Ian Birrell: Like Afghanistan, Mali is a victim of our 'war on terror' - Commentators - Opinion - The Independent

Ian Birrell: Like Afghanistan, Mali is a victim of our 'war on terror' - Commentators - Opinion - The Independent




Al-Qa'ida in the Maghreb is increasingly active, while even Nigeria's Islamist Boko Haram is involved


So now we know that Nato will bring its misguided campaign in Afghanistan to a close by the end of 2014, although even Barack Obama admits that the country will remain highly insecure and a hotbed of terrorist activity. A war in which 414 British service personnel have died and which has cost the country £17.3bn will turn out to have been one of depressing futility, our troops possibly having to fight their way out and our government doing dodgy deals with central Asian despots to release our equipment.



If nothing else, the closing of this tragic chapter should serve as a warning that the world needs to be on guard against the failure of nations. But even as Nato leaders slapped backs in Chicago this week, there is little attention being given to the rapid collapse of another country – an event that could have devastating global implications.

For 20 years, the west African nation of Mali has been a model of stability – a tranquil, beautiful country famed for its mangos, music and mud buildings. But following a coup – an increasingly rare event in modern Africa – two months ago, it has descended from beacon of democracy to basket case with shocking speed.

This accidental coup began with a barracks mutiny on 22 March. A group of soldiers, angered by lack of supplies to crush a festering rebellion in the huge northern desert region, ended up in control of the capital. This weekend, regional leaders brokered a deal for a return to democracy in 12 months' time – partly by bribing the blundering coup leader with the spoils of presidential office, complete with a mansion and pension 50 times his current pay as an army captain. Despite this, there are fears the agreement will not stick.

Typical of the sudden chaos engulfing the country, the deal resulted in the 70-year-old interim president, a renowned scientist, being beaten by a mob. This in a country formerly so law-abiding that when a friend of mine left his wallet in a nightclub it had been returned to his hotel by the time he awoke. Now residents stay indoors at night, terrified by incidents such as the gang rape of a teenage girl, filmed on a mobile phone.

But it is events in the north that are so alarming. One legacy of colonialism is that Mali, like many African countries, is an uneasy fusion of diverse cultures. The Tuareg took advantage of the coup to declare independence, sparking events that have led to the black flag of al-Qa'ida fluttering over buildings, foreign militants flooding in, refugees pouring out, and harsh sharia law being imposed.

It is all a dismal echo of Afghanistan. Nationalist groups fighting for control with Islamist gangs, while families and clans settle old scores in the most brutal manner. Many of the soldiers are well-armed and battle-hardened after fighting for Gaddafi in Libya.

At the centre of events is a charismatic figure named Iyad al Ghaly. He was leader of an earlier Tuareg revolt who, influenced by Pakistani salifists, became an Islamist and now heads a powerful group called Ansar ud-Dine.

Traditionally, the Tuaregs enjoy music and dancing, while women have gone uncovered. Now they are are being told to cover up, with even male and female children banned from walking together. Music and television are prohibited, shops are closed, and looters threatened with beheading. Cities are being emptied, with an estimated 310,000 people displaced. Gao, the most populous centre, is now a ghost town while in Niafunke, where once Grammy-winning guitarist Ali Farka Touré was mayor, four out of five residents have fled and those remaining are preyed on by marauding militia. In Timbuktu, one of the most extraordinary and mystical cities on earth, a sufi shrine has been destroyed, to the fury of locals. There are fears that the legendary libraries, holding thousands of ancient texts, may be next.

This is not just a tragedy for Mali. The civil war is drawing in neighbouring countries who are starting to fight a proxy war with their chosen groups. Al-Qa'ida in the Maghreb, thought to be Algerian-backed and behind the kidnap and killing of Western tourists, is increasingly active, while there are claims that even Nigeria's Islamist group Boko Haram has become involved.

Already there is a humanitarian crisis. It could get far worse: we have seen the damage caused by a broken, chaotic country – and how Islamist terror groups promising stability can fill the void. This crisis threatens the entire West African and Maghreb region; even the most peaceful countries could suffer collateral damage.

Mali is a huge and strategically important country. This is why American special forces have been operating there and why the West encouraged the militarisation of the north – a policy that has backfired so spectacularly. Mali may be one more victim of the "war on terror". And just as in Afghanistan, the shockwaves from this disaster in the desert could be felt far beyond its own borders.

twitter.com/@ianbirrell

Text book for Jewish Children in Toronto

Text book for Jewish Children in Toronto.

  some of the passages from the book being taught to Jewish Children in Toronto, including the school on Bathurst street.

Please note the following

1. The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) claimed that calling Medina Jews of 1400 years ago 'treacherous' and 'crafty' was anti-semitic.  On page 41, Prophet Mohammad (SAW) is called a 'Rabid Jew-Hater', page 43 describes how muslims butchered the 600 Jewish men, took their wives and children to be sold in to slavery and Prohet Mohammad (SAW) kept a beautiful Jewish woman for his harem. Page 43 also calls the muslims a 'swaggering, venegful horde', page 45 describes shi'ites as rabid fanatics and uses a expression later stating "The savage beginings of Mohammed's sweeping massacres". If calling the Medina Jews of 1400 years ago 'treacherous' and 'crafty' is hateful then the language used above is definitely much more hateful. Lets see if the Jewish Schools teaching this curriculum issue an unreserved apology for this hateful text, have a board review and revise the text and then have our board approve the revised text. (For those whose first language may not be English, Rabid means mad or fanatical, rabid animals are those suffering from rabies)

2. David Spiro, Greater Toronto co-chair of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) termed the assertion Jews wanted to kill Mohammad a “horrific conspiracy theory” and “blood libel.” It is very ironic that the same concept is being taught to Jewish children in Toronto through page 43 of this book which describes how Jews tried to kill Prophet Mohammad (SAW). CIJA calims were slanderous in nature and were meant to intimidate teh community and run a propaganda campaign.

Who Will Suffer As A Result of Euro Policies? The Jews. :: Gatestone Institute

Who Will Suffer As A Result of Euro Policies? The Jews. :: Gatestone Institute

Who Will Suffer As A Result of Euro Policies? The Jews.

by Peter Martino
May 14, 2012 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3060/euro-policies

It is as if the U.S. were to renounce the dollar for the "amro," a common currency with countries as different as Mexico. Colombia, Brazil and Argentina. A documentary on German television last week revealed that the political class in Europe knew that the Greeks were cooking the books, but did not care. Extremist parties of the Left and the Right (all of them anti-Semitic) are rapidly gaining electoral support at the expense of mainstream parties....

The European Union, and especially its common currency, the euro, is on the brink of collapse. The Greeks, unable to form a government after the May 6 elections, will have to go to the polls again next month. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel is rapidly losing support. If she cares about her reelection next year, she had better push Greece out of the eurozone rather than keep that country afloat with German taxpayers' money. If Greece leaves, the whole euro edifice might come down – a better outcome than the present situation, in which extremist parties on the Left and the Right (all of them anti-Semitic) are rapidly gaining electoral support at the expense of mainstream parties which keep clinging to the failed project of the common European currency.

A recent program on German television revealed that former German Chancellor Kohl had exchanged the strong D-mark for the crisis-prone euro because he wanted to atone for Germany's role in the Second World War. Contemporary Germans, however, are not inclined to pay for the Greeks and other southern Europeans to make up for their grandfathers' role in the Second World War.

The euro project was flawed from the beginning. It lumped various countries with widely divergent economies, cultures and languages together in a single monetary union, imposing a "one size fits none" monetary policy on 17 countries which have little in common but the fact that they are all located on the European continent. It is as if the U.S. were to renounce the dollar for the 'amro,' a common currency with countries as different as Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Argentina.

In this fashion, a prosperous and industrious northern European country such as Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe, renounced the D-mark for a euro, which also included a nation such as Greece, where corrupt politicians lied and cheated about the country's dire economic situation.

A documentary on German television last week revealed that the political class in Europe knew that the Greeks were cooking the books, but did not care. The euro was a political project. Former European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein admitted as much in the documentary. Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl renounced the D-mark for a euro which was to include as many countries as possible. "Kohl was a romantic as far as the EU was concerned," Bolkestein said. "For Kohl, European unification was the way for Germany to atone for the Second World War. That is why he wanted to have as many countries in the eurozone as possible, whether they qualified or not."

Bolkestein admitted that he had misgivings about the inclusion of countries such as Greece in the eurozone. In the same documentary, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank from 2003 to 2011, admitted that the financial crisis in Greece, which is currently dragging the euro down with it, could only have happened because the EU refused to see the obvious. It was an eye-opening documentary that enraged many Germans viewers.

The euro crisis is leading to a general dissatisfaction of the Europeans with the governing political class, whether left, the right or center. In less than one and a half years, 10 of the 17 government leaders of the eurozone have been brought down or voted out of office. This happened in February 2011 to Ireland's centrist Prime Minister Brian Cowen; in April 2011 to Finland's centrist Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi; in June 2011 to Portugal's socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates; in September 2011 to Slovenia's socialist Prime Minister Borut Pahor; in October 2011 to Slovakia's center-right Prime Minister Iveta Radicova; in November 2011 to Italy's center-right Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Greece's socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou and Spain's socialist Prime Minister Jose Zapatero; in April 2012 to the Netherlands' center-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte; in May 2012 to France's center-right President Nicolas Sarkozy.

All ten of them fell -- directly or indirectly -- as a result of the eurocrisis. It is generally expected that the same fate will befall Germany's center-right Chancellor Angela Merkel in next year's German general elections. Merkel is Helmut Kohl's successor as leader of the Christian-Democrat Party CDU. In last Sunday's state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany's most populous state, where almost a quarter of all Germans live, the CDU lost its position as the biggest party in the state to the Socialists. The CDU lost a quarter of its votes, while the Pirate Party, some of whose leaders acknowledge that the party is infiltrated by neo-Nazis, entered the NRW state parliament.

The largest European countries, Germany, France and Italy, which were (or, in Germany's case, are) led by center-right politicians, are shifting to the left. In countries where the left has lost the leadership, the extreme-left won significantly in the elections.

Extreme-right parties are also on the rise. In Greece, the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn won 7% of the vote on May 6. For the first time, the Nazis entered the Greek parliament, winning no fewer than 21 seats.

Europe's shift to the Left will also affect its domestic policies: the Left's penchant for deficit spending and multiculturalism will become dominant again. Rather than bringing peace and prosperity to Europe, the failed EU project may lead to economic decline and risky political behavior.

As explained earlier, the shift in European politics will surely affect Europe's future relations with the rest of the Western world, in particular the U.S. and Israel. While Golden Dawn remains a fringe party, the extreme-left Greek Syriza party became the second biggest party in the country on May 6, surpassing the socialist Pasok party. Syriza has a party platform which includes "disengagement from NATO" and "termination of the military cooperation with Israel." Syriza is expected to become the largest party when the Greeks are called to the voting booths again next month.

In France, too, the election victory of the Socialist Francois Hollande has driven Jewish unease. "More French Jews will leave France," journalist Melanie Phillips predicts.

The fact that Kohl's atonement policy for German crimes during the Second World War has led to the euro disaster is bitterly ironic: the people bound to suffer the worst as a result of Kohl's hubristic euro policies are Israel and the Jews.