Mali mainly, 2012 coup, drugs & more

[jmm99]

Jack Goldsmith (at Lawfare), The Libyan Afterparty Continues (December 5, 2012):

Walter Russell Mead coined the phrase “Libyan afterparty” to describe the many unintended and unhappy consequences – especially for the rise of Islamist terrorist power centers in Northern Africa – of the 2011 U.S. and NATO invasion of Libya. (Some of Mead’s terrific posts on the issue can be found [JMM: linked with titles and ledes below]; there are more.) The afterparty continues this week. Here is Mead today:

The full extent of the damage caused by the Libyan afterparty is slowly becoming clear, as bad news from Mali continues to trickle in. Flooded with weapons and veterans from Libya, the northern half of Mali has become a Texas-sized Saharan safe haven for al-Qaeda and affiliates. Newly galvanized young men from across the region are drawn to the fighting, which threatens to destabilize much of West Africa. ...

Earlier links -

July 4, 2012 - The Libyan Afterparty Continues As Timbuktu Dies:

In the ongoing struggle between northern Mali’s secessionist Taureg fighters and a local Islamic jihadist group, Ansar Dine, the Islamists claim to have driven all remaining rebels from a third and final large town in the region. If the reports are accurate it would complete their control over a lawless area that may serve as a stronghold for al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups in the Maghreb. ...

October 19, 2012 - Libyan Afterparty Getting out of Hand:

It’s now been nearly a year since the NATO’s Libya mission was completed, but the afterparty is still dragging on in nearby countries. This week, the FT reported that France is growing particularly concerned with the growth of al-Qaeda groups in northern Mali, where Islamic militants have established a firm foothold in the region ...

October 22, 2012 - Get Ready for the Mali Invasion:

France is sending drones to Mali while hundreds of Islamist fighters are coming in from across the Middle East, preparing to defend their safe haven.

According to the Associated Press, French drones will soon be patrolling the skies above the Malian desert. ...

October 31, 2012 - Libya: America’s New Nation Building Commitment (Mali Next):

Regular readers know that we’ve never been optimists about the results of President Obama’s decision to wage an air war in Libya against the Qaddafi regime. The consequences of the war have more than justified our concern; this story in the FT, about the ongoing tribalist chaos around the town of Bani Walid, only underlines the utter fecklessness of the new Libyan government and the dangerous chaos taking root in that country. ...

October 31, 2012 - The War on Terror Opens A New Front:

At Via Meadia we’ve been closely following the ongoing Libyan afterparty, which saw thousands of heavily armed mercenaries flood south across the Sahara, promptly leading to war and a coup in Mali, which not so long ago bright eyed development optimists touted as one of Africa’s model democracies and a sign of a bright new day for the battered continent.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies has published a helpful write-up on the rise of radical Islamic throughout the Sahel and West Africa—a development that still only fuzzily registers in the minds of American politicians and voters. ...

November 5, 2012 - Why The Ambassador Died:

A story in this morning’s New York Times points out that the United States did not have forces in place capable of protecting its personnel and Benghazi last September.
...
But the story raises deeper and far more troubling questions about how unprepared the administration was to deal with the new situation its intervention in Libya created. For months now, the security situation throughout Libya, in neighboring Mali, and in other countries has been deteriorating sharply. Bands of jihadis and their supporters are roaming almost at will. Under conditions like this, it was only a matter of time before American citizens or diplomats would be attacked or taken hostage. ...

Today's NYT followup to last story, U.S.-Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell Into Jihadis’ Hands:

By JAMES RISEN, MARK MAZZETTI and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Published: December 5, 2012

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.
...
The administration has never determined where all of the weapons, paid for by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, went inside Libya, officials said. Qatar is believed to have shipped by air and sea small arms, including machine guns, automatic rifles, and ammunition, for which it has demanded reimbursement from Libya’s new government. Some of the arms since have been moved from Libya to militants with ties to Al Qaeda in Mali, where radical jihadi factions have imposed Shariah law in the northern part of the country, the former Defense Department official said. Others have gone to Syria, according to several American and foreign officials and arms traders. ...

Not a pleasant set of articles.

Regards

Mike

[ganulv]

I did a guest post at the On Violence blog if anyone is interested. Nothing new, really, just some (hopefully) useful information in a (hopefully) readable format.

[davidbfpo]

An article by Andrew Lebovich, a Dakar-based researcher focused on security and political issues in the Sahel and North Africa:http://thinkafricapress.com/mali/pol...ity-mali-mujao

Rightly he mentions two factors, one which is given little attention - the Malian army - and the history of local militias, which has appeared here before:

Mali’s army continues its halting movement towards reorganisation alongside a group of citizen and sectarian militias with past involvement in northern Mali. These militias, which include new iterations of the Ganda Koy (“Masters of the Land”) and the Ganda Iso (“Sons of the Land”), bring to the fore the possibility of ethnic violence and retribution in any operation to retake northern Mali. Already, observers describe the language employed by some militia members as “quasi-genocidal” toward ‘light-skinned’ populations like Tuareg and Arabs, recalling the bloody violence perpetrated by similar militias during rebellions in the 1990s and 2000s.

Northern Mali is an ethnically diverse, if sparsely populated, area. Accounting for approximately 10% of Mali's population in an area roughly the size of France, the region encompasses traditionally nomadic and semi-nomadic Tuareg and Arabs, as well as sedentary Songhai, Peul, Bella, and others.

[KingJaja]

Davidbfpo,

I think the West should stop seeing Africa through the prism of "Global War on Terror" - and see what is happening for what it is - the normal process of state formation and a sneak preview of what Africa will look like when the French finally withdraw.

Any intervention in Mali is likely to be a waste of manpower and money.

[Commando Spirit]

So it appears that the various nations that are sending liaison officers is to include the UK? This may not be a huge surprise but the seniority of those selected to go, and the pace at which they have been deployed is quite something. I have read about individual officers being deployed over 2 months earlier than they had expected. This suggests that the recent escalation in activity really is quite significant.

Any more French speakers willing to miss Christmas at home?!?

[KingJaja]

Interesting article on US policy (or lack of it) in Africa.

As Ambassador Carrington concluded at his UMass address: “Mali is a cautionary tale for any country seeking U.S. assistance.” Because the United States lacked real intelligence about what was going in Mali’s political circles, American actions helped to topple one of Africa’s oldest democracies. Unintended consequences, to be sure; but an undertaking deeply unworthy of – and damaging to – the kinds of outcomes the U.S. would like to see in Africa, and the principles it claims to stand for.

http://africanarguments.org/2012/12/...chael-keating/

[Dayuhan]

Interesting article on US policy (or lack of it) in Africa.

http://africanarguments.org/2012/12/...chael-keating/

Interesting article. A couple of comments...

First, I'm not sure I see any sense in talking about an "Africa policy" in generic terms. Given the size of the continent and the wide variety of interests and issues involved any such thing would be too general to have much meaning. Might be better to look at multiple policy sets based on loose (and inevitably overlapping) regional lines.

Observing that the Malian officers that staged a coup had US backed training and jumping from there to "American actions helped to topple one of Africa’s oldest democracies" seems a bit of a stretch. Is it clear that the training they received actually enabled or encouraged the coup, or that they would not have staged the coup without such training? What was the actual extent and content of the training, and how exactly did it cause the coup, if we are going to claim a causative relationship?

One argument against training officers is that the US is inevitably held responsible for all subsequent actions of those trained, even though it may have no control over those actions. Never a good idea to put yourself in a situation where you're going to be held responsible for things you can't control.

When Americans say that promoting democracy is one of the key pillars of their Africa policy, they should mean it. That means no more uncritically supporting ersatz democrats like Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni. It means following up in South Sudan – an American instigated project if there ever was one- to make sure that the country does not descend into chaos. It means being very careful who gets weapons and training and making it very clear that serious consequences will follow if forces trained by Americans turn on legitimate governments, as was the case in Mali.

This assumes capacities that the US may not have: for example, the capacity to assure that South Sudan does not descend into chaos. If the US is going to be obligated to take permanent control of every situation it's involved with, the only rational response would be to cease all involvement, because the potential commitments emerging from any involvement would be unmanageably large. If engagement means you're responsible for everything that happens thereafter, better not engage. There have to be limits.

Investment – Americans talk a good game when it comes to investing in Africa, but the evidence of their enthusiasm is slim outside of South Africa and the various oil and ore patches. Right now there are tremendous opportunities throughout the continent in banking, telecoms, agriculture, construction, and retail. Nonetheless, when you drive around West Africa, you see mostly NGO logos rather than corporate ones. The consequences of this neglect include massive unemployment and a general feeling that the continent is being left behind.

Perhaps the best place for U.S. foreign policy to start would be to offer serious help in upgrading African universities, many of which are in shambles. Extension of favorable trade status, particularly in the agriculture section would also help along with massive increases in direct aid for infrastructure projects.

Without doubt, the risk factor is a major obstacle to increased U.S. investment. However, Americans need to put down their prejudices and go see what’s happening for themselves. The World Bank has a unit called the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency that provides business risk insurance to businesses investing in developing countries. American entrepreneurs ought to be lined up outside its door.

This whole section reflects a quite stunning ignorance of the relationship between the US Government and US Corporations. You can't accuse corporations of "neglect" for not taking actions that are in no way their responsibility to take, and there's no realistic way the US government can compel (or effectively encourage) US corporations to engage in places where their assessment of risk and reward is unfavorable. The US is not China, and investment is not a controllable instrument of policy. Then of course there's the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, seen in many circles as an effective prohibition against US companies doing business in Africa.

Why send 100 Special Forces to hunt down Joseph Kony and none to save lives in the Congo? Some analysts believe it was a thank-you gesture to Uganda for its support of the military effort in Somalia.

I see no reason to assume a quid pro quo. More likely the question contains its own answer. The US is willing to send 100 Special Forces troops to hunt down Joseph Kony because it's a limited effort that can be reasonably managed by 100 Special Forces soldiers. An attempt to "save lives in the Congo" would represent a much larger commitment that American politicians don't believe they could sell to the electorate. "Get Kony" is a specific limited objective. "Fix the Congo" is a one-way road to a quagmire.

Speaking of the Cold War, a new version of that competition, between China and the West, is emerging on African soil.

A "new Cold War" seems a highly exaggerated view of the US and China in Africa. Nice sound bite, yes, but not a supportable view IMO, unless we adopt a very loose definition of what a "Cold War" is.