When it was reported that amerikkkan special forces troops were killed in Niger, the only thing people got crazy about was whether or not trump called the families of the dead soldiers. I was curious as to what the fuck they were doing in Niger in the first fucking place. Well, this article asks the same question :
The One Question That WON’T Be Asked About U.S. Troops in Niger
October 28, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Here’s a question about the firefight involving U.S. troops in the West African nation of Niger that you won’t hear from some senator or commentator on CNN:
“What the FUCK is the U.S. Army doing in Niger in the first place?”
Think about it. Or imagine this: People in Niger hear that Black people in America are being shot down by police and then the police are not tried or, if they are tried, are acquitted 67 percent of the time. They further learn that this is the spearpoint of a whole genocidal program that includes mass incarceration, discrimination in every sphere of society, denial and stripping away of basic civil rights, and demonization by politicians and the media. And on top of that they learn that the new Trump/Pence administration is promising, and already carrying out, a far worse escalation of all this.
Does Niger then send its soldiers to the U.S. to stop such terror from going on, or to even offer training to the U.S. police? Obviously not. But wouldn’t Niger certainly have at least as much right to do that as the U.S. does to send itstroops to Niger?
So then what gives the U.S. the right to station its troops in virtually every single country in the world?!? “Oh, we’ve been asked to come in” (and if the Niger government didn’t ask them, the U.S. would try to overthrow it). “Oh, we have to defend our people in the U.S. in case some Islamic fundamentalist jihadist terrorist in Niger comes over here” (and do you really think that there would even be jihadist terrorism in the first place were it not for (a) the far greater terrorism carried out by the U.S., its proxy Israel, and its puppet governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc., and (b) the long years spent building up jihadist terrorism when that suited U.S. interests in moving against the Soviet Union and movements like the secular Palestinian liberation movements?). And when all else fails, there is what Bob Avakian (BA) called “the great tautological fallacy” in his recent speech, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible:
America is a force for good in the world, and therefore whatever it does is good (or at least done with “good intentions”), even if the same thing when done by other forces, especially forces opposed to “us,” is bad, is evil—because... because America is a force for good in the world.
And BA goes on to show over and over again how this has served and still serves as the thinnest cover for acts of towering atrocity and horror. In fact, nothing gives the U.S. armed forces the “right” to be in Niger or in any of the other 150 or so countries that they’re stationed in but the overwhelming force they have. Force in the service of imperialist empire.
