There uis nothing wrong with a temporary military presence but the downside, as we have seen, is that it encourages dependency and a laissez-faire “let Uncle (as in Sam) do it.” This is why the prepoderance of casualties in all “united” conflicts from Korea on have been American.

Yet anybody suggesting troop withdrawals from useless or untenable positions is called an “isolationist” or even a “defeatist”. We simply can’t be the world’s policemen if, for no other reason, than we’re broke and piling up debt at the rate of $7 billion a day.

The main party to the conflict apart from the Mali government are Tuareg nationalists. I’m not sure why everyone is ignoring this aspect since the Tuareg conflict has simmered in the background for some time but I would bet that they make up about half of the small number of fighters we are talking about here. The Tuaregs were used by Gaddafi as a security force to protect his southern flank but also to clamp down further north whenever bits of Libya became a problem. They were also used in the on/off conflict with Chad which also prompted French intervention. The area in question really has nothing. I mean NOTHING. If you are unfortunate enough to be from that part of the world your either a mercenary or a smuggler and the economy is pretty much based on smuggling cigarettes, drugs, and taking foreign hostages. Contrary to what some have been saying, the area where the fighting has been taking place makes Afghanistan look like a Manhattan. Unlike Somalia there is no easy access to sea lanes. Unlike Afghanistan, there is not a nuclear armed country with geopolitical concerns next door. Even the river, which used to be a busy trade route, has pretty much dried up and is difficult to navigate. When I visited Timbuktu I was able to travel by boat but my understanding is that this is no longer possible. Places which warrant a dot on a map are often just a collection of sheds or even a hole in the ground which used to be a well. Algeria and Morocco will be following this closely because of their own rivalry but the numbers involved are telling.

We aren’t going to loose Mali. Almost all 14 million of Mali’s population live in the south. They will react badly and brutally if this disparate and desperate band of 3,000 or so clowns make it to an area which is populated with music loving Malians. The area under control of the MNLA/AQ types has a population of about a million and is about the size of France.

I’m not saying that these bad guys should not be taken on or that they aren’t a threat given the weapons they have (remember they used to be Gaddafi’s shock troops in the area) but I don’t see this taking on the kind of importance that Afghanistan and Somalia has to ourselves and AQ types. The AQ affiliated group there… Ansar Dine, al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb, and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa – terrorising local people, destroying cultural treasures, and enforcing the amputations and public whippings prescribed by sharia law… haven’t endeared themselves to the locals. It was a rather sad part of the world when I was there and I recall 25 years ago men were trying to sell their swords to tourists to support their family… essentially selling their manhood. The primary driver for all this is climate rather than ideology. The place was dying when I was there and I am sure it is much much worse now.

The player to watch is the Mali army. As Allah has mentioned, they have had issues with loyalty and some have taken up with the Tuaregs and AQ types. But for the most part they just left the desert (who can blame them) and have been lording it up in the main population centers playing politics. The big concern was the panic these guys would cause if they approached the main areas of population. The French are suited to this kind of conflict and with the right mix of air power and ground forces they should be able to squash this force. Then it will be up to the Mali army to go back and tidy up.

Now Islamos who cut their teeth fighting Qadaffi in Libya and destroy ancient religious monuments are fighting their way south & trying to force out the Tauregs.

Within the last couple days Islamo rebs popped up behind Taureg “government” forces in a town thats a 10-minute drive from Bamako in a freeway-speed technical or armored fighting vehicle.

France has to help directly because its semi responsible but doesnt have all the techno help. The US cant/wont/shouldnt help directly but can quietly go about droning the crap out of the bad guys.

This requires executive leadership however, which is at the moment notably absent in the WH and Elysee Palace.

Anybody remember what happened the last time France started a war they could not win?

I don’t know, are you talking about Vietnam, or Libya?

Socratease on January 14, 2013 at 7:46 PM

France’s track record is one of only “winning” when someone else comes to their rescue. Generally someone whose primary language is English, not French, namely either us, the British & Commonwealth, or both.

The last war they fought wholly on their own was against Prussia, in 1870-71. It ended with the Prussians dictating surrender terms in Paris.

French “interventions” tend to have even worse consequences than ours have had in the last four years. Chad comes to mind, as does Indochina in the Fifties.

It’s interesting to watch a French Socialist government once more acting exactly like the conservative (by French standards, at least) governments they accuse of all sorts of heinous things- like not being “internationalist” enough. Apparently, they also believe that “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!” should always trump “look before you leap”.

clear ether

eon

Ugh. “Islamists.” Can we please finally dispense with this non-term and call them what they actually are: Muslims.

WhatSlushfund on January 14, 2013 at 7:27 PM

This stark fear of using the word Muslim is one of the most distressing infirmities a human being can be afflicted with. It is mostly confined to the MSM, but now and then you find it in a little dog, and sometimes a man.

US military welfare to Europe needs to stop. Then the EU would be forced to purchase their own planes.

bayam on January 14, 2013 at 6:12 PM

You have no idea how much it galls me to agree with you.

If only Barry could issue an Executive Order banning guns in Mali, I’m sure everything would be alright.

ghostwalker1 on January 14, 2013 at 8:31 PM

Why not just declare it a “Gun Free Zone”. That always works so well.

We no longer have to fight these wars…the drones will.

CW on January 14, 2013 at 6:00 PM

The Rise of the Machines

“The aid of the Americans turned out not to be useful,”

With this regime? No kidding.

My thoughts were for our unfortunate soldiers who just happen to be serving in the Age of Obowma…

Seven Percent Solution on January 14, 2013 at 7:31 PM

I feel for our soldiers too, they are being betrayed by their Generals who are more of dirty politicians now , just like their CinC.

tdarrington on January 14, 2013 at 7:00 PM

Cool story; TD Thanks for sharing it!

HitNRun on January 14, 2013 at 6:50 PM

During my years in the Army I dealt with the South Vietnamese(t!ts on a bull),the Iraqis,Afgans(same as the Viets)and in the 80′s helped train Egyptian troops, one who was a so called strack soldier who showed up in a sandal on one foot,a combat boot on the other and wearing a Hard Rock T-shirt.
It seems we always pick the wrong side in these matters.We train them then they turn after we leave.The other side fights like mad.

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?

Perhaps we will need to as well.

oh, I am soooo sorry….

Anybody remember what happened the last time France started a war they could not win?

I don’t know, are you talking about Vietnam, or Libya?

One reason Obama’s so eager to move U.S. military assets out of Afghanistan is that the game of whack-a-mole has now moved elsewhere

Whack-a-mole is by definition playing a game a step behind your opposition.

Obama went into Libya to oust Qaddafi because he wanted to purchase some goodwill with Muslims during the Arab Spring, and now he’ll likely have to go into Mali to manage the spillover — which Islamists will demagogue to try to destroy any goodwill America has with Muslims after the Arab Spring.

Heckuva job, Barry! That’s some good goodwill!

I can give them both credit if you want me to, Carter started it but it was Reagan who won it. The Afghans never would have won it without the Reagan administration. The things Carter did for Afghanistan was like all the things he did for America…not worth much.

William Eaton on January 14, 2013 at 6:52 PM

If you read what Z-Big said:

Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the President in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

It was because of Carter’s meddling that the Soviets intervened in the first place.

I would not take what he says as the complete truth. That interview you posted is the history of the world as Brzezinski sees it, with himself playing the key role. The key part is…

Both the US and Soviet records support this position, as far as when aid began, which was the point.

Welcome to the world of Zbigniew Brzezinski…Carter stooge….Agent 000…and not the most interesting man on the planet.

William Eaton on January 14, 2013 at 7:01 PM

Z-Big may think that such supports a position the Carter fought the Cold War and you may think that is what he is asserting, but there is another way that his meddling can be read and it is far from positive.

We ?
Or Obama Hussein ?

burrata on January 14, 2013 at 7:24 PM

My thoughts were for our unfortunate soldiers who just happen to be serving in the Age of Obowma…