France and several African nations “declared war” on Boko Haram last week yet had no actual plans beyond vague generalities. Not surprisingly, Boko Haram responded immediately with two bombings, killing over 100, and injuring many more, and have followed up with more attacks. Nigeria and the other nations have done little if anything after their apparently toothless declaration of war, which just made a mad dog angrier.
The participants of the summit decided to strengthen the exchange of intelligence information in West Africa, coordinate the actions of their armies and military missions in Africa and increase border controls.
To my knowledge, there have been no military missions of any consequence. Nigeria itself has been oddly inept and doing much of anything to find Boko Haram. So far, the declaration of war has been empty bluster. Our media is hyping the story to increase traffic to their websites as NGOs and politicos jump in to grab headlines.
What looks to me like the effort of steamy thugs to stock up on females to meet their physiological and domestic needs — while grabbing major headlines in the process — has been glamorised as “an attack on the right of girls to education.”
Exactly. They are not “our girls”. Boko is using Islam as a cover for criminality.
Boko Haram is probably just a gang of plundering hoods masquerading as a group with higher motives that could warrant dialogue — never mind that they may have attracted the alliance of more sinister sponsors with more strategic purposes. The group claims “Western education is a sin” yet records its threats with hi-tech video equipment and employs advanced ammunition to destroy; it has no clear target and attacks willy-nilly, a la Wild Wild West; and its conduct is as Islamic as that of the street preacher who kidnapped and raped Elizabeth Smart was Christian.
There has to be a better way of passing on the relevant information and awareness of danger about terrorists to the public, without creating superstar monsters.