as saying that
The US military has decided to keep the base of its new Africa Command in Germany for now, after only one African nation, Liberia, offered to host it.
Despite all the non-news, Ghanaian President John Kufuor appreciated hearing it from his US counterpart. Again, the Washington Post:
Bush said Wednesday that it [AFRICOM] may have "some kind of office somewhere in Africa" but not a full-fledged base. Kufuor expressed relief. "I am happy . . . for the president dispelling any notion that the United States of America is intending to build military bases on the continent of Africa," he said.
"Some kind of office," as President Bush said, does not mean a classic military base. But President Kufuor might temper his relief as long as Bush is in the White House. CENTCOM, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, did not require an American "base" in the Middle East to launch war on Iraq. And "some kind of office" - in the case of a headquarters for an American four star general - is not your typical storefront operation. The minimal "footprint" for such a joint venture, with all branches of the US military represented, along with - atypically in the case of AFRICOM - a particularly strong diplomatic and development cadre, is several hundred people.
The operative question is not "bases" but intent. Personally, I do not think that the US needs "bases" in Africa to accomplish the stated goals of AFRICOM
U.S. Africa Command will enable DOD to better focus its resources to support and enhance existing U.S. initiatives that help African nations, the African Union, and the regional economic communities succeed. It also provides African nations and regional organizations an integrated DOD coordination point to help address security and related needs.
My concern is strangely congruent with that of President Bush: that AFRICOM has become synonymous with America-in-Africa, so much so that it crowded out the other (civilian) initiatives that he wanted to highlight during his week-long trip. If Bush has to stage his own Q & A at a press conference, it's because when African leaders hear "Bush" and "AFRICOM" in the same sentence, they think unilateralism, "with us or against us," preemptive strike, GWOT, and all the other initiatives of the last eight years.
A couple of weeks ago, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer addressed a conference on AFRICOM at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Her remarks on timing and perspective are downright uncanny for a Bush Administration official:
From a public diplomacy perspective, it has generated mixed reactions from African elites and questions from American and international stakeholders where it should have sent a message of partnership that was and is at the heart of our policy. Instead, it provoked fears of militarization of American policy, fears resulting as much from images of Iraq as from anything actually communicated by AFRICOM. Perhaps had AFRICOM been launched in 2002, before images of the war in Iraq flooded the airwaves, it would have happened without such a negative reaction. Probably, in two or three years, this wave of hostility will have passed.
Indeed. But Iraq is a reality, and so is Bush, until January 20, 2009.
With all the non-news from AFRICOM, we may be - as the Washington Post quoted J. Stephen Morrison, co-director of the Africa Program at CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington - "in a quiet phase where they're trying to build up their credibility and their consultations." Africa's message has been heard.