AFRICOM and the spreading of democracy

Interesting stuff on 'Democracy Now' from Jeremy Keenan, a Professor of social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.(1) The conclusion would appear to be that not only do the Africans not want AFRICOM messing up their messed up continent even more than their despotic leaders are capable of doing themselves, but also the rationale behind that organisation is very different from the "blah, blah, blah, spreading of democracy" that Washington would like us to believe. What it does in fact mean is the primacy of the military in an American foreign policy that is aimed at securing Africa's mineral reserves in general and its oil reserves in particular for "Uncle Sam". Bad enough but when Keenan goes on to outline the details of the lie that spawned AFRICOM, we really should be more than a trifle worried.
The evidence would appear to suggest that the Algerian president, Abdelazis Bouteflika, colluded with George W Bush back in 2003 and that it was the "Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurite" (DRS), the Algerian state intelligence service, which was responsible for kidnapping various groups of tourists throughout the year. It was those kidnapping that gave Bush not only the pretext to contend that terrorism had not left Africa, but also provided the basis of his ridiculous assertion that Al-Qaeda had returned to the continent. AFRICOM was born but let us make no mistake about it, its' mission is not, and never was, to promote democracy in the region but rather to provide a military solution to secure "Uncle Sam's" hegemony and geopolitical goals in a part of the globe where the Chinese in particular are becoming serious competitors. Moreover, with Obama most definitely following in the footsteps of his predecessor not only in Africa but also in Afghanistan and elsewhere, it really is difficult to believe that there is much more to this "hype" fellow than the hype itself. In the meantime it is time for us to shout down the hypocrites and make some effort to show them for what they are.