White House Pushes Military Might Over Humanitarian Aid in Africa
If Congress passes Mr. Trump’s proposed Pentagon budget for the 2018 fiscal year — it calls for an additional $52 billion on top of the current $575 billion base budget — the United States will spend more money on military affairs in Africa
but reduce humanitarian and development assistance across the continent.
Or as Mr. Mattis told Congress in 2013, when he was a general overseeing American military operations in the Middle East as head of United States Central
Command, "If you don’t fully fund the State Department, then I need to buy more ammunition.’’ Military leaders today echo Mr. Mattis’s sentiment.
"How do we operate in an environment when we are willing to send peacekeepers," asked Alexander M. Laskaris, a State Department official with Africa Command, "but we’re not willing
to take the steps necessary to make peace?" An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect rank for Joseph P. Harrington, the head of United States Army Africa.
Malawi Defense Forces said that We have statements out of Washington about significant reductions in foreign aid,
Maj. Gen. Joseph P. Harrington, the head of United States Army Africa, gave a shout-out to the West African military leaders
who helped prod the former Gambian president, Yahya Jammeh, out of office after he lost his bid for re-election last year.
There may also be more funding for Camp Lemonnier, the American base in Djibouti, where visitors are greeted with a video of American and East African troops parachuting out of planes and rolling on the dirt together, to the screaming howls of AC/DC’s "Thunderstruck." The Trump administration has proposed slashing programs
that buy antiretroviral drugs for people who are infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, by at least $1.1 billion — nearly a fifth of their current funding.