Gwynne Dyer hasn’t been right in her writings on foreign affairs since sometime in the 1970’s. Went over to the darkside back then and never recovered.
Lots of papers dropped her column and never picked them up again.
No loss. We have enough leftists writing in the big media to keep us busy trying to keep them honest (an impossible task).
Mali wasn’t a Muslim country (except for some Tuareg areas in the north) and still isn’t - the whole point of this fight is that AQ has been trying to make it a Muslim country. Because of its important location as a huge country that covers a substantial area of Africa, it could be a key step in making all of Africa Islamic. This is not a result we want.
The US was doing its usual inefficient “train the locals” program prior to this, which resulted in the US trained and armed army either fleeing or going over to the other side when they were attacked earlier this year by “rebels” with arms from Libya. This is a well known fact and not nutty conspiracy theory. The fall of Gadaffi resulted in a flood of arms into the hands of AQ. (Something of which Benghazi was clearly a part).
Frankly, I think the French understand the stakes here better than anybody else. As for US involvement, so far we seem to have done everything possible to assist AQ, and if I were the Fench, I wouldn’t trust the current US leadership to be on the right side in this conflict.
It’s a he ....not a she. I’ve read a few of Dyer’s books, and I don’t think he’s a big fan of western civ. In fact, I’d say he’s a pretty good reverse barometer. If he’s against it, I’m for it.