THE United States deploys troops in 35 African countries under the banner of “Africom” the modern face of rampant imperialism on that continent.

The UK and France are instructed to take centre stage in the latest aggression. These flaccid append-ages of US foreign policy, with the full support of a prostrate news media, combine to terrorise the people of Mali and pass it off as “liberation” much as previous empire builders did more than 100 years ago.

For all the idiotic allusions to “militant Islam” or “terrorism”, the truth is more prosaic. The second “mad scramble for Africa” is well under way and to keep the colossal mineral wealth of the region out of the hands of its imperial rivals – or the resident population – the US is again commanding UK troops to sacrifice themselves and all who resist them on the altar of the “special relationship”.

At the time of the last colonisation, religion and associated ignorance allowed the people of Britain to see the ever-expanding Empire as an act of charity – “the white man’s burden”.

With 24 hour access to the web, we should be able to see this servile murder job for what it is.

Roger Westmoreland, The Oval, Pocklington.