MALI : WHAT'S IT TO DO WITH US ?

Now that British troops are on the way out of Afghanistan it was inevitable that our peace-loving government would look for somewhere else to train our boys. Fortunately, a handful of madmen have appeared in the landlocked and largely desert country of Mali and, despite the fact that the UK has no historic links with that country, three hundred or more British service personnel are to be deployed in support of the French who are already there.

Mali is one of those countries whose modern day borders have been determined largely by colonial powers drawing lines in the sand; in the case of Mali, that power was France which controlled the region from the late 19th century until 1960 when it became an independent nation. Ever since then, Mali has been a typical African state, dominated by famine, drought and poverty, military coups, one-party government and effective dictatorship. Most recently, the north of the country has come under the control of Islamic groups including one identified as being a branch of Al Qaeda, known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb - AQIB - and the government asked for military help from their former colonial masters a few weeks ago.

 

The UK has no connection with Mali and, frankly, it's hard to see how a country of 14 or 15 million mostly very poor people living some 2,500 miles away can really be any threat to us. Yes, there is the suggestion that the current troubles involve nasty Islamic terrorists but what has this got to do with the UK ? If there's an issue which needs the intervention of foreign forces, by all means go to the United Nations and get a coordinated response from them; otherwise, it's none of our damn business.

 

David Cameron has gone from a position of no direct involvement to sending in 300-plus troops in a couple of weeks; in a few more it could easily be 3,000 troops and the body bags will start turning up. Then we'll get the usual nonsense about our brave lads giving their lives to protect us from unimaginable horrors when, in truth, our 'brave lads' will really have given their lives simply to massage the egos of the likes of Cameron. Why are we so acquiescent to all of this ?

GOVERNMENTS LOVE TERRORISM

David Cameron is reported as having said that the recent Algerian hostage mess could be the start of a 'decades long battle against Islamist terrorism in North Africa'.

Not that long ago I watched a television series which was, I think, titled 'The Power of Nightmares'. This series drew attention to the way in which governments have historically created crises in order to scare their populations and make them believe that they should trust their government to save them from disaster; this latest Cameron pronouncement has all the hallmarks of such a 'crisis'.

Why 'Islamist' terrorism is any different to any other form of terrorism escapes me. Lunatic Irish nationalists, and so-called loyalists, did everything that Islamic terrorists have done except destroy the world trade buildings in New York, but then many Americans are happy supporters of one or other of the Irish positions so attacking America would not really be in the interests of either side.

In the past, we had the 'Red Brigade' in Germany which fizzled out and there have been other manic groups whose activities have always come to nought, perhaps after one or two high-profile events, but no more. Al Qaeda, the current "bête noire" of the western world, have actually done very little other than provided some countries with an opportunity to keep their armed forces up to scratch at minimal cost, while giving governments something with which to divert the attention of their people from the true horrors occurring at home.

 

That Cameron is now trying to scare us with events in places that most in this country have never heard of, let alone holidayed in, is a sure sign of the desperation of his own position. Terrorist acts in southerly parts of Algeria really are not likely to affect the UK, any more than will a war in Mali that has absolutely nothing to do with us and yet in which Cameron seems determined to embroil us. He clearly has learned nothing from the experiences of his predecessors, or perhaps he has; war is good for votes even if it costs a few lives. The lives are, after all, only those of a few pretty insignificant people who probably won't have voted for him anyway.

 

Terrorism is terrorism and there is no reason to qualify it with adjectives such as 'Islamic' or 'Loyalist'; there is also no need to pretend that the threats from disparate groups of maniacs are any greater than they really are. There is certainly no need to claim that we are in for decades of 'Islamic' terrorism; all that such claims will do is to encourage the loonies to carry on as long as possible in order to gain the publicity on which they thrive.

 

Yet again, Cameron has it wrong, or right if you're a politician rather than an ordinary mortal.