Afric needs highways, and a dropping of US trade barriers to the impoortation of agricultural products from Africa to the USA.
Africa does not need U.S. soldiers and the creation of power vacuums to be filled with Obama appointed African dictators.That has already has been tried repeatedly, only to fail miserably.
Where is the so called Congressional Black Caucus on this?
Once you set up AFRICOM (with a four star General), you've got to justify its existence. There's no point having a combatant command in Africa that does not fight, so you do a little bit of fighting, chalk up a few victories (Libya anyone?), then (in cooperation with Congressmen who want a bit of that budget spent in their districts), you fight the next round of budget battles.
Afghanistan is drawing down, Iraq is almost a closed chapter and the focus of national security strategy is now the Pacific. Where does that leave the Army and Marines? They cannot afford to be the big losers in the next round of budget cuts, so they will tempted to chalk up some spectacular victories in Africa.
France has been doing this sort of thing in Sub-Saharan Africa for the past fifty years. They've intervened militarily in Africa at least twenty times since 1960. They are getting a bit tired, and your Government in its infinite wisdom wants to take their place.
Meanwhile, the Chinese are furiously building infrastructure like:
a. Nairobi-Thika Expressway Kenya