FRANCE HAS INVADED MALI. No build up to this; the French just seem to have gone right in to their old French colony in West Africa. Quite surprised at this, as France is led by a liberal socialist government that are usually opposed to military activity of any kind. But Hollande seems to be resolved to support the government of president Dioncounda Traoré in Mali under serious threat by Muslim extremists.
Exactly the same scenario (Islamic rebels dominating the north and pressing south) is happening in Nigeria (to the south-east of Mali) and in the Sudan.
TV One reports, “France’s armed forces have begun a military intervention in Mali to help the government stem a push south by Islamist rebels who control much of the north.”
Francois Hollande France’s Socialist Party president.
“Earlier, Hollande had made it clear that France would intervene to stop any further drive southward by Islamist rebels as Malian soldiers launched a counter-offensive to wrest back a town captured by militants this week.”
I support this unequivocal clear and decisive action. The West has to front up to growing military action and incursions by Islamic militants who are actively de-stabilising governments. Despite what American president Barack Obama says, Al Qaeda is not on the run, and the “War on terror” is not won. The French seem to get this, having taken various parliamentary actions against the growing impact of exported Islam on French society, such as restrictions on the burqa in public, etc. Their individual somewhat unilateral action is not a UN action, but is claimed as acting within UN resolutions.
That is quite a shift from recent geo-political activity, where nations group together and act in concert (war by committee). Maybe the French have just had enough of UN impotence and have acted. HOORAY! It is a case where old colonial ties have created swift action to help a beleagued government (Czechoslovakia and Poland were not so lucky). With further posturing over the Falklands, one wonders if we will see the British act like the French have, to reassert themselves, or Russia in Chechnya (a subject federal state) – large European powers moving to assist smaller struggling ‘independent’ countries with which they have a link, to ward off powerful international threats, like extremist Islam committed to jihad and to re-position themselves within European power plays.
Perhaps this is a beginning of the sleeping West reasserting it’s not inconsiderable power, but playing out this conflict in the battle-fields of other states.
Mali, one of the first nations to make a declaration of human rights, was part of a French empire as French Sudan (aka the Sudanese Republic), gaining independence in 1960.
Gosh, you seem to be relishing the prospect of some death and carnage. Why is that?
“Despite what American president Barack Obama says, Al Qaeda is not on the run, and the “War on terror” is not won.”
Can you point me to the source for your assertion that Barack Obama has claimed victory in the war against an abstraction? It was Bush who stood on an aircraft carrier dressed up as a soldier and declared “mission accomplished”, remember?
Read his most recent speech to the UN, and his numerous assertions prior to the Nov. election. It is also why the White HOuse lied and shut down the Benghazi debacle on 9/11.