Military Archives - Institute of the Black World 21st Century

A convoy of AFRICOM's armored vehicles drive to the Uganda People’s Defence Force compound in Mogadishu, Somalia

Violence Has Spiked in Africa Since the Military Founded AFRICOM

By IBW21News & Current Affairs

By Nick Turse, The Intercept — Since U.S. Africa Command began operations in 2008, the number of U.S. military personnel on the African continent has jumped 170 percent, from 2,600 to 7,000. The number of military missions, activities, programs, and exercises there has risen 1,900 percent, from 172 to 3,500. Drone strikes have soared and the number of commandos deployed has increased exponentially along with the size and scope of AFRICOM’s constellation of bases. The U.S. military has recently conducted 36…

August 5, 2019

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Exclusive: U.S. Has More Military Operations in Africa Than the Middle East

By IBW21Editors' Choice

By Nick Turse, Vice — The deadly ambush in Niger last October that left four U.S. serviceman dead prompted months of hand-wringing inside the Pentagon. But that botched operation, which drew national attention to U.S. counterterror operations throughout Africa should not have shocked military leadership, the former commander of U.S. Special Operations forces in Africa told VICE News. “These weren’t the first casualties, either. We had them in Somalia and…

December 14, 2018

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J.C.H. Grabill/Library of Congress The caption says: Famous Battery “E” of 1st Artillery. These brave men and the Hotchkiss gun that Big Foot’s Indians thought were toys, together with the fighting 7th what’s left of Gen. Custer’s boys, sent 200 Indians to that Heaven which the ghost dancer enjoys. This checked the Indian noise and Gen. Miles with staff returned to Illinois.

What White Supremacists Know

By IBW21Commentaries/Opinions, Editors' Choice

The violent theft of land and capital is at the core of the U.S. experiment: the U.S. military got its start in the wars against Native Americans. By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Boston Review — The United States has been at war every day since its founding, often covertly and often in several parts of the world at once. As ghastly as that sentence is, it still does not capture the full…

November 26, 2018

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A marine carries a Haitian refugee child at Camp McCalla in Guantánamo Bay in 1992

Remembering Haitian Internment in Trump’s America

By IBW21Commentaries/Opinions

For Haitian refugees, Trump is not a new abomination, or even a reincarnation of former Haitian exclusion, but rather a continuation of persecution against Haitians fleeing instability that U.S. empire has itself contributed to… By Miriam Pensack, NACLA — While the U.S. body politic flounders to tease out the exceptional from the troublingly normal in Trump’s America, those inclined to even the most critical forms of pre-2016 nostalgia might forget…

August 17, 2018

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Maj. Gen. Roger L. Cloutier Jr., the chief of staff for U.S. Africa Command, at the Pentagon on May 10. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

The future is African — and the United States is not prepared

By IBW21Commentaries/Opinions

By Salih Booker and Ari Rickman, The Washington Post — Salih Booker is the executive director of the Center for International Policy. Ari Rickman is a research fellow at the Center. Beginning in 2035, the number of young people reaching working age in Africa will exceed that of the rest of the world combined, and will continue every year for the rest of the century. By 2050, one in every…

June 8, 2018

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The Second Sight of W.E.B. Du Bois

By IBW21Editors' Choice

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com — Chris Hedges gave this talk Friday at the Left Forum in New York City. W.E.B. Du Bois, more than any intellectual this nation produced in the first half of the 20th century, explained America to itself. He did this not only through what he called the “color line” but by exposing the intertwining of empire, capitalism and white supremacy. He deftly fused academic disciplines. He possessed unwavering…

June 6, 2018

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The Untold Story of Memorial Day: Former Slaves Honoring and Mourning the Dead

By IBW21Editors' Choice

The African-American history of the federal holiday has been nearly wiped from public memory. By Sarah Lazare, AlterNet — Union General John Logan is often credited with founding Memorial Day. The commander-in-chief of a Union veterans’ organization called the Grand Army of the Republic, Logan issued a decree establishing what was then named “Decoration Day” on May 5, 1868, declaring it “designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating…

May 25, 2018

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The Necessity of Moral Resistance in the Face of Militarism — Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II

By IBW21Video/Audio

May 6th, 2018 – Confronting head-on America’s war economy and militarism, the necessity of non-violent moral dissent, moral resistance and moral vision is the theme of this powerful speech delivered by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach; and the Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, at the historic New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington,…

May 14, 2018

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A US Army Special Forces sergeant oversees the marksmanship training of a Niger Army soldier during Exercise Flintlock 2017 in Diffa, Niger

The US Military Expansion in Africa, One “Lily Pad” at a Time

By IBW21Editors' Choice

A US Army Special Forces sergeant oversees the marksmanship training of a Niger Army soldier during Exercise Flintlock 2017 in Diffa, Niger., Christopher Klutts/US Army Using the “lily pad” strategy of “temporary” troop deployments, the US now has an “imperial-scale” military presence in Africa. With troops in more than 15 countries the US expansion has become self-justifying. The US must now stay in Africa to protect the interests of the…

April 16, 2018

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Demonstrators carry banners as they march during a protest in Ghana's capital Accra, March 28, 2018

‘Ghana not for sale’: Protesters march in Accra against military deal with US

By IBW21Editors' Choice

A controversial pact, in which the US military wants to invest $20 million and get access to Ghana’s runways and communications, set off rallies in the West African nation, with people chanting their country is “not for sale.” Thousands of people flocked to the streets of Accra, the capital of Ghana, to protest a military deal the government recently signed with the US. As part of the agreement, Washington would…

March 29, 2018

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