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French intervention in Mali


Panzer_Leader

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The problem is that the French are beginning to overextend their forces and cannot possibly hold all the ground that they are currently taking. Whether the regular army of Mali (who couldn't stop the insurgents) can fill the boots that they are given, remains to be seen. The success of the whole operation will ultimately rest on the army of Mali (which recently performed a coup ... so they aren't exactly the kind of peace-loving western democracy oriented kind of people). If they can fill the stabilization role with some decency, they may gain public support. But I'm not terribly optimistic here.

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From the article:

"In Afghanistan, you have some countries who really fight and.... For example, the German contingent and the Italian contingent don't have a combat role.

I'd like to invite the good colonel to repeat that sentence in face of some friends of mine.

He may have some points in the rest of the text. But he should remain silent on topics he has no clue of...

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True, but we went in to Afghanistan at the request (or with the approval of) the legitimate government, and all that seems to have done is temporarily unite the anti-government forces against us. Of course, once we have left, they will resume their centuries-long traditional of tribal warfare, with one faction possibly overthrowing the current government, until they, in turn, are overthrown by another faction. And once again, many soldiers' lives will have been lost for absolutely nothing. Deja vu all over again, as they say.

Sure but you used the word "invading" in your OP which has quite a different meaning to "invited in":

Am I the only one to think that invading a country - particularly if the invader has a colonial history - is usually counter productive?
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From the article:

I'd like to invite the good colonel to repeat that sentence in face of some friends of mine.

He may have some points in the rest of the text. But he should remain silent on topics he has no clue of...

Quite, tis not the soldiers, who make the strategic decisions, but the idiot politicians (Well in our country anyway, Germany might have smart politicians)

The Bundeswehr is told where to deploy and operate.

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Sure but you used the word "invading" in your OP which has quite a different meaning to "invited in":

Yes, bad choice of word on my part. What I meant was 'Providing military support to the government of the day'. However, from the viewpoint of the opposition forces/rebels/insurgents claiming to represent the oppressed population, it IS invasion. So they shift their focus from opposing the government in piecemeal and disorganised fashion while fighting among themselves, to throwing out the 'infidel invader'. And so become more effective in their anti-government role. It's like the opposite of 'Divide and conquer'?

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From the article:

I'd like to invite the good colonel to repeat that sentence in face of some friends of mine.

He may have some points in the rest of the text. But he should remain silent on topics he has no clue of...

At least he has a realistic view of potential EU involvement. :)

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Guest Killjoy
From the article:

I'd like to invite the good colonel to repeat that sentence in face of some friends of mine.

He may have some points in the rest of the text. But he should remain silent on topics he has no clue of...

The good Colonel obviously never heard of the KSK then.

Tora Bora, Op Anaconda, Op Moshtarak etc.

Sounds like an idiot rather than an Officer.

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Sounds like an idiot rather than an Officer.

No no no no! THAT's what we call French Officer.

A little bit of a definition

French officer : Person thinking that he/she is an old fart and take the care to do or say whatever he/she wants. Usually French Officers are very young (and unexperienced) at their beginning, very old at their end (and still not that aware of the realities).

Usually French Officers tend to be very well paid, explaining why they are so many...

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No no no no! THAT's what we call French Officer.

A little bit of a definition

And these people lead your men into battle??!

Luckily your NCOs have a bit more sense.

I know an Ex French Army NCO/conscript.

On an exercise he was ordered to take a radio tower that had been captured by french paras as opfor, basically told the French Officer to get stuffed as they had MAT59s (With little or no ammo) and a couple of smoke grenades, and that was about it. Paras were dug in with hard cover.

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And these people lead your men into battle??!

Luckily your NCOs have a bit more sense.

I know an Ex French Army NCO/conscript.

On an exercise he was ordered to take a radio tower that had been captured by french paras as opfor, basically told the French Officer to get stuffed as they had MAT59s (With little or no ammo) and a couple of smoke grenades, and that was about it. Paras were dug in with hard cover.

The problem lies in the fact that officers get promoted differently compared to NCOs. It's like an elevator wich reach a given level at a given time. NCOs rise themself by there own will just like you climb with a rope.

The end result is a different perception of the job.

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Nice graphic and write up showing combined arms tactics French are employing to retake key locations in Mali: http://www.stratfor.com/image/latest-french-operations-mali?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=official&utm_campaign=link

Retaining control medium- to long-term may be more challenging but I understand the French expect Malian and ECOWAS troops to provide this.

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The French operation in Mali is doomed. Why so? Because of this statement

"I commend France for taking the steps that it has, and what we have promised them is that we will work with them, to cooperate with them, and to provide whatever assistance we can to try to help them in that effort," said American Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

We can only hope the reply was 'Please, please, don't!' ;)

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Having just announced a cutback of UK forces to the lowest level in living memory! The hypocrisy of our politicians is beyond breathtaking. The really sad thing IMHO is that no senior officer has the guts to stand up to them and say no. Well, not until they've left the service and are living on a nice fat pension, whereupon they write newspaper articles saying how they didn't agree with the cuts made on their watch, while conveniently forgetting that they made no objections at the time. Bah, humbug.

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The French operation in Mali is doomed. Why so? Because of this statement

"I commend France for taking the steps that it has, and what we have promised them is that we will work with them, to cooperate with them, and to provide whatever assistance we can to try to help them in that effort," said American Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

We can only hope the reply was 'Please, please, don't!' ;)

Apparently, there're legal reasons why the USA can't directly support the Mali Army:

American support is complicated by a legal ban on direct contacts with the Malian military since it staged a coup in March, overthrowing the democratically-elected government and destabilizing the country enough to permit the Islamist advance. "Because of the coup, we cannot have relations," Sheehan said -- but the European Union has signed up to assist the Malian army.

Source: http://defense.aol.com/2013/01/30/asd-mike-sheehan-yemen-somalia-are-models-for-mali-and-afgha/

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