Mali And Cameron

[BayBoy1]

How annoyed CAM THE CON,must be . He was not informed about the Algerian armys rescue attempt, and could not turn this into a THATCHER and the Falklands re election campaign .

[Sqad]

Neither apparently was Hiliary Clinton.

The Algerians were at "ground level" and it was their call.

I should think, like everyone else, that he is glad that it is over, but wished the loss of life had been limited.

[jno]

it's always on the cards that local authorities will deal with events on their own territory, as the British government itself would do.

[Gromit]

Call me cynical, but I do not believe we and the US were entirely in the dark on this, Algeria is only 5 hours away. Our embassy and officials there will have been in constant contact with the Algerians. I would not be surprised if our special forces were not at the hostage s ene even if they did not participate.

It was never going to be a Falklands situation and a bounce for the sitting Prime Minister.

Unfortunate ending. As another poster mentioned, we have meddled and left vaccuums in North Africa. Perfect for al qaeda to infiltrate and destabilise the region. All the fault of diplomatic cowardise on Hagues watch.

[DTCwordfan]

what a load of tosh, gromit.

You really ought to study recent Algerian history in the 20thC before pontificating and you may just learn that there is an inherent distrust of European nations, mainly due to the impact and deceit of the French when Algeria was under their custody, with a healthy disregard for Spain and Italy too.... The UK is just seen as yet another European and one of the better ones for striking oil and gas deals with.

I am not surprised that they have done their own thing - with the growth in terrorism and also a long wariness of their eastern border and the shenanigans going on over there, their way of dealing with terrorism has always been shoot first and ask questions later.

The one sensible remark that you make is that perhaps the SAS and perhaps the Delta Force were on the ground - but only in the last few days......the first call would, probably, have been on the French equivalent.

[keyplus90]

Any Oil reserves in Mali?

[DTCwordfan]

Nope - 0 production, 0 proven reserves, 2 exploration rights on some flaky African oil company.

[Svejk]

Mali and Algeria are different countries.

[DTCwordfan]

The downstream oil industry is dependent on the importation of all petroleum products, which account for 17% of the country's imports - and we are talking 4.6k barrels a day (not at all huge). Product is imported from the SIR refinery at Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire and the SAR refinery at Dakar, Senegal, with a significant amount of smuggling from Nigeria taking place. That will have increased dramatically with the ongoing action but French Forces logistics will have covered that, probably Dakar providing the necessary.

[Zacs-Master]

Yes I'm a bit confused about the Mali / Algeria link too.

[DTCwordfan]

To put that in scale, that is the equivalent consumption of petroleum products to Cornwall.

[DTCwordfan]

I agree, they are two different events - Mali has no gas either.

Also, the sheer audacity and size of this operation in Algeria suggests that the planning has been ongoing for months........way before Mali blew up in terms of the French going in.

[Svejk]

Bit sad that on a morning we hear 6 British civilians have been murdered some people see fit to make political capital out of it.

[Gromit]

DTCrossword fan.

Algeria has been independent of France for over 50 years. The Arab Spring protests in Algeria stem from more recent grievences like a 19 year emergency rule and rampant corruption in the Government. Nothing at all to do with colonialism and anti European feeling.

The result of protests in 2011 resulted in the lifting of emergency rule, but the underlying distrust of its leaders remains.

In 2010 the US signaled a change in policy where they were no longer going to prop up corrupt regimes. They were betting that more democratic regimes would be more stable. Unfortunately democracy hasn't taken root overnight and places such as Algeria are still rather unstable.

[DTCwordfan]

Yes that is right, gromit, but France sticks much closer to its ex-colonies than we do - look at their overseas subsidies. We the UK have not meddled in Algeria, Tunisian or Moroccan politics - to make such an inference is an unnecessary slur on the UK government, be it the current or previous one.

[DTCwordfan]

Oh, and Algerians have long had a distrust of the French there and issues with their security. Just go back through Le Monde and there are plenty of incidents recorded.

[DTCwordfan]

Here is an interesting article from a year ago that the fight is about cocaine control, the politics of the region being de-stabilised in part by the demise of Qadaffi.

It's in French.

http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2012/03/12/la-nouvelle-geopolitique-post-kadhafi-explique-les-problemes-actuels-au-mali_1652756_3212.html?xtmc=algerie&xtcr=396

[jno]

so you're agreeing with gromit, then, DT? He too pointed out the vacuum left in North Africa