They're gonna invade Mali...

[Jedi_Mindset]

''UN authorizes military intervention in Mali

The UN Security Council has unanimously approved an African-led military force to intervene in Mali to combat hardline Islamists, terrorists and armed gangs ruling the northern part of the country. The international force will be given a one-year mandate which may later be extended. It will be allowed to use “all necessary measures.” The intervention was authorized after regional politicians failed to broker a political solution between the Islamist extremists and Tuareg rebels vying for control of northern Mali. A March 22 coup allowed Islamists, who are imposing Islamic sharia law, to take control of Mali's northern cities.''

[Jedi_Mindset]

No reply? This is just another muslim country going to suffer under western occupation, this time they will stay in the background by only arming while the african countries are gonna invade mali.

[Jedi_Mindset]

http://rt.com/news/mali-un-intervention-council-534/

[sister herb]

http://www.hrw.org/africa/mali

Are the western countries interesting to help people and protect they human rights in Mali, is this some kind of "war against al-qaeda" episode or have there in Mali some important natural resources what the west is interesting?

As this goes like typical cases; the western troops go into, fight against "rebels and extremists", go back home and leave the country in security and economy chaos.

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[جوري]

Sahih International
Indeed, those who disbelieve spend their wealth to avert [people] from the way of Allah . So they will spend it; then it will be for them a [source of] regret; then they will be overcome. And those who have disbelieved - unto Hell they will be gathered.

[Jedi_Mindset]

http://www.hrw.org/africa/mali

Are the western countries interesting to help people and protect they human rights in Mali, is this some kind of "war against al-qaeda" episode or have there in Mali some important natural resources what the west is interesting?

As this goes like typical cases; the western troops go into, fight against "rebels and extremists", go back home and leave the country in security and economy chaos.

On point;

[Cabdullahi]

Another day another intervention.

[Jedi_Mindset]

Another day another intervention.

They're not gonna invade now, but they are gonna train the troops first participating in the attack so expect in the upcoming months.

[Veritas]

For "peace" or oil? The two usually go hand in hand

[Roasted Cashew]

Good, get rid of this scum called the Al-Qaeda..it's sad that Kaffirs are leading the way where as we Muslims should have been cleaning our own dirt..

[Ali_008]

On point;

Fighting for oil? :muddlehea nooo!!!!

Who would've thought of that?

[ابن آل مرة]

Good, get rid of this scum called the Al-Qaeda..it's sad that Kaffirs are leading the way where as we Muslims should have been cleaning our own dirt..

[Jedi_Mindset]

Good, get rid of this scum called the Al-Qaeda..it's sad that Kaffirs are leading the way where as we Muslims should have been cleaning our own dirt..

And exactly that, northern mali is full with oil and other resources. The west is basically drooling now to steal that oil, i sincerly hope their troops get a hard beating when they enter the soil of north mali insha'Allah
There is no ''al-qaeda'' in mali, just tuareg rebels and other groups who want the state governed by shariah law, anything wrong with that?

Didnt want to reply at first, but it seems like you are just asking for it (mwhuahaha)

[Roasted Cashew]

There is no ''al-qaeda'' in mali

And I am suppose to believe that because you are an expert on Mali and Al-Qaeda??

['Abd Al-Maajid]

I've heard al-qaeda never existed...:ermm: is that true?

[Muhaba]

حسبنا الله و نعم الوكيل

[Jedi_Mindset]

And I am suppose to believe that because you are an expert on Mali and Al-Qaeda??

Yes because i can see through the deception being played out.

Here ex-CIA agent openly admitting this:



No ''NWO you say?

[abcdcool2012]

Oh Allah help my muslim umaahhh...PLEASE :heated:

[Jedi_Mindset]

UN calls for 'swift deployment' of foreign troops in Mali, France vows to intervene

The UN Security Council has called for a 'swift deployment' of foreign troops to Mali. It has approved plans to send some 3,000 African troops to recapture the country's north.
French President Francois Hollande has also vowed to stop the advance of al-Qaeda linked rebels who control northern Mali and have headed south in recent days.

In a speech to France's diplomatic corps, the leader said he was ready to respond to Mali's call for help.

France "is prepared to stop the terrorist offensive," Hollande said. He did not provide any specific details.
It comes after Hollande's Malian counterpart, Dioncounda Traore, sought help from France in order to stem the rebels' advance. The two leaders will meet in Paris on Wednesday, a French diplomatic source told Reuters.

Resolutions already passed by the UN Security Council on Mali would allow a military intervention by France, the source said.

"With the United Nations resolutions and Mali's request for help, the legal framework for a direct intervention is already there…we are following the situation on the ground hour by hour. We are going to see whether this offensive continues or not. France's assistance will depend on the situation on the ground," he continued.
Until now, France and other EU nations have limited their plans for assistance, offering only training and logistics to support Mali's army.
Extremists, which have controlled the country's north for months, captured the city of Konna on Thursday.

"We are actually in Konna for the jihad [holy war]," spokesman for the Ansar Dine militant group, Sanda Abu Mohammed, told AFP.
Ansar Dine and Mujao have controlled most of northern Mali since last April. They formed an alliance with Tuareg rebels following a military coup in March.
However, their alliance quickly collapsed, with the Islamists capturing the area's urban centers and marginalizing the Tuareg rebels.
The Islamists have been accused of war crimes and attempting to impose strict Sharia law throughout the region, harboring fears that the area could soon become a hub for al-Qaeda linked militants.

The rebels are currently threatening the take over the city of Mopti, which would leave the capital Bamako more vulnerable.

http://rt.com/news/france-mali-intervene-hollande-787/

[Networks]

For "peace" or oil? The two usually go hand in hand

Gold reserves, national wealth, exploitation, multinational resources ownership, etc.

[Muhaba]

It is what happens when muslims put a non-muslim led organization on top. the non-muslims will never care about the muslims. UN hasn't brought good to any muslims. on the other hand, a lot of problems exist becuase of it's very unjust veto system. If any of the 5 permanent countries don't want some resolution, it will not happen no matter how right it is. Just think. US vetoes a resolution about Palestine and the resolution doesn't pass, causing Palestinians to suffer. Russia vetoes a resolution about Syria and the resolution doesnt pass, causing the deaths of tens of thousands (even hundrends of thousands of people). what sort of an organization is this? what sort of a system is this? Should the veto of one coutry decide whether thousands of people live or are murdered? And then doesn't it make the vetoeing country a helper/accomplice of the ones who are actually doing the murdering? Doesn't that make the vetoing country a criminal too? Should such an unjust system exist where one or a few countries can decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of people? Should the veto of one country stop justice from being done? This system is the cause of much suffering in the world, as can be seen in syria. So many people have died, burned, starved, and made refugees because UN failed to pass a resolution.

[Jedi_Mindset]

It is what happens when muslims put a non-muslim led organization on top. the non-muslims will never care about the muslims. UN hasn't brought good to any muslims. on the other hand, a lot of problems exist becuase of it's very unjust veto system. If any of the 5 permanent countries don't want some resolution, it will not happen no matter how right it is. Just think. US vetoes a resolution about Palestine and the resolution doesn't pass, causing Palestinians to suffer. Russia vetoes a resolution about Syria and the resolution doesnt pass, causing the deaths of tens of thousands (even hundrends of thousands of people). what sort of an organization is this? what sort of a system is this? Should the veto of one coutry decide whether thousands of people live or are murdered? And then doesn't it make the vetoeing country a helper/accomplice of the ones who are actually doing the murdering? Doesn't that make the vetoing country a criminal too? Should such an unjust system exist where one or a few countries can decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of people? Should the veto of one country stop justice from being done? This system is the cause of much suffering in the world, as can be seen in syria. So many people have died, burned, starved, and made refugees because UN failed to pass a resolution.

The UN is created by the very same powers who want to destroy the world. The UN is nothing more than a dajjal organization. All of this is planned by the zionists and their buddies. (May Allah destroy these tyrants. Ameen)

The only reason they dont find ''solutions'' is because they love to see the fighting in syria, the amounts of bloodsheds and by sending arms into syria they earn alot of money, and dont even think about the gas underneath syrian soil. It is not ending up in muslim hands.

[Jedi_Mindset]

''French troops begin military intervention in Mali: Hollande''

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/01/11/283029/french-military-intervenes-in-mali/

[Independent]

Here ex-CIA agent openly admitting this:

Jedi, I have watched this video which is interesting. But I'm not sure it's saying what you think it does. In fact, I agree with most of what he says, yet as you know I don't believe in the NWO so something is odd...

He is being interviewed by a Russian news organisation so there is a bias in the questions opposing intervention in Syria and Libya (Russian allies). Besides that, he is arguing that the US strategy is contradictory. On the one hand, it favours the spread of democracy. On the other hand, it's trying to protect key regional allies (Israel and Saudi). But the desire to favour democracy (in the shape of the Arab Spring) is actually endangering the other objective (to protect Israel/Saudi). I would agree with this.

However, this is very far from the notion of an NWO style conspiracy to destabilise Syria etc. Far from being a cunning masterplan, he is describing contradiction and failure. (Hopelessly contradictory foreign policy actions are common to many countries, but it matters more with a superpower).

He also predicts that more radical Islamic groups are the ones most likely to benefit from the chaos and that this will lead to an escalation of violence especially in Africa (as is happening in Nigeria and Mali).

Why do you think what he's saying supports NWO?

[Jedi_Mindset]

Jedi, I have watched this video which is interesting. But I'm not sure it's saying what you think it does. In fact, I agree with most of what he says, yet as you know I don't believe in the NWO so something is odd...

He is being interviewed by a Russian news organisation so there is a bias in the questions opposing intervention in Syria and Libya (Russian allies). Besides that, he is arguing that the US strategy is contradictory. On the one hand, it favours the spread of democracy. On the other hand, it's trying to protect key regional allies (Israel and Saudi). But the desire to favour democracy (in the shape of the Arab Spring) is actually endangering the other objective (to protect Israel/Saudi). I would agree with this.

However, this is very far from the notion of an NWO style conspiracy to destabilise Syria etc. Far from being a cunning masterplan, he is describing contradiction and failure. (Hopelessly contradictory foreign policy actions are common to many countries, but it matters more with a superpower).

He also predicts that more radical Islamic groups are the ones most likely to benefit from the chaos and that this will lead to an escalation of violence especially in Africa (as is happening in Nigeria and Mali).

Why do you think what he's saying supports NWO?

The reason i mentioned NWO is that you should look at the map, the is officialy released by the pentagon and shows the US controlled areas. I think foreign agencies have been part in the syrian conflict, this has and always been the case. The arms flow into syria by both USA and russia shows that they are not seeking for peace in the area rather more destabilization. It will help them because then they can jump on the gas which syria has, this is a common fact, most of the oil in iraq are transported by Shell and BP, and the gas in syria is transported by GAZPROM and some EU countries. When you nationalize the oil, they wont like it.

Colonialism never ended.

Regarding who is the bad guy or the good guy in the syrian conflict is not my point, what i know is that Assad started it by mowing down protestors. The CIA knew of this, and hoped it would turn out into a conflict.

Many politicians have talked about an NWO, now check this:



NWO is not a theory but a fact.

[Independent]

The CIA knew of this, and hoped it would turn out into a conflict.

But that's not what the CIA agent says. I'm not clear why you have attached this video link? He does not appear to support your views.

[KAding]

I'm not sure "invade" is the proper word here. It was the internationally recognized Malian government itself that requested foreign assistance!

[جوري]

internationally recognized Malian government itself that requested foreign assistance!

Internationally recognized doesn't mean that they're people recognized.. the same with any despotic regime which is a puppet to the west that has its people revolting. The most recent Ex. Is Iraq.
But if the west is keen on losing more of its resources and man power than by all means. Pour into Afghanistan and Iraq, and Mali and wherever else, it won't bode well and it hasn't all along!

best,

[Pygoscelis]

A March 22 coup allowed Islamists, who are imposing Islamic sharia law, to take control of Mali's northern cities.

There is no ''al-qaeda'' in mali, just tuareg rebels and other groups who want the state governed by shariah law, anything wrong with that?

Yes, there is something wrong with that if they are imposing it by violence as suggested in the article you quoted.

[Jedi_Mindset]

But that's not what the CIA agent says. I'm not clear why you have attached this video link? He does not appear to support your views.

Watch the vid again, he clearly mentions this.

[Independent]

Watch the vid again, he clearly mentions this.

You realise i am referring to the Michael Scheuer video (the CIA agent) not Bush?

Scheuer does not mention the NWO in this interview. In fact he doesn't talk about anything secret at all. He analyses the overt, visible policy of the US with regard to the Islamic world. His main argument is that a policy based on supporting the growth of democracy, and the policy of supporting key allies like Israel and Saudi, are in fact contradictory and work against each other. Each objective endangers the success of the other.

His view is that the US should focus on its own interests, stop getting involved in fights it can avoid, and forget about the whole area. ideally he would like the US to disengage from both Israel and Saudi - however, he recognises that this is difficult with Saudi because of oil/financial interconnections and difficult with Israel because of the Jewish lobby in America.

His views are a challenge to orthodox US policy, but how are they an endorsement of an NWO scenario?

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Quick update. Seems the French want to relive the good old days of their colonial past. . . . . .

Hundreds of French troops drive back Mali rebels

Associated Press= BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — France's defense minister says hundreds of French troops are involved in an operation that destroyed a command center of Islamic rebels in Mali.

Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Saturday that a French helicopter pilot died of his wounds in the operation, which involved air strikes on three rebel targets overnight.

The French president authorized the operation to support Mali's government after the Islamists launched an offensive outside the territory they had previously captured.

Le Drian said France was compelled to act quickly to stop the Islamist offensive, which he said could allow "a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe."

http://www.guardian.co.uk

[جوري]

It is psychological war for now innit?

[GuestFellow]

I've heard al-qaeda never existed...:ermm: is that true?

:wa:

It depends on who you ask. =)

There are a group of Muslims that want to remove the monarchies and dictators in Muslim countries. They also oppose foreign troops and Israel. So they have similar goals but different ways of reaching them. They are not well organised nor there is some sort of leader. The groups are very dis-organised and end up fighting amongst themselves. Sometimes they have been manipulated by the government.

The US government labeled this group as Al-Qaeda. So what you have is a group of militants who may similar goals but different ways of reaching them.

I don't know why some Muslims even support some of these Muslim militants. They never met them nor they are aware of their activities. :/

As for this invasion, well there is not much to say is there. My input will not make any difference.

[GuestFellow]

You realise i am referring to the Michael Scheuer video (the CIA agent) not Bush?

Scheuer does not mention the NWO in this interview. In fact he doesn't talk about anything secret at all. He analyses the overt, visible policy of the US with regard to the Islamic world. His main argument is that a policy based on supporting the growth of democracy, and the policy of supporting key allies like Israel and Saudi, are in fact contradictory and work against each other. Each objective endangers the success of the other.

His view is that the US should focus on its own interests, stop getting involved in fights it can avoid, and forget about the whole area. ideally he would like the US to disengage from both Israel and Saudi - however, he recognises that this is difficult with Saudi because of oil/financial interconnections and difficult with Israel because of the Jewish lobby in America.

His views are a challenge to orthodox US policy, but how are they an endorsement of an NWO scenario?

Michael Scheuer supports water-boarding or I think it was hard interrogation techniques. O_o

I smell conflict management and it stinks. :P

[Independent]

Michael Scheuer supports water-boarding or I think it was hard interrogation techniques. O_o

I don't know anything about him apart from what he says in the video. My question is purely, what does this have to do with evidence for an NWO conspiracy one way or the other?

Far from following some cunning masterplan for destabilising countries, he is arguing the exact opposite - that US policy is incompetent and a failure from everyone's point of view, not least the US itself.

[GuestFellow]

I don't know anything about him apart from what he says in the video. My question is purely, what does this have to do with evidence for an NWO conspiracy one way or the other?

Oh I can answer that. Nothing.

Nah just kidding.

He's part of a secret organisation that is planning to take over the world! The illunminati is trying to take away our freedums. I know this because I watch YouTube videos HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA....

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update. Western perspective but interesting nevertheless.

[Jedi_Mindset]

Rebels in Mali vow revenge at ‘heart of France’

The rebel forces fighting in northern Mali have vowed to avenge France’s military operation against them on the French soil.


Abou Dardar, the leader of one of Mali’s rebel groups called Movement and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), promised on Monday that the rebels would strike “at the heart of France” in response to its attacks on their bases.

When asked about where they would strike, Dardar said, “Everywhere, in Bamako, in Africa and in Europe.”

On Sunday, French fighter jets pounded the rebel bases in the cities of Gao and Kidal in northern Mali.

At least five members of Ansar Dine, another rebel group in Mali, were killed during the French raid in Gao.

According to reports, French warplanes also launched an attack on the rebels’ stockpiles of munitions and fuel in the town of Afhabo, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Kidal. The area is a stronghold of Ansar Dine.

France began its military action in Mali on January 12 for what it said was to halt advances made by the rebels who control northern Mali.

On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Algeria had allowed French warplanes to use its airspace for bombings in the northern parts of Mali.

Fabius also said the United States, the UK, Denmark, and other European nations are also supporting the French-led military intervention in the African country.

Unrest erupted in Mali after President Amadou Toumani Toure was toppled in a military coup on March 22, 2012.

The coup leaders said they had mounted the coup in response to the government’s failure to contain the Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/01/14/283519/mali-rebels-vow-revenge-on-french-soil/

===

Can someone confirm this report as it might be propaganda?

[Abz2000]

what many of us are passing by is the FACT that this is an illegitimate government according to UN STANDARDS.

A conflict in northern Mali began in January 2012. On 22 March 2012, a group of junior soldiersseized control of the presidential palace and declared the government dissolved and its constitution suspended.^[9] On 6 April 2012, rebels from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) declared the secession of a new state, Azawad, from Mali.^[10]
Shortly after, the MNLA were sidelined by Islamist groups "associated with" Al-Qaeda, and dropped their demands for secession.
The soldiers who seized power allowed Dioncounda Traoré, the President of the National Assembly, to take office as head of state in accordance with the constitution,
but they have continued to wield considerable power.
Plans to re-take the north with international assistance are being formulated, after which the interim government plans to hold the long-delayed national elections.

a 1991 coup led to the writing of a new constitution and the establishment of Mali as a democratic, multi-party state.

democratic and multiparty don't seem to appeal to the rats in the pentagon, because they could see the influence of Islam spreading in the region.
it looks to me that they remained "silent" or even complacent during an illegal coup, but are now concerned that Islam is gaining a stronghold there, knowing that the illegitimate disorganized army are no match for the islamists without external help.

so again - we see a democratic government overthrown with the help of the u.s and u.n, an illegal military dictatorship installed, and killing of Muslims and islamic leaders before another "election" which will have not moral legitimacy or fair ground.

1.
it wasn't the Islamists who overthrew the government.
2.
they kept the country in one piece by preventing a splintering off of another section - which the u.s would most likely have taken control of through imf loans (look at previous trends).
3.
with no organization or legitimacy, the military junta would have lost ground.
4.
Islamists would have had the country in no time if it hadn't been for the selective meddling of the spawn of Satan


another thing i noticed is the heavy use of the terms al qaeda "affiliated" and "associated" when nothing else can be found.
the only association usually needed are the fact that they are Muslim and ready to fight for their convictions.

Charging that the civilian government was not being tough enough against the rebels, US-trained Army Captain Amadou Sanogo and other officers staged a coup on March 22 and called for US intervention along the lines of Afghanistan and the “war on terror.”

Sanogo’s training in the United States is just one small part of a decade of US training of armies in the Sahel, increasing the militarization of this impoverished region and the influence of armed forces relative to civilian leaders. Gregory Mann , writing in Foreign Policy, notes how “a decade of American investment in special forces training, co-operation between Sahalien armies and the United States and counter-terrorism programmes of all sorts run by both the State Department and the Pentagon has, at best, failed to prevent a new disaster in the desert and, at worst, sowed its seeds."
Rather than responding violently to the coup, thousands of Malians in Bamako and elsewhere took to the streets demanding a return to democracy, members of the deposed civilian cabinet went on a hunger strike, and many civil servants and others refused to cooperate with the military regime.
Meanwhile, both western and African countries imposed sanctions against the illegitimate government.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/stephen...r-own-making-0

Canada suspends Mali aid after coup d'état


'Canada will not in any way back this illegitimate rule'

CBC News

Posted: Mar 24, 2012 12:19 PM ET

Last Updated: Mar 24, 2012 12:18 PM ET

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2...-mali-aid.html

“The threat is a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe,” said French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...tants-in-mali/

Islamist rebels in Mali want to take full control of the country and install a. ... of all of Mali and install in Mali a terrorist state," he told a press conference. ... will fall into their hands, with a threat to all of Africa and to Europe itself.
http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/fren...ce_255205.html

i don't think the term used by the rebels would have been "terrorist" but "Islamic"
but as long as it's not "antisemitic" the reporter knows he won't be lynched for switching terms so blatantly.
can we not see this blatant war against Islam?

[Independent]

what many of us are passing by is the FACT that this is an illegitimate government according to UN STANDARDS.

You are missing out the reason for the collapse of the democratic government, which had previously been one of the most successful in Africa for 20 years.

The situation in Mali is a side effect of the fall of Gadaffi. The weaponry and the fighters who are now destroying Mali are partly the remains of Gadaffi’s foreign bodyguard, who fled Libya after his death.

The first stage was a Tuareg revolt. It was this revolt that provoked the military coup, because the army felt the government wasn’t doing enough to help them (Mali is a desperately poor country and the Libyan refugees simply outgunned them).

Now the revolt has been ‘taken over’ by self-proclaimed Islamist fighters and the Tuaregs too have been sidelined. They also seem to have support from rebels driven out of Algeria.

'democratic and multiparty don't seem to appeal to the rats in the pentagon, because they could see the influence of Islam spreading in the region.'

Nonsense – it was the Tuareg revolt that brought down the democratic government, not the west. The Islamists are simply exploiting the chaos and power vacuum.

'it looks to me that they remained "silent" or even complacent during an illegal coup,'

No they did not, which is why the UN opposed the military regime. But they didn’t intervene straight away because for a time it looked as though Mali might be able to look after the situation itself. Also, it was guaranteed that any western assistance would be portrayed as an ‘invasion’ by people such as yourself.

'so again - we see a democratic government overthrown with the help of the u.s and u.n, an illegal military dictatorship installed, and killing of Muslims and islamic leaders before another "election" which will have not moral legitimacy or fair ground.'

Absolute nonsense. Until yesterday this was exclusively a Muslim v Muslim conflict. The weak Malian army is in no position to resist the Libyan refugee fighters so they have called for help. Other African states have promised support, but the situation was so urgent France have acted now.

1.
it wasn't the Islamists who overthrew the government.

It wasn’t the west either - it was a consequence of the Tuareg revolt.

2.
they kept the country in one piece by preventing a splintering off of another section - which the u.s would most likely have taken control of through imf loans (look at previous trends).

A ridiculous statement by any analysis – the country is now split in two by the rebels.

3.
with no organization or legitimacy, the military junta would have lost ground.

Just because one illegal government has seized power (the military) doesn’t make it ok to swap it for another (the Islamists). At least the military are all Malians, which is more than can be said for the Islamists.

4.
Islamists would have had the country in no time if it hadn't been for the selective meddling of the spawn of Satan

The Islamists have seized the less populated desert north. The south would have been harder. Many thousands of victims would have been added to the death toll already recorded.

another thing i noticed is the heavy use of the terms al qaeda "affiliated" and "associated" when nothing else can be found..the only association usually needed are the fact that they are Muslim and ready to fight for their convictions.

Why do you assume this revolt is a good thing just because of the ‘Islamist’ tag? This is not Islam v the West, it’s a moderate Islam v an extreme Islam. The effect on the Mali economy has been catastrophic, never mind the direct loss of life. In addition, the vandalistic destruction of the UNESCO listed tombs in Timbuctoo is a gross cultural crime that deprives Africa of one of its few genuinely iconic historical sights.

How do you make any of this out to be a good thing?

[جوري]

it’s a moderate Islam v an extreme Islam

There's NO such thing in Islam!

best,

[جوري]

I think the cross he has on his chest tells all there's to tell indeed!
'tis a crusade!

http://www.islammemo.cc/akhbar/Somal...14/162584.html

[Independent]

I think the cross he has on his chest tells all there's to tell indeed!
'tis a crusade!

You show a picture of a dead man in Somalia published today to prove Western involvement in Mali months ago. What you display is bad taste, not evidence of a crusade.

[جوري]

You show a picture of a dead man in Somalia published today to prove Western involvement in Mali months ago. What you display is bad taste, not evidence of a crusade.

I am not trying to prove what you allege, only what's patently obvious to the naked eye and if this crusader had been in Afghanistan, Egypt, Palestine, Somalia, Mali etc. it wouldn't change the principal an iota. It is indeed what it is and Muslims should wake up to see it for what it is. Nothing at all to do with a war against 'extremist Muslims' as I have stated in the post prior to my last. There's no such thing. That's a western agenda not to rile up angry sentiments in the entire Muslim world. One is either a Muslim or they're not.. we're not graded. And this is indeed a crusade against Islam.

Whether or not you find it in bad taste, is utterly irrelevant and inconsequential. :ia: that shall be the fate of all crusaders so they'd better think twice before entering into Muslim territory!


best,

[Independent]

One is either a Muslim or they're not

As a non Muslim, if someone chooses to describe themselves as Muslim I'm obliged to accept their point of view, not yours. Even if you don't agree with them.

[جوري]

anyone can say anything about themselves- what flawed reasoning and what a sad state of being you must find yourself in!

best,

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Comment piece

The bombing of Mali highlights all the lessons of western intervention

From Afghanistan to Yemen, the rhetoric that the west is not at war with the Islamic world grows increasingly hollow with each new expansion of this militarism.


As French war planes bomb Mali, there is one simple statistic that provides the key context: this west African nation of 15 million people is the eighth country in which western powers - over the last four years alone - have bombed and killed Muslims - after Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and the Phillipines (that does not count the numerous lethal tyrannies propped up by the west in that region).

For obvious reasons, the rhetoric that the west is not at war with the Islamic world grows increasingly hollow with each new expansion of this militarism. But within this new massive bombing campaign, one finds most of the vital lessons about western intervention that, typically, are steadfastly ignored.

First, as the New York Times' background account from this morning makes clear, much of the instability in Mali is the direct result of Nato's intervention in Libya. Specifically, "heavily armed, battle-hardened Islamist fighters returned from combat in Libya" and "the big weaponry coming out of Libya and the different, more Islamic fighters who came back" played the precipitating role in the collapse of the US-supported central government. As Owen Jones wrote in an excellent column this morning in the Independent:

"This intervention is itself the consequence of another. The Libyan war is frequently touted as a success story for liberal interventionism. Yet the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi's dictatorship had consequences that Western intelligence services probably never even bothered to imagine. Tuaregs – who traditionally hailed from northern Mali – made up a large portion of his army. When Gaddafi was ejected from power, they returned to their homeland: sometimes forcibly so as black Africans came under attack in post-Gaddafi Libya, an uncomfortable fact largely ignored by the Western media. . . . [T]he Libyan war was seen as a success . . . and here we are now engaging with its catastrophic blowback."

Over and over, western intervention ends up - whether by ineptitude or design - sowing the seeds of further intervention. Given the massive instability still plaguing Libya as well as enduring anger over the Benghazi attack, how long will it be before we hear that bombing and invasions in that country are - once again - necessary to combat the empowered "Islamist" forces there: forces empowered as a result of the Nato overthrow of that country's government?

Second, the overthrow of the Malian government was enabled by US-trained-and-armed soldiers who defected. From the NYT: "commanders of this nation's elite army units, the fruit of years of careful American training, defected when they were needed most — taking troops, guns, trucks and their newfound skills to the enemy in the heat of battle, according to senior Malian military officials." And then: "an American-trained officer overthrew Mali's elected government, setting the stage for more than half of the country to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists."

In other words, the west is once again at war with the very forces that it trained, funded and armed. Nobody is better at creating its own enemies, and thus ensuring a posture of endless war, than the US and its allies. Where the US cannot find enemies to fight against it, it simply empowers them.

Third, western bombing of Muslims in yet another country will obviously provoke even more anti-western sentiment, the fuel of terrorism. Already, as the Guardian reports, French fighter jets in Mali have killed "at least 11 civilians including three children". France's long history of colonialization in Mali only exacerbates the inevitable anger. Back in December, after the UN Security Council authorized the intervention in Mali, Amnesty International's researcher on West Africa, Salvatore Saguès, warned: "An international armed intervention is likely to increase the scale of human rights violations we are already seeing in this conflict."

As always, western governments are well aware of this consequence and yet proceed anyway. The NYT notes that the French bombing campaign was launched "in the face of longstanding American warnings that a Western assault on the Islamist stronghold could rally jihadists around the world and prompt terrorist attacks as far away as Europe." Indeed, at the same time that the French are now killing civilians in Mali, a joint French-US raid in Somalia caused the deaths of "at least eight civilians, including two women and two children".

To believe that the US and its allies can just continue to go around the world, in country after country, and bomb and kill innocent people - Muslims - and not be targeted with "terrorist" attacks is, for obvious reasons, lunacy. As Bradford University professor Paul Rogers told Jones, the bombing of Mali "will be portrayed as 'one more example of an assault on Islam'". Whatever hopes that may exist for an end to the "war on terror" are systematically destroyed by ongoing aggression.

Fourth, for all the self-flattering rhetoric that western democracies love to apply to themselves, it is extraordinary how these wars are waged without any pretense of democratic process. Writing about the participation of the British government in the military assault on Mali, Jones notes that "it is disturbing – to say the least – how Cameron has led Britain into Mali's conflict without even a pretence at consultation." Identically, the Washington Post this morning reports that President Obama has acknowledged after the fact that US fighter jets entered Somali air space as part of the French operation there; the Post called that "a rare public acknowledgment of American combat operations in the Horn of Africa" and described the anti-democratic secrecy that typically surrounds US war actions in the region:

"The US military has based a growing number of armed Predator drones as well as F-15 fighter jets at Camp Lemonnier, which has grown into a key installation for secret counterterrorism operations in Somalia and Yemen. The defense official declined to identify the aircraft used in the rescue attempt but said they were fighter jets, not drones. . . . .

"It was unclear, however, why Obama felt compelled to reveal this particular operation when he has remained silent about other specific US combat missions in Somalia. Spokesmen from the White House and the Pentagon declined to elaborate or answer questions Sunday night."

The Obama administration has, of course, draped its entire drone and global assassination campaign in an impenetrable cloth of secrecy, ensuring it remains beyond the scrutinizing reach of media outlets, courts, and its own citizens. The US and its western allies do not merely wage endless war aimed invariably at Muslims. They do so in virtually complete secrecy, without any transparency or accountability. Meet the western "democracies".

Finally, the propaganda used to justify all of this is depressingly common yet wildly effective. Any western government that wants to bomb Muslims simply slaps the label of "terrorists" on them, and any real debate or critical assessment instantly ends before it can even begin. "The president is totally determined that we must eradicate these terrorists who threaten the security of Mali, our own country and Europe," proclaimed French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

As usual, this simplistic cartoon script distorts reality more than it describes it. There is no doubt that the Malian rebels have engaged in all sorts of heinous atrocities ("amputations, flogging, and stoning to death for those who oppose their interpretation of Islam"), but so, too, have Malian government forces - including, as Amnesty chronicled, "arresting, torturing and killing Tuareg people apparently only on ethnic ground." As Jones aptly warns: "don't fall for a narrative so often pushed by the Western media: a perverse oversimplification of good fighting evil, just as we have seen imposed on Syria's brutal civil war."

The French bombing of Mali, perhaps to include some form of US participation, illustrates every lesson of western intervention. The "war on terror" is a self-perpetuating war precisely because it endlessly engenders its own enemies and provides the fuel to ensure that the fire rages without end. But the sloganeering propaganda used to justify this is so cheap and easy - we must kill the Terrorists! - that it's hard to see what will finally cause this to end.

The blinding fear - not just of violence, but of Otherness - that has been successfully implanted in the minds of many western citizens is such that this single, empty word (Terrorists), standing alone, is sufficient to generate unquestioning support for whatever their governments do in its name, no matter how secret or unaccompanied by evidence it may be.

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/middle-east-and-north-africa/2177-the-bombing-of-mali-highlights-all-the-lessons-of-western-intervention

[Abz2000]

This is not Islam v the West, it’s a moderate Islam v an extreme Islam.

I'm not even going to bother responding to your amusing statements from the top, it's the kind of stuff that would wash only with the overweight type who come home from the pub drunk and sit in front of the tv from which they get all their information about whats happening around the world.

Anyone who would bother to research by themselves would realize that this is an attack on Islam, and that they fear the idea of Muslims coming together, you keep making this differentiation between "libyan Muslims" and "malians", (as if to imply there are no Muslims in Mali and that this is just an invasion by Libyan "terrorists")when to us, they're all Muslims, Muslims ready to fight for their what they believe in and not bow to western colonisation of their lands whether directly or through proxy sellout governments. I don't call them "terrorists" i call them heroes,
It seems you don't understand the meaning of the term "terrorist" itself or you would have realised that America, israel, uk, France and their proxy Arab and other governments - ALL come under the category of terrorist.

What do you think an extremist Muslim is? One who believes that Islamic rule is the best solution to our problems?
And that there should be an Islamic government with an Islamic army that can fight to defend Muslims, and doesn't care what the west calls it.

Your favoured "moderate" who believes that obama's or some other criminal's rules are more important than God's and that infidel pig eating sons of monkeys and apes (not my theory) have the right to step in Muslim lands with their impure feet and kill Muslims - falls under the category of Munafiq, (those who hate what God has revealed, enemies of God and His Messenger in the guise of believers).

They even confuse you with terms like extremist, givng you a negative perception of it and makIng you parrot it.
When someone does something good extremely well it's a good thing to me, may Allah make us able to practise Islam extremely well.

[Independent]

you keep making this differentiation between "libyan Muslims" and "malians", (as if to imply there are no Muslims in Mali and that this is just an invasion by Libyan "terrorists"

As you seem to have missed it the first time I will repeat myself: ‘Until yesterday this was exclusively a Muslim v Muslim conflict.’ Yes, Mali is a 90% Muslim majority country and both sides are (mostly) Muslim. But it’s not going to help anyone understand what's going on if we refer to both sides by the same term.

terms like extremist,

The word ‘extremist’ has perjorative overtones but at least you understand who I'm talking about and I don’t know what else to use here. Another term that gets used is ‘fundamentalist’, but that gets objections too. Or (in the case of Mali) I have seen them described as ‘Salafist influenced’. What other term is there available that can distinguish between the warring parties, that has clarity, that doesn’t take sides, and isn’t perjorative?

This intervention is itself the consequence of another. The Libyan war is frequently touted as a success story for liberal interventionism. Yet the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi's dictatorship had consequences that Western intelligence services probably never even bothered to imagine.

Yes, the fallout from the Libyan war is the new factor which has destabilized Mali. But journalists have the luxury of criticising the specific action which is in fact taken. They never have to defend what might-have-been.

Who’s to say what violence and disaster might have spilled out of Libya anyway, if the rebels had not received western assistance in toppling Gadaffi? However Gadaffi fell, those Tuaregs and other foreign fighters were always going to flee the country. So what do we do – leave the dictators in power?

The west was initially criticized for not helping the rebels in Libya. Now the reverse is true. In Syria, the west is being simultaneously criticized for both helping and not helping. Absolutely any action the west takes, intervention or non-intervention, will be criticized and given as proof of anti-islamic attitudes. In fact, ironically, it’s only when the west actually chooses one particular direction, that everyone finally agrees that this is the one thing they were always afraid of.

Even if you happen to like the invaders’ particular brand of Islam, that doesn’t mean this attack is a good thing for Mali. This is the last thing Mali needs.

[جوري]

As you seem to have missed it the first time I will repeat myself: ‘Until yesterday this was exclusively a Muslim v Muslim conflict.’ Yes, Mali is a 90% Muslim majority country and both sides are (mostly) Muslim. But it’s not going to help anyone understand what's going on if we refer to both sides by the same term.

People who ally themselves with kaffirs against Muslims aren't Muslim. They fall outside the folds of Islam. It is one of the ten major acts that put one outside the folds and beneath those ten are 44 others.


this one from the video lecture above:

<<<<
So it is a biggie. You wanna insist on calling them 'Muslims' be our guest, don't act so annoyed however when corrected!


best,

[Independent]

People who ally themselves with kaffirs against Muslims aren't Muslim.

Then there aren't many Muslims left in the world. Even many Muslim leaders of the past were allied to Christian or other states at different times. Who's left?

[جوري]

Then there aren't many Muslims left in the world. Even many Muslim leaders of the past were allied to Christian or other states at different times. Who's left?

Many are the Muslims but few who have accepted Islam. To be allied with kaffirs against a common enemy has happened and shall happen once again. To be allied with kaffirs against Muslims puts one outside the folds of Islam except that which Allah :swt: knows in his knowledge and of the condition of those individuals themselves. But here is a clear situation of kaffir desptic govt. consorting with their western masters to kill Muslims. Most if not all current so called Muslim majority regions are Daar Al Harb!

best,

[Muslim Woman]

:sl:

No reply? This is just another muslim country going to suffer under western occupation....

may Allah help our oppressed sisters and brothers . O Allah , give us victory over the disbelievers , Ameen.

[سيف الله]

Salaam


Mali: the fastest blowback yet in this disastrous war on terror

French intervention in Mali will fuel terrorism, but the west's buildup in Africa is also driven by the struggle for resources


by Seumas Milne

To listen to David Cameron's rhetoric this week, it could be 2001 all over again. Eleven years into the war on terror, it might have been Tony Blair speaking after 9/11. As the bloody siege of the part BP-operated In Amenas gas plant in Algeria came to an end, the British prime minister claimed, like George Bush and Blair before him, that the country faced an "existential" and "global threat" to "our interests and way of life".

While British RAF aircraft backed French military intervention against Islamist rebels in Mali, and troops were reported to be on alert for deployment to the west African state, Cameron promised that a "generational struggle" would be pursued with "iron resolve". The fight over the new front in the terror war in North Africa and the Sahel region, he warned, could go on for decades.

So in austerity-blighted Britain, just as thousands of soldiers are being made redundant, while Barack Obama has declared that "a decade of war is now ending", armed intervention is being ratcheted up in yet another part of the Muslim world. Of course, it's French troops in action this time. But even in Britain the talk is of escalating drone attacks and special forces, and Cameron has refused to rule out troops on the ground.

You'd think the war on terror had been a huge success, the way the western powers keep at it, Groundhog Day-style. In reality, it has been a disastrous failure, even in its own terms – which is why the Obama administration felt it had to change its name to "overseas contingency operations", until US defence secretary Leon Panetta revived the old title this week.

Instead of fighting terror, it has fuelled it everywhere it's been unleashed: from Afghanistan to Pakistan, from Iraq to Yemen, spreading it from Osama bin Laden's Afghan lairs eastwards to central Asia and westwards to North Africa – as US, British and other western forces have invaded, bombed, tortured and kidnapped their way across the Arab and Muslim world for over a decade.

So a violent jihadist movement that grew out of western intervention, occupation and support for dictatorship was countered with more of the same. And the law of unintended consequences has meanwhile been played out in spectacular fashion: from the original incubation of al-Qaida in the mujahideen war against the Soviet Union, to the spread of terror from western-occupied Afghanistan to Pakistan, to the strategic boost to Iran delivered by the US-British invasion of Iraq.

When it came to Libya, the blowback was much faster – and Mali took the impact. Nato's intervention in Libya's civil war nearly two years ago escalated the killing and ethnic cleansing, and played the decisive role in the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime. In the ensuing maelstrom, Tuareg people who had fought for Gaddafi went home to Mali and weapons caches flooded over the border.

Within a couple of months this had tipped longstanding demands for self-determination into armed rebellion – and then the takeover of northern Mali by Islamist fighters, some linked to al-Qaida. Foreign secretary William Hague acknowledged this week that Nato's Libyan intervention had "contributed" to Mali's war, but claimed the problem would have been worse without it.

In fact, the spillover might have been contained if the western powers had supported a negotiated settlement in Libya, just as all-out war in Mali might have been avoided if the Malian government's French and US sponsors had backed a political instead of a military solution to the country's divisions.

French intervention in Mali has now produced the fastest blowback yet in the war on terror. The groups that seized the In Imenas gas plant last week – reportedly with weapons supplied to Libya by France and Britain – insisted their action was taken in response to France's operation, Algeria's decision to open its airspace to the French and western looting of the country's natural resources.

It may well be that the attack had in fact been planned for months. And the Algerian government has its own history of bloody conflict with Islamist movements. But it clearly can't be separated from the growing western involvement across the region.

France is in any case the last country to sort out Mali's problems, having created quite a few of them in the first place as the former colonial power, including the legacy of ethnic schism within artificial borders – as Britain did elsewhere. The French may have been invited in by the Malian government. But it's a government brought to power by military coup last year, not one elected by Malians – and whose troops are now trading atrocities and human rights abuses with the rebels.

Only a political settlement, guaranteed by regional African forces, can end the conflict. Meanwhile, French president François Hollande says his country will be in Mali as long as it takes to "defeat terrorism in that part of Africa". All the experience of the past decade suggests that could be indefinitely – as western intervention is likely to boost jihadist recruitment and turn groups with a regional focus towards western targets.

All this is anyway about a good deal more than terrorism. Underlying the growing western military involvement in Africa – from the spread of American bases under the US Africa Command to France's resumption of its post-colonial habit of routine armed intervention – is a struggle for resources and strategic control, in the face of China's expanding economic role in the continent. In north and west Africa, that's not just about oil and gas, but also uranium in countries like Niger – and Mali. Terrorism has long since become a catch-all cover for legitimising aggressive war.

The idea that jihadists in Mali, or Somalia for that matter, pose an existential threat to Britain, France, the US or the wider world is utter nonsense. But the opening of a new front in the war on terror in north Africa and the Sahel, accompanied by another murderous drone campaign, is a potential disaster for the region and risks a new blowback beyond it.

The past decade has demonstrated beyond doubt that such interventions don't solve crises, let alone deal with the causes of terrorism, but deepen them and generate new conflicts. More military intervention will bolster authoritarian regimes – and its rhetoric further poison community relations in the intervening states. It seems the price has to be paid over and over again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk

Just a quick aside, has the other threads been deleted on this subject?

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

The BBC, Mali and the cock up theory of history

The suggestion that the transformation of Mali into a ‘mess’ and a 'global threat' might have been a ‘cock up’, constitutes the outer limits of acceptable criticism for the BBC.

Attachment 5252

The mainstream British media tends to view foreign policy through a very narrow lens at the best of times, and the BBC’s worldview tends to be more circumscribed than most.

On Monday Evan Davis interviewed William Hague on the Today programme about Britain’s role in Mali. During his gentle interrogation of the Foreign Secretary, Davis used a number of concepts that have become part of the political vocabulary of Western foreign policy in recent decades.

Thus he declared that ‘the French were trying to prevent the spread of non-government’ in Mali and asked Hague to summarize his strategy for dealing with ‘these ungoverned spaces where extremists roam’. He then described Mali as the latest addition to the world’s ‘non-governed rogue states.’

But it also belonged to a category of ‘non-governed rogue non-states’. This transformation was relatively recent, Davis insisted, since eighteen months ago Mali had been a ‘ fragile state, but it was a state.’ Now, this former ‘secure poor state’ had become ‘a mess.’

How had Mali gone from being fragile, poor but secure, a non-governed non-state that was also rogue? Was it, Davis politely suggested, something of a ‘cock up’, given the British role in the overthrow of Gaddafi and the subsequent outflow of weapons to Tuareg rebels in northern Mali?

Naturally Hague denied this, and insisted that British involvement in Libya had ‘saved lives’ in Libya itself. In addition it had ‘mitigated’ the situation in Mali and prevented its collapse from getting worse.

Davis’ suggestion that the transformation of Mali into a ‘mess’ and a ‘global threat’ might have been a ‘cock up’, constitutes the outer limits of acceptable criticism for the BBC. I have lost count of the times in which seemingly combative interviews by BBC journalists with government ministers in fact accept without question the essential view of foreign policy propagated by the government itself; namely, that the policies of Britain and its allies are essentially dictated by moral and humanitarian considerations and a common concern for international law and global security and a desire to eliminate ‘terrorism’ or ‘al Qaeda.’

According to this narrative, such imperatives oblige the West to deploy military force in the world’s ‘ungovernable spaces’ in order to restore order, good government and security for the good of the countries concerned, and the world as a whole. This is why Britain and its allies support ‘regime change’ in Iraq and Syria, why sanctions are being imposed on Iran, why France is now in Mali.

Unfortunately, from time to time, these well-meaning efforts produce the occasional ‘cock up’ like Iraq, or the spillover of the Afghan war into Pakistan, and now Mali. Absent from this ‘cock up’ discourse is any attempt to analyse the strategic, economic or the broader geopolitical considerations that have shaped the various interventions of the last decade or so, or the general policy of militarisation that has underpinned them, or any attempt to understand the history or the internal dynamics of the societies where these interventions take place.

Why was Africom created and why has the Pentagon become so concerned with Africa? How is that ‘al Qaeda’ is able to reproduce itself so easily in these ‘ungoverned spaces’? Is Al Qaeda in the Maghreb really a creation of the Algerian secret services, as some analysts have suggested?

Are the ‘threats’ depicted by Western governments really as serious as these governments say they are? Is military intervention the only ‘solution’ to reactionary Islamist formations of the al Qaeda type? Or do such interventions actually provide such organizations with a raison d’etre?

Is it true, as an interesting article in Ceasefire Magazine suggests, that French intervention in Mali might be driven by a desire to ensure access to uranium for its huge nuclear industry? Could it be that these governments also find chaotic and fragmented states politically useful and convenient?

Are these ‘rogue’ and ‘failed’ states really a threat to ‘our way of life’, as so many of our leaders insist, or do they provide a pretext for permanent militarization and neo-colonial interventions? How is it that the same governments that declare ‘terrorists’ and ‘jihadists’ to be their enemies will also work with them on occasion?

Such questions are rarely answered or even asked in the mainstream media. And the result is that the public could be forgiven for believing that foreign policy is conducted by a well-meaning gaggle of jolly good chaps, fighting the forces of darkness in the world’s peripheral places, prone only to the folly of good intentions and the occasional cock-up.

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/...ory-of-history

[Independent]

Is it true, as an interesting article in Ceasefire Magazine suggests, that French intervention in Mali might be driven by a desire to ensure access to uranium for its huge nuclear industry?

The 'it's all about access to resources' accusation is one that is now made routinely. How true is it?

1. The first thing to realise is that it's a completely generic observation. Most countries have some sort of potential resource you could say was 'strategic' if you wanted to (although strangely, the west doesn't seem to have bothered to do much exploiting in Mali during the previous 20 years of stable democracy). So, it's not a blinding revelation of a 'secret motive' to say there is potentially oil here, gas there. It doesn't prove anything in itself.
2. Secondly, it's not really a choice between 'western exploitation of resources' or some other way. In the energy extraction industries, especially oil, it is hugely expensive to prospect, drill and transport these resources. Only 1 in 20 oil wells will succeed (depending on the area) and it costs a small fortune to drill every one. The expertise for this is heavily concentrated in western countries. If you're not going to develop it with the west, you're probably not going to develop it at all.
3. What's more, the key customers are also western countries. For any north African country, good relations with the west are a prerequisite if you're going to benefit from such resources or you might as well leave them in the ground.
4. In this particular case it is absurd to suggest that the whole thing is staged for the benefit of the French nuclear industry. As I posted in the other Mali thread, this very same group attacked a French uranium mine in Niger a couple of years ago (long before anyone dreamed of the Mali conflict) - amongst other targets. How does that help the French uranium industry? This is just making stuff up.
5. Looking at the way events unfolded, the French intervention came about very abruptly because the hardline forces suddenly extended the conflict into the south of Mali and threatened to take over the whole country. The original plan, to bring in other African armies and train up the Malian army, was no longer viable. It was act now, or don't act at all. These events were very hard to forsee (and in fact no one predicted them).

Could it be that these governments also find chaotic and fragmented states politically useful and convenient?

Above all, the thing that these theories fail to take into account, is the vital role that political stability plays in the energy extraction industry. These projects are very long term, vastly expensive, and don't make money for years. The very last thing they need is political instability. And right now, the very worst kind of political instability you can get is Al Qaeda linked.

Whereas, Al Qaead linked organisations seem to thrive in chaos.

For these reasons, it is hugely unlikely that this war was sought by France or any other western country.

[titus]

French President Visits Mali to Cheers of Support

French President Francois Hollande bathed in the cheers and accolades of the thousands of people of this embattled city on Saturday, making a triumphant stop six days after French forces parachuted into Timbuktu to liberate the fabled city from the radical Islamists occupying it.

Thousands of people stood elbow-to-elbow behind a perimeter line in downtown Timbuktu, hoisting the homemade French flags they had prepared for Hollande’s arrival.

Just before French troops arrived in Timbuktu last week, the retreating Islamic extremists set fire to a portion of the collection at the Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research. It was their final blow, not just to Mali but to the world. The oldest manuscripts in the repository date back nearly 1,000 years, and are crucial to Africa’s identity, because they show that the continent had a written record, not just an oral history, said the library’s acting director Abdoulaye Cisse.

Although an inventory has not yet been completed, the director believes less than 5 percent of the library’s priceless manuscripts were destroyed, because the majority of the library was spirited out of the library and hidden hundreds of miles away in the capital, said Cisse.

Despite the outpouring of joy, many expressed worry about France’s long-term intentions. Mali’s military has proved to be no match for the better-armed Islamic extremists, who seized a territory equal in size to France last year, after the army simply abandoned their posts. Hollande made clear that France intends to hand off the control of the recuperated terrain to Mali’s military, and to the African troops pledged by neighboring countries.

“Now, it’s the Malians who have the responsibility to assure the transition, and especially the security, of their country,” he said at the airport. Asked by reporters how soon French troops will begin to draw down from Timbuktu, he said: “The handover is soon enough.”

As Hollande’s convoy rolled out of town on the carpet of sand that leads to the airport, the French president passed the billboards erected by the Islamic rebels, saying: “The city of Timbuktu was founded on Islam, and will be judged on Islamic law.” He passed storefronts where advertisements were blotted out, because they showed figures of women. The occupiers banned music and alcohol, smoking and dancing, playing football, and wearing jewelry, makeup or perfume. They lashed women who showed so much as a centimeter of skin, amputated the hands of thieves, and stoned a couple to death, because they had had children out of wedlock.

“We have just spent 10 months in hell. Everything that demarcates the liberty of man was forbidden to us. We couldn’t smoke, we couldn’t listen to music, we couldn’t wear the clothes we wanted to wear,” Ben Essayati said.

One of the thousands of people who came out to see Hollande on Saturday took the time to write out a personal message, penned on a piece of particle board, which he hoisted above his head. It said: “Hollande, for us you represent the angel which stopped the calamity.”

So, after reading this and other articles about Mali, I begin to wonder if anyone in Mali other than the rebels themselves actually want them in power. Tell me how "Islamic" are these people who are looked at as tyrants by the people they ruled over?

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Oh of course, reminds me of the Iraqis when they were cheering the Americans for their 'liberation' in 2003.

The people of Mali will realise in time that Western (French in this case) powers only operate on one overriding principle.

'How will this benefit me?'

Some updates



The other side of French airstrikes on Mali: ‘They ruined everything I had'

French President Francois Hollande is triumphant about his operation in Mali, but stories are emerging which show a different side of the war. Journalist Gonzalo Wancho tells RT that for every two rebels killed in airstrikes, a dozen civilians died.

“We’re learning what happened in battle day by day. In the town of Konna, we heard stories from the fog of war. [Rebels] fled to the north when French troops showed up. It’s reported that the cost of that victory was high. While French planes killed only two rebels, the number of civilian casualties were an estimated 14,” journalist Gonzalo Wancha told RT.

It comes just days after French President Francois Hollande declared “victory” in northern Malian cities. But the victory also had its price:

“I wasn’t home when the bombing began. I started praying when I learned my house was under attack. They ruined everything I had – my family and my livelihood. [My children were 11, 10, and 6]. They all died,” Idrís Meiga, a farmer from Konna, told RT.

Meiga’s story is not unique. In fact, it is becoming all too common to hear of similar tragedies in northern Mali.

“Some kids came running up to us and said their mom had died. I brought them to our house. Their mother died after an hour of clinging to life. The children have nobody else but us,” resident Abdul Kampó said.

Another story involved a mother who died from shell splinters, leaving three children behind – including a newborn baby.

Two young brothers drowned in a nearby river as they attempted to flee from the fighting.

These residents refuse to be persuaded by military claims of “victory.”

“People [in the town] say [French] war crimes must be prosecuted under the Geneva Convention,” Wancha said.

And while Hollande maintains that French military intervention in Mali will be short lived, the consequences of this war will affect the lives of these innocent civilians for a lifetime.

Meanwhile, airstrikes continue in Mali’s far north. Earlier Monday, 30 jets targeted training and communication centers of Islamist militants in the town of Tessalit.

The move was an effort to cut off nearby supply routes. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France’s Inter radio that rebels “cannot stay there a long time unless they have new supplies.”

It is believed that French civilians are being held hostage by militants in the area.

Both France and the Malian government have come under criticism for their alleged activity against terrorists and Islamist supporters in the African country.

Days ago, three suspected Jihadists who were arrested in the liberation of Timbuktu said they were tortured by Malian soldiers who used a method similar to waterboarding.

“To force me to talk they poured 40 liters of water in my mouth and over my nostrils, which made it so that I could not breathe anymore. For a moment I thought I was actually going to die,” said one of the men who said he was from the central Malian town of Niono.

According to a report by Human Rights Watch, Malian government forces executed at least 13 suspected Islamist supporters and “forcibly disappeared” five others from the towns of Sévaré and Konna last month.

http://rt.com/news/mali-konna-france-hollande-438/

[Independent]

Oh of course, reminds me of the Iraqis when they were cheering the Americans for their 'liberation' in 2003

Wrong comparison. it should remind you of when the Kuwaitis cheered for their liberation.

The people of Mali will realise in time that Western (French in this case) powers only operate on one overriding principle.
'How will this benefit me?'

Yep. Just like everyone else.

French President Francois Hollande is triumphant about his operation in Mali, but stories are emerging which show a different side of the war. Journalist Gonzalo Wancho tells RT that for every two rebels killed in airstrikes, a dozen civilians died.

And this report is from....Russian TV, the state-funded broadcaster. The same channel that supported Gaddafi. The same channel that said that the Libyan rebels had no popular support. The same channel that still backs Assad. What do you expect them to say?

And while Hollande maintains that French military intervention in Mali will be short lived, the consequences of this war will affect the lives of these innocent civilians for a lifetime.

Yes, there are many who have lost their lives or suffered some form of assault by either side. The Malian army is undisciplined and partly composed of malitia who themselves had dubious track records in the past. But the reason all this is happening is because of the Tuareg revolt followed by the Al Qaeda backed invasion. The guys that should get the lion's share of the blame are the guys who started it.

Unfortunately there will inevitably be revenge attacks for what happened during hardliner rule. It will not be pleasant. They will take the law into their own hands. What are they seeking revenge for? Things like this: "They tied up the head of a family and then raped his wife in front of him, and then his daughter. I saw it with my own eyes. I thought my family would be next, so we fled. They raped many women. They took them into the dunes for two or three days and then they came back for more." (Moustafa Ag Sidi Malian militia) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21283829).

Bad stuff happens in war. In almost all wars, 'collateral damage' (ie civilian casualties) exceeds military deaths - sometimes by a factor of 10. The primary blame is with the Muslim hardliner groups including Ansar Dine who hijacked the Tuareg revolt and then sought to impose their own, strict version of Sharia law on a country that (although mostly Muslim) has its own fantastic mostly non-Arab culture.

You should not support the hardliners because they are external invaders, they wrecked one of the world's poorest countries, they betrayed the Tuareg, and they don't even follow the religious rules they imposed on others.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update, On the wider implications of this intervention

The Real Invasion Of Africa Is Not News, And A Licence To Lie Is Hollywood’s Gift

A full-scale invasion of Africa is under way. The United States is deploying troops in 35 African countries, beginning with Libya, Sudan, Algeria and Niger. Reported by Associated Press on Christmas Day, this was missing from most Anglo-American media.

The invasion has almost nothing to do with “Islamism”, and almost everything to do with the acquisition of resources, notably minerals, and an accelerating rivalry with China. Unlike China, the US and its allies are prepared to use a degree of violence demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Palestine. As in the cold war, a division of labour requires that western journalism and popular culture provide the cover of a holy war against a “menacing arc” of Islamic extremism, no different from the bogus “red menace” of a worldwide communist conspiracy.

Reminiscent of the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, the US African Command (Africom) has built a network of supplicants among collaborative African regimes eager for American bribes and armaments. Last year, Africom staged Operation African Endeavor, with the armed forces of 34 African nations taking part, commanded by the US military.

Africom’s “soldier to soldier” doctrine embeds US officers at every level of command from general to warrant officer. Only pith helmets are missing.

It is as if Africa’s proud history of liberation, from Patrice Lumumba to Nelson Mandela, is consigned to oblivion by a new master’s black colonial elite whose “historic mission”, warned Frantz Fanon half a century ago, is the promotion of “a capitalism rampant though camouflaged”.

A striking example is the eastern Congo, a treasure trove of strategic minerals, controlled by an atrocious rebel group known as the M23, which in turn is run by Uganda and Rwanda, the proxies of Washington.

Long planned as a “mission” for Nato, not to mention the ever-zealous French, whose colonial lost causes remain on permanent standby, the war on Africa became urgent in 2011 when the Arab world appeared to be liberating itself from the Mubaraks and other clients of Washington and Europe. The hysteria this caused in imperial capitals cannot be exaggerated. Nato bombers were dispatched not to Tunis or Cairo but Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi ruled over Africa’s largest oil reserves. With the Libyan city of Sirte reduced to rubble, the British SAS directed the “rebel” militias in what has since been exposed as a racist bloodbath.

The indigenous people of the Sahara, the Tuareg, whose Berber fighters Gaddafi had protected, fled home across Algeria to Mali, where the Tuareg have been claiming a separate state since the 1960s. As the ever watchful Patrick Cockburn points out, it is this local dispute, not al-Qaida, that the West fears most in northwest Africa …. “poor though the Tuareg may be, they are often living on top of great reserves of oil, gas, uranium and other valuable minerals”.

Almost certainly the consequence of a French/US attack on Mali on 13 January, a siege at a gas complex in Algeria ended bloodily, inspiring a 9/11 moment in David Cameron. The former Carlton TV PR man raged about a “global threat” requiring “decades” of western violence. He meant implantation of the west’s business plan for Africa, together with the rape of multi-ethnic Syria and the conquest of independent Iran.

Cameron has now ordered British troops to Mali, and sent an RAF drone, while his verbose military chief, General Sir David Richards, has addressed “a very clear message to jihadists worldwide: don’t dangle and tangle with us. We will deal with it robustly” – exactly what jihadists want to hear. The trail of blood of British army terror victims, all Muslims, their “systemic” torture cases currently heading to court, add necessary irony to the general’s words. I once experienced Sir David’s “robust” ways when I asked him if he had read the courageous Afghan feminist Malalai Joya’s description of the barbaric behaviour of westerners and their clients in her country. “You are an apologist for the Taliban” was his reply. (He later apologised).

http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-real-invasion-of-africa-is-not-news-and-a-licence-to-lie-is-hollywoods-gift

[Independent]

The invasion has almost nothing to do with “Islamism”, and almost everything to do with the acquisition of resources, notably minerals, and an accelerating rivalry with China.

We already talked about the resource issue earlier in this thread - it just doesn't stack up, the financials don't make sense even if you want to assume the worst about the governments. For instance there is this from the Think Africa Press website:

'What are France's objectives in intervening in northern Mali? Who exactly are they fighting?

It is worth beginning by dismissing some theories about France’s motivations for intervening which are erroneous.Firstly, it is not neo-colonialism. While France has a sorry record of neo-colonialism in its former colonies, this intervention is not an example of it. Mali is an outlier in French post-colonialism and French economic interests in Mali are relatively limited.

Secondly, conspiracy theories about riches under the Sahara are misguided. Northern Mali has no proven oil or uranium deposits, and it is not clear that if any were discovered, France would recoup the costs of the intervention in preferential agreements. It is possible that worries of a spill-over into Niger – from which France imports 7% of its domestic energy supplies in the form of uranium – was a factor in French decision-making. But the intervention has put those assets more not less at risk.

Thirdly, references to the “strategic importance” of Mali should be quickly dismissed. Mali has little strategic importance to any outside power in terms of economic or other resources. Indeed, prior to the events of the last year, Mali was truly one of the world’s strategic backwaters.

In that case, what reasons did inform France’s decision? The strategic interest that France sees, whether justified or not, is in removing, or halting the spread of, Islamist militants in the country and region. I am minded to take French strategic thinking pretty much at face value here, although I personally think the threat of Islamic militancy to both the region and outside the region is overblown.

One false narrative which has been accepted, however, is that the events in northern Mali are blowback from NATO’s 2011 intervention in Libya. This narrative, whilst not without elements of truth, is overstated, overpowering so much other analysis.

I have two main problems with it. Firstly, it completely ignores local dynamics alongside messy and unclear facts. Instead, it substitutes a kind of theory of cosmic payback for Western foreign policy. This places the effects of Western policy far above the moods and motivations of Malians. Whilst this easy assumption may have worked with respect to the War on Terror in other Muslim majority countries, it fails to properly face facts in Mali.

Secondly, the theory, at least in its common, most exaggerated form, fails at the basic level of common sense. Niger, which actually borders Libya, unlike Mali, would be a far more likely candidate to suffer blowback from Libya. Fighters in the Libyan war crossed the border between the two. Niger has a large Tuareg population. There is a history of trans-border criminal and Islamic militant networks just like in Mali. And there are actually natural resources there (uranium and oil). However, Niger remains stable whilst Mali is in crisis. A significantly weaker version of blowback theory could explain this, but the usual blithe assumptions around the necessary link between Mali and Libya cannot.'

http://thinkafricapress.com/mali/editors-q-whats-deal-mali

On a lighter note, congratulations to Mali for reaching the semi finals of the African Football Cup of Nations, despite everything that has happened back home.

[Jedi_Mindset]

the retreat of the rebel forces where tactical ,now they go resorting to geurilla war which has also paid the price for the troops in iraq and afghanistan. Geurilla warfare is the most effective warfare. And can be very heavy for the french troops which mostly consists of 18 young old teenagers who like to shoot everyone lol most likely from call of duty..

This is gonna be long and it will destabilize the region.

Suicide bomber blows himself up near Mali soldiers, first attack of its kind

A suicide bomber has blown himself up near Malian security troops in the central town of Gao, reports AFP. It’s the first suicide bombing on Malian troops since beginning their campaign with the French to wrest Mali’s north from Islamist militants.
The suicide bomber approached a group of Malian troops on a motorbike before detonating his explosives and injuring one soldier, reported AFP, citing military sources.
The suicide bomber "approached us on a motorbike, he was a Tamashek (Tuareg), and as he came closer he set off his belt," said First Sergeant Mamadou Keita to AFP.
The bombing marks the first instance of militants employing suicide attacks as a tactic since the French-led campaign against Mali’s Islamists was launched three weeks ago.
The attack follows a threat by two Islamist extremist groups, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO),warning they had created a new “combat zone” and were organizing attacks on military convoys and placing landmines.
Meanwhile, in Mali’s southern capital Bamako shooting was reported at a paratrooper base, sources told Reuters.
The campaign to take back the North of Mali from the Islamist militants is now in its third week. Currently there are around 4,000 French troops deployed in the country aiding Malian security forces.
French and Chadian forces have made progress in their push towards Mail’s north, advancing into the northeastern mountain range where militants are thought to be holding seven French hostages.
The French-led assault has driven many of Mali’s rebels into the mountainous, amid fears they will adopt guerrilla-style tactics in the area.
“All these Jihadis and armed groups and terrorist elements – seemingly they have fled. Our concern is that they may come back,”
said UN leader Ban Ki-moon in New York. He echoed concerns over a possible guerrilla warfare backlash in Mali.

http://rt.com/news/suicide-bomber-mali-soldiers-718/

[Independent]

This is gonna be long and it will destabilize the region.

Let me get this straight. You're accusing the government of Mali of destabilising the region, by seeking to exert jurisdiction over its own sovereign territory?

[Jedi_Mindset]

Let me get this straight. You're accusing the government of Mali of destabilising the region, by seeking to exert jurisdiction over its own sovereign territory?

The region is already on fire, libya on the right if already considering a open weapon bazaar. Yes, the government is too blame also, the tuaregs wanted independence because they faced discimination.

Military success in Mali raises fear of sectarian revenge attacks


As French, Malian and troops from other African countries enter the key northern Malian towns of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal, reports are emerging of revenge attacks against the Islamists and some of the local Tuareg and Arab population.
As Malian and French forces closed in and retook Gao last weekend virtually unopposed, residents have been hunting down and beating up suspected Islamist extremists who did not have time to flee into the desert. Malian troops then bundled the suspected terrorists into a truck.
Members of a youth militia called the Gao Patrolmen, went house to house hunting for suspected Islamists.
“They have gone into homes to hide, so we’ve been rounding them up to hand them to the military,” Abdul Karim Samba, a spokesman for the group told AP.
For almost a year al-Qaida linked extremists have controlled the town, where they swiftly introduced Sharia law, banning music and carrying out public executions and amputations.
Troops from Chad, one of the African nations which has sent troops to help the Malian government and the French, were patrolling the streets, backed up by French soldiers overnight.
Reports from Timbuktu say that residents have also attacked property there owned by Arab and Tuareg traders who are suspected of collaborating with the Islamic rebels.
There were also reports Tuesday of widespread looting of shops in Timbuktu, which belonged to Arabs, with the Malian army unable to control the anger of many residents towards the Islamists. Many black African locals connect Arabs, who have lived in the town for hundreds of years – to the extreme Islamists because of their appearance and religion.

Gonzalo Wancha, a freelance journalist in Mali, who was travelling north from Timbuktu with French and Malian soldiers, told RT that he saw evidence of war crimes committed against the local population. He said that residents of the town of Sevare had been murdered by Malian soldiers and then thrown into a well, used by locals for drinking water. He also said that there has been evidence of extra judicial killings. Many local Tuaregs and Arabs are being persecuted for allegedly collaborating with al-Qaeda, he added.
Whilst it is too early to say exactly what has happened in Mali, it is inevitable that there will be civilian casualties in such a campaign in a country as poor as Mali where the rule of law has never been strictly enforced, Lode Vanoost, an international consultant and former deputy speaker of the Belgian parliament told RT.
“First of all the Malian army does hold a grudge against the people who ousted them from the northern part of the country and secondly these soldiers are very low paid with very little armaments, they are not really a regular army in that sense. Mali is a very destitute country; it’s always the same tragedy. This country needs our support yes, this country needs our help but why is it this help always comes in the form of military intervention?” He said.

Last night French forces also flew into the northern desert town of Kidal, one of the last strongholds for the Islamists.
“The French arrived at 9:30 pm [Tuesday] aboard four planes. Afterwards they took the airport and then entered the town and there was no combat,” Haminy Maiga, the interim president of the Kidal region told AP.

The Tuareg are Berbers who have lived a nomadic life across the Sahel and Sahara regions of north and west Africa for hundreds of years and make up 11% of the population of northern Mali.
They populate the desert and semi desert areas of northern Mali and have always viewed themselves as different from the black Africans who live in the South and west of the country.
Tuareg rebels have been waging an on-off secessionist war for decades against the Mali government in the capital Bamuko, situated in the south east of the country.
But the Tuareg movement is split into different factions. The secular Tuareg nationalist militia (MNLA) has been fighting for an independent northern republic and has recently said that its supports the French military intervention.
But Another group, the IslamistAnsar Dine, which includes many Tuareg fighters, which spearheaded last year’s successful attempt to take the north of Mali, has close links to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). AQIM is a terrorist organization, which aims to overthrow the Algerian government and create an Islamist state.

http://rt.com/news/mali-conflict-islamists-revenge-106/

And now the malian government which isnt even being legimate by the malian people is asking FOREIGNERS to come and help them in this fight or genocide. This malian government is corrupt as hell and gets painted by the west as a legimate government. However the malian people know better.

Yes the french are destabilizing the region, you know this is a big blowback thanks to NATO invasion led by france in libya.
good is that dictators are gonne be overthrown, bad is that it will lead to destabilization.

[Independent]

Yes the french are destabilizing the region, you know this is a big blowback thanks to NATO invasion led by france in libya.
good is that dictators are gonne be overthrown, bad is that it will lead to destabilization.

Read up. Already covered much of this. And whenever you quote from RT you must remember that they support Gaddafi and Assad, and that their whole analysis is based on that position.

Dictators don't usually give up power by themselves. Unfortunately you have to fight them. When you fight them, weapons saturate the country. Wars are nasty and civil wars are the nastiest of them all. People take revenge in all directions.

So what do you do? Leave dictators in power forever? These guys are dynastic, and their sons are usually worse than the fathers. As I've said elsewhere, the best thing about a democracy is that you can get rid of your government at regular intervals without starting a war.

I sympathise with the Tuareg. But why blame it all on Mali? There are several other states in the region who don't want to give them territory either. The only reason the Tuareg picked on Mali is because Mali was the least able to defend itself.

Bad news for Mali.

The fact is that there are minority populations in countries all over the world who get mistreated and want independence. How do you pick which ones you want to support?

The Malian government had every right to look for help wherever they could. The entire state was on the point of collapse under the Ansar Dine invasion. How much more destabilising can you get? If Ansar Dine now revert to terrorist tactics and suicide bombs, that's not France's fault - it's Ansar Dine's.

There is also a racial component in this between the mainly Arab north and the mainly black African south, which has caused tension in other countries especially Sudan. It's no coincidence that the all the troops supporting Mali are from black African countries. Mali has been invaded before by Arabs - Algeria tried to take it over 200 years ago.

You should welcome the restoration of the Mali government and hope that Ansar Dine leave this desperately poor country in peace to recover itself.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update, interesting



Looks like North Africa is going to be introduced to the wonders of Assassination by Drone.

U.S. Signs Deal to Build Drone Base in Niger

The Obama administration has formally signed an agreement with Niger allowing a permanent U.S. military site in the African country. Reports emerged this week that the United States will build a base in Niger from which to fly drones for surveillance and potentially even missile strikes. Niger borders Mali, where the United States is aiding a French-led military operation in the country’s north.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/30/headlines#1304

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another interesting comment piece, this time by Peter Hitchens

We need a Commons rebellion - not a stupid war in Timbuktu

This is why I despise almost all Members of Parliament: our Prime Minister is taking us into yet another stupid war, and most MPs do not even care. Where is the rebellion? Where is the Opposition? Where are the demands for an emergency debate in which our motives and reasons for this latest nonsense are examined, torn to pieces and flung on the floor?

There is no case at all for Britain to send soldiers to Mali, or any other part of North Africa. We have no interest there, never will have and never have had. If we truly fear terrorism so much, then this adventure is doubly moronic.

It will give terrorists a pretext to attack our country that they did not have before. Like the Afghan war, it will also allow terrorists to kill us without needing to travel here.
We will send our servicemen there, where the terrorists can more easily shoot them or blow them up.

If, three or four years hence, British soldiers are returning from North Africa in coffins, the empty-headed cretins of our political class will place their hands reverently upon their chests and burble solemn tributes, as they do now when the dead come back from our equally futile mission in Afghanistan.

Much less is said about the far larger numbers of terribly wounded young men, each of them worth 10,000 MPs, who will remain maimed or disfigured or both, long after those responsible are drawing plump pensions or being applauded by American matrons on the lucrative lecture circuit.

How is it that people who know so little, and who are so incapable of learning anything from experience, dominate both politics and the higher levels of political journalism? In the past two years we have cheered on the installation of an Egyptian president who said in September 2010 that Israelis are descended from apes and pigs, and created a lawless, failed state in Libya so chaotic that we have to urge our own citizens to run from Benghazi for their lives. But you would barely know these things from either Parliament or the heavyweight media.

It is not just that the Premier and his senior advisers plainly know no history. They seem also to have been asleep during the Blair years, when crude propaganda and cruder lies drove an expedition so foolish that those responsible should be so ashamed that they never show their faces in public again. Then there is Comrade ‘Doctor’ ‘Lord’ John Reid, the unrepentant former communist who gets hoity-toity when reminded that he sent British troops into deadly danger in Afghanistan while piously hoping that ‘we would be perfectly happy to leave in three years’ time without firing one shot’.

Remember that piece of naive drivel when you examine our current Premier’s sudden transformation into the Warlord of the Maghreb, which began with promises of no boots on the ground and continued with an almost instant breach of that promise.

Then go on to ask what all this is about. Once again, we are being told that we can, in some way, defeat terrorism. To know how foolish this is, you don’t even need to be able to read. You can go and see the new film Zero Dark Thirty, in which Jessica Chastain plays a gaunt, obsessive CIA woman on the trail of Osama Bin Laden.

In the end, after a lot of disgusting torture, she finds him, mainly thanks to an overlooked old file that nobody had bothered to study.

Bin Laden is killed, amid rather horrible scenes of weeping and terrified women and children, which are graphically and honestly shown. And, of course, the ‘War on Terror’ goes on exactly as before, because neither side particularly wants it to end.

Or you can buy the DVD of a much better film, The Battle Of Algiers (Mr Cameron should do this), and so learn the miserable history of France’s last attempt to stage a ‘war on terror’ in Africa. Once again, there is hideous torture, which corrupted poor France for decades afterwards.

There is also unspeakable terrorism. People do these ghastly things in the belief that they are doing good, and destroy themselves in the process. Then there is the illusion of victory, followed by the whole thing starting all over again.

Thank heaven we have no need to be involved in this latest bout of futile tragedy. The Americans forced us to surrender to IRA terror in 1998, so we have no debts in that direction. France is and always will be our rival, not our ally, and the only rational explanation of Mr Cameron’s War in Timbuktu is that he is trying to reassure the European Union that he is its loyal servant.

But why should anyone die for that?

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/02/we-need-a-commons-rebellion-not-a-stupid-war-in-timbuktu-3.html