Evaluate Africas Global Role & Response in Breeding Terrorist Safe Havens Discussion – Assignment Help

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1. Respond to the following two posts: 250 words and 1 source

Agree or disagree in your response

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“Evaluate Africa’s global role and response in breeding terrorist safe havens

Defend U.S. policy on direct action against these organizations.

Location is everything (Wiles). You take the positioning of Africa, the size – 54 different countries with porous borders making it easy to move around, add in weak infrastructure, lack of governance and poor finances…you have a continent that is ripe to be exploited by various extremist groups. There are beliefs to be forced on others, there are men who crave power and money and there are people who are poor and just looking for a better way to survive and live. It is amazing how one “product” can be at the root of funding, empowering and entrapping so many on a global scale. Agent Hubbard spoke to drugs with the statement, “every transient country eventually becomes a consumer”. West Africa security and development are just two examples of the destabilizing impact of drugs. According to the Executive Director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, “drug cartels buy more than real estate, banks and businesses, they buy elections, candidates, and parties. In a word they buy power”(Lecture). I was once told by a mentor that Leadership is always the problem, and leadership is always the answer. Through the various videos presented in this week’s module, we saw that when leadership comes together, powerful things can happen. Sadly, that can be said for both “sides”. In the interview with acting DEA agent Tony Hubbard, he speaks to the importance of partnerships. America can not defeat narco terrorists alone. This was reflected in the CBS news report on March 5, 2019, of the U.S. Military’s training efforts for African forces in Burkino Faso – Equipping local military leaders on how to secure their territory and protect their people. We also saw the same form of leadership in the second video when terrorists were videoed using trained military action to cause violent harm. This emphasizes that we must do what it takes to maintain the upper hand. Thomas M. Harrigan, Asst. Administrator and Chief of Operations in his congressional testimony highlights multiple facets to accomplish this, “By denying DTOs the revenue from the distribution of illegal drugs, the drug traffickers’ capability to acquire or produce additional drugs and support their organizations is hampered. DEA’s perspective on the money laundering threat is two-fold: first, DEA is focused on proceeds generated by the illegal drug industry; second, DEA is addressing the threat that drug proceeds represent as a means of financing international terrorist organizations”. He further goes on to communicate the International Drug Flow Attack Strategy, which has the primary objective to cause major disruption to the flow of drugs, money, and chemicals between the source zones and the United States. The strategy includes an integrated intelligence enforcement process that rests on four pillars: intelligence-driven enforcement, sequential operations, predictive intelligence, and law enforcement deception campaigns. To stem the flow of drugs into the U.S., DEA will continue to implement this successful Drug Flow Attack Strategy by expanding enforcement initiatives with our global law enforcement partners and the military. Where applicable, DEA will begin to engage African counterparts in these initiatives and develop Africa specific enforcement initiatives. To defend the U.S. policy on this front against these violent organizations, I can not say that I am confident that we have always chosen the correct course of action. It has to be a balance of capacity with establishing law and order as well as ensuring reformation in corrupt leaders with renewed social contracts with citizens. Efforts will fail as long as impunity prevails and local armies can kill civilians and topple governments without consequence (Schmidt). As we heard many times, “we must stay vigilant”.

Works Cited:

CBS NEWS. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/west-africa-becomes-terror-hotspot-as-u-s-scales-back-military-presence/ (Links to an external site.)

CBS NEWS. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/footage-shows-gunmen-looking-for-victims-in-kenya-terror-attack/

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2. Respond to the following two posts: 250 words and 1 source

Agree or disagree in your response

—

Defend U.S. policy on direct action against these organizations.

As some of our classmates have pointed out, terrorism in Africa is similar to terrorism everywhere else. What’s so interesting about terrorism in the continent and more specifically Sub-Saharan Africa is that while Islamist extremist groups have dominated the rise of terrorism in this region, tribal and regional differences also play a major role and the struggle is at least as much one for power as over religion per se. Stability, and conversely the level of terrorism, is highly dependent on the quality of governance and popular support and unity, which helps explain the high level of differences between neighboring states.1 (Cordesman, 2017). Due to this instability terrorist groups have take refuge in African countries to wait out their plans within these ‘safe havens’. For example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), one of the biggest threats they have is the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and their partnership with ISIS. When ISIS was somewhat defeated in 2017 by Syria and Iran’s military, they proceeded to move into areas in Africa, primarily the DRC, to continue out its plans. The very first recorded attack by ISIS in the DRC happened in Bovata which is located in the North Kivu province 2. It consisted of 2 soldiers and a civilian being killed. This led to more and more violence from ISIS within this province – every attack killing or injuring soldiers and civilians primarily at Congolese military bases – Draps, 2019. The attacks throughout the DRC and countries in Africa just like it are displacing thousands of civilian and causing them to flee. Same with the Boko Haram in Nigeria or the Al-Shabaab in Somalia, these groups are posing great threats to Africa and to global communities.

In an effort to attacks, many African governments have waged a war against terrorism, notably the United States playing a strong role in reinforcing the counterterrorism for them as well. There have been many efforts to combat these groups. The current head of state for Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, weighed most of his presidency of the fact that there needed to be an end to the terror being spread by these groups. U.S. Counterterrorism efforts have included creating a joint military task force, creating the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, and designating ISIS-Democratic Republic of the Congo and ISIS-Mozambique as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists, or SDGTs for short.3 This has given the U.S. government more of an opening to try and assist countries where needed. I think that the U.S. and global allies do have an opportunity to step in and assist and help to create a more solid infrastructure to support African governments. However, places like the U.S., Britain and France have all been colonizers of the continent in the past so there has to be an understanding that they are going in to truly support these countries, otherwise, they are just adding more fuel to the fire.

Works Cited:

1Cordesman , Anthony H. “The Patterns in Global Terrorism: 1970-2016.” The Patterns in Global Terrorism: 1970-2016 | Center for Strategic and International Studies, 28 Aug. 2017, www.csis.org/analysis/patterns-global-terrorism-1970-2016.