My unfamiliarity with Ghana made me curious about it's history and relationship with the United States. I always believe that the U.S. can be connected to any country in the world but have never heard of Ghana and United States in one sentence except in the World Cup. I thought that Ghana was too silent that I never hear about it in the world news. So, this made me choose Ghana.
As I read through the Wikipedia entry of Ghana, I looked at the history section and found out that the U.S. intervened with Ghana after it's independence from the British colonialism. However, Wikipedia provided only a brief summary of that part of Ghana's history. It led me to an article, "24th February--A Dark Day In Our National History" by Kpessa, Michale Whyte, that discusses the involvement of the U.S. in the abolition of the Ghanaian government. Kpessa's article explain how this CIA activity happened revealing secret documents, like "Letter From Chairman of the National Liberation Council Lieutenant General Ankrah to President Johnson", asking the U.S. President to unite with him to promote U.S. democracy principles to the people of Ghana that resulted to a coup d'état that was said to be encouraged by the U.S. Secretary and CIA. Wikipedia also described Ghana's devotion to Pan-Africanism, a movement that aims to unite African people into a "global African community", which I find really interesting. So far, I think Wikipedia might be useful to provide general informations that will make me wonder what details are missing in my research. From being clueless about my country of interest and just by reading through a short part of Ghana's history that lead me to an external link, I finally knew something that could relate the United States to Ghana.
Hi Andrea - This looks like a great and fascinating topic. I have a friend who said he was rooting for Ghana in that World Cup match because of what the U.S. did to Kwame Nkrumah. You're pointing to another important kind of use of U.S. power we'll see: military intervention that is in secret/behind the scenes and not an actual war. The issue of Pan-Africanism would also be very interesting to look at, as a response to the power of the U.S. and other wealth/"Western" nations.
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