Boko Haram, not ISIS
Surely you mean Daesh?
In case anyone else has as much terrorist flag confusion as i do:
We need a browser plugin that replaces terrorist flags with Paul Coombsâ dildo flag.
Not if poor (or black) people donât count.
That certainly doesnât help; but I think that there is a strong element of âand as long as you donât mess with our foreign policy objectives too muchâ in there as well.
ISIS was outscoring Boko Haram on publicity pretty handily even they were focused on internecine bloodletting in the middle east; and itâs not as though we have the warm and fuzzies for that area of the world, or its residents. Wreaking havoc on our shiny, new, Authentic Iraqi Government! and spoiling the liberation of Syria by democracy-loving freedom fighters, though, is something that we did not find endearing.
Obviously, I wouldnât begin to argue with the fact that casualties in Paris are a zillion times more affectively salient than ones in somewhere-in-Nigeria; but ISIS has had a higher profile for some time now.
You mean to say we are fighting the wrong âwarâ again.
I feel like this is an instance where the word âterrorismâ is failing us. I suspect that ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is outkilling Boko Haram, but that not all deaths caused by Daesh are considered terrorism. I donât think they count âcombatantsâ as deaths caused by terrorists, for instance.
Headline makes no sense - there is no oil in Africa.
We* are fighting a war against Boko Haram, one of the conflict parties in Mali. But I am not convinced that terrorism and civil wars are solvable with air strikes and commandos.
*) as in the Western We, in this case mostly France
OK, but letâs also put âterrorismâ in perspective: ânormalâ gun violence, cars, and various diseases kill many, many millions more people than terrorists of all kinds. This has been known for years, but itâs much easier (and better serves capitalism and national interests) to whip people into a frenzy about brown Muslim terrorists than about the fact that our roads are meat grinders.
There is plenty of oil in Nigeria alone.
Not to mention the rest.
And they have pledged their loyalty to the caliphate. Which makes them a franchise of ISIS. Like Abu Sayyaf in the Phillipines, and similar groups in Southern Africa, Chechnya, The Caucasus, Yemen, Algeria, and the Sinai (and many other places). These organizations, and others, have pledged their loyalty to ISIS, and are all, to differing degrees, following the instructions of the Caliphate. As far as you and I are concerned, they are part of the same organization. We can pretend that they are not, because putting them on the map one at a time makes them seem less scary and âJVâ.
⌠And the US military?
There are actually more than a few people who have pointed out that will all the Facebook-Turn-Your-Face-Into-A-Flag-Pray-for-Paris-Vive-le-France-ing going on, itâs kind of head-scratching that none of this happens when ISIS kills brown or darker folk.
Make that Arabic Studies degree work for you!
Meh. No one really cares about Africa. No one we know or care about lives there. Except maybe South Africa.
Also pretty certain these guys:
Had this conversation:
I have a friend from Nigeria who has just had his visa cancelled and may have to leave the country soon. Fortunately he is from the south, so thereâs less chance of violence where heâll be. My mother spent the first six years of her life in Jos, which has been the site of a number of attacks in recent years (most recently this July, against a mosque whose imam spoke out against Boko Haram). Boko Haram has been trying to start a religious conflict between Christians and Muslims, so they have attacked a number of churches in the area.
Actually - not true. During the oil embargo in the 70s, we got some oil from Nigeria.
I was thinking Fela Kuti wrote a song about it, but Iâm thinking about his song ITT, which was about the telecom industry.
I think weâve decided that fighting the Chinese over African resources isnât really worth it.
