Why no thread on the French military intervention in Mali?

[Hauldren Collider]

DinoDoc's in Mississippi, not South America.

[MichaeltheGreat]

I know, hence my statement.

[Hauldren Collider]

[MichaeltheGreat]

I lived in Mississippi. DD feels better when his state of origin is abused, too.

[Alexander's Horse]

I fear these slow-burn conflicts will bite us sooner or later

[MichaeltheGreat]

A lot of these places, they just kill each other (or more specifically, the ******* group kills people just trying to live their lives, a la the Hidawi/Habr Gidr in Mogadishu or the Janjaweed in southern Sudan. Life sucks for those on the receiving end, but it's not a direct problem for us unless it has potential to spill over into other areas. That's why, fundamentally, nobody gives a **** about the Congo, because it's a more or less self-contained slaughter pit.

[Alexander's Horse]

yeah we let Africa chew itself up for decades and it didn't reflux on us, hopefully not this time too

[molly bloom]

Tuareg. .

Tuareg men go veiled...

Spot the Al Qaeda sympathizer:

[molly bloom]

Gee, you mean he "predicted" something AFTER it happened?

That's usually safer if you're a politician.

[DinoDoc]

Just because you're geopolitically uninformed doesn't mean I'm incorrect. I know indoor plumbing is a recent innovation where you are, do you have cars yet? Libya (a) has this stuff called oil, though not much of it, enough to **** with the market when the global economy gets to a high demand level again,

**** man the US produces more oil per day than Libya.

and (b) has nice porous borders, lots of places to hide, both of which can be useful to destabilize lots of interesting places.

The fabulous fruits of the western invasion then: Algeria attack may have link to Libya camps They sure did keep those rag heads from destabilizing other places in Africa from Libya.

[molly bloom]

They sure did keep those rag heads from destabilizing other places in Africa from Libya.

So exactly what did you think a Western invasion of Libya entailed ? A Sahara wall around the whole country, with checkpoints, barbed wire, minefields ?

Meanwhile, in Iraq:

At least 10 people have been killed in a bomb attack on a political office in northern Iraq, officials say.

More than 90 people are reported to have been injured in the attack on offices of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) in the city of Kirkuk.

The KDP is led by the president of the largely autonomous Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani.

Police say the blast was caused by a vehicle driven by a suicide bomber and caused considerable damage.

Police Brigadier Sarhat Qadir said the area was crowded when the attacker struck.

Kirkuk is the most bitterly contested of Iraq's disputed territories, claimed by both the Kurdish region and Baghdad.

The area, which contains vast reserves of oil, is currently controlled by the Arab-dominated central government in Baghdad.

The BBC's Rami Ruhayem in Baghdad says Wednesday's attack seems to send a political message.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-21039343

Mission accomplished, and all that....

[DinoDoc]

Meanwhile, in Iraq:
Mission accomplished, and all that....

Tell it to someone that supported that cluster****.

[MichaeltheGreat]

**** man the US produces more oil per day than Libya.

Of course it does. That's not much comfort when oil is $100 a barrel and you have a bunch of yuppies in New York get their panties in a bunch over any sort of "news" out of the ME. When there's excess demand, it doesn't take much disruption to cause price disruptions, courtesy of said yuppies.

The fabulous fruits of the western invasion then: Algeria attack may have link to Libya camps They sure did keep those rag heads from destabilizing other places in Africa from Libya.

Which (a) demonstrates the relative importance of Libya, and (b) indicates there are still significant problems there. And one raid does not a destabillization make. Especially directed by an Algerian who was operating in Algeria and elsewhere before Qaddafi didn't duck fast enough.

Oh, and feel free to speculate on how stable the region would be if NATO hadn't intervened in Libya.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Tuareg men go veiled...

Spot the Al Qaeda sympathizer:

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Actually, there aren't many of them among the Tuareg at this point, as they figured out AQIM was using them for its own ends and they were going to be even more screwed. If you could resolve the core issue with Mali (maybe an autonomous region within the country and some central representation), they'd probably be excellent anti al Qaeda mercenaries in their area. Keeping them reined in would be tough, unless their ops were confined to their own region.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Is DD really arguing that a significant oil producing nation (29th in the world in barrels per day & part of OPEC) doesn't matter to US interests? Seriously, my jaw is on the floor.