French to send 1,000 more troops to Mali; U.S. playing supporting role

[WestVirginiaRebel]

NBC News:

France will send about 1,000 troops and armored vehicles to Mali over the next few days with the support of U.S military and intelligence operations, upping the ante in its effort to turn back Islamic militants threatening to topple the north African nation’s government, U.S. national security officials told NBC News on Monday.

French mechanized forces will join approximately 500 French troops already on the ground in the country, battling fighters from at least three Islamic militant groups, including al-Qaida in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The military escalation follows intense bombardment over the weekend by French aircraft of Islamic militant positions in the country's north, where they effectively created an al-Qaida refuge late last year.

The French force will be aided by U.S. military and intelligence operations, the officials said. The U.S. will provide both transport and refueling capability for the operation as well as intelligence, including drones, the officials added. The U.S. Africa command, headquartered in Djibouti in East Africa, is coordinating the U.S. operation, said the officials.

The U.S. has been providing intelligence-gathering assistance — primarily spy satellites — to the French in their assault on Islamist extremists, which began with a series of aerial attacks that began on Friday and continued through Monday. But French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the Associated Press that the rebels fought back on Monday, overrunning the garrison town of Diabaly, about 100 miles north of Segou, the administrative capital of central Mali.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other U.S. officials told the AP early Monday that they would not rule out having American aircraft land in the West African nation as part of future efforts to lend airlift and logistical support.

________

 

America gets involved in a war in a former French colony...what could go wrong?

[Pepper]

Watch this space....

[SrWoodchuck]

Operation Surrender Monkey?

[Valin]

The Moor Strategy

ROGER KAPLAN

Jan 21, 2013

 

Of all the security threats Americans did not expect in 2013, a military breakthrough by Islamists into the heart of West Africa is the most urgent. At this writing, Malians are fleeing the Niger River hub of Mopti, and elements of a French airborne brigade are deployed nearby to reinforce Malian infantrymen, as Islamist fighters advance. Last month, the U.N. Security Council authorized the use of force to rescue northern Mali, which fell under the control of several al Qaeda affiliates in March 2012.

 

The French-sponsored plan, for which the United States has expressed lukewarm support, is being jump-started by the terrorists’ preemptive use of force. They have had a year to strengthen their position. An individual with a keen interest in the alarming strategic situation is the Islamists’ arch-foe and Mali’s neighbor, Mohamed Abdel Aziz, president of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. While acknowledging that the crisis calls for an immediate reaction on the part of Mali and its friends to keep the Islamists north of the Niger River, he stresses that there is no longer any excuse for not taking a hard look at the whole Sahel region and its persistent problems.

 

 

 

So little known is Mauritania that few Western news outlets bothered to report the wounding of its president last October. Victim of a reportedly accidental shooting while passing an army guard post on a desert road outside this capital, Abdel Aziz required surgery and weeks of convalescence in France, during which neither the White House nor the State Department called him directly. He does not bring this up during a conversation in his office at year’s end, but goes straight to the point he wants to get across: The terrorist groups and criminal gangs in northern Mali must be eradicated.

 

(Snip)

 

 

_________________________________________________________________________

 

A couple of things people (Left & Right) really need to understand.

A. This is a war (Yes my friend on the Left I said WAR. A for really large numbers of people getting killed). Its a long war (My friends on the Right Forget WWII), George W Bush was not just flapping his gums when he talked about it being a long war. Think Cold War and this is 1953.

B. Islamic groups like al Qaeda thrive in the dark disconnected places like the Sahal...or Afghanistan (hint hint hint).

C. This is a guerrilla war fought world wide.

1. (to the Right) this means we try not to piss of the people we are trying to get on our side....lose the "Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9-11!

2. (to the Left) Most of the terrorism being committed today is being done by Muslims in the name of Islam HELLO...HELLOanybody home?

3. one way of looking at this is, it is a civil war inside Islam, and how or if Islam is going to join the modern world.

D. If you want to know how we will win study, guerrilla war, counter insurgency, cultural anthropology, Marketing (we have ideas we need to sell).

 

 

/Rant # 498,118

[Draggingtree]

A new front in the Mali crisis

 

January 14, 2013 - 5:13pm THE CHRONICLE HERALD | EDITORIAL

 

THE first you may have heard of Mali was last Tuesday, when Stephen Harper rejected a plea to send Canadian troops there.

But this is not the last you will hear of Mali. In the intervening week, France has intervened militarily in the West African country, and yesterday Mr. Harper announced Canada will help its ally by flying equipment for a week into the Malian capital aboard an RCAF C-17 heavy-lift aircraft. Great Britain is also providing logistical support, and so, it appears, will the U.S.

So why has Mali, all of a sudden, become a part of our vocabulary? The short answer is this: “Afri-ghanistan.” We are looking at an African version of pre-9-11 Afghanistan, where Taliban-style militias rule over a vast territory and provide a safe haven for al-Qaida.

Sparsely populated northern Mali has been in such a state since last spring. The international community, including Mali’s neighbours, had been working on an action plan to counter the threat. But what precipitated the French airstrikes was the southward push of the insurgents and the prospect of a nation of 15 million people falling into the hands of dangerous radicals, who are already responsible for the exodus of 250,000 refugees from Mali

U.S. counter-insurgency efforts in Mali imploded, with U.S.-trained units defecting to the enemy http://thechronicleherald.ca/editorials/434899-a-new-front-in-the-mali-crisis

[SrWoodchuck]

@Valin!

 

A couple of things people (Left & Right) really need to understand.

A. This is a war (Yes my friend on the Left I said WAR. A for really large numbers of people getting killed). Its a long war (My friends on the Right Forget WWII), George W Bush was not just flapping his gums when he talked about it being a long war. Think Cold War and this is 1953.

B. Islamic groups like al Qaeda thrive in the dark disconnected places like the Sahal...or Afghanistan (hint hint hint).

C. This is a guerrilla war fought world wide.

1. (to the Right) this means we try not to piss of the people we are trying to get on our side....lose the "Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9-11!

2. (to the Left) Most of the terrorism being committed today is being done by Muslims in the name of Islam HELLO...HELLOanybody home?

3. one way of looking at this is, it is a civil war inside Islam, and how or if Islam is going to join the modern world.

D. If you want to know how we will win study, guerrilla war, counter insurgency, cultural anthropology, Marketing (we have ideas we need to sell).

 

 

/Rant # 498,118

 

Not arguing against what you said, but viewed with a little 10 cent realism.....these are brutal critters that gladly maim & kill, when they aren't maiming & killing.

 

I don't believe anything happens while Oblunder rules. He uses them for his own goals right now. Many of the arms being used in Mali, are thought to have come from Benghazi, via Syria.

 

Certainly education of the American public is to be applauded....but too many don't think we are involved [or should be] in any war. Long+war is a double negative for the Gimme's. We'll have a hard time keeping Oblamer from reducing our defensive nukes to a point where we'll have to learn Chinese or Russian. Ignorance is the rampant supreme quality of this group of Progtards.

 

Extreme retaliation [out of all scope from the limited engagements we see now] would be a way to make their own doom....be perceived with crystal clarity.

 

"Arc-light"....napalm....extreme area denial systems like the new "metal-storm" weapons are a good start. They need to eat as well....attacking their lines of supply in whatever country harbors them is another. Hell in Mali already exists for the indigenous people....we need to make it so for Al Qaeda.

[Valin]

@Valin!

 

A couple of things people (Left & Right) really need to understand.

A. This is a war (Yes my friend on the Left I said WAR. A for really large numbers of people getting killed). Its a long war (My friends on the Right Forget WWII), George W Bush was not just flapping his gums when he talked about it being a long war. Think Cold War and this is 1953.

B. Islamic groups like al Qaeda thrive in the dark disconnected places like the Sahal...or Afghanistan (hint hint hint).

C. This is a guerrilla war fought world wide.

1. (to the Right) this means we try not to piss of the people we are trying to get on our side....lose the "Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9-11!

2. (to the Left) Most of the terrorism being committed today is being done by Muslims in the name of Islam HELLO...HELLOanybody home?

3. one way of looking at this is, it is a civil war inside Islam, and how or if Islam is going to join the modern world.

D. If you want to know how we will win study, guerrilla war, counter insurgency, cultural anthropology, Marketing (we have ideas we need to sell).

 

 

/Rant # 498,118

 

Not arguing against what you said,

 

(Snip)

 

"Arc-light"....napalm....extreme area denial systems like the new "metal-storm" weapons are a good start. They need to eat as well....attacking their lines of supply in whatever country harbors them is another. Hell in Mali already exists for the indigenous people....we need to make it so for Al Qaeda.

 

 

Actually you are. At least it appears that way to these old eyes. Too much emphasis on blowing things up and killing people.

 

Preface

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife

Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam

John A. Nagl

 

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife

 

T. E. Lawrence’s aphorism that “Making war upon insurgents is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife” is difficult to fully appreciate until you have done it. Intellectually grasping the concept that fighting insurgents is messy and slow is a different thing from knowing how to defeat them; knowing how to win, in turn, is a different thing from implementing the measures required to do it.

 

(Snip)

 

 

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam

John A. Nagl (Author), Peter J. Schoomaker (Foreword)

 

Also

 

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One

David Kilcullen

[SrWoodchuck]

Actually only half arguing, Valin.

 

I understand your need to intellectualize the problem, certainly doing the same things over & over & expecting a different result...is counterproductive, but I have to think about the Missouri Mule Rule: to get their attention, you first have to hit them with a 2x4....then you can do some talking.

 

What great advantage is there, to finessing AQIM'ers & Shababber's?

 

You can't finesse a zealot. You can kill him & his friends....and that will keep him from killing innocent indigenous & eventually YOU. He's not there to talk. You can isolate & starve him. You can destroy his lines of supply. You can stop selling or giving him weapons. [Hear that,O?] These are muslim's that these groups are killing & maiming. [Not their own tribe & sect of course] It is holy sites of Islam that they are destroying.

 

TE Lawrence was a great Englishman & friend to the Arab....but notice....he practiced a kinetic form of politic. He didn't sit & drink yogurt & try to change their minds. He did talk them into aiding the British.....and then showed them that they had to stand up to the Brits, in order to have their country. He didn't do it with talk.....they had to kill Turks to do it....

 

BTW: Thanks for the reference links....I always likes me some historical reading....

 

Edited to add: I realize we can't defeat them with Abram's & overpowering [& unwieldy] force. Ideally we should use train, use & support Arab troops....but that "enemy of my enemy is my brother"...thing...gets in the way. "Crusaders" [as we will probably always be known] will never be welcome. So do you beat them with a baguette or a bullet? The French are finding that out right now.....

Edited January 17, 2013 by SrWoodchuck