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Reviews for The Dark Sahara

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    The Dark Sahara: America's War on Terror in Africa5

    Mark Thwaite The world is a very big place, so it is easy to take your eye off all of the ball and focus on just one tiny part. Whilst the media decides that at any particular moment our attention should be focussed on Iraq or Iran or North Korea lots of other things are, inevitably, going on in lots of other places. Whilst few of us have the time or energy or intellectual capability to be experts on the entire gamut of global foreign policy, we should at least be aware then when one particular country is nominated for attention as Public Enemy Number One that means that issues in the rest of the world are, simultaneously, being quite deliberately pushed off the news agenda.



    Whilst the world's attention has recently been focussed on the problems of the Middle East, the administration of George Bush II was building a worryingly substantial military presence in Africa. Ostensibly, this was to "combat the growth of Al-Qaeda in Somalia, Algeria and other countries on the continent." Jeremy Keenan shows, however, in his shocking and excellent book Dark Sahara: America's War on Terror in Africa, that it is a myth to suggest that Africa is a dangerous hot-bed of Islamist terrorism. According to Keenan, the American government -- along with the anti-Islamic government of Algeria -- "were responsible for hostage takings blamed on Islamic militants... allowing the US to establish military bases in the region and pursue multiple imperial objectives in the name of security."



    This is a disquieting book, but an essential one, showing that it is America's interference in the 'dark continent' that is making it such a dangerous place creating chaos that supports and advances America's own neo-imperialist agenda. Sadly, America is not the world's blameless white knight, and Africa-expert Jeremy Keenan is to be congratulated for showing just how far its actions diverge from its profoundly inaccurate self-image. by Mark Thwaite

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