Kenya has formed a new anti-terrorism unit, the Ranger Strike Force, as part of major reforms in the military. According to Kenya’s The Nation newspaper (via allAfrica):
Formed with the assistance of the United States Government, the new unit has been behind a number of security operations on the Kenya-Somalia border to prevent terrorist infiltration by al-Qaeda terror group and al-Shabaab militias from war-torn Somalia.
According to a report of the US State Department’s Office of the Coordinator of Counter-terrorism, the mandate for the unit covers operations against infiltrators and armed groups, including terrorists.
As with so many stories in which the United States is involved in Africa, the interpretations to this one can go in wildly diverging directions. To wit:
1) Reform in Kenya’s military was long overdue, and no military, least of all one adjacent to Somalia (and that has faced its own terrorist attacks in the past), can afford to overlook combating terrorism as a significant operational goal. The United States’ help is simply a practicality, and if this program goes forward as everyone hopes, it will show the proper way for legitimate US partnerships with Africa.
Or:
2) The United States is using Kenya’s current status as a country in flux and its need tom transform the military to impose American goals and American values and American priorities on a country that needs the support and so is not in a position to dictate a course of action.
So . . .
The reality is that either one of these could prove to be right. But while I am far from an apologist for America’s tortured, self-interest-driven policy in Africa, for the time being I am going to maintain that option #1 seems like the most viable (if also the most charitable) interpretation. Whatever one feels about American anti- and counter-terrorism policies over the last eight years (and my record of criticism of the Bush administration is pretty clear) the reality of the various threats that terrorism poses in the Horn of Africa are pretty demonstrable. And this sort of collaboration if done right (and that’s a key qualifier, because the US has done relatively little right with regard to Africa policies over the years) has the potential to lead the way as a model for US-African military/strategic/political alliances. (Of course it also has the potential to prove to be another in a long line of frustrating quasi-alliances, thus #2 still remains on the table. Time, as they say, will tell. I am going to take the optimistic tack.)
