The next war: Bailing out the French in Mali
With the French already sending drones to the region, it’s possible—likely even if all goes well—that Western involvement will remain limited to air support and intelligence gathering, while foreign (but African) troops provide security and police forces. With any luck the jihadi groups will shatter and disperse on first contact and their local allies will turn on them.
Something must be done in Mali. Open sanctuaries for aggressive jihadis cannot be tolerated. But what’s the strategy? In Libya there’s an argument to be made that even though the United States ‘led from behind’ we were nevertheless used by French oil interests among others to increase French prestige and power in the neighborhood. The French are very good at getting other people to do their dirty jobs for them. Mali is part of France’s ghost empire in Africa; there’s a case to be made for remaining well in the rear and not even leading.
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Well at least you’re honest about it.
MelonCollie on November 9, 2012 at 3:33 PM
No more wars. Bring our troops home.
El_Terrible on November 9, 2012 at 3:35 PM
Neocon /Progressive translation: Great…another place to waste cash and lives.
MoreLiberty on November 9, 2012 at 3:38 PM
The mighty French armed forces should be enough.
Revenant on November 9, 2012 at 3:43 PM
Well, the French bailed us out in 1783. We have bailed them out several times since. Bailing out the French has become like an every-other-generation past time of the US government. Let the French and their new socialist-in-chief fight their own war, spill their own blood, waste their own wealth. I’m not isolationist, but I am tired of fighting European nations’ wars for them especially considering that not a single darn one of them has yet to meet their agreed level of national self-defense.
deepdiver on November 9, 2012 at 3:45 PM
Isn’t this what happened in Vietnam?
Mark1971 on November 9, 2012 at 3:47 PM
VIETNAM!!!!
portlandon on November 9, 2012 at 3:52 PM
With “luck” we’ll defeat the jihadi groups in Afghanistan, Egypt, Lybia, and Syria too … “with Luck” haha, sigh, cry …
Lawrence on November 9, 2012 at 3:53 PM
Moving south, soon Obama will be liberating
his birth placeKenya…albill on November 9, 2012 at 3:55 PM
If the freaking Europeans hate us for being cowboys – it’s time for them to ride the range.
C’est la vie.
Sounds like a French problem to me.
Hill60 on November 9, 2012 at 4:00 PM
Nah, not Vietnam. valiantly despite their overwhelming loss in Dien Bien Phu. This time they are just phoning it in from drones waiting for the US to go in and take the casualties. Unfortunately, the SCOAMF-in-chief and his administration, having already proved that they know as much about history as the average F-in-history 2nd grader, may be ignorant enough to get sucked into this. Heck, we were dumb enough to think we could win in Afghanistan by nation building so, yeah, I can see us wasting 10 years in yet another crap-hole that you can’t bomb back to the stone age because the stone age for them is last Tuesday at 3pm.
deepdiver on November 9, 2012 at 4:01 PM
Oops, er, left out “The French fought” in the first sentence when editing.
I regret the error, etc…
deepdiver on November 9, 2012 at 4:02 PM
They told me if I voted for Mitt Romney, we’d be getting into more wars. And they were right!
rbj on November 9, 2012 at 4:06 PM
Enough!
Daemonocracy on November 9, 2012 at 4:11 PM
Why not? Look how well it worked in Vietnam.
WeekendAtBernankes on November 9, 2012 at 4:20 PM
WW1, Vietnam, WW2…
When will this end?
logis on November 9, 2012 at 4:28 PM
As with Libya, we have zero strategic interest here. Let France handle her own problems.
Doomberg on November 9, 2012 at 4:45 PM
I’d imagine the colonist French are on their own under this president. They’ll receive nothing but token support.
DFCtomm on November 9, 2012 at 4:52 PM
Agreed. They always thought they were better than us. Now’s their chance to prove it. I say pull ALL our troops home! Everywhere! There you go, Europe, those awful Americans are gone. Time for you to step up to the plate. We’ll be watching (and giggling).
squint on November 9, 2012 at 5:01 PM
Gosh, you would think we would want to, at least, do nation building. It is part of our successful foreign policy to win hearts and minds of people who hate us.
a capella on November 9, 2012 at 5:08 PM
I say we tell them we have their backs in Mali the same way they had ours in Vietnam.
BryanS on November 9, 2012 at 6:24 PM