French soldiers launch first ground invasion against Al-Qaeda guerrillas in Mali as British planes land with supplies

- Up to 2,500 French troops would be deployed along with tanks and artillery
- British transport planes land in west African country to supply military
- There are at least 800 French troops in Mali, with more arriving every day

Earlier, Edouard Guillaud, the French chief of military staff, said up to 2,500 of his troops would soon have been deployed, together with tanks and artillery pieces.

More than 10 countries including Britain have offered support to the Mali mission, but so far only France has soldiers on the ground.

Mr Hollande insists that the intervention was necessary to prevent Mali turning into a Islamist terrorist base.

The War on Mali. What you Should Know: An Eldorado of Uranium, Gold, Petroleum, Strategic Minerals

The French government has stated that:

“it would send 2,500 troops to support Malian government soldiers in the conflict against Islamist rebels. France has already deployed around 750 troops to Mali, and French carriers arrived in Bamako on Tuesday morning…..

We will continue the deployment of forces on the ground and in the air…..

We have one goal. To ensure that when we leave, when we end our intervention, Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an electoral process and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory.” [1]

So this is the official narrative of France and those who support it. And of course this is what is widely reported by the mainstrem media.

France is supported by other NATO members. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confirmed that the US was providing intelligence to French forces in Mali. [2] Canada, Belgium, Denmark and Germany have also publicly backed the French incursion, pledging logistical support in the crackdown on the rebels. [3]

If we are to believe this narrative we are misled again about the real reasons. A look at Mali’s natural resources reveals what this is really about.

Mali’s natural resources [4] (emphasis added)

Gold: Mali: Africa’s third largest gold producer with large scale exploration ongoing. Mali has been famous for its gold since the days of the great Malian empire and the pilgrimage to Mecca of the Emperor Kankou Moussa in 1324, on his caravan he carried more than 8 tonnes of gold! Mali has therefore been traditionally a mining country for over half a millennium.

Mali currently has seven operating gold mines which include: Kalana and Morila in Southern Mali, Yatela, Sadiola and Loulo in Western Mali, and mines which have recently restarted production notably Syama and Tabakoto. Advanced gold exploration projects include: Kofi, Kodieran, Gounkoto, Komana, Banankoro, Kobada and Nampala.

Uranium: encouraging signs and exploration in full swing. Exploration is currently being carried out by several companies with clear indications of deposits of uranium in Mali. Uranium potential is located in the Falea area which covers 150 km² of the Falea- North Guinea basin, a Neoproterozoic sedimentary basin marked by significant radiometric anomalies. Uranium potential in Falea is thought to be 5000 tonnes. The Kidal Project, in the north eastern part of Mali, with an area of 19,930 km2, the project covers a large crystalline geological province known as L’Adrar Des Iforas. Uranium potential in the Samit deposit, Gao region alone is thought to be 200 tonnes.

Diamonds: Mali has potential to develop its diamond exploration: in the Kayes administrative region (Mining region 1), thirty (30) kimberlitic pipes have been discovered of which eight are show traces of diamonds. Some eight small diamonds have been picked in the Sikasso administrative region (southern Mali).

Precious stones consist of the following and can be found in:

Circle of Nioro and Bafoulabe: Garnets and rare magnetic minerals
Circle of Bougouni and Faleme Basin: Pegmatite minerals
Le Gourma – garnet and corindons
L’Adrar des Ilforas – pegmatite and metamorphosing minerals
Hombori Douentza Zone: quartz and carbonates
Iron Ore, Bauxite and Manganese: significant resources present in Mali but still unexploited. Mali has according to estimates more than 2 million tonnes of potential iron ore reserves located in the areas of Djidian-Kenieba, Diamou and Bale.

Bauxite reserves are thought to be 1.2 million tonnes located in Kita, Kenieba and Bafing- Makana. Traces of manganese have been found in Bafing – Makana, Tondibi and Tassiga.

Other mineral resources and potential in Mali

Calcarous rock deposits: 10 million tonnes est. ( Gangotery), 30 million tonnes est. ( Astro) and Bah El Heri ( Nord de Goundam) 2.2 Million tonnes est.

Copper: potentialities in Bafing Makan ( Western Region) and Ouatagouna ( Northern Region)
Marble : Selinkegny ( Bafoulabe) 10.6 MT estimated reserves and traces at Madibaya
Gypsum: Taoudenit ( 35 MT est.), Indice Kereit ( Nord de Tessalit) 0.37 MT est.
Kaolin: Potential estimated reserves ( 1MT) located in Gao ( Northern Region)
Phosphate: Reserve located at Tamaguilelt, production of 18,000 t/per annum and an estimated potential of 12 million tonnes. There are four other potential deposits in the North of 10 million tonnes.
Lead and zinc: Tessalit in the Northern Region ( 1.7 MT of estimated reserves) and traces in Bafing Makana ( Western Region) and Fafa (Northern Mali)

Lithium: Indications in Kayes ( Western Region) and estimated potential of 4 million tonnes in Bougouni ( Southern Region)
Bitumen schist: Potential estimated at 870 million tonnes, indications found in Agamor and Almoustrat in the Northern Region.
Lignite: Potential estimated at 1.3 million tonnes, indications found in Bourem ( Northern Region)
Rock Salt: Estimated potential of 53 million tonnes in Taoudenni ( Northern Region)
Diatomite: Estimated potential of 65 million tonnes in Douna Behri ( Northern Region)
Mali’s Petroleum potential already attracting significant interest from investors

Mali’s Petroleums potential has been documented since the 1970’s where sporadic seismic and drilling revealed probable indications of oil. With the increasing price of global oil and gas resources, Mali has stepped up its promotion and research for oil exploration, production and potential exports. Mali could also provide a strategic transport route for Sub-Saharan oil and gas exports through to the Western world and there is the possibility of connecting the Taoudeni basin to European market through Algeria.

Work has already begun to reinterpret previously gathered geophysical and geological data collected, focussing on five sedimentary basins in the North of country including: Taoudeni, Tamesna, Ilumenden, Ditch Nara and Gao.

So here we have it

Whatever is reported by the mainstream media, the goal of this new war is no other than stripping yet another country of its natural resources by securing the access of international corporations to do it. What is being done now in Mali through bombs and bullets is being done to Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain by means of debt enslavement.

And the people suffer and die

The Guardian reported 2 days ago [5] :

“The human toll has not yet been calculated, but a communique read on state television late Saturday said that at least 11 Malians were killed in Konna.

“Sory Diakite, the mayor of Konna, says the dead included children who drowned after they threw themselves into a river in an effort to escape the bombs.

“Others were killed inside their courtyards, or outside their homes. People were trying to flee to find refuge. Some drowned in the river. At least three children threw themselves in the river. They were trying to swim to the other side. And there has been significant infrastructure damage,” said the mayor, who fled the town with his family and is now in Bamako.”

Who knows what the death toll is today.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2263247...s-land-supplies.html

www.globalresearch.ca/the-war-on-mali-wh...-should-know/5319093

France Launches War in Mali in Bid to Secure Resources, Stamp Out National Rights Struggles

France, the former slave power of west Africa, has poured into Mali with a vengeance in a military attack launched on January 11. French warplanes are bombing towns and cities across the vast swath of northern Mali, a territory measuring some one thousand kilometers from south to north and east to west. French soldiers in armoured columns have launched a ground offensive, beginning with towns in the south of the northern territory, some 300 km north and east of the Malian capital of Bamako.

A French armoured convoy entered Mali several days ago from neighbouring Ivory Coast, another former French colony. French troops spearheaded the overthrow of that country’s government in 2011.

The invasion has received universal support from France’s imperialist allies. The U.S., Canada and Europe are assisting financially and with military transport. To provide a figleaf of African legitimacy, plans have been accelerated to introduce troops from eight regional countries to join the fighting .

The public relations version of the French et al invasion is a familiar refrain. “Islamic terrorists” and “jihadists” have taken control of northern Mali and are a threat to international security and to the well-being of the local population. Terrible atrocities against the local populace are alleged and given wide publicity by corporate media. Similar myths were peddled by the warmakers when they invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.

It is true that Islamic fundamentalists have ruled northern Mali with an iron hand since taking over in 2012. But the reasons for this latest intervention lie in the determination of the world’s imperial powers to keep the human and natural resources of poor regions of the world as preserves for capitalist profits. West Africa is a region of great resource wealth, including gold, oil and uranium.

The uranium mines in neighbouring Niger and the uranium deposits in Mali are of particular interest to France, which generates 78 per cent of its electricity from nuclear energy. Niger’s uranium mines are highly polluting and deeply resented by the population, including among the semi-nomadic, Tuareg people who reside in the mining regions. The French company Areva is presently constructing in Imouraren, Niger what will become the second largest uranium mine in the world.

Notwithstanding the fabulous wealth created by uranium mining, Niger is one of the poorest countries on earth. As one European researcher puts it, “Uranium mining in Niger sustains light in France and darkness in Niger.”

Mali (population 15.5 million) is the third-largest gold producing country in Africa. Canada’s IAMGOLD operates two mines there (and a third in nearby Burkina Faso). Many other Canadian and foreign investors are present.

A key player in the unfolding war is Algeria. The government there is anxious to prove its loyalty to imperialism. Its lengthy border with northern Mali is a key zone for the “pacification” of northern Mali upon which France and its allies are embarked.

Further proof of the hypocrisy of the ‘democracy’ that France claims to be fighting for in Mali is found in the nature of the Mali regime with which it is allied. Often presented in mainstream media as a ‘beacon of democracy’ in west Africa, the Mali government was little more than a corrupt and pliant neo-colonial regime before last year when the U.S.-trained and equipped Mali army twice overthrew it – in March and again in December. The Mali army now scrambling to fight alongside its French big brother was condemned and boycotted by the U.S., Europe and Canada during a brief, sham interlude of concern following the first coup.

Today, the Mali government is a shell of a regime that rules at the behest of the Mali military, the latter’s foreign trainers, and the foreign mining companies that provide much of its revenue.

Full article is here:

www.globalresearch.ca/france-launches-wa...ts-struggles/5319586

And so the (further) plundering of Africa we discussed on here t'other day is go!

A 1949 United States State Department study written by George F. Kennan, now declassified, gives clear indication of a possible direction of US foreign policy that has been all too closely followed. It explains that in the second half of the twentieth century the Third World was to “fulfil its major function as a source of raw materials and a market for industrial capitalist societies”. The Third World was to be “exploited” (Kennan’s words) for the reconstruction of Europe and Japan. Kennan even suggested that Europe might get a psychological lift from the project of “exploiting” Africa.

The bombing of Mali highlights all the lessons of western intervention

The west African nation becomes the eighth country in the last four years alone where Muslims are killed by the west

As French war planes bomb Mali, there is one simple statistic that provides the key context: this west African nation of 15 million people is the eighth country in which western powers - over the last four years alone - have bombed and killed Muslims - after Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and the Philippines (that does not count the numerous lethal tyrannies propped up by the west in that region). For obvious reasons, the rhetoric that the west is not at war with the Islamic world grows increasingly hollow with each new expansion of this militarism. But within this new massive bombing campaign, one finds most of the vital lessons about western intervention that, typically, are steadfastly ignored.

First, as the New York Times' background account from this morning makes clear, much of the instability in Mali is the direct result of Nato's intervention in Libya. Specifically, "heavily armed, battle-hardened Islamist fighters returned from combat in Libya" and "the big weaponry coming out of Libya and the different, more Islamic fighters who came back" played the precipitating role in the collapse of the US-supported central government. As Owen Jones wrote in an excellent column this morning in the Independent:

"This intervention is itself the consequence of another. The Libyan war is frequently touted as a success story for liberal interventionism. Yet the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi's dictatorship had consequences that Western intelligence services probably never even bothered to imagine. Tuaregs – who traditionally hailed from northern Mali – made up a large portion of his army. When Gaddafi was ejected from power, they returned to their homeland: sometimes forcibly so as black Africans came under attack in post-Gaddafi Libya, an uncomfortable fact largely ignored by the Western media. . . . [T]he Libyan war was seen as a success . . . and here we are now engaging with its catastrophic blowback."

Over and over, western intervention ends up - whether by ineptitude or design - sowing the seeds of further intervention. Given the massive instability still plaguing Libya as well as enduring anger over the Benghazi attack, how long will it be before we hear that bombing and invasions in that country are - once again - necessary to combat the empowered "Islamist" forces there: forces empowered as a result of the Nato overthrow of that country's government?

Second, the overthrow of the Malian government was enabled by US-trained-and-armed soldiers who defected. From the NYT: "commanders of this nation's elite army units, the fruit of years of careful American training, defected when they were needed most — taking troops, guns, trucks and their newfound skills to the enemy in the heat of battle, according to senior Malian military officials." And then: "an American-trained officer overthrew Mali's elected government, setting the stage for more than half of the country to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists."

In other words, the west is once again at war with the very forces that it trained, funded and armed. Nobody is better at creating its own enemies, and thus ensuring a posture of endless war, than the US and its allies. Where the US cannot find enemies to fight against it, it simply empowers them.

Third, western bombing of Muslims in yet another country will obviously provoke even more anti-western sentiment, the fuel of terrorism. Already, as the Guardian reports, French fighter jets in Mali have killed "at least 11 civilians including three children". France's long history of colonialization in Mali only exacerbates the inevitable anger. Back in December, after the UN Security Council authorized the intervention in Mali, Amnesty International's researcher on West Africa, Salvatore Saguès, warned: "An international armed intervention is likely to increase the scale of human rights violations we are already seeing in this conflict."

As always, western governments are well aware of this consequence and yet proceed anyway. The NYT notes that the French bombing campaign was launched "in the face of longstanding American warnings that a Western assault on the Islamist stronghold could rally jihadists around the world and prompt terrorist attacks as far away as Europe." Indeed, at the same time that the French are now killing civilians in Mali, a joint French-US raid in Somalia caused the deaths of "at least eight civilians, including two women and two children".

To believe that the US and its allies can just continue to go around the world, in country after country, and bomb and kill innocent people - Muslims - and not be targeted with "terrorist" attacks is, for obvious reasons, lunacy. As Bradford University professor Paul Rogers told Jones, the bombing of Mali "will be portrayed as 'one more example of an assault on Islam'". Whatever hopes that may exist for an end to the "war on terror" are systematically destroyed by ongoing aggression.

Fourth, for all the self-flattering rhetoric that western democracies love to apply to themselves, it is extraordinary how these wars are waged without any pretense of democratic process. Writing about the participation of the British government in the military assault on Mali, Jones notes that "it is disturbing – to say the least – how Cameron has led Britain into Mali's conflict without even a pretence at consultation." Identically, the Washington Post this morning reports that President Obama has acknowledged after the fact that US fighter jets entered Somali air space as part of the French operation there; the Post called that "a rare public acknowledgment of American combat operations in the Horn of Africa" and described the anti-democratic secrecy that typically surrounds US war actions in the region:

"The US military has based a growing number of armed Predator drones as well as F-15 fighter jets at Camp Lemonnier, which has grown into a key installation for secret counterterrorism operations in Somalia and Yemen. The defense official declined to identify the aircraft used in the rescue attempt but said they were fighter jets, not drones. . . . .

"It was unclear, however, why Obama felt compelled to reveal this particular operation when he has remained silent about other specific US combat missions in Somalia. Spokesmen from the White House and the Pentagon declined to elaborate or answer questions Sunday night."

The Obama administration has, of course, draped its entire drone and global assassination campaign in an impenetrable cloth of secrecy, ensuring it remains beyond the scrutinizing reach of media outlets, courts, and its own citizens. The US and its western allies do not merely wage endless war aimed invariably at Muslims. They do so in virtually complete secrecy, without any transparency or accountability. Meet the western "democracies".

Finally, the propaganda used to justify all of this is depressingly common yet wildly effective. Any western government that wants to bomb Muslims simply slaps the label of "terrorists" on them, and any real debate or critical assessment instantly ends before it can even begin. "The president is totally determined that we must eradicate these terrorists who threaten the security of Mali, our own country and Europe," proclaimed French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

As usual, this simplistic cartoon script distorts reality more than it describes it. There is no doubt that the Malian rebels have engaged in all sorts of heinous atrocities ("amputations, flogging, and stoning to death for those who oppose their interpretation of Islam"), but so, too, have Malian government forces - including, as Amnesty chronicled, "arresting, torturing and killing Tuareg people apparently only on ethnic ground." As Jones aptly warns: "don't fall for a narrative so often pushed by the Western media: a perverse oversimplification of good fighting evil, just as we have seen imposed on Syria's brutal civil war."

The French bombing of Mali, perhaps to include some form of US participation, illustrates every lesson of western intervention. The "war on terror" is a self-perpetuating war precisely because it endlessly engenders its own enemies and provides the fuel to ensure that the fire rages without end. But the sloganeering propaganda used to justify this is so cheap and easy - we must kill the Terrorists! - that it's hard to see what will finally cause this to end. The blinding fear - not just of violence, but of Otherness - that has been successfully implanted in the minds of many western citizens is such that this single, empty word (Terrorists), standing alone, is sufficient to generate unquestioning support for whatever their governments do in its name, no matter how secret or unaccompanied by evidence it may be.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/ja...g-intervention-libya

Admin Aids French Bombing of Mali After U.S.-Trained Forces Join Rebels in Uranium-Rich Region

France is in its fifth day of an offensive to oust rebels that have held much of Mali’s northern region since March, an area larger than Afghanistan. The strikes have reportedly killed 11 civilians, including three children fleeing the bombardment of a camp near the central town of Konna. The United Nations estimates as many as 30,000 may have been displaced since fighting began last week. The United States has backed the offensive by helping transport French troops and making plans to send drones or other surveillance aircraft. It is aiding a fight against Malian forces that it once helped train, only to see them defect and join the Islamist rebellion. We discuss the latest in Mali with Al Jazeera correspondent May Ying Welsh, who has reported from Mali’s north, and with freelance journalist Hannah Armstrong, a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, who joins us from the Malian capital of Bamako.

France Displays Unhinged Hypocrisy as Bombs Fall on Mali

NATO funding, arming, & simultaneously fighting Al Qaeda from Mali to Syria

A deluge of articles have been quickly put into circulation defending France's military intervention in the African nation of Mali. TIME's article, "The Crisis in Mali: Will French Intervention Stop the Islamist Advance?" decides that old tricks are the best tricks, and elects the tiresome "War on Terror" narrative.

TIME claims the intervention seeks to stop "Islamist" terrorists from overrunning both Africa and all of Europe. Specifically, the article states:

"...there is a (probably well-founded) fear in France that a radical Islamist Mali threatens France most of all, since most of the Islamists are French speakers and many have relatives in France. (Intelligence sources in Paris have told TIME that they’ve identified aspiring jihadis leaving France for northern Mali to train and fight.) Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), one of the three groups that make up the Malian Islamist alliance and which provides much of the leadership, has also designated France — the representative of Western power in the region — as a prime target for attack."

What TIME elects not to tell readers is that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is closely allied to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG whom France intervened on behalf of during NATO's 2011 proxy-invasion of Libya - providing weapons, training, special forces and even aircraft to support them in the overthrow of Libya's government.

As far back as August of 2011, Bruce Riedel out of the corporate-financier funded think-tank, the Brookings Institution, wrote "Algeria will be next to fall," where he gleefully predicted success in Libya would embolden radical elements in Algeria, in particular AQIM. Between extremist violence and the prospect of French airstrikes, Riedel hoped to see the fall of the Algerian government. Ironically Riedel noted:
Algeria has expressed particular concern that the unrest in Libya could lead to the development of a major safe haven and sanctuary for al-Qaeda and other extremist jihadis.

And thanks to NATO, that is exactly what Libya has become - a Western sponsored sanctuary for Al-Qaeda. AQIM's headway in northern Mali and now French involvement will see the conflict inevitably spill over into Algeria. It should be noted that Riedel is a co-author of "Which Path to Persia?" which openly conspires to arm yet another US State Department-listed terrorist organization (list as #28), the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) to wreak havoc across Iran and help collapse the government there - illustrating a pattern of using clearly terroristic organizations, even those listed as so by the US State Department, to carry out US foreign policy.

The French offensive against Malian militants can refuel the Algerian government’s more than a decade-long armed conflict with various rebel forces which ended in 2002, an analyst tells Press TV.

Algeria's News Agency (APS) says that military operation by the Algerian Army to rescue hostages, held by militants at a remote natural gas complex has finished. According to a report, released by the APS on Thursday, at least four foreigners, including a Frenchman, two Britons, and a Kenyan were freed and four more hostages, including two Britons and two Filipinos were killed after the Army conducted raids on the African country’s In Amenas gas facilities. The military operation ended in the evening, the report added. Earlier in the day, the kidnappers said that at least 35 foreigners and 15 militants were killed in the operation by Algerian forces. The so-called al-Qaeda-linked militants in the African country had earlier claimed to be holding 41 foreign employees of the desert gas complex hostage at the site.

In an interview with Press TV, Abayomi Azikiwe, the editor of Pan-African News Wire in Detroit, shares his thoughts regarding the issue. The following is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What exactly did happen as far as this hostage drama goes? And how does this all link in with Mali?

Azikiwe: It is still not clear. All of the details are still coming out in regard to this horrendous event that occurred today that began yesterday at the In Amenas gas fields in southern Algeria. It appears as if the Algerian national army engaged on a seizure operation that lasted for some 8 hours and the reports indicated that some 50 people have been killed in the operation, however, some have denied that the casualties were in that great number.

However, we do believe that it is clearly related to the ongoing military operation, the bombings, the ground operations that is being carried out by France in neighboring Mali. There has been close links for generations between the peoples of Mali particularly northern Mali and southern Algeria.

In regard to the situation in Algeria, there has been over the last two decades insurgencies led by Islamist forces there and it appeared as if these difficulties and conflicts had been settled some 12 years ago with the negotiated settlement between various Islamist groups and the Algerian government but with the current conflict going on right now in Mali, it could refuel these difficulties that the Algerian government has experienced over the last 2 decades.

Press TV: Mr. Azikiwe, I wanted to in fact ask about Mali. Has France in a sense woken up a monster of sorts that it will not be able to control by intervening in Mali?

Azikiwe: All of the various groups that have been targeted in northern and central Mali have said that essentially they are widening the conflict inside Mali as well as throughout the entire region of west and north Africa.

This is an operation that France has embarked upon but we do believe that it is going to be a disastrous war. France does not have a strong track record in regard to intervention. We can look back at the situation even in Algeria itself during the 1950s and early 1960s when they were fighting against the FLN [National Liberation Front] who were demanding their national independence. Even before that in Vietnam, they suffered horrendous defeats at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and even in Afghanistan recently.

They withdrew all of their combat forces last year because of the high casualty rates that were being experienced by the French forces. We believe this is going to be no different in regard to the situation in Mali and we believe that it is going to cause tremendous problems in regard to French-African relations and also relations between the overall European Union and various African states and particularly grassroots organizations are in Africa as well as in Europe.

This operation by France has been denounced by the Worker’s Party of Belgium as well as the World Federation of Trade Unions. Anti-war organizations here in the United States have opposed as well the French intervention because it has drawn in the United States as well as Britain, Denmark and other NATO countries.

This is going to be a very very long campaign and one that has many many hidden and very disastrous dimensions.

US President Barack Obama has blamed "terrorists" for the death of at least 23 hostages at a besieged desert gas facility in Algeria.

A four-day siege at the In Amenas site was ended on Saturday by an army raid.

At least five Britons, five Norwegians and 10 Japanese are dead or missing, while Algeria said its troops had killed all 32 hostage-takers.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said the US would go after al-Qaeda wherever they tried to hide.

"This attack is another reminder of the threat posed by al-Qaeda and other violent extremist groups in North Africa," said Mr Obama on Saturday.

"We will continue to work closely with all of our partners to combat the scourge of terrorism in the region."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that Al Qaeda and other organizations on the US “terror list” are supporting the Syrian opposition.

Clinton said: “We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region, al-Qaida [sic], Hamas, and those who are on our terrorist list, to be sure, supporting – claiming to support the opposition [in Syria].” [1] (Click here to watch video)

Yet at the same time, in the above BBC interview the US Secretary of State repeats the threadbare Western claim that the situation in Syria is one of a defenceless population coming under “relentless attack” from Syrian government forces.

Clinton Pledges $45 Million to Syrian Opposition

Fucking Clueless is the word.

Since 2011the Malians have been asking for military intervention.
As recently as a month ago demonstrations were taking place outside the French Embassy in the CAR again asking for French intervention.
Many Kenyans are asking for British rule to be reinstated as the countries infrastructure is in a right fucking mess.

But of course your sitting on the net and not actually " in country"

Gosh them bad nasty whites must be raping and pillaging the poor black Africans !!

France's military aim in Mali is its "total reconquest", French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said.

"We will not leave any pockets" of resistance, he told French television.

US AFRICOM Operation Underway in Mali. “Keeping China out of Africa”

As we predicted this past week, the theatrical upheaval in Mali was merely a nudging exercise to move forward the stated objectives laid down in US AFRICOM policy.

With no debate or questioning in foreign policy circles, and with Obama’s coronation and ceremonial pop concert in Washington DC keeping American eyes and ears glued to the corporate media punditry, NATO allies, led by the US, are carefully carving out a comprehensive military footprint in Africa in order to further evict Chinese influence from the continent.

A convenient excuse in the short-term will be to ‘stop the spread of Islamic extremist, but as history has witnessed, this is merely a superficial justification for a comprehensive military and economic colonization of the region over the next two decades. Ironic that it would be America’s first ‘black’ President who would reside over the takeover of Africa. Expect more US bases to come in the near future, as well as more violent civil wars popping up regularly in the region.