OF THE
TIMES
Captain Amadou Sanogo: Power is his Middle Name
Think Africa Press, 29 March 2012
[...]
Captain Sanogo, 39 (or 40 by some accounts), was working as an army English instructor prior to the coup. He had earlier served on the training staff at the Ecole Militaire Inter-Armes in Koulikoro, Mali's officer training school, but was dismissed last October along with the rest of the staff after a hazing incident that left five officer candidates dead. (Sanongo himself was not present on the day of the incident.)
In an interview with a Malian newspaper, Sanogo said he began his army career as an enlisted man, attending training at the US Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, before receiving infantry and English language training at Fort Benning, Georgia. He subsequently was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and attended further US-based training.
As described in both the New York Times and the Washington Post, Sanogo attended the Defense Language Institute (Lackland Air Force Base, Texas) and gained intelligence training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Sanogo also claims to have undergone US-sponsored counterterrorism and crisis response training in Morocco and elsewhere on the African continent.
Sanogo's experience in the US appears to have left its mark on him. Since the coup, Sanogo has appeared with a US Marine Corps 'eagle, globe and anchor' pinned prominently above the right breast pocket of his fatigues, as shown in the image below from March 22, the day after the coup, on Africable TV.
[...]
"Fiercely anti-American lyrics from Korean rapper Psy have been unearthed just two weeks before the star is scheduled to perform for President Obama.The Guardian, Friday:
"The 'Gangnam Style' singer calls for US soldiers to be killed in one song, prompting a short-lived petition to ax Psy from the bill at the Christmas in Washington celebration.
"In 2004, Psy rapped on a South Korean metal band's song, 'Dear American', at a protest concert, The Washington Post reported. 'Kill those f---ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives', he said. 'Kill those f---ing Yankees who ordered them to torture. Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers. Kill them all slowly and painfully.'
"Two years earlier, after a pair of Korean schoolgirls were mowed down by a U.S.-operated armored vehicle, Psy again expressed vitriol toward America. Onstage, he smashed a plastic model of a U.S. tank into pieces as the crowd cheered, The Korea Herald reported.
"Psy apologized in a statement to the Daily News, adding that the song in question is from nearly a decade ago, and was 'part of a deeply emotional reaction to the war in Iraq and the killing of two Korean schoolgirls.'"
"The US military is facing fresh questions over its targeting policy in Afghanistan after a senior army officer suggested that troops were on the lookout for 'children with potential hostile intent'".
"In comments which legal experts and campaigners described as 'deeply troubling', army Lt Col Marion Carrington told the Marine Corp Times that children, as well as 'military-age males', had been identified as a potential threat because some were being used by the Taliban to assist in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. . . .
"In the article, headlined 'Some Afghan kids aren't bystanders', Carrington referred to a case this year in which the Afghan national police in Kandahar province said they found children helping insurgents by carrying soda bottles full of potassium chlorate.
"The piece also quoted an unnamed marine corps official who questioned the 'innocence' of Afghan children, particularly three who were killed in a US rocket strike in October. Last month, the New York Times quoted local officials who said Borjan, 12, Sardar Wali, 10, and Khan Bibi, eight, from Helmand's Nawa district had been killed while gathering dung for fuel.
"However, the US official claimed that, before they called for the strike on suspected insurgents planting improvised explosive devices, marines had seen the children digging a hole in a dirt road and that 'the Taliban may have recruited the children to carry out the mission'. . . .
"'When you get to the suggestion that children with potentially hostile intent may be perceived to be legitimate targets is deeply troubling and unlawful,' [said Pardiss Kebriaei, senior attorney of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a specialist in targeted killings]."
Whatever else one wants to say, the US is a country that, for more than a decade, has loudly and continuously declared itself to be a "nation at war". It's not "at war" in any one county, but in many countries around the globe.
Comment: "A coherent programme built on respect for human rights and ethnic tolerance."
That's rich coming from a regime that is conservatively estimated to have directly or indirectly killed between 7.5 and 11.5 million people around the world from WWII to 2004 [see Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses by Mark Curtis].