Algeria Attack Vindicates Mitt Romney On Mali In War On Terror

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

War On Terror: In the final debate, GOP candidate Mitt Romney was mocked for bringing up the spread of terrorism to Mali, which has been implicated in the weekend's Algerian terrorist massacre. So who is out of touch?

'Mitt, do you know that most of America thinks Mali is one of Obama's daughters," tweeted hipster television personality Bill Maher last October, to ridicule Romney's debate statement that global terrorism was not dead at all and in fact was spreading.

"Mali has been taken over ... the northern part of Mali, by al-Qaida-style individuals," Romney said in the first four minutes of the Oct. 23 debate.

A "mini-seminar on Mali," sniped the New Yorker. "Mali Appears On Mitt Romney's Radar" mocked France's Le Monde. "Was that in the morning briefing book?" sneered a New York Times editorial. "Molly? Oh, Mali," live-blogged The Guardian.

Romney campaign staff later scrambled to assure the press that Romney was not a hopeless wonk out of touch with the electorate by bringing up obscure countries in the middle of an election, but was in fact receiving U.S. intelligence briefings, as all presidential candidates do after their convention.

After all, a monstrous terrorist attack had happened in Libya last Sept. 11, which resulted in the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens who was apparently attempting to stop the smuggling of Libyan weapons to terrorists in the Maghreb.

[Valin]

@Geee

 

Getting Along with the Bloody-minded Algerians

 

So what exactly happened in Algeria last week? You’re getting a distorted picture of the story if you’re just reading newspapers. As an antidote, we direct you once again to our friend and colleague Adam Garfinkle, who gives us an excellent rundown of what the MSM is missing. (And if you haven’t done it yet, check out his two [1, [/url=http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/garfinkle/2013/01/18/flogging-mali-again-and-the-attack-in-algeria-too/]2[/url]] excellent essays on Mali as well.)

 

What the MSM is missing, as usual, is a sense of history and context. For example, who exactly are these men running Algeria right now?

 

The present Algerian leadership consists of the very last remnants of the old guard that experienced the war of independence against France, and the generation right behind it experienced the civil war. Taken together, then, this leadership is as battle-hardened, ruthless and cold-blooded a group of guys as can be found anywhere. This is not a kind and gentle military that holds regular sensitivity-training sessions; it’s a military that uses eight bullets when two will do nicely, and that has no qualms about feeding still wriggling bodies through the wood chipper. They are also very proud and exquisitely sensitive to any slight coming from the general direction of foreigners.

 

(Snip)