Niger

In April, I wrote about the United States government agreeing to remove its troops from Niger after, a month earlier, the new government of Niger demanded this action.

Here is an update. On Monday, the US Department of Defense and Niger Ministry of National Defense announced in a joint statement that US forces and assets had been removed from the final US military installation in the African country, with a full withdrawal of the US military set to be completed as planned “over the coming weeks.”

When news broke of the October 4 ambush and deaths of four elite Green Beret soldiers in Niger, the immediate reaction voiced among congressional leaders and echoed generally in the media was: we have troops in Niger? But the bigger questions of the US military's increasingly sizable footprint in Africa (or what has long been called our 'Shadow War') quickly disappeared from public debate, instead, in usual fashion the media quickly focused on myopic details of phone calls and whether Trump's handling of the aftermath was "presidential" enough. 

The top US general said on Monday that the American people, including the families of the fallen soldiers in Niger, deserve answers about this month's deadly ambush which claimed the lives of four US soldiers, including that of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, whose widow Myeshia Johnson has been involved in an escalating feud with President Trump over the contents of his controversial phone call meant to deliver condolences.

The feud between President Donald Trump and the family of a green beret who was killed in Niger earlier this month when his unit was ambushed by Al Qaeda is escalating to absurd new heights.