Brian asked the question, "if not us, who?" We get to see what happens when it's not us. In this case. France is fighting Al Qaeda, so it must be ok. I mean, we're turning into France, right? The French haven't surrendered, which is a good sign.
Right, this is what happens when we don't invade a country? Because AQIM would have been super okay with the US invading Mali but not France?
Brian suggests (to me) that we have the moral authority to be the world's policeman. Maxiep suggests to me that if we leave a void, someone else will step in and we won't like it. I'm happy to stay out of Mali and leave those people alone as long as they leave us alone. If the French want to go fight 'em, I'm happy to watch from the sideline. I am suggesting, though, that we have people in power who seem to emulate France at every turn. Oddly, the French attack one of its colonies now that they have a socialist in power. I don't see the imminent threat to France from the Muslims in Mali. Looks like a civil war to me.
Bush's fault is the #1 overused excuse. Tired of hearing it. The buck stops where? Youtube video is a pretty poor excuse, too.
"Bush's fault" hasn't been an excuse for a while, at least on this board. Oh wait, every one of you conservatives shouts it out whenever anything may be able to be traced to before the current president. If you're tired of hearing it, stop saying it. Duh. Obviously nobody cares why these things happen. It's easier to use this as an excuse to deride the French, Obama or Muslims. I've studied AQIM, colonial history in North Africa and the Sahel, and specifically Algeria. I'd love to actually discuss what's going on, but this forum is just too much of a cluster fuck. It almost makes me miss academia.
I checked. "Bush's fault" appears in 5,000+ threads on S2. Maybe a few hundred are by conservatives. I guess I derided the French by pointing out they haven't surrendered yet? That's a joke, son. And I'm not at all defending the position of conservatives - I mentioned two by name here and suggest they defend their own position. Mine is to stay the hell out of it.
Colonialists have colonial attitudes. Not shocking. I pretty much agree. Though Mali is an economic partner with many in the west. They belong to the WTO, and they've signed deals with the WB and IMF. You can see why the west wouldn't want them to fall to Islamic rebels. If you're conflating centrist liberalism with full-blown European socialism, that's stupid. Or maybe you're calling Obama an unwashed surrender monkey, I'm not sure. Weird, it's almost like "socialist" might not have the exact definition you think it does. It does look like a civil war, and it kind of is, kind of not. The west really only got involved once the Islamist rebels (many non-Malians trained by Afghans and Pakistanis) started imposing Sharia law. See, back in summer of 2012, the Tuaregs up north started rebelling and calling for their own autonomous state. The west doesn't give a shit about that, obviously, since where they live is basically 100% Saharan desert. The Tuaregs get the ever-eager al-Qaeda wannabes involved, and after the coup d'etat, the Islamists go nuts with Sharia law and whatnot in all the major cities that have since fallen. Now that the west's economic investment is threatened by some guldurn moslems, we get involved.
If you feel like doing even more research, check the dates on the posts. Also, context is very important in knowing if this phrase is being used seriously or in jest. Also, just the phrase "Bush's fault" will likely leave out many other instances of potentially blaming Bush. I suggest you make a spread sheet of all the OT threads since S2's inception and then get in contact with an out-of-work corpus linguist.
From what I see, the French don't like the momentum and trajectory the rebels are taking. If Algeria falls, too, then the Islamists are just across the pond from France. If we're pushing to be a European style social democracy, I'd expect the socialists to be pacifists.
Blah blah. People robotically repeat what their guy says. http://abcnews.go.com/politics/t/blogEntry?id=17356548
