President Barack Obama on Monday directed $10 million in emergency Pentagon spending to help France fight terrorists in northwest Africa.
Obama made the order Monday in a memo to his secretaries of Defense and State from his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast. “I hereby determine that an unforeseen emergency exists that requires immediate military assistance to France in its efforts to secure Mali, Niger, and Chad from terrorists and violent extremists,” Obama wrote.
France recently launched a military operation against Islamist groups, with some 3,000 troops being dispatched to five of its former colonies in Africa’s Sahel region. The operation is code-named “Barkhane” after a crescent-shaped dune in Sahara desert.
Operation Barkhane involves Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Mali, where French forces intervened in 2013 to rout Islamic radicals. But the targeted operation in Mali merely dispersed al-Qaida-linked militants there, and their potential ties with Nigerian militant group Boko Haram have become an increasing concern to the French government.
(AP)
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3 Responses
Those opposed to Boko Haram are using muskets (what the US used before the civil war) against automatic weapons. US aid should go well beyond helping the French. The radical Muslims victories in Africa simply encourage them to expand. Obama does not want to realize that he is in a global war, and that is a major front.
I don’t understand. Didn’t Obama just say that the Palestinians have a right to Israel,that it’s their neighborhood too? Why are these violent Muslims different than the Palestinians? Isn’t Africa their neighborhood too?
Oh I keep forgetting that he hates Jews.
chaimz: The US wants the Palestinians (along with the Egyptians, Turks, Saudis and Jordanians) to be on “our” (meaning the US’s) side in the war with Islamic States. While Hamas is extreme compared to other Palestinians, they are moderate compared to Islamic State (and Boko Haram) – no mass murders, discusses political solutions even if they aren’t realistics, no kidnapping non-Muslim women for slaves, etc. Furthermore, the US believes that most Palestinians would prefer to be allied with a moderate alliance rather than supporting Islamic States, and so the US wants Israel to try to minimize civilian casulties (a policy the Israeli government agrees with).