France: African troops must take the lead in Mali
But once the situation is more stable, France wants African troops to do most of the work to wrest the north of Mali from the Islamists, as called for under a United Nations Security Council resolution passed in December.
French officials conceded, however, that there were disputes over how African participation would be paid for and about the best way to transport troops to Mali. In Paris, French officials said that the United States, while willing to help ferry African troops, wanted to bill France for the use of transport aircraft, which officials said would not go down well with the French.
But the officials said that France and the United States were sharing intelligence about Mali and the Sahel region garnered from drones and other means, and discussions with Washington continued amicably.
The African troops also need equipment and training, and Mr. Fabius pointed to a donors’ summit meeting in Ethiopia scheduled for Jan. 29 as “a key moment.”
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Well this should go so well! Almost as if Obama was involved in the planning.
Falling debris on January 20, 2013 at 9:19 PM
Well, we know how that is going to end.
What France needs to do is exactly what the Allies did in Germany and Japan after WWII — you take control of the government, run the various institutions, get rid of the corruption and bribery. In the case of Mali, as younger people finish their education, you begin to place them in the lower level offices of government with ZERO tolerance for corruption.
Otherwise the same thing is going to happen in Mali as happened in Afghanistan and Iraq — the French will go in, kill a few terrorists, hand everything back over to the same people who created the conditions that led to Al Qaeda coming in there in the first place and as soon as they leave the situation is right back to the way it was before.
If you think you can change a culture of governance in 5 years or 10 years, I’ll have some of what you are smoking. It takes GENERATIONS (3, at least) and a huge civil affairs effort to change a culture.
Doing things the way described in this piece is just going to get MORE people killed in the long run.
crosspatch on January 20, 2013 at 9:44 PM
Gee…that looks like a white flag in Ayrault’s hand, doesn’t it?
ProfShadow on January 20, 2013 at 9:46 PM
Is that anything like the Vietnamese taking on more?
Cindy Munford on January 20, 2013 at 10:25 PM
Take the lead to do what?
What, exactly, is the plan?
YiZhangZhe on January 20, 2013 at 10:35 PM
Ditto. If you’re going to nation build, you have to do it for the long haul as you described otherwise walk away.
AH_C on January 21, 2013 at 12:30 AM
If my youngest brother weren’t here I’d laugh myself sick.
The words “African troops” and “take the lead” don’t belong in the same sentence. The absolute best they can do is stop Islamist encroachment in their own little dirt-poor countries. They have neither the industrial base nor the manpower nor the firepower to take the lead.
This was essentially what my father told me years ago, and I saw right away that he was dead-on. ~1500 years of barbarism and we’ll have a shiny American dumbocracy in 5?
Not to mention the fact that you can only change such a culture AFTER all the resident barbarians who oppose you are dead, gone, or cowering in a hole somewhere…
MelonCollie on January 21, 2013 at 10:55 AM