The abductions in Nigeria

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

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.

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.

[IceSpear]

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.

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?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

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.

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.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

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.

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.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I have one thing to say here;

Children have been abducted.

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

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

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

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

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.

[Cory]

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

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.

[Miles]

Ugh.

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[Famous Mortimer]

Ugh.

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

[Mr. Morden]

*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

[Simfan34]

The Emir of Kano has called for people to take up arms 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, 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 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.