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Do you have legitimate source for this claim? France spended billions of euros to fight islamist groups in Mali at the demand of the government. No resources w

Do you have legitimate source for this claim? France spended billions of euros to fight islamist groups in Mali at the demand of the government. No resources worth the billions France spended in Mali

mxmilkiib 4y ago
FWIW The Gravel Institute on France's neocolonial financial control in Africa https://youtu.be/36vYRkVYeVw https://youtu.be/36vYRkVYeVw
- sampo 4y ago
  Here is some criticism of the Gravel Institute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFGQI8P9BMg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFGQI8P9BMg
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  Gravel Institute marketing itself as a counterweight to PragerU is about the most honest thing they've done, because they lie just as much and in similar ways as PragerU likes to.
peter-m80 4y ago
The source for this claim is called history
YetAnotherNick 4y ago
But that has an agenda involved. If France wants betterment of Mali, it would be better to spend it by giving humanitarian aid or food or medicine.
- Grimburger 4y ago
  > humanitarian aid The west gives enough humanitarian aid to feed the continent a few times over. It's hard for some to understand but adequate amounts of money or assistance isn't the problem here.
  - robinsoh 4y ago
    > The west gives enough humanitarian aid to feed the continent a few times over. It's hard for some to understand but adequate amounts of money or assistance isn't the problem here. The west? The continent? "isn't the problem here"? Citations needed. Definitions needed. Tell us what you perceive is the problem here?
    - robinsoh 4y ago
      So many downvotes without a response, looks like everyone seems to know some facts or has a consensus belief/faith that I don't know about or don't accept as a given fact/truth.
    - elcamino44 4y ago
      Agreed. I’ve seen the UN-led humanitarian system up close (albeit not in Africa). In my experience, it has many, many flaws. One of these is that it is resource constrained.
  - dathinab 4y ago
    The problem is that a lot of the humanitarian aid is not reaching the actual people. Like building school buildings, but not including anything needed to _run_ the school for more then a very short time, or at all.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Or partner with local entities to push local production of goods and sponsor infrastructure building directly owned by the gov. and not external providers. Giving away stuff without helping to build a production chain is usually just “we’re helping” signaling. PS: except for very punctual, extraordinary events. Like helping rebuild schools after an earthquake.
makeitdouble 4y ago
Can’t that be done in parallel to parent’s claims ? By helping the gov. France secures its influence on the area and makes sure French company’s business is safe. For instance from a quick search Mali seems bound to Veolia for its water distribution network building. And I’d assume it is or will go the same for electricity, transportation etc. where anytime a big contract needs to be passed with an external technology provider, excluding French companies from the call won’t be an option. PS: to add, French companies entering these kind of deals will usually be predatory and make sure the gov. is under enough pressure that they can’t just move to another provider. Development will only happen within a tight control of the situation by external debtors.
- dgellow 4y ago
  > By helping the gov. France secures its influence on the area and makes sure French company’s business is safe. That's not how things played out in real life, in fact the exact opposite is true. There is now a very strong anti-French sentiment in Mali (in part exacerbated by Russia), and France lost a huge part of the influence they had in the whole region.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    I'm looking at this as a reference timeline: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/timeline-what-led-france-to-withdraw-its-troops-from-mali https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/timeline-what-led-f... It looks to me like France/Mali gov relations took a turn after the 2020 coup ? All in all I can totally imagine Malian population having an anti-French sentiment, while their government is in bed with French entities.
    - dgellow 4y ago
      Do you mean the second coup from 2021? That’s when France started to have clear difficulties to deal with the Malian government, the coup was in May, Macron announced the planned end of the operation in June IIRC due to issues related to the new government. In any case it’s a quite complicated topic, but it’s not one government being in bed with French entities. You have multiple groups fighting for territory and resources in the region for their own interest, France went there to support the government fight against Islamist groups by demand of Mali. And you now have a lot of Wagner mercenaries too (see https://www.csis.org/analysis/tracking-arrival-russias-wagner-group-mali https://www.csis.org/analysis/tracking-arrival-russias-wagne... for example. Trigger warning: be ready to read some horrifying details if you look at recent events…). You can read about the Operation Barkhane article on Wikipedia it has lot of context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane (I would recommend the French article if you read French). And about Operation Serval if you want to understand what happened before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Serval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Serval. There was a general opposition to French forces, from part of the population since the beginning which is to be expected. If you go a bit more into the details you will see that Russia took the opportunity to start an information war in the region to push against French forces, as a soft evidence you can see that protesters started asking for a Russian intervention in 2019 (in French, sorry https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2020/01/10/au-mali-le-sentiment-anti-francais-gagne-du-terrain_6025466_3212.html https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2020/01/10/au-mali-le...). That has also been communicated by Macron as a reason to stop their operation and leave the region (he made public speeches clearly pointing to Russia without explicitly saying it’s name, you can easily find them online and official translations).
burntoutfire 4y ago
Islamists in Africa will eventually come to France and wreak havoc there, so France has a good interest to nip the threat in the bud.
- kkfx 4y ago
  Islamists are like talibans western creatures built to overthrown local dictatorships and governments in general when they do not behave in ways the west like, as the talibans they grow enough to a point they can revolt against those who have created them. Keeping this in mind you'll understand why African's do not like us except when they live in EU, so when they see the difference and hypocrisy of our oppressive élite governance.
  - troon-lover 4y ago
  - ryan93 4y ago
    I wish we could go back to the secular stable Middle East before the west showed up.
drenvuk 4y ago
I only spent about 20 minutes looking this up. Western nations overthrew Gaddafi in Libya in 2011. Less than two years after they're mostly done in Libya, they roll those forces over to Mali and get Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in as acting president. NATO/UN forces had a hand in both situations. Western nations were just rolling our already funded and armed forces through the region to set things back up for proper resource and money extraction. This is all on wikipedia. When I say "our" forces I mean any people who are holding weapons provided by us, eating food provided by us and working towards goals that are set by us. How all of that is funneled to them I have no idea. Now that the west instated former leader of Mali was ousted France wanted to re-de-stabilize again it seems. It might or might not be worth it. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/8/mali-accuses-france-of-training-terrorists-in-country https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/8/mali-accuses-france... I should have stated it more as an opinion rather than fact but I stand by it. It's hard to believe that the US has so much intelligence yet we're unable to predict the guys we're training are going to attempt to take over the country. It's also not hard to understand that if we're committing billions of dollars to a war effort there isn't someone or a group of someone who have a hugely vested interest in either keeping the status quo for existing streams of income or removing some impediment in a potential stream of income. Those streams mostly don't go to the governments themselves, rather they go to companies headed by well connected individuals who somehow are able to drive policy and decisions either directly or indirectly. On the flip side of this, you might have competing interests from other nations as well so it may not be as clear cut. It's no longer border expansion, annexation and "this country" vs "that country". Instead now we have nameless rebels or terrorists (depending on who's side their on) who then sign deals and feed money and resources to their "sponsor countries", or get loans for construction, or some other financial games that are far more opaque. I have no more specific information, this is all broad strokes based on what I've seen and read. Maybe I'm wrong.
kkfx 4y ago
No country act on others for charity or humanitarian purposes. France was in Mali because France have a long colonial history in Africa and need African's resources. Russian Fed. try to bring back relations from the URSS era in Africa and get a better welcome because in the past they do not colonize Africa so their actions are less badly seen by local populations. France was one of the less oppressive colonizers in Africa, but still left a significant trail of blood and suffering behind so while with Mali there was an agreement because western-created (yes, you read correctly) "islamic" militias are worse for Malian than French colonial legacy, though when Russia step-in it was and perhaps still is considered better: they do not really have means to colonize, they can just make agreements less unfair perhaps than western countries. And that's happen almost everywhere, China is far less welcomed because various populations already experience China BRI policies and so the news they are not much friendly than the west is already spread. You do not need more resources than just history. The worst western colonizer were, from the more bloody and oppressive: - Dutch & Belgian & British - Germans & Italians & Spaniards - Frenches & Portuguese Chinese are "new" outside China, so are Russians and Russians are still seen a bit as Soviet witch to gain influences was far lighter than anyone else outside their borders.
- blacklion 4y ago
  I don't agree with you ranking. Read about French behavior in colonial south-east Asia, like Vietnam. I don't think, it is better than Britain behavior in India. Belgians in Africa are unsurpassed, though :-(
  - kkfx 4y ago
    They still not have done a genocide (like British with USA native Americans, or Spain in south America many years before) also for France colonies was and some still are part of the State, so their Citizens get French nationality witch does not compensate their oppression, but let them potentially emigrate far more easily and becoming French Citizens like immigrants in USA can apply, UK have never done something similar. Also France have always colonized by the State, with troops etc, not with opium smuggling or commercial criminals (Indian's companies). That's why I put UK at the top of the most criminal in the list. They are ranked third there because Dutch and Belgian crimes was far bigger even if for a limited period of time and geographical areas, but still at the top IMO. I rank Spain crimes a bit lower because South America colonization is far in the past, in an era where certain crimes was not considered much crimes from the point of view of most populations, otherwise they would be at the top position, perhaps counting also they religious crimes against also their own citizens. Anyway any power have a blood trail, that's just a rank for the most "recent" ones...

Do you have legitimate source for this claim? France spended billions of euros to fight islamist groups in Mali at the demand of the government. No resources worth the billions France spended in Mali

mxmilkiib 4y ago

FWIW The Gravel Institute on France's neocolonial financial control in Africa https://youtu.be/36vYRkVYeVw https://youtu.be/36vYRkVYeVw

sampo 4y ago
Here is some criticism of the Gravel Institute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFGQI8P9BMg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFGQI8P9BMg
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
formerly_proven 4y ago
Gravel Institute marketing itself as a counterweight to PragerU is about the most honest thing they've done, because they lie just as much and in similar ways as PragerU likes to.

peter-m80 4y ago

The source for this claim is called history

YetAnotherNick 4y ago

But that has an agenda involved. If France wants betterment of Mali, it would be better to spend it by giving humanitarian aid or food or medicine.

Grimburger 4y ago
> humanitarian aid The west gives enough humanitarian aid to feed the continent a few times over. It's hard for some to understand but adequate amounts of money or assistance isn't the problem here.
- robinsoh 4y ago
  > The west gives enough humanitarian aid to feed the continent a few times over. It's hard for some to understand but adequate amounts of money or assistance isn't the problem here. The west? The continent? "isn't the problem here"? Citations needed. Definitions needed. Tell us what you perceive is the problem here?
  - robinsoh 4y ago
    So many downvotes without a response, looks like everyone seems to know some facts or has a consensus belief/faith that I don't know about or don't accept as a given fact/truth.
  - elcamino44 4y ago
    Agreed. I’ve seen the UN-led humanitarian system up close (albeit not in Africa). In my experience, it has many, many flaws. One of these is that it is resource constrained.
- dathinab 4y ago
  The problem is that a lot of the humanitarian aid is not reaching the actual people. Like building school buildings, but not including anything needed to _run_ the school for more then a very short time, or at all.
makeitdouble 4y ago
Or partner with local entities to push local production of goods and sponsor infrastructure building directly owned by the gov. and not external providers. Giving away stuff without helping to build a production chain is usually just “we’re helping” signaling. PS: except for very punctual, extraordinary events. Like helping rebuild schools after an earthquake.

makeitdouble 4y ago

Can’t that be done in parallel to parent’s claims ? By helping the gov. France secures its influence on the area and makes sure French company’s business is safe. For instance from a quick search Mali seems bound to Veolia for its water distribution network building. And I’d assume it is or will go the same for electricity, transportation etc. where anytime a big contract needs to be passed with an external technology provider, excluding French companies from the call won’t be an option. PS: to add, French companies entering these kind of deals will usually be predatory and make sure the gov. is under enough pressure that they can’t just move to another provider. Development will only happen within a tight control of the situation by external debtors.

dgellow 4y ago
> By helping the gov. France secures its influence on the area and makes sure French company’s business is safe. That's not how things played out in real life, in fact the exact opposite is true. There is now a very strong anti-French sentiment in Mali (in part exacerbated by Russia), and France lost a huge part of the influence they had in the whole region.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  I'm looking at this as a reference timeline: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/timeline-what-led-france-to-withdraw-its-troops-from-mali https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/timeline-what-led-f... It looks to me like France/Mali gov relations took a turn after the 2020 coup ? All in all I can totally imagine Malian population having an anti-French sentiment, while their government is in bed with French entities.
  - dgellow 4y ago
    Do you mean the second coup from 2021? That’s when France started to have clear difficulties to deal with the Malian government, the coup was in May, Macron announced the planned end of the operation in June IIRC due to issues related to the new government. In any case it’s a quite complicated topic, but it’s not one government being in bed with French entities. You have multiple groups fighting for territory and resources in the region for their own interest, France went there to support the government fight against Islamist groups by demand of Mali. And you now have a lot of Wagner mercenaries too (see https://www.csis.org/analysis/tracking-arrival-russias-wagner-group-mali https://www.csis.org/analysis/tracking-arrival-russias-wagne... for example. Trigger warning: be ready to read some horrifying details if you look at recent events…). You can read about the Operation Barkhane article on Wikipedia it has lot of context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane (I would recommend the French article if you read French). And about Operation Serval if you want to understand what happened before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Serval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Serval. There was a general opposition to French forces, from part of the population since the beginning which is to be expected. If you go a bit more into the details you will see that Russia took the opportunity to start an information war in the region to push against French forces, as a soft evidence you can see that protesters started asking for a Russian intervention in 2019 (in French, sorry https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2020/01/10/au-mali-le-sentiment-anti-francais-gagne-du-terrain_6025466_3212.html https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2020/01/10/au-mali-le...). That has also been communicated by Macron as a reason to stop their operation and leave the region (he made public speeches clearly pointing to Russia without explicitly saying it’s name, you can easily find them online and official translations).

burntoutfire 4y ago

Islamists in Africa will eventually come to France and wreak havoc there, so France has a good interest to nip the threat in the bud.

kkfx 4y ago
Islamists are like talibans western creatures built to overthrown local dictatorships and governments in general when they do not behave in ways the west like, as the talibans they grow enough to a point they can revolt against those who have created them. Keeping this in mind you'll understand why African's do not like us except when they live in EU, so when they see the difference and hypocrisy of our oppressive élite governance.
- troon-lover 4y ago
- ryan93 4y ago
  I wish we could go back to the secular stable Middle East before the west showed up.

drenvuk 4y ago

I only spent about 20 minutes looking this up. Western nations overthrew Gaddafi in Libya in 2011. Less than two years after they're mostly done in Libya, they roll those forces over to Mali and get Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in as acting president. NATO/UN forces had a hand in both situations. Western nations were just rolling our already funded and armed forces through the region to set things back up for proper resource and money extraction. This is all on wikipedia. When I say "our" forces I mean any people who are holding weapons provided by us, eating food provided by us and working towards goals that are set by us. How all of that is funneled to them I have no idea. Now that the west instated former leader of Mali was ousted France wanted to re-de-stabilize again it seems. It might or might not be worth it. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/8/mali-accuses-france-of-training-terrorists-in-country https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/8/mali-accuses-france... I should have stated it more as an opinion rather than fact but I stand by it. It's hard to believe that the US has so much intelligence yet we're unable to predict the guys we're training are going to attempt to take over the country. It's also not hard to understand that if we're committing billions of dollars to a war effort there isn't someone or a group of someone who have a hugely vested interest in either keeping the status quo for existing streams of income or removing some impediment in a potential stream of income. Those streams mostly don't go to the governments themselves, rather they go to companies headed by well connected individuals who somehow are able to drive policy and decisions either directly or indirectly. On the flip side of this, you might have competing interests from other nations as well so it may not be as clear cut. It's no longer border expansion, annexation and "this country" vs "that country". Instead now we have nameless rebels or terrorists (depending on who's side their on) who then sign deals and feed money and resources to their "sponsor countries", or get loans for construction, or some other financial games that are far more opaque. I have no more specific information, this is all broad strokes based on what I've seen and read. Maybe I'm wrong.

kkfx 4y ago

No country act on others for charity or humanitarian purposes. France was in Mali because France have a long colonial history in Africa and need African's resources. Russian Fed. try to bring back relations from the URSS era in Africa and get a better welcome because in the past they do not colonize Africa so their actions are less badly seen by local populations. France was one of the less oppressive colonizers in Africa, but still left a significant trail of blood and suffering behind so while with Mali there was an agreement because western-created (yes, you read correctly) "islamic" militias are worse for Malian than French colonial legacy, though when Russia step-in it was and perhaps still is considered better: they do not really have means to colonize, they can just make agreements less unfair perhaps than western countries. And that's happen almost everywhere, China is far less welcomed because various populations already experience China BRI policies and so the news they are not much friendly than the west is already spread. You do not need more resources than just history. The worst western colonizer were, from the more bloody and oppressive: - Dutch & Belgian & British - Germans & Italians & Spaniards - Frenches & Portuguese Chinese are "new" outside China, so are Russians and Russians are still seen a bit as Soviet witch to gain influences was far lighter than anyone else outside their borders.

blacklion 4y ago
I don't agree with you ranking. Read about French behavior in colonial south-east Asia, like Vietnam. I don't think, it is better than Britain behavior in India. Belgians in Africa are unsurpassed, though :-(
- kkfx 4y ago
  They still not have done a genocide (like British with USA native Americans, or Spain in south America many years before) also for France colonies was and some still are part of the State, so their Citizens get French nationality witch does not compensate their oppression, but let them potentially emigrate far more easily and becoming French Citizens like immigrants in USA can apply, UK have never done something similar. Also France have always colonized by the State, with troops etc, not with opium smuggling or commercial criminals (Indian's companies). That's why I put UK at the top of the most criminal in the list. They are ranked third there because Dutch and Belgian crimes was far bigger even if for a limited period of time and geographical areas, but still at the top IMO. I rank Spain crimes a bit lower because South America colonization is far in the past, in an era where certain crimes was not considered much crimes from the point of view of most populations, otherwise they would be at the top position, perhaps counting also they religious crimes against also their own citizens. Anyway any power have a blood trail, that's just a rank for the most "recent" ones...