It makes sense a northern city would fall to the rebels.
People looked at newspapers focusing on France's military intervention on Monday in the capital, Bamako.
By STEVEN ERLANGER, ALAN COWELL and ADAM NOSSITER
Published: January 14, 2013
French forces (click here), Mr. Fabius said in a radio interview late Sunday, were now “taking care” of rear bases used by Islamists who took control of much of the north of the country last year after a military coup in the capital, Bamako. The duration of the French operation was “a question of weeks,” Mr. Fabius said, unlike the American-led military campaign in Afghanistan.
It is obvious when these events happen, it causes militias to take up arms against their government. The Mali soldiers were not acting on government orders, they were killing on their own determination. I don't recall any report on that attack either. I don't know if Mali's government is capable of carrying out such an investigation either. The United Nations needs to act not only to stop the infiltration of militants into the Mali government, but, they also need to report to the people of that nation what occurred in Diabaly. There needs to be trials of the soldiers to put all this to rest and into perspective for the people.
...The preachers included at least nine Mauritanians and seven Malians, ranging in age from 25 to 54. They belonged to the Dawa Tablighi, a fundementalist but non-violent current of Islam....
The 17 preachers were acting in good faith. They were mercilessly massacred. This type of anarchy causes huge problems and now there are French jets over Mali.
Two of them had tried to come to Mali in July but had been turned back. So to make sure they wouldn't have any problems, they hired Moctar Bechir, a Malian truck driver who frequently transports merchandise from Mauritania to Mali.
It was an ethnic attack.
These concerns about Mali's military (click here) come at a time when the world is considering sending arms, equipment and troops to help it take back the north, which has fallen to Islamic extremists. Just this week, the United Nations Security Council instructed Mali's neighbors to submit a detailed plan for military intervention, which the U.N. would support.
I don't believe there is a resolution on Mali. It looks as though France acted on current intelligence while the UN Security Council was escalating their concerns. “This serious deterioration (click here) of the situation threatens even more the stability and integrity of Mali and constitutes a direct threat to international peace and security,” the members of the Council added in a press statement issued on Thursday night, after a briefing on the situation from the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman.
They do have resolutions to fall back on. Mali is becoming a place where militants can find a home, arms and a capital to plan further aggression in the region. There were reports coming out of Libya when the killing was ended in Benghazi that there was a source of weapons coming from across the Sahara. It has to be Mali. Where else would there have been enough arms and money to carry that out?
The problem is not the revolution. The problem is the momentum of militias in the face of a successful revolution and the dire effects on the people.
The renewed clashes in the north, as well as the proliferation of armed groups in the region, drought and political instability in the wake of a military coup d'état in March have uprooted hundreds of thousands of civilians. Over 412,000 people have been forced to flee the country's north, and an estimated five million people have been affected by the conflict.
The Malian Government and rebel groups are expected to meet for peace talks in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, on 21 January.
In their press statement, the Council members recalled their resolutions 2056, 2071 and 2085 – which dealt with the situation in Mali and were adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter – as well as the “urgent” need to counter the increasing terrorist threat in Mali.
All this is very tragic. Large numbers of people living without an infrastructure built in benevolence by an established government can and do act on their own beliefs about their reality. One of the ways people organize is around their religious beliefs. No doubt the 17 men were seeking to come together to find a sense of community in a world without sophisticated understandings of peace and prosperity. That is the other thing, when people are suffering from the lack of simple comforts in life, they seek answers. So, the gathering of holy men is a very viable way to educate people to their plight and how to work to resolving it. A threat to allowing those resolves to occur is exclusively a sincere problem. There is a much larger dynamic at work than simply 17 men traveling on a road.Africa is experiencing horrible drought. There are arguments over resources and then the monies from the resources are used to fight wars over the resources which are powering their wars and on and on and on.
Now, we have a dynamic resulting in the French flying jets into areas of Mali to stop the continued build up of extremists and their arms network, etc.
Then it escalates and the USA Neocons start to seek profits through their military agenda to invade the area and so the story goes.
You know, if soldiers are going to act in anarchy simply because they can, then who the hell needs them? The people need to be left alone to work out their problems the way they need to. Although that is not exactly the case either, when there is a complete void of authority and government people become victims as in Darfur.
So, goes the work of the United Nations. Does it become simple? Are there ever clear answers without corruption? As a community of nations, we just keep at it. But, the flow of weapons to empower militias in Libya and otherwise has to stop. It has stop to stop the rest of the violence. More innocent people die, the graves become places of worship and the anger never resolves.
NO ESCALATION.
The complex emergency in Mali (click here) has displaced 445,876 people from their homes since fighting erupted in the north early this year. Of these, 174,000 are internally displaced in Mali and 271,876 are refugees in neighbouring countries.
NO ESCALATION.
NO ESCALATION.
NO ESCALATION.
One of the best ideas for Africa is finding a way to handle their flood seasons to insure the well being of their people. I should not give directives as far as dams and the like because I have not studied the best ways to resolve the drought problem. But, dams do a couple of things. Conservationists will hate me, but, dams do control floods, contain water for future use and can return agriculture to drought weary lands. It is called irrigation. At this point Earth needs such a drastic return to water vapor in its troposphere, carbon sinks and a far cooler troposphere, bodies of water are important to changing that path. We can't simply relocate entire nations of people. I always wanted a dam project for Ethiopia.
The USA military knows what the climate is doing to complicate the security of regions of the world. This is no joke. If a dam project will provide REAL hope for these people along with JOBS FOR THEIR CITIZENS, do it.
They don't need oil wells or hydraulic fracturing either. They need hope and real answers; not scared half out of their minds of The West.
The problem within Africa is that the people have so many problems it is difficult if not impossible to get them to coalesce around an agenda for their future. Their strife has been so profound they can't entertain the thought of the future. They don't know how to define the future. They have today and plans for tomorrow, but, plans for next week, next month, next year is exceptionally difficult for them.
A dam project can provide them 'the future.' Their future. Their children's future. Water. Crops. Lush forest. Protections for their wildlife. Biotic content propagates biotic content.
Dams require a people able to prepare for them and manage them, too. Huge problems. Really huge problems.
