The French Get it... We Don't?
Anyone who is even the least bit familiar with the geopolitics of Northern Africa and the Middle East understands that power vacuums are never left unfilled. Experience in these two places tells us that, more often than not, power vacuums are filled by people whom we might consider to be Bad.
The phenomena is, of course, easily explainable, at least at a high level. The vast majority of these countries are sovereign nations by virtue of politics more often than by nature and the extent to which they're reasonably tranquil is, often as not, the result of some rather heavy-handed wielding of power.
The examples are many; Egypt under Sadat and Mubarak, Iraq under Hussein, Syria under al-Assad, Saudi Arabia under the family bin Abdul Aziz. Whether they be kings or presidents in name, we know that in reality they are (or were) dictators. They rule with strong armies and secret police through oppression and violence. Their people may not be prosperous on the same scale as those of us in western nations, they may not have the same individual freedoms that we enjoy (and generally abuse) but they're stable. And, aside from the occasional border skirmish and the constant ideological fussiness with respect to Israel, they're reasonable citizens of the world. When one of them does act badly, as Libya's Gaddafi did in the early 1980s, they can be brought back into line with a few cruise missiles and some 16" shells from the USS New Jersey.
The opposite of "stable" is, of course, "unstable". Or, in the parlance of affairs of state, "destabilized". The United States is pretty good at that, too. We have, since September 11, 2001, effectively destabilized Iraq, Egypt and Libya and we're working really hard on Syria.
(Afghanistan doesn't count. Afghanistan never counts. It's never really been a nation, it's never really had an effective central government, its people are almost entirely tribal and for thousands of years they've fought each other over rocks and goats, uniting only sporadically to fight anyone who threatens their rocks and goats.)
The lesson that we've learned from all this effective destabilizing is that it invariably results in the ensuing power vacuum being filled by bonafide assholes, namely, radical Islamists who hate America and would like to kill us.
Except that we haven't learned that lesson. We didn't learn it from the Russians getting thrown out of Afghanistan in the 80s (because Afghanistan doesn't count). The Northern Alliance whipped the Commies, their CIA partners pulled up stakes, the United States Congress turned off the cash flow tap and the Taliban coalesced around all the anger and frustration and discord that remained, eventually getting chummy with a guy named bin Laden who had money and also hated Americans. We all know how that turned out.
We didn't learn the lesson when we toppled Saddam Hussein (literally and figuratively, recalling the famous statue destabilization) and spent the better part of the ensuing decade learning new acronyms like "IED" and watching people get their heads lopped off on al Jazeera.
Most recently, we've failed to learn - or perhaps intentionally ignored, depending on your assessment of the aggregate intellect of Barack Obama and his State Department - the lesson in Egypt and Libya.
The Arab Spring, as it turns out, spawned pretty much nothing but a stronger foothold for the Muslim Brotherhood, now effectively in quasi-dictatorial control of Egypt, and terror groups affiliated with al Qaeda, known to the aforementioned State Department as "protesters".
As it turns out, if you stop killing Islamic terrorists, they simply take over entire countries. Who could have known, right?
We like to make fun of the French. Everyone enjoys a good "surrender" joke now and again. But to this point the French stand virtually alone in withstanding Europe's appeasement of radical Islam. Within its own borders France has taken a strong position against the advancement of Sharia, going so far as to outlaw fundamentalist Islamic garb and meeting protesting right-wing Muslims not with explanations of 'hooliganism' but with riot police.
Now, France has taken her one-nation crusade on the road, to Mali.
Which is not, as it turns out, a tropical island in the South Pacific.
Mali is actually a country in northwestern Africa, bordered on the north by Algeria. Under French control from 1905 until achieving independence in 1960, Mali is, in fact, lushly tropical throughout its southernmost region, through which runs the Niger River. The northern three-quarters of the country is Saharan and, as such, is a shithole. Nobody lives there. Nobody goes there. Therein lies the problem.
As is the case with most of Northern Africa since the 11th century, Mali is predominantly Islamic. Its constitution specifies religious freedom and tolerance, which has historically been a good thing for the 10 percent of the population that is "other".
Mali's democratically elected government is largely pro-Western and friendly to the United States. It's also in the process of losing the country.
Remember that upper three-quarters shithole where nobody lives? For the purposes of this discussion, let's call it a "vacuum".
See, we've learned something about Islamic terrorists, al Qaeda-affiliated organizations, "protesters" and the like. They are, collectively, sort of like "Whack-a-mole". When you blow them up in one place, they have a nasty habit of turning up in other places. We've blown them up in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have blown them up in Yemen (along with the occasional U.S. citizen).
They have, in turn, popped up in Egypt, Libya and - most recently - Mali. The terrorist organization called al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has effectively taken over the northern portion of the country following a protracted fight with native Taureg rebels (who fought alongside Muammar Gaddafi, fleeing to their native country following his death).
Mali, then, has become the New Afghanistan. Or the New Iraq. Or the New Yemen. Take your pick. The point is that many intelligence sources (which by definition would now exclude Obama's State Department) are more than suggesting that Mali has become the latest "magnet for Islamic Jihadis".
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has implemented strict Sharia in northern Mali. They have outlawed music, smoking, drinking and watching sports on television. They are publicly stoning violators to death. And they are vigorously battling Mali's own military for complete control of the country.
They are also, incidentally, some of those same "protesters" who killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya along with three other Americans, last year in Benghazi.
And now, in some bizarro-world twist of power projection, the French are acting where Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice are apologizing. French ground forces are, at this very moment, in the desert of northern Mali battling the murderers of innocent civilians and U.S. diplomats, alike.
One can't help but wonder when the French will start telling American "surrender" jokes.
