Somehow even the most terrific news out of Africa makes little waves in the international media, even less so if the West is not directly involved. In this regard little has changed in the last twenty years.
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Somehow even the most terrific news out of Africa makes little waves in the international media, even less so if the West is not directly involved. In this regard little has changed in the last twenty years.
That is why Al Jazeera tends to be popular down here. They tend to spend a little bit more time and energy covering African stories in a bit more detail.Quote:
Somehow even the most terrific news out of Africa makes little waves in the international media, even less so if the West is not directly involved. In this regard little has changed in the last twenty years.
Indeed a lot of money over the last five years according to this State link.
The rest of the equation is up to the Embassy to provide and guide the assistance package. Not so easy and I doubt it will result in the boogeyman (AFRICOM) coming in and killing the BH crowd.
More training and advice I suspect :rolleyes:
Completely concur - sounds like me talking to myself.
The other half of that story is the fact that most of the African news sounds all the same to a common westerner who has never been to the continent. My sister opined, "what's the difference?" "Sounds just like your time in Zaire since 85 - killing, raping and absconding with the govt coffers while the public starves."
I had a hard time arguing my point !
Exactly and we do not belong there. But, it is apparently clear that the Nigerian government is powerless and most fear the military more than that of the BH.
In order for the US to label BH a terrorist organization would mean they start doing something else besides attacking the Nigerian government and military. So far, that is all they have done. Educated and organized - yes. Sophisticated ? I disagree. Driving by on a scooter and running into a building with a bag of explosives is not sophisticated IMO - it's suicide.
So in essence you guys are waiting for them to have a go at US expatriates lodging in the Sheraton or for them to attack the weakly guarded residences of US expatriates at Abuja?Quote:
In order for the US to label BH a terrorist organization would mean they start doing something else besides attacking the Nigerian government and military. So far, that is all they have done. Educated and organized - yes. Sophisticated ? I disagree. Driving by on a scooter and running into a building with a bag of explosives is not sophisticated IMO - it's suicide.
So an organisation that successfully executed a Mumbai-style terrorist attack on the second largest city in Nigeria, killing 250 people, isn't terrorist?
Okay, I get it, the victims are all bloody Africans, so they don't matter.
Generally true, but Americans tend to be the least informed and the least interested. It is interesting to note that the same America that expects the entire World to mourn with it when a little girl is murdered, couldn't be bothered about the deaths of 250 men, women and children.Quote:
The other half of that story is the fact that most of the African news sounds all the same to a common westerner who has never been to the continent. My sister opined, "what's the difference?" "Sounds just like your time in Zaire since 85 - killing, raping and absconding with the govt coffers while the public starves."
I had a hard time arguing my point !
It's mostly down to ignorance, but it comes across as arrogance and callousness.
This is the American order of concern: (a) themselves (b) Israelis (c) Western Europeans (d) Australians / New Zealanders and (e) Japanese. The rest of the World (next door neighbours in Latin America like the Mexicans included) isn't really considered as being human.
For example, a Mexican-style slow-burn Civil War in a Western European nation far away would attract much more attention from American news media .
You Guys ? I don't, and have never desired to, work for the folks that label people. But, if there is no criterion then everybody would eventually be labelled and the other half would also complain. I sincerely doubt those expats (I am one and have been one BTW since 97 when I retired) would lodge the DOS from under their rock. But, You wanted international recognition and damnation - that is about what it will take. I am only sharing my experience with you and have my doubts about those lost souls meaning much. I watched 4,000 people a day die and tossed onto the edge of the road with little western journalism. Why would "I" now conclude that the 250 you mentioned are going to cause a ruckus ?
See, that's just it - people copying others in any city of your choosing should automatically label them as terrorists. Even your own press won't call them terrorists. WTF ? Maybe you should be asking them why they are afraid to use the T word.
Instead of immediately labeling the BH as terrorists, maybe one should consider the fact that Nigeria's security services are not up to the task of reviewing anecdotal evidence and learning from others and their mistakes. Or, as you stated, your security services are infected and that should have also been dealt with swiftly vs letting fester and grow.
You nailed it ! But, instead of including all Americans you should have specifically stated that your list is our political elite who draw the lines and my pathetic opinion means jack to them.
I have lived and worked in Mexico and they have been on a course with disaster since 1974. Maybe we should look at what it took in WWII for the Yanks to get engaged. I don't blame them for being gun shy. I do blame them for not understanding the region and putting on the brakes.
I now have my doubts as to whether the man who was allowed to escape had anything to do with the Christmas bombing. The Nigerian Police has a habit of randomly picking up people from the street and charging them for crimes they did not commit - simply to deflect attention from their incompetence.Quote:
Dead on the money !
A serious vetting process is in order, or, as Jaja stated, nobody will ever know who is who. Organized criminals do this professionally and can mimic anything they damn well please.
They could have picked up this guy in error and then realised that even though he isn't completely clean he (a) has nothing to do with the Xmas day bombings and (b) has powerful godfathers. So he is let go.
This sort of thing has happened so many times in Nigeria that I have zero confidence in the Nigerian Police.
Secondly, it takes a lot more than organized crime to motivate suicide bombers and we have been attacked by several suicide bombers over the past year.
It takes a charismatic religious/nationalist/revolutionary figure to sufficiently motivate a young man to take his life for a cause. This isn't political thuggery - political thugs expect to live after the event, and to be paid.
Thirdly, and unrelated - eye witness reports state that BH foot soldiers in Kano were youth between the ages of 15 and 18 (essentially children). This is extremely worrying. Seems as if they have tapped into the huge supply of Almajiri children in local madrassas (just like Wole Soyinka alluded to in his essay).
Totally unrelated.
I am in love with Al Jazeera. They devoted a thirty minute segment to the post-election violence in Kenya and the indictment of Uhuru Kenyatta and co. at the Hague.
Impossible for a Western media outlet to cover an African topic in such detail.
Look out for another thirty minute segment on Boko Haram in the near future.
Also, have you noticed that Al Jazeera tends to cover Latin American, Africa and even South Asian topics in more detail than Western media? I recall watching a detailed segment on urban development in India.
Interesting line of thought from a friend.
Goodluck Jonathan is an Ijaw from the Niger Delta. Ninety-five percent of Nigeria's export earnings come from crude oil in the Niger Delta. The Northern elite seems to be telling the rest of Nigeria through Boko Haram that they don't want to be part of a united Nigerian state.
Fine, if that is the case, let them go and we have about 40 million less people to worry about when sharing the proceeds from crude sales. After all, the North can disappear in an instant and it wouldn't make a dent on Nigeria's economy.
What do you guys think about this line of reasoning?
How useful is this article or is it bravo sierra?
http://africanheraldexpress.com/blog...0-not-2015-us/Quote:
Nigeria would be engaged in multipartite civil war like it happened in Lebanon in 1975 and Somalia in 1991 before its final disintegration in 2030, a report by the United States military experts released by the Centre for Strategy and Technology, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama has said.
The report written by five US military scholars and entitled “Failed State 2030: Nigeria – A case study” and dated February 2011, is one of the many periodic scenario building analysis undertaken by the US military think tanks on the future of countries within the sphere of economic interests of the US.
One of such simulated security dissertation on Nigeria was released during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo by the US National Intelligence Council, where the US intelligence experts predicted Nigeria’s collapse in 2015.
In the 156 page latest report, the US Air Force officers posit that “Nigeria’s lack of unifying national identity, history of corrupt governance, religious and cultural schisms, and shifting demographics may cause the state, over time, to break apart.”
In the case of Nigeria in 2030, the experts believed that Nigeria’s “history of tribal and religious conflicts, endemic corruption at all levels of government, poor national planning, uneven development, social disorder, rampant criminality, violent insurgency, and terminal weak governance provides an environment that could portend imminent collapse and failure.”
But the military scholars explained that the security report is “not a specific prediction of the future or a depiction of a state of affairs that will and must occur” but “a discussion of how the trends occurring in Nigeria since its birth as a nation in 1960 could, under the right conditions, lead to its failure.”
The report said that “fragmentation of the Nigerian body politic could create conditions for a multipartite civil war, mirroring in some ways the events in Lebanon in 1975 and Somalia in 1991.”
The report however said that “Nigeria’s 250 million people, 350 different ethnicities, and religious differences can, under the right circumstances, cause the nation to shatter in an instant.”
Congrats, there are many in the west that already concluded nearly the same.
My use of the term suicide roughly translates into: An individual that runs into a building with a bag of explosives, who I doubt has even a clue what he is carrying, is on a suicide mission. Dead criminals are good criminals. They often die with the bomb they carry, yet did not make. Most criminals here and in the USA die in the process of playing with something they know nothing about.
That's suicide in my opinion.
The children in the DRC were barely 5 years of age when they learned to use automatic weapons and perform rape. What's your point ? Granted, a sad state of circumstances, but nothing outside of the norm for the region.
Not Bravo Sierra - reality at any of the war colleges.
It's called an Occasional Paper and a fairly long read at 156 pages.
Here's your free copy without someone from the Herald Express trying to ad lib.
The one on Zaire and the DRC reads similar.
The US needs to know whether or not to rely on these countries for strategic goods. That's why so much emphasis is placed on studying such a hypothesis.
I just came across this thought provoking working paper "THE LONG-RUN EFFECTS OF THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA" on the Freakonomics website.
http://www.freakonomics.com/media/Africa%20paper.pdfQuote:
Our most conservative estimates suggest that civil conflict intensity, as reflected in casualties and duration, is higher by approximately by 25% in areas where partitioned ethnicities reside (as compared to the homelands of ethnic groups that have not been separated by the national borders). Our analysis also uncovers substantial spillovers. Ethnic groups that were not directly affected by the artificial border design experience more conflict if they happen to be adjacent to partitioned ethnicities.
A commentary by Raffaello Pantucci, ex-IISS and now with ICSR, which looks at other Jihadist regional groups as a template to examine Boko Haram's trajectory and ends concluding:Link:http://raffaellopantucci.com/2012/01...boko-haram-do/Quote:
Instead, the group has focused on causing chaos and massacring people in Nigeria, something that is terrible but must clearly be focused on in a regional way rather than as part of a global anti-terrorist struggle.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa...548882842.html
Speaking of Aljazeera, a very detailed article on recent attacks in Kano. More sosphisticated than I thought, which there was more information on the type of explosive devises discovered.Quote:
"The vehicles were later checked and the cars were loaded with explosives. Two brand new Hilux open pick-up vans were also found packed with explosives in the Bompai area of Kano."
Authorities discovered at least 10 unexploded car bombs, including one near a police station in Kano, as well as around 100 other explosive devices through the day on Monday.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/09/146554.htm
Quote:
3. What are the criteria for designation?
The Secretary of State designates Foreign Terrorist Organizations in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The legal criteria for designating Foreign Terrorist Organizations are:
The organization must be foreign based.
The organization engages in terrorist activity or terrorism, or retains the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism.
The terrorist activity or terrorism of the organization threatens the security of United States nationals or national security of the United States.
Quote:
5. How long does the process take?
For Foreign Terrorist Organizations, once an organization is identified, we prepare a detailed "administrative record," which is a compilation of information, typically including both classified and open source information, demonstrating that the statutory criteria for designation have been satisfied.
If the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, decides to make the designation, Congress is notified of the Secretary’s intent to designate the organization seven days before the designation is published in the Federal Register, as section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act requires.
Upon the expiration of the seven-day waiting period and in the absence of Congressional action to block the designation, notice of the designation is published in the Federal Register, at which point the designation takes effect.