Obama OKs $50 million to assist France in Mali

[longknife]

WASHINGTON — President Obama is spending up to $50 million from the Pentagon’s budget to assist Chad and France in their efforts to combat militants in Mali in North Africa.

Will troops soon follow? Oh yeah - and we're paying it with money we don't have?

Read more @ Obama OKs $50 million to assist France in Mali - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

 

[iamwhatiseem]

And it begins.........

 

[there4eyeM]

Without appearing to favor this, the area is of strategic importance. The French are (again) doing their friends and allies a big favor, somewhat like their work in the crumbling of Yugoslavia.
America's help is almost necessary for PR if nothing more.
Machiavellian, if you will, but we are talking about international relations, correct?

 

[tjvh]

Didn't Mitt Romney get laughed at by Obama, and the Media for bringing up Mali? I think he did.

 

[there4eyeM]

You have to admit, there was a great deal of laughing. I don't remember than one.
I found both major candidates bad jokes.

 

[waltky]

Terrorists got anti-drone techniques...

Al-Qaida tipsheet on avoiding drones found in Mali
Feb 21,`13 -- One of the last things the bearded fighters did before leaving this city was to drive to the market where traders lay their carpets out in the sand.

The al-Qaida extremists bypassed the brightly-colored, high-end synthetic floor coverings and stopped their pickup truck in front of a man selling more modest mats woven from desert grass, priced at $1.40 apiece. There they bought two bales of 25 mats each, and asked him to bundle them on top of the car, along with a stack of sticks. "It's the first time someone has bought such a large amount," said the mat seller, Leitny Cisse al-Djoumat. "They didn't explain why they wanted so many." Military officials can tell why: The fighters are stretching the mats across the tops of their cars on poles to form natural carports, so that drones cannot detect them from the air.

The instruction to camouflage cars is one of 22 tips on how to avoid drones, listed on a document left behind by the Islamic extremists as they fled northern Mali from a French military intervention last month. A Xeroxed copy of the document, which was first published on a jihadist forum two years ago, was found by The Associated Press in a manila envelope on the floor of a building here occupied by al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb. The tipsheet reflects how al-Qaida's chapter in North Africa anticipated a military intervention that would make use of drones, as the battleground in the war on terror worldwide is shifting from boots on the ground to unmanned planes in the air. The presence of the document in Mali, first authored by a Yemeni, also shows the coordination between al-Qaida chapters, which security experts have called a source of increasing concern. "This new document... shows we are no longer dealing with an isolated local problem, but with an enemy which is reaching across continents to share advice," said Bruce Riedel, a 30-year veteran of the CIA, now the director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institute.

The tips in the document range from the broad (No. 7, hide from being directly or indirectly spotted, especially at night) to the specific (No 18, formation of fake gatherings, for example by using dolls and statues placed outside false ditches to mislead the enemy.) The use of the mats appears to be a West African twist on No. 3, which advises camouflaging the tops of cars and the roofs of buildings, possibly by spreading reflective glass. While some of the tips are outdated or far-fetched, taken together, they suggest the Islamists in Mali are responding to the threat of drones with sound, common-sense advice that may help them to melt into the desert in between attacks, leaving barely a trace.

"These are not dumb techniques. It shows that they are acting pretty astutely," said Col. Cedric Leighton, a 26-year-veteran of the United States Air Force, who helped set up the Predator drone program, which later tracked Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. "What it does is, it buys them a little bit more time - and in this conflict, time is key. And they will use it to move away from an area, from a bombing raid, and do it very quickly."

MORE

 

[Desperado]

And the Pentagon furloughs 800,000 civilian employees
Priority Check!!!!!!!

 

[Trajan]

first off lets have a reality check as I think Obama is doing the right thing here and ehs not doing a thing we have not done before.


we had special action teams, combined action groups or whatever the hell they call them now, ( mixed rangers and SF ) guys on the ground their last year BEFORE a coup. took place in Mali...we were training their armed forces ( 20 guys and a few ww2 rifles) not quote that bad but, not much more.

I will say I wish he had not pulled them but do to a rule we have had in place since carter, if there is a junta or revolución that overthrows what we then ( when we went in) considered a viable lawful gov. we have to pull out in the event of an overthrow ( I can attest to that we have not always honored that codicil either)...

This isn't and shouldn't be politically partisan. I can personally attest to carter and reagan doing same and, in some of the same places, ( obama has sent teams to Angola too btw, they all f do it).




anyway, consider this, those of you who are rubbing your hands with glee at hagel gutting Defense- we are using this money to pay for/expend as to logistical support to France, for their approx. 3500 soldiers in Mali.


Think on that for a moment, Mali is approx. the same distance as New York City is from Las Vegas...the french barely got the men to Mali, (via Algeria a direct route by road and air bridge ) but has NO hope, zero zip nada of keeping them supplied, and whats more they don't have the supplies either ( aside from rations) for a sustained effort..................for 3500 men, they need our Air Force lift capacity, tankers, fuel, etc....

 

[Desperado]

anyway, consider this, those of you who are rubbing your hands with glee at hagel gutting Defense- we are using this money to pay for/expend as to logistical support to France, for their approx. 3500 soldiers in Mali.


Think on that for a moment, Mali is approx. the same distance as New York City is from Las Vegas...the french barely got the men to Mali, (via Algeria a direct route by road and air bridge ) but has NO hope, zero zip nada of keeping them supplied, and whats more they don't have the supplies either ( aside from rations) for a sustained effort..................for 3500 men, they need our Air Force lift capacity, tankers, fuel, etc....

Why is this our responsibility? That's right we are back to playing World Policemen.
A role we simply cannot afford.

 

[blackcherry]

Without appearing to favor this, the area is of strategic importance. The French are (again) doing their friends and allies a big favor, somewhat like their work in the crumbling of Yugoslavia.
America's help is almost necessary for PR if nothing more.
Machiavellian, if you will, but we are talking about international relations, correct?

Based on an inability to win anything in the last 70 years , what part do you really imagine America is capable of playing in terms of improving International Relations ?
The world's greatest Terrorist nation wanting to help others ?
Don't make me wet my pants .

 

[Trajan]

anyway, consider this, those of you who are rubbing your hands with glee at hagel gutting Defense- we are using this money to pay for/expend as to logistical support to France, for their approx. 3500 soldiers in Mali.


Think on that for a moment, Mali is approx. the same distance as New York City is from Las Vegas...the french barely got the men to Mali, (via Algeria a direct route by road and air bridge ) but has NO hope, zero zip nada of keeping them supplied, and whats more they don't have the supplies either ( aside from rations) for a sustained effort..................for 3500 men, they need our Air Force lift capacity, tankers, fuel, etc....

Why is this our responsibility? That's right we are back to playing World Policemen.
A role we simply cannot afford.

well, all I can say it, that these folks in Mali the french are fighting, are offshoots or Affiliates of AQ that did that dirty work in Benghazi and that Oil Plant in Algeria. Do we want a pre- 911 taliban like structure running Mali?

the cost is relatively small, and, if we felt ( I didn't) that Libya was worth the effort, this certainly is.

 

[smileandmobile]

put the money back into the USA....we still have sequester issues that have not been taken care of