Contradictions of the global capitalist order has translated into more reliance on repression and military aggressiveness on the part of the U.S. ruling class. The rationale and objective of increased militarism is to maintain the hegemony of the white supremacist, Pan-European, capitalist/colonialist, patriarchal order.
Domestically, this has meant an increase in mass Black incarceration, police killings, political surveillance and generalized repression represented by programs like the recently announced targeting of so-called Black Identity Extremists by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). Globally, the U.S. state has centered militarism as the central element of its strategy, with escalating and never-ending military interventions and unconventional warfare in the form of economic warfare. Yet using the military option, the state needs to generate popular support or at least its acquiesce and as a consequence that need represents a strategic vulnerability.
The link between the need to suppress African/Black oppositional forces and to project military power abroad is clear. The response from the African/Black revolutionary left is to build a powerful anti-war, anti-imperialist fightback to defend our communities in the United States and to attempt to put a brake on U.S. war plans globally.
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U.S. Out of Africa: Voices from the Struggle
Erica Caines is a coordinating committee and outreach team member of The Black Alliance For Peace as well as an outreach member of the Black working-class centered BAP member organization Ujima People’s Progress Party in Maryland. Caines is the founder of Liberation Through Reading. She is also co-editor of the African revolutionary blog, Hood Communist.
AWB: What is the 1033 program and what effect does it have on Black and Brown colonized and working classes?
Erica Caines: The 1033 program is a program that “transfers excess military equipment to civilian law enforcement agencies.” This program has been the key source of the most visible, big-ticket, military items being sent to local law enforcement throughout the country. Originally known as the 1208 Program, this program was created in 1990 for two specific reasons: to eliminate the military surplus waste following the Cold War, and to assist in the hardline federal push of the “war on drugs”.
Post 9/11 the transfers ramped up, and drastically expanded under the Obama administration. Between 2006 and 2014, law enforcement agencies amassed a collection of more than $1.5 billion of military equipment. The 1033 program became a more mainstream conversation during the Ferguson uprising when many people wondered, “how did a police department in a small town hardly anyone has heard of before Mike Brown, get their hands on *these* types of weapons?”
In 2015, under some pressure following the same use of force in Baltimore post the murder of Freddie Gray, President Obama issued an executive order to cut back the 1033 program. However, the program never ended. In 2017, the Trump administration reversed restrictions put in place by Obama’s executive order of the 1033 program. In his first weeks as President, Joe Biden announced that he would re-enforce the restrictions set in place initially by the Obama administration, of which he was Vice President. Despite calls to “defund the police” all of last year, the Biden administration announced no plans to end the 1033 program. Most recently, it has been reported that although Biden has not made 100 days as president, the transfer of military-grade weapons to local police departments has increased. Nearly $34 million in military equipment was sent to police in the first quarter of this year, according to the Pentagon’s latest figures on the 1033 program.
AWB: What is the connection between the militarization of police forces in the United States and what the U.S. does abroad through AFRICOM and the other military command structures?
Erica Caines: To understand the militarization of Black communities, which includes the use of Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) Unit whose origins are anchored in the take-down of Black liberation struggles in the US, it must be understood that Black people in the US have a colonial relationship with the larger society--- a relationship characterized by over-policing and institutional racism. Police are used to enforce the status quo of white ruling-class power and colonial control over the lives of Black, Brown, and other oppressed nations of people.
This relationship is a mirror image of the imperial relationship between the US and the continent. These similarities are most evident when we examine the use of the 1033 program and US military programs like AFRICOM, all seemingly used in so-called wars against “terrorism” and drugs.
AWB: How can we fight back?
Erica Caines: Imperialism should not only be understood as a global matter manifested through US military occupation. Imperialism is a domestic issue manifested through the occupation of our communities by militarized police forces. Just as the demand for #USOutOfAfrica and self-determination is key to the struggles on the continent, ending federal police programs like the 1033 program and community control (of police) are key factors in how we fight back. Neither can be done, however, without organized struggle.
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African Servant of Empire Dies in Chad Fighting
May 3, 2021 by Black Agenda Radio
The death of Chad president Idris Deby is a loss for the US and France, the top imperial powers in Africa, said Dr. Gerald Horne.
Why US will not grant Nigeria’s request to relocate AFRICOM to Africa — Pentagon
May 1, 2021 by Ihuoma Chiedozie
The US won’t grant Buhari’s request due to the cost of relocation and the impact on current operations. The claims in the article about the value of a HQ on the continent are dubious.
Nile Dam dispute could be heading to Security Council
April 30, 2021 by Al-Monitor
Complicated issue due to micro-nationalism and neo-colonialism that allows the US to impose itself in the situation.
West Africa is the Latest Testing Ground for US Military Artificial Intelligence
April 29, 2021 by Scott Timcke
In its preparation for great power competition, the US military is modernizing its artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques and testing them in West Africa.
It Began With Twelve, How Will It End? – Mozambique: AFRICOM’s Newest Adventure
April 9, 2021 by Danny Sjursen
The US intervention in Mozambique has the usual ingredients for the forever war recipe: it’s ill-advised, careless, easy entry-no clear exit, diversionary, and detached from national interests.
March 29, 2021 by Internationalist 360°
The European Union tried to repair the “great mistake” of the invasion of Libya, perpetrated by NATO a decade ago.
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Banner photo: A police officer watches protesters in Miami from an armored vehicle on May 31, 2020. (Ricardo Arduengo/Getty Images)