The One Question That WON’T Be Asked About U.S. Troops in Niger

October 30, 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 its troops to Niger?

So then what gives the U.S. the right to station its troops in virtually every single country in the world?!?

Reason one: “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.” Quiet as it’s kept (and the longer answer can be seen in Bob Avakian’s new filmed speech, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible), the U.S. imperialist system has both created the basis for reactionary armed jihadist movements to arise and to a certain extent supported their rise, at least initially, when they could aim these forces against their rivals and against other more secular revolutionary or radical movements. And there is the fact of the far greater terror by the U.S., its proxy Israel, and its puppet governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.—including wars of aggression either launched against, provoked, or maneuvered in, in the countries of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Iran, and so on.

When all else fails, there is what Bob Avakian (BA) called “the great tautological fallacy” in that recent speech, the notion that “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 other than the overwhelming force they have. Force in the service of imperialist empire. Force that is utterly illegitimate, that must be opposed and, ultimately, defeated and dismantled in a real revolution.

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