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Special Report
The Moveable Mali Front
A high (and retired) U.S. official offers clarity — into why we lose. Plus: Is Algeria lost too?
Information regarding the hostage seizure at In Amenas, located to the far south east of Algeria near the Libyan border, remained sketchy as this column was filed last night, scarcely more clear than when I filed an early account, now erroneous on some details, in the Weekly Standard two days ago.
Algerian security forces reportedly surrounded the installation, responsible for some 10 percent of Algeria’s oil revenues, attacked the kidnappers after shooting cannon at them from helicopters, and sent commandos in to finish the job. As many as 150 hostages were reported to have been taken, but most of them were either released early or managed to escape from their captors, some of whom are still holed up in a sector of the site. How many, if any, hostages they are still holding cannot be verified, but reportedly about 20 hostages remained when the Algerian commandos first came in, including six Americans, and at least two — no Yanks — were killed, either in the crossfire or by the terrorists, members of a AQIM katiba (company) called Al-Mouthalimin led by the legendary emir and cigarette smuggler Moktar Belmoktar, known as “One-Eye.” One of our “mooj” warriors when the Soviets were dying on Afghanistan’s plains and a veteran leader of the feared Algerian jihad organization GIA, Moktar himself did not take part in the raid.
The obvious question, which news outlets in Algiers did not shy away from raising, is how a major oil installation — responsible for some 18 percent of Algeria’s oil exports — could be overrun, when these places are the most “bunkerized” — to quote an Algerian newspaperman — locations in the country. Throughout the proto-Iraq war that shook Algeria in the 1990s, with deaths reaching over 100,000 according to conservative estimates, the Islamists (it was during these years that the term was first used widely) never were able to attack Algeria’s hydrocarbon lifeline, let alone cut it off. Yet more than a decade after the Algerian state won its war against terror — at least according to a former U.S. ambassador to Mali writing in the New York Times earlier this week — a terror group hits a non-French oil complex over a thousand kilometers away from the front specifically as a warning to French “crusaders” to get their neocolonial selves out of poor little Mali, where meanwhile people are waving French flags and cheering President François Hollande as they have not cheered a French president since the great de-colonizer, Charles de Gaulle.
Nor did it go unnoticed that the warning was also to the Algerian state, which earlier authorized French military flights over its air space. Are there factions within the Algerian government or military that want to send a message to Paris — or to Algiers? It is a terrible question, but it cannot be avoided if Algerians themselves are raising it. If nothing else, it is a warning to the French — and eventually to us — that forging practical counter-terror alliances in this part of the world is not like getting a pick-up game going on the playground.
What is remarkable, however, is that we still have to learn this. Part of our problem is surely our tendency to take a simplistic view of those exotic eastern lands. According to our ex ambassador to Mali, “Algeria‘s military leaders know the extremists’ tactics and their leaders. It defeated them in a civil war…” If it defeated them in a civil war, why are they still operating in Mali and striking at Algeria’s economic lifeline?
The ambassador mentions a tidy sum of $500 million that we spent over the past four years “to keep Islamists at bay in West Africa.” For all we know that may have been money well spent — it kept them at bay at least that long. But if that is so, we certainly did not use the time to study the human and physical terrain. Our understanding of Mali’s politics was scarcely better than our grasp of a Libya that literally exploded into fragments, well beyond the historical divisions between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. But American concern for the North African and Sahel regions goes back much farther than the four years the ambassador would rather lay the blame on. At least since the second Clinton term there has been a succession of counter-terrorism initiatives, joint task forces, training and reconnaissance missions, special operations missions, and sustained campaigns in cooperation with friendly natives.
What happened during the watch of the Hon. Vicki Huddleston, who served in Bamako during the G.W. Bush administration? Was she paying attention to our military aid mission? Did she order any accountability reviews? Was she alarmed at the disproportionate number of generals who seemed to be in Bamako all the time instead of in the north, where Tuareg revolts are endemic? Did she recommend cutting off aid to Bamako if its cliquish politicians did not address the problems of the north, leaving it open to terrorists and traffickers?
The cluelessness of Ambassador Huddleston is not a deformation professionelle peculiar to our diplomats. General Carter Ham, commander of AFRICOM, is on record as having been taken completely by surprise by the collapse of the Mali Defense Force last year. He heard a few months ago, apparently for the first time, of bought commissions and diverted military aid, of ill-trained troops without munitions, and of American-educated officers who took civil-military relations as a green light to push the civilians aside and install themselves in quarters more comfortable than their barracks.
Whether the French know the human terrain better or happen to have been feeling a greater sense of urgency, they did not waste time worrying about knowing what they did not know or the legal subtleties of coming to the rescue of a country where constitutional rule is as they say in sports day-to-day. If Mali south of the river Niger goes, West Africa is up for grabs, and the two thousand marines and legionnaires of France’s Operation Serval will scarcely be sufficient to save it. As of this writing, French forces are battling an Islamist assault in the locality of Diabaly in Mali’s west, even as their air attacks reportedly succeeded in driving the Ansar Dine and AQMI forces out of Gao and Timbuktu. The enemy’s strategy would appear to be to try to stretch French forces as far as possible, the better to hit and run at will, and not only in Mali.
Ambassador Huddleston’s plea is titled “Why We Must Save Mali,” and while she has the why more or less right (stop Mali from becoming a “launching pad” for terrorism, though it would seem it already is), she does not get around to the “we.” However, she implies we must deal with the Islamist onslaught on black Africa and not worry about why we ever let it get to this point. She has the priorities right, but it is also a convenient way of forgetting that she was asleep at the wheel. The Secretary of Defense allowed as much too, saying the other day that he really had no idea what the balance of power is in Mali. He offered this was because the Islamists based in the north do not use cell phones, so electronic intercepts are hard to come by. However, anti-Islamist human beings in the north of Mali are not hard to come by. What does seem hard to come by are American officials military and civilian with a will to get their feet — and their ears — on African earth.
But the ambassador is right that we cannot avoid getting drawn into France’s Mali war. The French and the African troops who are joining them from across West Africa will need re-supply and sustainment that only we can provide. Perhaps our policy leaders can send the bill to the Algerians, or the Qataris, or even the Saudis, all of whom are flush these days. The problem with the Middle Eastern sheikdoms is that although we give them — or sell them — advanced warplanes, they give, according to very good sources, funds to the very people we are trying to beat down. As to the Algerians, their relations with the Sahara terror organizations are ambiguous. Quite understandably, they do not want the Mali conflict to be internationalized, with the threat that carries of seeing their 1990s war come home again, instead of being tucked away safely in their deep south.
The ambassador says that “Algeria has a moral responsibility to act,” whatever that is supposed to mean, and has ethnic affiliations with the rebels in northern Mali, a point that is even more bizarre until one gets to her statement that the solution to the Mali crisis is North African not West African. In Bamako this would strike most people as laughable, but it does contain a germ of historical insight. Mali was demarcated at the end of the French empire to include large territories with diverse peoples — whites in the north, though they tend to be pretty dark, and blacks in the south, who usually are indeed pretty black — who historically distrust and make war on one another. The nomads of the desert north raided the south for slaves and still consider the Bambara speakers of Bamako to be good for little more than slavery. The black northerners, typically Songhai and Peul peoples, fought a guerrilla war against the Tuareg in the 1990s which both sides claimed reached mass-murder proportions.
Mali, in other words, is a creation of the colonial era. In this it is not much different from many modern African states, Sudan before partition for example, or Nigeria or Cameroon or even South Africa or for that matter Algeria. In this sense it is correct to observe that the “North” Africans will have to decide whether they want to share in the responsibility for bringing law and order to their geographical zone.
The West Africans, however, are the ones with the guns at their heads. If they do not save Mali, they will have no one to blame but themselves (and us, as usual) when the Islamist forces march on their capitals, as they have announced they intend to do. In a completely weird remark, our Foggy Bottom eminento claims that Nigeria is the wrong country to get involved because it has English-speaking Christian troops who may exacerbate ethnic and religious tensions in Mali.
If anyone is exacerbating ethnic and religious tensions, it certainly is not Nigeria’s or any other country’s Christian warriors. However, since she mentions it, why should not Nigeria’s Christian soldiers — who initially will number under a thousand and will be under the command of General Shedu Abdul Kader, a good Christian name if ever there was one — come to the rescue in a war against Islamic fanatics? And, moreover, what have we come to when a public servant with a name like Huddleston takes a dim view of Christian warriors fighting for civilization against savages? But let us not lose sight of the real issue here. Mali will surely have to reorganize its political system, and the question of the north will have to be addressed, including a practical power-sharing formula among the several northern tribal groups. If French arms can establish the conditions for working this out peacefully, well then, good for the French, and if they need our help to do this, as the Ambassador Huddleston thinks they do, then let us be Christian about it — and serve our own interests too.
About the Author
Roger Kaplan, a Washington-based writer, covers the Middle East and Africa (and tennis) for The American Spectator.
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wombat1| 1.18.13 @ 6:45AM
" we cannot avoid getting drawn into France’s Mali war. "
We most certainly can avoid it, and should.
The USA is so badly in debt we could legitimately rename our country " Broke-istan". And one of the main reasons we got there is this mindless, knee-jerk reaction that whenever there is any trouble anywhere, it is somehow our responsibility to set things right. As expensively as possible, it would seem.
There is always some spindrift geostrategic theory floating around to the effect that if we don't "hold" this jungle clearing or that sand dune, we will " lose"... well, everything south of Barrow Alaska.
Give it a rest.
If the Africans can't hold Africa, who can?
Jack in Wi| 1.18.13 @ 7:15AM
Africa for the Africans. Let them figure it out for themselves. We can't even get this country right. we have no business in these African tribal and religious wars. We also have no business in France's colonial wars. If Hollande wants to bring socialism and gay marriage to Mali that is none of our business as well. He will probably lose like almost all old colonial powers do when they intere in their former colonies. I consider Hollande, and people like him, as a far bigger enemy of what I believe, then a few thousand backward people fighting for their own country and tribe.
Stormy| 1.18.13 @ 11:11AM
Where do wombat1 and Jack draw the line as to where our interests lie? If we can not and will not help resist Islamist aggression in West Africa, where do our interests lie? We are tied down in a meaningless war in Afghanistan that this administration does not want to win, while Islamists are making their moves in other countries, while we are tied down. Our president is deftly hollowing out our military and its ability to respond to threats. So,where will we draw the line, Mexico, Canada, or even Florida or Texas? Yes, we are badly in debt. But, that debt is not so much the result of our military actions, but the irresponsible spending on entitlements, fake green energy, and foreign aid to countries that hate us. The point is, we need to spend our money where it serves our national need and interests.
wombat1| 1.18.13 @ 12:03PM
Spend our money where it serves our interests? Good generic advice. But what are we to do now that we have no money?
In addition, our establishment, military and civilian, is fixated on multi-zillion dollar programs like the F 35 or that preposterous LCS, rather than anything that will actually work. We shipped money to Iraq literally by the pallet load; threw away Lord knows how many more billions in Afghan "nation building", to say nothing of handouts and loans all over the Middle East. And where has it gotten us?
I say we retaliate- viciously- for injuries. After that, let other nations work out their own destinies. We can't afford to play God anymore.
Rhoetus| 1.18.13 @ 9:06PM
Jack: "TIA" ;-)
GobBluthe| 1.19.13 @ 1:07AM
I thought it was the Jooos fault
Stan Redmond| 1.18.13 @ 6:43PM
We will get involved only if it helps Obama. He hasn't figured out how it helps him yet but rest assured he will.
Hardcard| 1.18.13 @ 10:14AM
The religion of peace!!!!
TLP| 1.18.13 @ 4:57PM
Hamas BELIEVES that Obama is The Deliveror.
They BELIEVE that he was sent by their god of Blood, Murder, Rape, Subjugation, and Slavery, to Destroy the Jews, and Deliver Jerusalem back into the hands of the Muslims.
So do I.
They have even given him the name: ABU HUSSEIN: Son of the Father.
He is their Moses, and their Christ.
And, everything he's done since coming in to office, has only Confirmed their belief.
"There are none so blind, as those who REFUSE TO SEE."
Wake Up!
RCV| 1.19.13 @ 12:13PM
...and you believe Hitler was sent by God to punish and cleanse the Jews. You're as bizarre and twisted as Hamas.
BShep| 1.18.13 @ 10:46AM
Bill’s all-purpose Middle Eastern and African Policy
In any conflict, determine who is losing and arm that side. Periodically, re-determine who is losing and arm that side, switching sides if necessary. In case of any ties, arm the non-muslim side or both, your choice.
When the conflict ends, send in the CIA to stir up the locals and restart the conflict, see step 1.
Give a free AK47 and 150 rounds of ammo (along with (illegal in New York) 30 round magazines) to ANY muslim female who asks for one regardless of what side she is on in the conflict. This is so we can watch the heads of male muslims explode, both literally and figuratively.
Never, ever, send help to ANY “ally” who foolishly ignores this policy and sends troops to various hell holes around the world.
BShep| 1.18.13 @ 10:46AM
There, fixed it for you!
Michele San Pietro| 1.18.13 @ 11:03AM
The French are really doing the right thing by fighting Islamic fundamentalists, who must be wiped out.
Von Mises Jr| 1.18.13 @ 11:23AM
I do not understand when we have a black President whom loathes colonialism and imperialism that we are now in Afcrapiastan, Pock-e-stan, Iraq, intervened in Egypt, Libya, Sudan and Mali, and still have bases in two-thirds of the nations on earth.
In fact, on this issue I agree with our young President about colonialism since if you read Dr. Sowell's books on "Conquests and Cultures" and "Race and Cultures" we find that across the African continent and in India due to British Imperialism, we have nations carved up to determine which European nation got what goodies after the colonialism and imperialism. It created the problems in Kenya and other similar places where you have mixtures of different ethnic groups and religions trying to legislate and govern an ungovernable mish-mash.
But yet we continue to inject ourselves all across the Asian continent and Middle East where we once again figure out that we don't know what the hell we are doing.
Imagine if we did not have the "best and brightest" in DC running this Chinese fire drill? Or could it be any worse? In any event, why are we doing this when we declare the opposite views and will the American people only care when these people start coming over here for Dear Leader's favorite past-time: revenge.
TLP| 1.18.13 @ 5:00PM
He really needs another Peace Prize.
I'm just sayin.
The Big E| 1.18.13 @ 12:24PM
This nation's biggest enemy is not in Mali, or Algeria, or Iraq. He's in DC, at 1600 Penn Ave.
You can rest assured that any action he takes in Africa, or any other part of the world, is not in our interests, and is in fact, in support of any interest opposed to ours.
JP| 1.18.13 @ 1:05PM
"Is Algeria lost too?"
Yes. So is Tunesia. Coming soon: Morroco, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump from Spain.
nathan| 1.18.13 @ 2:53PM
Like playing dominoes as a kid did you? I always liked using a double 12 set although you needed a REALLY big table for that. We only counted scores in multiples of 5.
Please. Ike committed us to Viet Nam on the basis that if Ho takes Saigon the dominoes fall all the way to New Delhi and beyond. He was so totally wrong even when he said that. Do we really want to go down that road again? Caution is advised.
cicero| 1.18.13 @ 3:26PM
To take a different view - I do not think that we should be going into these countries and trying to drag them into the 21st century. However, we are in a war with Islamists who are trying to destroy us. Rather than do nothing in order to save money, or go in and stay for 12 years, it may just be in our best interests to kill them where we find them, and then go home.
In the case of Mali, the terrorists have come from all over to try to take over another little country. This will give them another base from which to wage war. We know where they are, and they are in plain sight. The French have volunteered to by the tip of the spear in this one. We can at least send support.
If we kill enough of them, and make their deaths something other than honorable jihadi endeavors, it will take the fun out of the game. But if we are going to fight, maybe fighting like we mean it, rather than by the rediculous rules of engagement we have been imposing on our own troops will be more successful. Let's see how the French fight this one. It may be instructive.
hrgfue | 1.18.13 @ 10:18PM
2013 Happy New Year,NFL,NBA,Fashion kickoff for u
Frog in Uniform | 1.19.13 @ 9:00AM
Monsieur Cicero, just trust my brothers in arms to put up a good fight and just trust our dickless crooked politicians to ruin their efforts by withdrawing prematurely, or asking them to not finish the job.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 1.20.13 @ 1:13PM
http://www.theamericanconserva.....-blowback/
The rise of the Islamists in North Africa can be directly linked to U.S. (and other N.A.T.O. members) "intervention" in Libya that ended up with the toppling of Ghaddafi's government and his execution. All those guns, artillery and other weaponry that we armed Ghaddafi's opposition with are now in the hands of Al Qaeda allied Islamists across the Maghreb and in Syria.
hrgfue | 1.20.13 @ 7:37PM
2013 Fashion kickoff for u
hrgfue | 1.20.13 @ 7:37PM
2013 Fashion kickoff for u
Marc Jeric| 1.21.13 @ 3:37AM
Obama’s program of active support to the movements called “Arab Spring”, including monetary assistance, arms supply, and in case of Libya active war action via bombings of Kaddafi forces, was designed to bring Islamist-jihadist governments to power. The program has been successful so far in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt; it is intended to proceed with the same aims in Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, Algeria, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Sudan, Algeria, “Palestine”. Open disdain and animosity toward Israel is just another sign of the consistency in this particular Obama program.
What then is the final aim of that program? The destruction of Israel, of course! How can one explain the fact that 90% of American Jews support Obama? Is their love of socialism and communism stronger that their allegiance to Israel? It is certainly not a sign of their blindness and stupidity, since their average education and their inborn intelligence are vastly superior to the national averages. So, please, my Jewish friends – explain that to me!
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 1.21.13 @ 2:13PM
Marc the United States government regardless of which party has "their guy" in the White House has been in bed with Islamists in the Middle East and elsewhere for decades. The Taliban and their ilk came to power in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal largely because we had funded them, trained them and armed them (using Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as middle men). We are doing the same right now in Syria.
I don't share your view that the end game is the destruction of Israel. For one Netenyahu's government is openly supporting regime change (and thus supporting the Islamist ridden FSA). Secondly the Wahhabist monarchy of Saudi Arabia has given Israel the green light to use its airspace to attack Iran (which means that the Saudis are more worried about the Shia Iranians than they are the Israelis).Thirdly Israel's arab neighbors have never defeated the IDF and IDF forces are better trained, with better intelligence and better weaponry than their Arab neighbors. Breaking down nationalist Arab dictatorships and replacing them with Islamist governments is not going to change this trend if anything its going to make those governments less able to engage Israel in any kind of conflict because Russia will most definitely not arm Sunni Islamist regimes that are likely to send those arms to their Muslim compatriots in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 1.21.13 @ 2:14PM
Hamas could get a boost from Islamist regimes in Syria and Egypt, but the IDF's superior firepower and Israel's traditional heavy handedness with dealing with the Palestinians would ensure that any conflict between the two will be short lived with Palestinians taking the brunt of the destruction and casualties.
Now as for your critique of American Jews. It must be remembered that not all Jews are Zionists (Jewish Nationalists/Pro-Israel). In fact some ultra-Orthodox Jews are anti-Zionist because they believe that until the Messiah comes they cannot return to the Biblical Israel. Others Jews who are not friendly to Israel may be on the left, socialists, some even communists, but so were many of the Jews who created Israel. The socialist Kibbutzim movement was very strong in Israel and initially the Zionist state had support (and received arms from) from the Soviet Union all though that faded later in the Cold War. As I said before Marc things are not always as clear cut as they seem.
Mnestheus| 1.21.13 @ 4:17AM
Afrter the Weekly Standard fiasco, Kaplan should be confined to covering naval affairs in Burkina Faso.
We want Boot of the Beast !