Border Country | Rogue State

Border Country | Rogue State, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

hat seemed like the slowest Land Cruiser in Africa. The country is dry and rocky with some spectacular mountains rising from the plain. There are no roads and we followed a track through the desert.

Somehow, this area has been brought into the USA's War on Terror, as they have managed to manipulate a border dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti.

The USA has always been anti-Eritrea and pro-Ethiopia, with its ally Djibouti (where they ahve a massive military base). Eritrea has been labelled a haven for Islamist terrorists (especially since offering refuse for various Somaliis from the Islamic Courts).

Anyway, there is nothing really here apart from sand and rock, yet soldiers were set in and people were killed in order to promote the idea of Eritrea as a rogue state.


daniel.virella Pro User says:

Again one example of the mostly wise foreign inteligence police of the USA: for almost a couple of decades, the USA backed Eritreans agains the conmunist regime in Ethiopia and they didn't realized what were they really doing on matter of middle term stability in the area...

I suppose the Americans inherited the big base the French had in Djibouti...

CharlesFred Pro User says:

Yes, and the funny thing is that by the time the Eritreans won, the Americans were thinking that they should side with 'Christian' Ethiopia.

The French are still in Djibouti but I think their President upset Sarkozy by asking him for more money so they apparently are transferring quite a few of their troops elsewhere.

The French soldiers can be seen around Djibouti City, doing their shopping etc and going off on touristy jaunts around the country. The Americans, it seems are too scared, so they hide themselves away in their base most fo the time and have their supplies all flown in. We did not see one American during our week there.