Conditions have been getting so bad for the approximately 1,100 U.S. military stationed in Niger right now that one member of the Air Force decided to write Congress.
In a letter reported by the Washington Post Wednesday night, a whistleblower penned a private letter to Congress complaining that the U.S. Embassy in Niger, particularly Ambassador Kathleen FitzGibbon and Air Force Col. Nora J. Nelson-Richter, the defense attaché posted there, was putting troops at risk by ignoring the military junta's March demands that the military leave and insisting that a diplomatic resolution was "being worked."
The junta overthrew the president Mohamed Barzoum in July 2023 in a coup and by all accounts is still holding him and his family in the basement of the presidential palace. After a reportedly disastrous meeting between U.S. officials and Niger last month the junta said it wanted the U.S. military footprint gone from Niger, drone base and all. Since that base is so important to the military, especially at a time when things in the Middle East are rupturing and Great and Middle Power Politics is swirling around the Sahel and North African region, Washington is doing whatever to takes to stay put.
Poster Comment:
Ditto for Syria and Iraq. Both have asked us to leave. US sanctions killed 300,000 Syrians and 300,000 Yemenis. US sanctions and Depleted Uranium killed a lot more than a million Iraqi children.
