Talk Elections

Considering the U.S. is getting involved and Obama spoke on it, I'm surprised it isn't being discussed here.

I'm amazed at how many of my hipster friends on Facebook have used the #bringbackourgirls hashtag after they ragged so hard on Kony 2012 2 years ago. I point it out them and they get all pissy and say it's not the same but can't explain how. Hipsters in America only care about this because the media isn't covering it. If the media was covering it, they would probably say it was the media trying to drum up support for another foreign war against brown people, or something like that.

But the media is covering it. I've seen it on local news and it's currently the main story on CNN.com.

I guess we can expect a leftist anti-war backlash soon then.

Why?

Obama using the CIA to give info to a regime with questionable human rights record. Obama sending troops to kill Muslim boogeymen. I mean, I'm all for it personally but that's what I imagine people are going to start saying.

This seems a bit rantish, but I can't really disagree. But remember how Hollywood types grabbed on the idea of a US intervention in Darfur c. 2006 or so. Even at, what, 12, I was startled by the contradiction of people who I figured opposed intervention in Iraq supporting intervention in another Arab country. It still doesn't make sense.

As for the hipster-ish aspect it is the main story on the BBC webpage. But the Nigerian response, as always, is beyond botched- they've arrested some protesting mothers of the kidnapped girls because they "embarrassed" the President's wife. They've all been too busy celebrating "becoming Africa's largest economy" due to their "GDP rebasing", sometimes people from Nigeria can be really full about things. The Boko Haram insurgency shows no sign of abiding. Not that the APC offers anything better, of course.

Yeah, definitely rantish and personalish. I hope it was at least a semi-interesting rant though.

I can see the the difference between Iraq and humanitarian intervention. I can't see the difference between this and Kony 2012 though.

It just seems in 2012, all the hip people were like "this is so pointless, posting a Facebook video isn't helping people in Africa" but now they're doing the exact same thing themselves. The only difference I see is that the Kony story was originally pushed by Christians and various other unhip people while the bringourgirlsback thing was spread by Daily Show watcher type people. It really is just using these conflicts as a fashion statement.

I mean I suppose so, but the Kony thing was sort of past its prime when they decided to make an issue of it and they used a sort of very black-and-white imagery when the whole issue was quite complex. I was one of the people criticising it, yes. This however is different- it just happened and Boko Haram is very obviously an objectively bad group worse than the government of Nigeria. That wasn't so clear in Uganda, where the NRA was also using child soliders and whatnot, for example.

Of course and then it seems several Nigerians I've spoken to regard this thing as some sort of hoax.

Wasn't Invisible Children a front group for American fundamentalists trying to influence Ugandan domestic policy re: homosexuality?

Yeah, the objections to Invisible Children were actually sensible, and certainly reasonable than silly.

Good article on the subject. Don't think the US is intervening here out of the goodness of our hearts. (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/06/western-intervention-nigeria-kidnapped-girls-corruption-boko-haram)

The Grauniad has proven to be consistently awful when it comes to Africa.

Come on, you really believe there's no ulterior motive to fighting terrorists in a country with the tenth largest oil reserves in the world? It's a textbook example of fighting a war to secure fossil fuels.

Err Western countries already do plenty of business with Nigeria.

If Obama were to destabilise the country, that would hurt  Western interests.

I really hate this meme that every single action taken by the West surrounds oil.

Don't worry Snowstalker, horrible person/attention whore Glen Greenwald agrees with you:

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I have one thing to say here;

Children have been abducted.

Please bear this in mind before your opinions fall out of your mouth.

While that is a good article, don't simplify the west's interest down to fossil fuels. The abduction of 250 Nigerian girls by Muslim extremists, who are condemned to short and mean lives as sex slaves, is not some American plot. That is an organic development, and it's one which tugs on everybody's heart strings. That is why CNN is running it relentless (side note, WillipsBrighton, pull your head out of your ass). I don't see any reason to doubt Klobuchar's sincerity when she says:


Nigeria's status as a major oil exporter is an enabling factor in a potential Western intervention because oil MNC's will expect to have their contracts renegotiated more favorably if Lagos is patrolled by American humvees.  But saying that is the cause misses the bigger picture. Nigeria, as we all know, is a very poor country with a tiny oil-rich minority, divided between innumerable tribes and two religions. They are experiencing high population growth and are often effected by food insecurity. The conditions are ripe for a civil war. I can only see full-scale western intervention sparking said civil war, but then I don't think not intervening will prevent said conflict. So what should the west do?

Ah yes, that's why I have you on ignore.

The West, largely Dutch and British multis, have been polluting the hell out of Nigeria for almost 50 years. You really can't get any more exploitative system in place than has existed.

The problem is you are using logic. True Leftists are incapable of comprehending that.

Or have they? There are a few Nigerians I know who maintain this is some hoax perpetrated by the local villagers and/or government, for some unknown reason.

Are these real Nigerians or nigerians you met online? Pretty hard to fake the entire thing considering the reaction by both the families and Boko Haram leaders

Shouldn't good leftists also hate the idea of theocratic fundamentalists victimizing young girls and depriving them of the right to a secular education?

Obviously Boko Haram are disgusting reactionaries, but the fact that Obama is sending ground troops to fight Islamists in an oil-rich country with a spotty human rights record and a government clearly unable (or more likely, unwilling) to deal with the terrorists on their own leads one to many questions.

Are you able to comment on any issue without somehow mentioning how horrible Obama is?

Not when Obama is invading an oil-rich nation under the pretext of fighting Islamist terrorists.

Seriously, if you're going to criticise this it undermines legitimate criticisms of Obama's administrations actions.

Obama, with the permission of the Nigerian President, is going to send in a handful of special forces. That's not an invasion - it barely counts as a skirmish.

Seriously, why wouldn't the world hegemonic power help out in a case like this? This is absolutely, certainly, not in any way about oil. The US gets tons of oil from Nigeria already, and Boko Harem are in no position to overpower the Nigerian government.

This is about all soft power. The US wants to regain the image they held for so long as "good guys", protectors of underdogs. If the US marches in and saves the girls, their will be immense goodwill from many countries who have grown  cynical of Obama. In turn that goodwill means the US has more room to pivot against China and Russia.

And the best thing (from a moral and PR point of view) is that this issue is pretty much black vs. white. Scary terorist group with no support vs. 200 innocent schoolgirls. Rescuing them is a win-win situation.

While I see no reason to think this is fake, it's not as if Nigerians have never been suspected of fakery.

American troops are going to Chad to assist in the hunt for the missing girls. I am usually opposed to American intervention overseas, and while I have my doubts about this mission, I can't say I oppose it with any vigor. It’s not the right solution in my opinion, but I if they get rescued then my non interventionist views can be sidelined. It’s only 80 men according to CNN.

True Leftists are required by a law of the universe to disagree with every foreign action taken by the US Government ever. They are like a left-wing version of Alex Jones truther types. Literally everything has to be a conspiracy.

Ugh. (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/witnesses-boko-haram-slaughters-100s-nigeria)

If it takes that long for word to get out, maybe the government didn't help because they hadn't gotten the information yet.

*bump*

Here we go again?

While the authorities haven't yet confirmed it one way or the other, residents of two villages in northeastern Nigeria claim that Boko Haram has just abducted "dozens" of women and girls in those villages:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29740204

The Emir of Kano has called for people to take up arms (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30080514) and defend themselves against Boko Haram, that is, they ought to take matters into their own hands and be armed. This is of course after Boko Haram captured the town of Chibok last week (which is, of course, the hometown of the still-missing schoolgirls), and only retook it with the help of a local militia (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30073702), which is exactly the sort of thing the he seems to be talking about.

The Emir of Kano is, it should be remembered, Lamido Sanusi, the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (and this (https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Varavour) guy!) who declared that upwards of $20 billion was missing from the treasury and was promptly sacked. Unsurprisingly, the government has condemned (which is actually somewhat surprising, considering the Emir is not usual a political figure) his call, saying that it would be a "call for anarchy and lawlessness," which doesn't seem terribly different from the state at present. The spokesman claimed that the police were doing their job, which is an incredible claim to make when large swathes of a region are controlled by a militant group and patently absurd when soldiers have literally ran away from the militants they are supposed to be fighting.

Also this should be the general Boko Haram thread- it's far too big a deal to be consigned to a general continent-wide (ick) thread.