Sharon Chadha: More good news: Tuareg rebels in Niger and Mali are NOT branches of Al Qaeda

Sharon Chadha: More good news: Tuareg rebels in Niger and Mali are NOT branches of Al Qaeda

Great post by Sharon here. I too have been troubled by both the attempts at outside Islamic groups to try and gain a foothold and radicalize Mali, as well as the attempts by the USA and others to try and put soldiers into Mali to resist this radicalization. Neither a fundamentalist Mali nor a militarized Mali is in the interests of the Malian people. This is the new cold war it seems. Someone puts money in to a country to try and play god ("make the country in their image" so to speak). Meanwhile, the people still suffer. I remember my first trip to Mali in 2001, I was so glad I was American, and not French, as people were more open to me not being a colonizer. However, on subsequent trips, it has not been as advantageous to be American, due to invasion of Afghanistan/Iraq backlash, general Bush (p)Resident idiocy, and the increased presence of US troops throughout Mali and the lower Saharan desert region. I'm not sure when our politicians are going to realize that putting troops in various countries actually lowers local tolerance for political efforts . . .

p.s. - in the general universal energy pick-up amazing-ness, the track 'Ahimana' by Tinariwen came up in my random playlist as I was typing this post . . .