This happened a few weeks ago but seems to have taken time to get to the top of the headlines. I did hear about it when it happend (BBC world service) and the more I think about it the more sick it makes me feel. There isn't any particular need to take of right and wrong on this but there is another question. The Nigerian government is finally edging towards asking for some assistance in this matter. No doubt there are sattelites looking now and possibly reconnaissance drones in action already. Does anyone here object to western involvement and would you support the deployment of special forces if requested by Nigeria?
Nope, I'm good with Western involvement on this. It is a humanitarian issue, not a political one. As far as I'm concerned the West can drop a commando team on Boko's asses, free the girls and wipe out their captors. Boom, headshot.
I'm with Nexxo on this, it's purely humanitarian. If involvement speeds the process up, or allows it to succeeded, all the better.
Another argument for involvement is that it doesn't need to be ongoing. Fly in, find them, run the operation, and head home. This is the kind of "purer" counter-terrorism that we could all get behind before 9-11 perverted the meaning of the word.
Now unfortunately the police and army in Nigeria do suffer from high and low level corruption, and have committed human rights abuses at times. This is sadly the (unnecessary) norm in poorer countries. Would you support supplying training in counter-terrorism, if requested, provided of course that training emphasised that professional and ethical behavior is going to be the beast way to win this struggle?
Two separate issues here. On the specific issue of the kidnapped girls I think it would be reasonable for one of the national counter-terrorism teams (Seal Team 6, Delta Force, SAS, GIGN, or whoever else wants to play) to get involved and use their training and equipment to run an operation at the request of the Nigerian government. This is the kind of operation for which these teams were created and for which they are maintained at great cost. Such an operation need not be ongoing. As for "winning the struggle", any insurgency has to be won politically rather than militarily. While generally depicted as being a religious struggle, many analysts see Boko Haram as being motivated by inequality and corruption. An organization of this type cannot survive without the support of the populace it resides in, and so long as that populace believes that violent struggle is more likely to bring about a better future then the struggle will continue. The problem with this type of conflict is that it doesn't allow for a simple "good guy / bad guy" narrative. The insurgents are certainly the ones committing egregious acts of violence, but the government has created, or at least failed to prevent, the conditions by which the insurgents feel they have no other choice. More weapons and training aren't going to change the underlying situation.
I doubt special forces will be deployed to the area as 200+ girls to rescue and the number of militants in a jungle area their are too many things that can go wrong, i doubt any western goverment will want to expose themselves that much. This article is quite good as is explains the situation with the Nigerian army. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27396702
US Special forces and (by the way the US says "others") probably CIA too. I suspect there are Special forces from several countries operating there or soon to be doing so.
Seeing as the girls have already been split up and moved, it's not that easy. Right now we have people in Chad that are there to help locate the girls, but I doubt we would be involved in any direct action. 200 girls, split into say 6 or 7 groups, would have to be hit at the same time with overwhelming force. That's a lot of guys and a lot of things to go wrong. The chances for a PR disaster are too great. Better to offer logistical and intelligence support. What I find annoying is that this, and many other affronts to human dignity happen on a daily basis all over the region. Chattel slavery is still legal and common in Mali and Mauritania. But 200 girls get boosted, some hashtags thrown around and now all of a sudden SEAL Team 6 should be deployed? It just highlights how fickle and fleeting western interest in Africa really is. Let the Nigerians figure it out for themselves. Trust me, more then 200 African girls have died in the last 24 hours from things no white girl even has to imagine, and more then 200 more will die in the next 24 hours. These 200 are no more or less important then all the other ones. Either we should care about them all or stop with the twitter/rock concert humanitarianism that makes us feel better but does little good.
But isn't that saying that we shouldn't help them because it's hypocritical as we didn't intervene in every other humanitarian cause. Whaich is saying that action is nver justified if you can show previous inaction. I think doing what is right in the present is more important that worrying about what wasn't done in the past. But the proviso here is that you don't provide assistance that isn't asked for as Nigeria, isn't as yet something you could call a failed state, despite it's many problems.
I don't think that is what Jumeira_Johnny is saying. I think he is arguing that you should think about whether your help is going to actually, well, help, or whether it is just going to make things worse. This is closely related to his second point: one's motivation for helping. Is it to help 200 girls or is it to assuage our own feelings of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming suffering and wretchedness in the world? Is it rescue fantasies? If you want to help 200 children, there may be more effective things you can do right here and now. You may not be able to help these girls, but, as you say, that is not an excuse for inaction.
While we might rescue the girls (or some of them) there is still a bigger issue. Boko Haram ( translated popularly as "Western education is sin" or "non-Islamic teaching is sin") will still be there. And that means that this drama will play out again and again. Their full name is "The congregation of the people of tradition for proselytizing and jihad.". This is not going to be an isolated incident. They have been there since 2001, and show no signs of weakening. What the area needs is to tell them to get bent and not stand for their presence, but with the fact that poverty is widespread and they have guns, they run rampant. I still believe we should effect a rescue. Just because it will probably happen again does not mean the lives we save would be worth nothing. Every life is of equal worth. Even the jihadists. It is what we do with that life that matters.
Well obviously,you don't send for the US army to deal with any kidnapping or bombing. But it seem the situation in Northern Nigeria is out of hand. The population want a response and the NIgerian Army just isn't up to the job right now. In fact a big push by them at this point might be very ugly. But think of it less as should we interefere are more as should we refuse to help? We might do that becasue we don't think we have the capabilty to help the situation. Or becasue we just don't give a dam. But because it is inconsistent, doesn't seem like a good one.
Well, we can't not help at all. But KayinBlack rightly point out that this is an issue of a lot of people living in abject poverty and disorder (with incidentally not a little resentment towards the West). Islam originated and was forged in such barbaric poverty and lawlessness. It is essentially frontier law: it imposes an absolute, unquestionable authority, a sense of concrete law and order in which justice is seen to be done (sometimes quite graphically), a cultural framework for coping with suffering and misery, behaving oneself societally and running a stable and fair economy. You don't drink, you don't engage with the opposite sex outside of marriage, you don't charge interest on loans, you donate to charity and you pray five times a day to keep you on the straight and narrow (old-style Judaism grew up in a similar climate and is much the same). If you think Islam is harsh, you should know what its place of origin was like before it came along. We can argue about how Islam achieved this law, order and societal stability* but the fact is that in its own way, it did. To illiterate, brutalised people living in absolute wretched poverty and deprivation, fundamentalist Islam can seem a very attractive, even reassuring and sympathetic option. If we want that to change, we have to give them a better option. * Yes, Christianity is a more civilised option, but being less authoritarian it also works a lot slower.
The girls have most likely been sold into arranged marriages by now. Lots of people saying "we" should send in SAS, GIGN, Seal Team 6, Delta force etc. Well first issue is the US special forces are grossly incompetent. The second issue is that nobody has any idea where these girls are. If they are still alive they have probably been sold already. Even if they were still in Nigeria, there's an area the size of East Anglia where they *might* be. There's a reason Boko Harem are hiding in the bush in the North East of the country - they've been driven out of everywhere else. This has been going on for years, burning schools, killing teachers, kidnapping the kids. This isn't a one off. The CIA is very good at paying people and arming people to do their dirty work for them[1]. On the off chance someone is still disillusioned enough to think that the first world stages military intervation on moral grounds - let me remind you that this has never been the case. If there isn't anything to be gained financially there won't be any feet on the ground. Since Nigeria already sold their oil reserves to multinational companies, they don't really have many bargaining chips left and there's no need for anyone to bother with the status quo. There hasn't been much help before this particular incident became big news and the white people suddenly got all upset about it. Having said that, as far as we know special forces (including the SAS) are already on the ground. These operations are usually kept secret but a public statement about support was made a few weeks ago. Nigeria is a sovereign nation and as such no other country can *legally* intervene with this situation without the Nigerian governments permission. There may be some internal politics relating to whether this has happened [and if not why not] that we can only speculate about.
Didn't the Nigerian government say yesterday that they've determined where the girls are being held, but that effecting a rescue is too risky at this stage?
Oh? Do share with us your sources or well researched opinion on this. While they aren't supermen and are often deployed outside of their respective specialist fields, I hardly would consider them incompetent.
bin laden raid says they are not `incompetent` really.... as for Nigeria forces , the last time they tried a rescue IIRC most of the hostages died?
