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http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/09/africa/boko-haram-violence/

Kano, Nigeria (CNN)Boko Haram militants opened fire on northern Nigerian villages, leaving bodies scattered everywhere and as many as 2,000 people feared dead.

"The attack on Baga and surrounding towns looks as if it could be Boko Haram's deadliest act," Amnesty International said in a statement.

Islamist militants sprayed bullets as they stormed in last weekend in trucks and armored vehicles, local authorities said Friday.

When they arrived, they unloaded motorcycles and pursued residents who fled into the bush, firing indiscriminately, said Baba Abba Hassan, a local district head.

Local officials reported death tolls ranging from hundreds to as many as 2,000 people.

"Dead bodies litter the bushes in the area and it is still no‎t safe to go and pick them (up) for burial," said Musa Bukar, the chairman of the local government where Baga is located.

"Some people who hid in their homes were burned alive."

I am a bit sad that today is the first I heard of this. Granted, what happened in Paris was horrible, but this... my god...

Yep, and two more young girl suicide bombers sent by Boko haram over the weekend. Disgusting.

Where not these guys the ones whe kidnapped 300 girls from a school

Dogma is horrible and dangerous. I avoid the news outside of Dakka, so this was new to me. Kind of a bummer.

I always felt, things like this don't make me afraid, but more xenophobic.
It's wrong but... well not everything I think is correct.

Dogma per the definition anyway. Our dogma is fine, I guess. Well, maybe a little horrible sometimes.

Nigeria is almost a failed state at this point.

Didn't we have some military "advisors" or some "boots" on the ground there after the time when Boko kidnapped all those girls?

EDIT: yep, we sent a few:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/world/africa/us-sends-troops-to-aid-hunt-for-nigerian-schoolgirls.html?_r=0

Yet more disgusting behaviour from cowards using religion as a shield..

This is truly horrible, I hope it won't lead to another Rwanda.

Um, US? Why not help?

Why should they?

 Matthew wrote:
Um, US? Why not help?

why isn't Sweden helping?
In all reality, what can we do?

The US could do a fething lot.

That's not the question.

 Matthew wrote:
Um, US? Why not help?

Why not Sweden?

As a member of the US Military, I have zero issue with going over there and curb stomping these people, but why are we the ones who always seem to have to lead the way*?

*Yes, I know there are other instances where we don't, but referring to general perception.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
The US could do a fething lot.

That's not the question.

We are doing a lot.

We just aren't putting a few divisions on the ground. Yet.

Yeah, coming on and asking the US to help is a bit rich. It would be great if the US did help out, but to be honest, they're probably not going to be able to cure the region of extremism with bombs and guns. Sadly.

Jeez. What a crappy friggin' situation. I hope we (the rest of the world) do something to support them.

Matthew, each of us should be looking to our own countries to be leaders on this and not expecting the hard choices to be made by others. With the criticism heaped on the US for their past military interventions, your comment is frankly provocative.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
The US could do a fething lot.

That's not the question.

Just like we stopped all thelse terrorist in the middle east

 Matthew wrote:
Um, US? Why not help?

I'm curious as to why you think the US should shoulder the burden for solving this problem.

You didn't do anything.

The US did do a lot in the middle east. Whoever said that doing something only counts as doing something if it's got a good ending?

Da Boss wrote:Yeah, coming on and asking the US to help is a bit rich. It would be great if the US did help out, but to be honest, they're probably not going to be able to cure the region of extremism with bombs and guns. Sadly.

Jeez. What a crappy friggin' situation. I hope we (the rest of the world) do something to support them.

Matthew, each of us should be looking to our own countries to be leaders on this and not expecting the hard choices to be made by others. With the criticism heaped on the US for their past military interventions, your comment is frankly provocative.

MrDwhitey wrote:The US could do a fething lot.

That's not the question.

Matthew wrote:Um, US? Why not help?

Wait wait wait

What Kind of help do you want from the US?


We Helped when the 300 girls were captured

#bringbackourgirls

We should help agian

#Stopdoingthat

Or do you want actual help in the form of soldiers and not whinny teens on tweeter?

Never thought I'd say this, but I'm with djones on this one - Why should America make the first move?

Don't get me wrong, I understand why, if anybody, it would be the US to give the green-light to such an. After all they arguably (Going off Numbers and Technology) have the largest army in the world and the money to back that up, but the world at large needs to take more responsibility for these events. Speaking as a very patriotic British citizen, there was once a time when Great Britain was the worlds policeman, but despite still having one of (if not the, IMHO) the finest armies in the world, we still wait for the US to give us the signal. Why not take matters into our own hands?

Of course, there is always the argument of 'not another Afghanistan' and those on the forum who participated in that conflict (Or Iraq) can probably give us all some very good pointers why not to go back in, but a large part of me thinks it is our responsibility to help, to ensure others have the privileges and freedoms we enjoy. Speaking personally, I'm more than willing to give my life for that ideal, but I can appreciate why others, especially veterans of those conflicts or the bereaved families of the fallen, would disagree. IMO, I don't think the previous eastern wars were for nothing at all, but very little is going to change unless the people of the Middle East themselves want to end this - they need to take matters into their hands and defy their oppressors. Only when they do that will there be a real chance for things to change and for our help to have a lasting effect.

That's just my presonal opinion, I'm not saying it's 'right' for everyone or at all and I certainly am not pushing it on anyone.

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, coming on and asking the US to help is a bit rich. It would be great if the US did help out, but to be honest, they're probably not going to be able to cure the region of extremism with bombs and guns. Sadly.

This is why some countries need to start solving their own problems. If an outside force gets involved then that force has a very thankless task, and will be blamed as driving more people to become extremists.

Stay out of it. At most sell arms, equipment, and training.

One of my few tips of my hat to France's foreign policy...

When an Al Qaeda off shoot threatened to overthrow Mali's government, and create a new terrorist state, France went balls out a took the fight straight to them.

We did help out with transportation, but in such a large battle, France nearly went at it alone. I would love to see some more of the "worlds leading countries" do stuff like that.

Aye. Though I think some targeted and thought out programs to help Nigeria improve economically and also improve it's institutions and infastructure could go a long way. Get them strong enough that they can offer attractive alternatives to extremism and deal with extremists themselves.

But that's a long road that doesn't help the next group of poor unlucky bastards these scumbag lunatics decide to kill. :( It's an extremely unhappy situation with no easy solution. I hate those ones.

Edit: djones520: France is pretty militaristic when it needs to be. Less so than the UK, but they will go for it and their armed forces are pretty decent from what I understand.

Germany has a very different view I guess to most big nations- distrust of the military is quite common here. I can't see them becoming proactive like that any time soon.

My home country of Ireland of course has a pretty embarassingly under equipped and under manned military. We hide behind our neutrality as an excuse not to spend on our own defense, cynically knowing the UK would not allow anything too bad to happen to us as it would be bad for their security. It's a stance I despise, but at least we send troops on peace keeping missions :(

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, coming on and asking the US to help is a bit rich. It would be great if the US did help out, but to be honest, they're probably not going to be able to cure the region of extremism with bombs and guns. Sadly.

This is why some countries need to start solving their own problems. If an outside force gets involved then that force has a very thankless task, and will be blamed as driving more people to become extremists.

Stay out of it. At most sell arms, equipment, and training.

Or, we can go young Vader and just conquer that region...

We can even use the same tactic that Putin did to annex Crimea. I'm sure the natives in Nigeria would prefer being citizens of the US of A.



I'm kidding of course.*

*or am I????

@Dreadclaw69 - The greatest weapon against terrorists and their ideals, at least in the long term, is to change the minds of the people who they base their support on. The sooner they lose any and all shred of credibility vis a vis their 'ideals' then their support will diminish. Hopefully, when that occurs they will find it harder and harder to replenish losses. Of course, Ideas don't ever truly die, but hopefully they can be relegated to such an obscure corner of history that they'll only ever crop up infrequently in future. Needless to say, that's all hypothetical currently... :(

 Da Boss wrote:
But that's a long road that doesn't help the next group of poor unlucky bastards these scumbag lunatics decide to kill. :( It's an extremely unhappy situation with no easy solution. I hate those ones.

Sadly in the real world there is rarely the good choice and the bad choice. There is usually the bad choice, and the worse choice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Warpig1815 wrote:
@Dreadclaw69 - The greatest weapon against terrorists and their ideals, at least in the long term, is to change the minds of the people who they base their support on. The sooner they lose any and all shred of credibility vis a vis their 'ideals' then their support will diminish. Hopefully, when that occurs they will find it harder and harder to replenish losses. Of course, Ideas don't ever truly die, but hopefully they can be relegated to such an obscure corner of history that they'll only ever crop up infrequently in future. Needless to say, that's all hypothetical currently... :(

And how do we achieve that with this group in particular? Bearing in mind the fact that this is group is at least in part driven by extremist religious dogma, which does not seem to be diminishing, and as seen elsewhere may attract foreign fighters to replenish the ranks.

 whembly wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, coming on and asking the US to help is a bit rich. It would be great if the US did help out, but to be honest, they're probably not going to be able to cure the region of extremism with bombs and guns. Sadly.

This is why some countries need to start solving their own problems. If an outside force gets involved then that force has a very thankless task, and will be blamed as driving more people to become extremists.

Stay out of it. At most sell arms, equipment, and training.

Or, we can go young Vader and just conquer that region...

We can even use the same tactic that Putin did to annex Crimea. I'm sure the natives in Nigeria would prefer being citizens of the US of A.



I'm kidding of course.*

*or am I????

While it wouldn't be prudent to take over the area permanently, there is something to be said for the US to no longer play nice.

No more stupid rules of engagement, if there is a target you take the shot and kill him dead.

Make everyone know that hiding behind human shields will not save them. It really sucks for the people they're hiding behind, but in the long run this would save lives. Unfortunately, most of our population are far too weak willed to do anything beyond allow the use of human shields to work as a legitimate tactic.

 Matthew wrote:
Um, US? Why not help?

I agree, but we need to modify our policy. There is a price.

We'll help but only if you sign this document that means you are now a Territory of the United States.

lol that post.

Sometimes I think you're the new Chongara.

(not at Frazz)

@Dreadclaw - Oh I never said it would be easy, nor even possible, but it stands to reason that if the dogma was taken away, the concept of going out an murdering 'random' civilians would be far less appealing. You are right of course, that it's a nigh on impossible task. The trouble is, the 'religion' is just a mask, the real motivater is a lust for wealth and power that they cannot obtain from a 'normal' course of life. Religion is simply a convenient excuse used by the leaders of ISIS/Al-Quaeda/The Taliban, to justify grabbing more land and controlling more people - ostensibly all to make themselves richer and damn the rest.