MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Dina Lyakhovich) - American troops attract terrorists like magnet attracts metal. African and Asian countries have made this conclusion four and a half years after the Iraqi campaign began.
U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, started functioning as the Pentagon's newest regionally focused headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, because Liberia was the only country to offer its territory for AFRICOM's headquarters.
President George W. Bush set the goal of establishing the command last February. AFRICOM is projected to become a fully operational unified command by October 2008, and expects its headquarters in Germany, opened on October 1, 2007, to be temporary.
The new command has extensive, even if a bit vague, tasks, such as promoting stability and civic development, improving living standards and preventing the spread of terrorism, training African servicemen and supplying weapons, and bringing medical aid to Africa.
It all sounds good and noble, but why then have the majority of African states, which hardly ever refuse humanitarian, economic and military aid, said "no" to the Americans? Washington was taken aback.
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http://www.en.rian.ru/analysis/20071008/82992708.html