Posted by Dayuhan,

No matter what the US does, the conspiracy theorists will twist it into someting despicable and devious. If the US declares BH a terrorist organization, they'll be laying the groundwork to send in AFRICOM and seize the oil, if they don't, they'll be backing BH in an attempt to split Nigeria and gain control of the oil. The US can't design policy to undercut conspiracy theories, because any new policy will just generate a new range of theories, even more bizarre than the last.
So true

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/th.../2011/jul/15/1


Again, the FTO designation is often used as a way to try and cut off external funding toward an organization. I don't know if this is the case with the Tamil Tigers, but there is a substantial Tamil diaspora and there may have been a perceived need to build a legal basis to restrict external funding.
I was in and out of Sri Lanka while the designation process was unfolding. The LTTE representatives in Sri Lanka and the U.S. were aggressively lobbying to avoid the FTO designation (freedom fighters, not terrorists argument). They have a large diaspora in Canada, and a smaller one in the U.S. and we're aggressively conducting fund raising in both countries and of course Europe. The designation didn't defeat them, but it certainly reduced some streams of funding and further isolated them diplomatically.

Posted by Kingjaja

4. Nigeria's Internet penetration rose sharply from 6% in 2010 to over 20% this year. We are dealing with an increasingly well informed population (in a nation of 160 million), and if the US didn't take public opinion seriously in the past, it should take it now
.

The U.S. always take public opinion seriously. Based on your comment it seems you assume your opinion equates to the larger public opinion. I suspect there are a wide range of opinions in Nigeria that are further diversified by the penetration of the internet.

5. Finally, it questions the credibility of the FTO classification business. You guys don't realise that Nigeria and US are partner on many initiatives in Africa. You don't also realise that Nigeria is "democratising" rapidly and that public opinion is more important today than it was decade ago.
The US must be seen to be transparent in its dealings with the Nigerian people. I have a quick suggestion here, either designate BH Haram as an FTO or discard the entire FTO classification business.
There are a lot of people with strong opinions like yours around the world that call our FTO designation process into question, and maybe they should, but it still survives and it serves "our" interests, which is what it is attended to do. I think many of us would agree with you that the process is often flawed, but it is a U.S. process to support U.S. interests.

As for not realizing that Nigeria and the U.S. are partners that may be true for some; however, I worked in Nigeria where we partnered them to address some regional security issues. I'm fully aware of their leadership role in Western Africa, which is why I think the BH and other threats to Nigeria are serious threats to our security and economic interests in the region. Not sure why you thought otherwise?