Gotta get Guinea goodies: Aluminum pursuit sparks AFRICOM covert op for African resource control

A strange NBC series called E-Ring, which produced 22 episodes that aired in 2005, exalted narratives of American military adventurism and featured Dennis Hopper. I only saw episode #5, "Weekend Pass," in which as Wikipedia says, "Two US Marines are accused of raping a young local woman in Suriname. JT immediately jumps to action only to find opposition from senior staff. The United States doesn't want to jeopardize aluminum interests controlled by the Surinamese government. He must navigate the political maze to discern the truth and try to save the soldiers' lives."

The other aspect of the episode was how a military coup in Suriname made a mess of things -- a lot of dialogue about who would end up controlling the bauxite mines was at the center of the story. A coup inside the Suriname 'made nice' with the Pentagon and promised to have elections later.

This show jumped to mind when I read the post on WayneMadsenReport.com about a coup in Guinea along similar lines: December 18-20, 2009 -- AFRICOM helped engineer attempted assassination of Guinean leader - Wayne Madsen Report

WMR's African sources report that the group of Guinean army officers who attempted to assassinate Guinea's President, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, were operating under orders of U.S. Special Forces assigned to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and French military intelligence personnel. Camara seized power in a coup in December 2008 after the death of Guinea's President Lansana Conte.

Camara was flown to Morocco for medical treatment after the unsuccessful assassination attempt. Guinean junta spokesman Idrissa Cherif accused the Sarkozy government in France of being behind the assassination attempt.

Camara's aide, Lieutenant Aboubacar Sidiki Diakite, fled to a safe house in Guinea after shooting Camara. Diakite reportedly worked closely with U.S. Special Forces and French military intelligence in planning the assassination of Camara.

Camara had, according to our sources, signed a deal with China for that nation to take over bauxite mining contracts from U.S. and French companies with the promise that China would refine bauxite into aluminum by building a factory in Guinea. The Americans and French had exported the bauxite to smelters abroad. The offer of the Chinese to smelter bauxite in Guinea with the promise of well-paying jobs for the impoverished nation, was too much for France and the United States and the "hit" on Camara, using assets in the Guinean military loyal to Washington and Paris, was authorized and coordinated jointly by U.S. and French forces stationed in west Africa.

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This type of special operations affair is obviously not in America's national interests, but it is in the interest of corporatists that have performed what some call 'regulatory capture.'

AFRICOM was feared by many as a new way to run a resource control gendarme force in Africa, and schemes of this exact structure are to be expected first and foremost.

Official site: United States African Command (AFRICOM). More: Resist AFRICOM, allAfrica.com: Africa: Obama Moves Ahead With Africom (Page 1 of 3), Think Again: Africom | Foreign Policy, Say No to Africom, Foreign Policy in Focus | Congress Challenges AFRICOM. Etc.