"Bring Back Our Girls"
Nigeria. Largest economy in Africa. Massive oil reserves. Rising standards of living. Entrepreneurial people. A shining star?
Um. No.
300 school girls kidnapped from their schools in the north east of the country by a band of terrorists who would prefer that we all returned to the Stone Age with Allah as our sole source of salvation. The group's crazed leader has promised that the girls will be sold into slavery should there be any attempted rescue. What a lovely thought.
Boko Haram. A loose translation is "Western education is forbidden"; hence the school attacks. They've bombed, maimed, killed, tortured, kidnapped and terrorised the Nigerian people for more than a decade and are becoming more brazen by the day. They want to establish an Islamic caliphate where even wearing a shirt classifies you as an infidel. Being christian therefore is a definite no-no.
The Nigerian government doesn't seem to have a clue what to do about these troublesome "militants" (as the BBC and the Guardian newspaper refer to them as - I prefer "terrorist" but then that would infer some sort of bias.) President Goodluck Jonathan whose name has brought no luck to his people whatsoever, has issued the usual platitudes. Certainly if his course of action in relation to these girls is anything like that shown to Nigeria's Central Bank governor then those poor girls don't stand a chance (The Governor told Badluck that $20bn was missing from the State Patroleum Company's coffers. This got him a suspension from office, his passport confiscated and possible charges of corruption to follow. Good Job. Not.)
Thankfully the West is mobilising. We are told that they have sent some stuff (including listening devices) to Nigeria to help track these terror...no, militants. And a bunch of celebrities have held up "Bring back our girls" signs on TV which is now trending on Twitter. So all-in-all real tangible progress.
My approach is more direct. Special Forces + Predator Drones = Boko Haram back to the Stone Age where they belong. Unfortunately the Brits and the Yanks (who have these real capabilities) have used up all their political capital to intervene on foreign soil, for the next two centuries; so there is no chance of that. That said the Frogs are manning up a bit more these days (and recently dealt quite efficiently with some pesky Al Queda inspired "militants" in Mali) so who knows.....
Vive la France!!
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Saw a man back his large black 4x4 into a pole. He got out and looked ready to give it a piece of his mind, but then realised that a pole is in fact an inanimate object and no matter what bile he was ready to spew forth, it will forever remain a pole.
:)
Out