Thread by @WaywardRabbler

Explaining the @RepMattGaetz Interrogation on US-Trained African Coup Leaders

A thread 🪡

1/24

@RepMattGaetz recently had an excellent performance in Congress, where he interviewed the head of US Africa Command, General Langley, about the string of coups led by US-trained military leaders:

https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1638940397693968395?s=20

2/24

@RepMattGaetz did a very good job, but, I don't know if he understands the larger international relations story here, or if he considers it inconvenient to his narrative, which is the noble goal of getting US troops out of Africa:

https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1640820913804390400?s=20

3/24

Most commentors seem to think these are US-backed coups to place friendly governments.

For example, the normally erudite @ggreenwald seems to have gotten this entirely wrong:

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1638951294877442064?s=20

4/24

I would have assumed the same thing, except that I happened to write about this subject recently, something I only covered due to noticing an extreme amount of terrorist violence in #BurkinaFaso. I did mostly miss US training aspect though:

thewaywardrabbler.substack.com/p/in-search-of…

5/24

@nickturse, the main one of "our people" who covers Africa, and whom Gaetz entered into the record, was on an episode of @intercepted about this last year, explaining the way this has destabilized Africa

theintercept.com/2022/03/09/int…

6/24

What almost everyone is missing [though @nickturse mentions it briefly in a recent article for @RollingStone] is this: these are not US backed coups, they are losing control of people they have trained who then have anti-Western coups and align their countries with Russia.

7/24

Of the 5 countries with coups or attempts that @nickturse explains in the @intercepted podcast, the [alleged] coup attempt in #Gambia failed, and juntas in #Mauritania, #Guinea, #BurkinaFaso, and #Mali have all pulled closer to #Russia.

8/24

There is in fact a full blown "Tournament of Shadows" for the "Dark Continent," this is why US Secretary of State Antony Blinken just made the first ever SoS visit to Niger, and Kamala Harris is in Africa right now

apnews.com/article/us-bli…

9/24

But the thing is #Russia is in a far better position in this region for a variety of reasons, most of all the West's condescending attitude and the history of exploitation, something you could learn from any @Reuters thread:

thewaywardrabbler.substack.com/p/the-exclusiv…

10/24

Guinea had bad relations with France for a long time, so that coup didn't really change a lot, though I wish I would have found that picture @RepMattGaetz displayed while writing my piece.

Here's from 2009:

theguardian.com/world/2009/sep…

11/24

However the other governments, until recently, were French-aligned. Russian FM #Lavrov recently had a much more fruitful trip through the region than US figures, stopping in #Mauritania, one of the coup countries, last month:

france24.com/en/africa/2023…

12/24

The #Mali junta expelled French troops in 2022, after an unsuccessful decade long counter-terror operation:

bbc.com/news/world-604…

13/24

This was followed by #BurkinaFaso's junta expelling French troops earlier this year.

aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/22…

14/24

Russia is providing these countries with high tech military equipment, which is much more affordable than anything they can get from the West

france24.com/en/live-news/2…

15/24

It is widely believed that #WagnerPMC is operating in several countries in this region, something which greatly upsets the Western policy class. Of course, everyone knows the cause of terrorism exploding is when they overthrew #Gadaffi
foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/25/rus…

16/24

It isn't clear the scale of #Wagner's presence in Africa, if at all, though they appear to at least be in the #CentralAfricanRepublic. However, these countries are not being shy about moving towards #Russia.

ispionline.it/en/publication…

17/24

Most notably, #Mali is now voting WITH #Russia at the #UN, whereas before it was one of many #Africa countries to abstain, the US-trained junta leader has wholly aligned with Russia

https://twitter.com/UN_News_Centre/status/1628858093072224256?s=20

18/24

#Guinea, #Mali, and #BurkinaFaso are even considering forming a union of pro-Russian juntas! This is about as poorly as the game could be going for the West.

reuters.com/world/africa/b…

19/24

Strangely, the US is so routed and short on ideas in this region, it is giving direct new funding to pro-Russia juntas

state.gov/150-million-in…

20/24

This region only strategically matters because it is being contested, but it is clear the US will be left looking like a bunch of bitches, especially if the US #Africa strategy is as weak as "Send in #Kamala"

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1640866369469128709?s=20

21/24

The US/French-Russia influence struggle in #Africa is going in #Russia's favor in a big way for a variety of reasons, and training all these soldiers has indeed been a counter-productive waste in every way. The US taxpayers take another one for the team.

22/24

Most importantly, these are simply not US backed coups in #Africa. They lost control of their pawns like jackasses. No one in the government is playing 4D chess here, this is a policy failure pure and simple. #Francophone W Africa is now Russia-aligned.

-30-

23/24

Thank you for reading. I am still learning to write in the thread format. If you enjoyed this, please follow on Twitter and subscribe to my @SubstackInc , where I write in normal prose, including my huge piece on this topic linked above

thewaywardrabbler.substack.com

24/24