Quote:
Originally Posted by Baron von Kriterium
Yes, it is complicated and, like the Former Yugoslavia, often the truth is not what it appears in the mainstream media.
Let's examine the French motive. France:
a. was the first country to recognize the legitimacy of Libya's rebels who were allied with - or had ties to - al-Qaeda;
b. was the first country to recognize Syria's rebels, despite that the only effective rebel fighting force was/is Al Nusra, an ally of al-Qaeda;
c. now must intervene in Mali because there is a danger that al-Qaeda Islamists will over-run that strategic African country. Does that not seem rather a stretch?
The United States, incapable of allowing a military intervention to pass by without jumping on board, dutifully followed France in the Libya debacle, blowback from which was responsible for the re-igniting of the Touareg rebellion in Mali. France, with the US providing communication and drone power, now expands the Libya intervention to Mali in attempt to end the series of events it unleashed with the Libya intervention.
The Touareg rebellion, however, is not Islamist of the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) variety and in fact the Islamic connection may well be a convenient bit of propaganda by both the eager French government and the shaky and opportunistic political leadership in Bamako.
So what is really going on? What do the Touaregs have that is causing such stirring in France's colonial loins? France is dependent on nuclear power for 75 percent of its energy needs. The larger African region inhabited by the Touareg, including in particular Niger, contains tons and tons of that substance required for nuclear power: uranium.
The world's third largest uranium reserves, as well as substantial crude reserves, are located in Toureg territory. The French mining company, Areva, lost its mining rights in Niger; they cannot afford to lose Mali.
But the insanity of the "war on terror" is that whenever a naked resource grab or land grab needs a bit of cover, one only need scream "Islamists", "terrorism" or "Al Qaeda" and the Western world jumps into action while the propagandized citizens scream for blood.
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The MNLA has offered an alliance with the Malian government and the UN-backed intervention force. This is likely because a) they don't want to get swept aside when the big boys march north and face extensive retaliation by Mali loyalists, and b) because the Islamists were handing them their lunch. The Tuaregs and the Islamists are two separate groups, with some overlap in the beginning, but with little since. The Azawad separatists (the Tuaregs) were largely supported by the local population in the north. They wanted to establish a secular nation in the north. They didn't have the ambition of conquering all of Mali, unlike the Islamists. The Tuaregs are separatists, and are far less threatening to the region than the Islamists.
By all accounts, the Islamist radicals that have moved in are not supported by the majority of those from Azawad (for instance, when they stoned that young "adulterous" couple, most people from the small town crossed the border to escape, an Islamist "chief" has since been killed by the local population in retaliation for his dolling out of Sharia). The MNLA, after being loosely allied with AQIM, have since fought them, and were losing. Basically, it was a cluster#### of three different groups that included the government, a separatists group, and another being basically akin to an invasion force post-Libya.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see why France decided to intervene, along with the entire UN Security Council unanimously voting for an intervention (this is not a purely "Western" adventure, with the Malian government and the Economic Community of West African States requesting UN-backed intervention, and voted for by even China and Russia). An entire nation under the control of radical Islamists is a threat to the entire gas and oil industry in the Sahara region. The other considerations -- the reason this happened was because of the weapons that flowed freely in Libya leaving the West in a moral position to lend assistance, the majority of the population amongst even the northern separatists being against the Islamists, some type of remaining French colonial interest in the area, no one wanting another Afghanistan or Somalia, etc. -- are purely secondary. Perhaps they do matter some in why France is the one to have the boots on the ground, but they are not the primary cause behind the intervention itself.