Quote Originally Posted by Norfolk View Post
"UK forces oppose Niger Delta plan", by James Blitz and William Wallis, Financial Times.com, 11 July, 2008.

I will not dispute the strategic necessity of ridding the Niger Delta of MEND; with its rapidly expanding capabilities (courtesy at least in part of the provider of its armaments), the group has to be stamped out, literally.
Why?
It's an internal struggle of Nigeria, a civil war. I see absolutely no reason why other countries should get involved.
For what? For oil? Oil supply would not be driven up to maximum capacity or anywhere close by an intervention. Last I heard is that this doesn't even work under much more favourable conditions in Iraq.

Those people have their disputes about sovereignty. It's their affair. We don't need to intervene until they attempt a genocide or invade adjacent countries.

Back2topic; I think it's justifiable to be 'hostile' to certain missions even if they would not strain the forces and would be easily done.
Germany has introduced the "citizen in uniform", a soldier who's supposed to think independently about right or wrong in the context of the legal system. We didn't want another generation of officers who'd serve a tyrant just because they once swore an oath to him.
The "citizen in uniform" deserves to be applied in more minor troubles as well (it actually seemed to have failed a bit in 1999, but ironically it seems to have worked better in the KSK).

I can't see how an involvement in that conflict would be a good idea, and to involve a military in it would certainly do some harm, albeit probably only below the surface.