Why ISIS and not Boko Haram?
How is ISIS worse than Boko Haram?
Boko Haram is a threat to the stability of Nigeria and Nigeria is an oil producing state. And things are getting worse in Nigeria because of Boko Haram; they've taken over entire regions just like ISIS has.
So for all those saying: ISIS is evil. We can't be isolationist in the face of murder and terror, shouldn't you be consistent? If you support waging war against ISIS- and that's what we're engaging in- how do you justify just letting Boko Haram continue their terror and murderous campaign?
<snip>
The Nigerian military is, in the words of a former British military attaché speaking in 2014, "a shadow of what it's reputed to have once been. It's fallen apart." They are short of basic equipment, including radios and armoured vehicles. Morale is said to be low. The country's defense budget accounts for more than a third of the security budget of $5.8 billion, but only 10% is allocated to capital spending.[145] In a 2014 US DOD assessment, funds are being "skimmed off the top", troops are “showing signs of real fear,” and are “afraid to even engage.”[4]
In July 2014, Nigeria was estimated to have had the highest number of terrorist killings in the world over the past year, 3477, killed in 146 attacks.[146] The governor of Borno, Kashim Shettima, of the opposition ANPP, said in 2014:[147]
"Boko Haram are better armed and are better motivated than our own troops. Given the present state of affairs, it is absolutely impossible for us to defeat Boko Haram."
<snip>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram
= new reply since forum marked as read
Edited to add:
Nigeria is #10 -
1 Venezuela (see: Oil reserves in Venezuela) 297,570[2]
2 Saudi Arabia (see: Oil reserves in Saudi Arabia) 267,910
3 Canada (see: Oil reserves in Canada) 173,625 - 175,200
4 Iran (see: Oil reserves in Iran) 157,300[3]
5 Iraq (see: Oil reserves in Iraq) 140,300[4]
6 Kuwait (see: Oil reserves in Kuwait) 104,000[2]
7 United Arab Emirates (see: Oil reserves in the United Arab Emirates) 97,800
8 Russia (see: Oil reserves in Russia) 80,000[2]
9 Libya (see: Oil reserves in Libya) 48,014
10 Nigeria (see: Oil reserves in Nigeria) 37,200
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves
27 maps - http://www.vox.com/a/maps-explain-crisis-iraq
Key map is #4 - Iraq's enormous oil reserves - Iraq has the fifth largest proven oil reserves of any country, after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Iran.
I know that may ruffle some feathers, but in large part Boko Haram is a much more remote threat to the all-powerful Jewish State lobby's favorite group of land-grabbing terrorists, the state of Israel.
My second thought was that somehow foreign policy still treats Africa as a backwater of lesser security concern.
I can accept that my first thought may be unjustly colored by recent events with BiBi and the Israeli government, I freely admit that much; however, I fear that my second thought is closer to the truth. Our security analysts and spies have an established track record of ignoring threats or downplaying their potential reach until the unthinkable is thought and consequences are grave.
The irony of this discussion/debate on the 13th anniversary of 9/11 is also not lost on me.
We have continued to make mistake after mistake after mistake in dealing with the aftermath of that horrible day.
We squandered the international solidarity and good will that we had back in the fall of 2001.
We destroyed our national credibility and moral standing shortly thereafter.
We sacrificed thousands of troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and civilians.
We damn near bankrupted the country in the process and we definitely brought our standing army to its brink through repeat deployments, stop-loss orders and combat fatigue.
We failed to ever address ANY of the root causes for the hatred of Americans around the world, in fact only intensifying it and starting new brush fires and destabilizing regions like it was going out of style.
We continue to support Israel regardless of their recklessness or brutality.
We continue to invade and/or occupy areas around the globe with military force, as if the last decade (or the previous decades long attempt in Vietnam) have not AGAIN demonstrated that imposition of political will by the barrel of a gun is impossible.
We have a collection of fools and blowhards in government because as much as we are loathe to admit, WE - THE PEOPLE, ARE a collection of fools and blowhards. The sad truth is that despite our elections being controlled by money, our politicians (though bought and paid for, to act like good little lapdogs at the behest of their monied masters) DO reflect this nation and its collective idiocracy.
But as for Boko Haram versus ISIS/ISIL, why are they less important or vital? The truth is they are not, we just do not have smart enough people in government to stop listening to the easiest beating war drum. There is also an element of discomfort in changing the meme of the "Islamic bad guy" when they begin to look more like oppressed minorities at home (Africans in Nigeria - even thought they ARE Islamic fundamentalists just as much as Bin Laden was - more closely resemble the images of African-Americans in Ferguson, MO. being tear gassed and attacked than they do the boogeyman of "Islamic terrorist", which would look like Mohammed Atta if you asked 100 Americans to describe a "terrorist"
.
Last edited Thu Sep 11, 2014, 05:16 PM - Edit history (2)
We're still staggering from the hubris of Bush-Cheney. We will never recover to do such a thing again. This is more like a policing action.
No matter what we do, it will be extremely distasteful to all Americans, and Obama. This is not what he ran for office to do, it's part of the Augean stables left for him to clean. I see him as very reluctant.
ISIL presents a generational challenge to our existence, but I'm not saying we will be able to do much this century except encourage those who surround it now to contain it. The world is changing no matter what we think.
The idea floated that ISIL has only 20 thousand at its command is wrong. Try something between that and 20 million, and if only a tiny percentage of those millions join ISIL, more will be born daily from the forms of sex slavery and forced marriage and indoctrination of the coming generations that ISIL is tutoring.
This is long term planning. Americans have the attention span of a gnat. We can't even make a 5-year plan the way that the USSR did, can't make decades of plans like China, certainly can't equal the centuries of the people of the Middle East in strategy. We whine and squeal at years of warfare when the nations of the East have had wars that lasted a hundred years... even more, as some were longer but not officially declared wars.
As nations fell and people fled or occupied various places, it's kept on. Long, bloody and personal. Just like ISIL. We have been put in the position by our Allies to use aircraft and other means of warfare, defined since WW2. People on the right and the left want a quick fix, hit and run, and leave.
‘Apocalyptic’ Isis beyond anything we've seen, say US defence chiefs
Senior Pentagon officials describe militants as ‘apocalyptic’ group that will need to be defeated but maintain limited strikes are sufficient
...(General) Dempsey, an Iraq veteran, has long been sceptical of US military involvement in the Syrian conflict, citing among other reasons the threat to US pilots from dictator Bashar al-Assad’s air defences. He has frustrated those who advocated American involvement in the two neighbouring wars, such as hawkish Republican senator John McCain, who in June called on Obama to fire Dempsey, saying he “has done nothing but invent ways for us not to be engaged.”
Echoing the White House’s stated position, Dempsey said the US needed “a coalition in the region that takes on the task of defeating Isis over time,” something the administration this week has put effort into broadening and strengthening. But the group’s ultimate defeat, the general said, would only come “when it is rejected by the over 20 million disenfranchised Sunnis that happen to reside between Damascus and Baghdad.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/21/isis-us-military-iraq-strikes-threat-apocalyptic/print
From Baghdad to Damascus connects the Mediterranean and Persia Gulf. The region was one empire during the Abbasid Caliphate, lasting from 850CE (850BC) through 1000AD:
http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/islam13.htm
While no doubt only a small percentage of the 20 million displaced people support ISIL, there are a significant number of refugees from the Iraq War. We created this as a nation by going into Iraq and abusing the trust of our WW2 Allies, like a bull in a china shop.
But we need to think of the needs of these people. They want a new home and ISIL is promising not only that, but glory as well. The cost of that vision will be high on those who don't fall in line. The region spawned centuries of empires and caliphates. They know and some believe in it.
The players in the Middle East aren't going to let us off the hook because we want to take our little red wagon and go home. There's no way to wash our hands, pretending we are absolved of all our sins. This was Bush's intent and not an error on his part. We will pay for this one way or the other, and we claim we can't afford. I don't think the universe works that way.
We are just shadows in the grass next to their history. Minor irritants who were drawn into a drama that has been going on for millenia in the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere, no matter what we want to call it. Tag, we're it in the new series.
I really hate thinking this way.
