Bush's Africa burden

The White House scramble for Africa came to an end this week -- symbolically, at least. During his tour of the continent, President Bush seized every opportunity to boast of his innovative approaches to African health and development issues. But he kept strangely silent about what may be his administration's most enduring legacy for Africa: AFRICOM, the most significant U.S. foreign and military policy innovation you've probably never heard of.

AFRICOM stands for the U.S. Africa Command, created by presidential order in February 2007. On the surface, AFRICOM doesn't sound like anything special -- the U.S. already has several military commands organized geographically: PACCOM (Pacific Command), CENTCOM (Central Command) and EUCOM (European Command), so why not AFRICOM? But unlike the others, AFRICOM has the promotion of stability as its primary mission. It's designed, as the president put it, "to enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and to promote the ... development of health, education, democracy and economic growth."

Yes, you read that right: The Defense Department has a new military command dedicated, more or less, to establishing peace, love and understanding in Africa. Don't giggle or sneer; they're serious. AFRICOM will bring together military personnel with civilian employees from the State Department, the USAID and other U.S. agencies, and most U.S. humanitarian work in Africa will be coordinated through AFRICOM.

Already, U.S. military personnel are delivering supplies to refugees in Chad, training African peacekeeping forces and helping Congolese military officials develop protocols for prosecuting sex crimes. Also under AFRICOM auspices, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be training Africans to monitor their fishing industry, the USAID is delivering meals in Ghana, Navy personnel are painting classrooms in Senegal and Army and Air Force medical personnel are holding exchanges with their counterparts from Djibouti.

So what's not to love about AFRICOM? And on a trip during which he missed no other opportunities to seize a little credit, why wasn't the president touting AFRICOM?

The trouble with AFRICOM is that its very ambition has left many observers queasy, as well as intrigued.