NIDRA POLLER: AND SUDDENLY IT’S WAR
http://dev.d-intl.com/en/articles/international/2013-01-17/and-suddenly-its-war%22Freedom
This is reminding us that things could change, our nations may be ready to defend themselves
PARIS. And suddenly it’s war! President François Holland announced early Friday evening that French troops had intervened in Mali and would stay as long as necessary. The military action came in response to an urgent request from Mali’s interim president Dioncounda Traoré whose army was unable to stop the advance of a column of some 1500 Islamists that had taken Konna and were heading for Mopti, a strategic town on the route to the capital, Bamako. Surprising enough in itself, this abrupt open-ended military operation ordered by the slow-moving socialist president offers a gold mine of lexical accuracy that should not be squandered. This war is upsetting the Arab Spring apple cart and tossing its fruits into a different basket.
I am not on the front lines… but then again, the front lines are everywhere today and that is what we might call the collateral benefits of this military operation and its enveloping narrative. The exact terms that are deliberately not used to describe the gentlemen of Hamas, Hizbullah, Muslim Brotherhood or the punks in Europe’s banlieues are now pinned on the jihadis who have been occupying the northern deserts of Mali. Unlike the Brotherhood and its multiple affiliates, these Islamists have not had a good press in France. Their brutality has been abundantly displayed: flogging adulterers, amputating thieves, imposing niqab, smashing up bars, restaurants, and music joints, tearing the tombs of Muslim saints in Timbuktu. They have always been shown in a scary light, their heads wrapped in scarves, weapons brandished. In fact, they look just like their fellow warriors in Libya, Syria, wherever. But somehow these religious extremists were not seen to have any redeeming features.
Still, the occupation dragged on and there was no audible call for quick action. Reports of an ECOWAS intervention scheduled for September were almost comical; as if the bad guys, duly informed of the timetable, would park their trucks, sit in the shade and palaver, patiently waiting for the big battle. Eight French hostages who worked for the French nuclear consortium AREVA have been in the hands of these thugs for over a year. This too was accepted with calm verging on boredom. No big mobilizations like the ones for French journalists kidnaped in Iraq. The Left doesn’t fancy the nuclear industry!
By the time the president announced that we are at war most TV channels were already in weekend mode, but the independent all-news BFM-TV has been covering the story non-stop. Here is the picture that emerges: with the exception of the president’s far left friends and foes—the Communists, Jean-Luc Melenchon, Noël Mamère of the Greens, and the anti-capitalists —political leaders across the board immediately declared their unambiguous support for the intervention. They also supported then President Sarkozy’s forceful leadership in the Libyan operation which actually fed into the Islamist offensive in Mali, but that is another story and we live in a time of disjointed narratives that will someday be joined. A host of specialists have appeared in the media and their opinions are close to unanimous.
The president had to act urgently because the Malian army, currently being trained by Europeans in anticipation of the September campaign, folded in the face of the Islamists advance. If France did not respond to the SOS, the jihadis would have reached Bamako and turned the whole of Mali into a fanatical Islamist state living under sharia. A failed fanatical state in the Sahel, with inevitable impact on neighboring Maghreb, would be dangerous for the region, for France, and for the world. As noted above, the same reasoning goes for all the blossoms of the Arab Spring Hoax. It would apply to that Palestinian state that “everyone knows is the solution,” and eventually to our European banlieues. The logic hasn’t been extended to these branches of the conflict but it will…someday… when we learn how to configure the disjointed elements of jihad strategy.
Here are some of the things that are not being said: “France is isolated.” True, no one else is in the fight now. The Senegalese government went out of its way to deny rumors that its forces were involved. Niger is planning to send 500 men. Soon. The United States, Great Britain, the EU and Algeria, among others, are applauding French courage and military skill. “It’s against international law.” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius explained that France is acting under a UN mandate. Yes, but Iraq was in violation of a UNSC resolution when the United States put together a coalition and took action. Then FM Dominique de Villepin lived his finest moment denouncing it at the UN. Except for the Communists, no one is saying: “Conflicts should be resolved by negotiation and diplomacy.” There is no handwringing about disproportionate reaction or collateral damage, no information about casualties other than the French helicopter pilot killed in action yesterday, no combat footage. We are told the advancing column was bombed and halted.
This is just the beginning. The only (avowed) boots on the ground are in Bamako to protect the 6,000 French living in Mali–many of them dual-citizens–and other Europeans. The jihadis are threatening reprisals against French in Muslim countries and at home. Yesterday’s attempted liberation of a French secret service operative held by the shababs since 2009 went wrong; one soldier was killed, another is missing, and the hostage was reportedly killed by his jailers who claim the missing soldier is in their hands. AQMI, MUJAO, and Ansar Dine are promising to take vengeance on French citizens in Muslim countries and at home.
Much more could be said… and will be in the coming weeks. The important thing to note at this writing is that we are witnessing a sudden reversal in discourse, attitude, and action. Jihadis are called by name, the Islamist threat and the brutality of sharia are declared as if they had always been acknowledged. And this is met with more than approval, it is embraced with enthusiasm, reminding us that things could change, our nations may be ready to defend themselves.
It’s happened before.
Comments are closed.
