MURDER IN MALI – WHAT THE MSM REFUSES TO SAY

11 June 2019

Dear Friends and Patriots,

              Todays was “another one of those days” for National Public Radio (NPR).   The a.m. broadcast included a fairly long piece about a situation in Mali that happened yesterday. Evidently a Dogon tribal village in the central plateau region of the country was attacked by an unidentified force, who rode into the village in pickups and on motorbikes and started shooting up the place. They left after about two hours, leaving 95 dead residents behind.

              The following is a bit of background you might want to take in before you read more about the broadcast.

              In 2012 there was an in-migration of jihadi groups to Mali from Libya. They were identified as Tauregs, a nomadic ethnic Berber people who occupy large tracts of the Sahara Desert, including much of northern Mali. Islamist Tauregs had allied themselves with the Gaddafi regime and fought with them against the so-called Arab Spring insurgents. When they left Libya they turned their attention to Mali. There they launched an offensive against the Malian government in what was referred to as the Taureg Rebellion.

              The Islamist forces took control of northern Mali and imposed Sharia on the resident populace. They instituted the usual Sharia punishment code, including public executions, stonings, floggings, and cutting off of hands. The goal then, as now, of all the Islamist groups was to establish Mali as an Islamic state, beholden to a global caliphate. Once northern Mali was firmly in their hands jihadis from all over the world flocked there to aid in the effort to secure the entire nation.

Today at least seven separate terrorist groups have been identified in the country, including: Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), Islamic State West Africa (ISWA), Islam State Greater Sahara (ISGS), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Al Murabitoun, Ansar Dine, and Boko Haram.   Most of the groups are extremely violent and perpetrate every conceivable crime in their efforts to subjugate the people and government of Mali. Much of their daily operations are financed by ransoms paid to free kidnapped wealthy citizens and foreigners who are their main prey.

Even with direct assistance from France and the UN, and anti-terrorism training from the US the situation in Mali is tenuous.   Terror alerts by US State Department and most other western governments warn of random deadly attacks in the northern half of the country and in the capital city of Bamako.   Tourists are warned they are primary targets of kidnapping for ransom with no guarantees for their safety.

The Dogon tribal members who were victims of yesterday’s violence are an ancient tribe in the region. They practice a religion that includes belief in supernatural spirits and ancestor worship, though there are a few Dogons who practice Christianity and also a few who follow Islam.   The primary Dogon diety is their supreme creator, known as Amma, also referred to as Amen. If you watch enough Ancient Alien episodes on History Channel you should have heard of the Dogons. Their belief system includes creation legends that tell of ancient visitations from reptile-like interstellar beings. The Dogons are mainly a peaceful people, though some of their neighboring tribes can be a bit rambunctious.  

There was an incident on 1 Jan. 2019 where 37 Fulani tribal members were killed by armed men dressed as Donzo tribal hunters in the same region. Positive identification of the attackers could not be made, though suspicion is one of the Jihadi groups posing as Donzos was responsible. A very similar attack was launched on 23 Mar. 2019 where 130 Fulani were killed. Yesterday’s attack was most likely a jihadi terrorist attack masked as a rival tribal action, though it could have been an actual neighboring tribe. It’s not likely to be a Fulani undertaking, however. Fulanis and Dogons are traditional allies. The confusion over exactly who was responsible for what is part of the landscape of the region

Today’s reporting on the Dogon village attack was done by an NPR reporter from inside Mali. He touched on the history of the Islamist incursion into Mali after the fall of Gaddafi and the level of violence since. The clear implication was the attack was perpetrated by one or more of the Islamist terror groups operating inside the country, but that was not overtly stated. In fact, none of the words Islam, Islamist, Muslim, Jihad, or Jihadi were used at all in the report. The only identification made of Islamist forces was as “Tauregs, … ethnic Berbers.” None of the known Islamist terror organizations was identified at all, much less as suspects. For anyone who has spent any time at all watching events in Africa the general profile of the attacking force was clearly implied, yet the NPR rules of political correctness prevented a more succinct identification.

This is more than just a trend at NPR and other mainstream media outlets. For a very long time their reporting has minimized anything negative regarding Islam or Islamism while appearing to be very particular in identifying any group that could be identified as their enemy. Israel is a favorite target for negativity in their reporting. The negativity is both general and specific. When there’s a Jews vs Muslims angle to any story you can bet the farm the Muslim aspect will be reported on in a sympathetic manner, while the Jews are routinely treated less kindly. Many people, even at NPR, refer to that network as National Palestinian Radio. To hear a broadcast that clearly profiles an Islamist attack and the murder of 95 tribal members in Mali that makes absolutely no mention of the underlying motivation for the attack is not surprising.   It’s a very sad statement on the status of truth in American media, but it’s nothing new at all.

              Africa is enduring a period of great turmoil. We might be tempted to say, “So, what’s new?” but there are aspects that are new. The traditional turmoil of Africa involves ancient tribal rivalries. In more modern times much of the turmoil involved anti-colonial groups who banded together to run the Europeans out in any way they could. In a sense, even that turmoil was tribal in nature. The newer turmoil is ideological and involves four basic forces. One force is that of the traditional African tribes and their efforts to maintain their presence on historically occupied lands and ruled according to their own tribal traditions. Another force is exemplified by those who seek to make African nations into members of the world community; to subjugate Africans to the global financial system. The major facilitators in that effort are the United Nations and the World Bank, and possibly even China.   A third force are the jihadi movements which have been destabilizing national regimes for decades. They seek to institute an Arab-dominated Muslim-ruled continent where all nations there use the very same rule-book; their rule-book. The fourth force are the New World Order globalists, who are mostly led by ideological communists and socialists. Notice that I didn’t include any force that’s identified with a freedom movement. There is none. Africans don’t relate well to western conceptualizations of freedom and liberty, and they know little of actual democracy outside their own tribal organizations.

              We hear little of the goings on in Africa, though they do affect US political and social realities. We have enclaves of Somalis, Sudanese, and Senegalese in our country who have refugee status. Many of the Muslim Brotherhood members who operate openly among us are from Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia, Morocco and Chad, as well as those other three nations mentioned above. It’s in our national and personal interest to at least understand what’s going on over there, yet our media rarely covers any story at all on the continent.   If they did, then all would know there’s something of a systematic purge of Christians going on. All would also know that South Africa is teetering on the edge of social and national collapse as both white citizens and Christians are being subjected to officially tolerated discrimination.

              There are the occasional bright spots in an otherwise dark and bleak landscape. There are signs that Somalia may be turning around a bit. It’s really too early to tell, but we can all hope.

              Don’t take all this to mean I would ever argue for the US to intercede in any African country. I wouldn’t. It’s not for any reason of personal bias, but because I fail to see any compelling national interest in engaging in any adventurism on the African continent. I do understand there are a few minerals that we get from Congo and a couple of other countries that we don’t have here, but otherwise there’s just not much about Africa that we can claim as vital to our own survival.

As humans we can and should be dismayed at the things happening there. But, we also must understand that it’s a continent that is the most socially diverse on the planet. It’s a place where there are people living in the same manner as their ancestors did over 4,000 years ago trying to co-exist with others who are striving to become exemplars of life in the 21^st century. It’s a place of incredible religious diversity, where people who worship aspects of nature live in proximity to Roman Catholics and Muslims. It’s a place where all struggle to survive in environments that seems specifically engineered to kill them. There is bound to be strife and chaos. The range of differences in the people is just too great for peace to prevail. It’s also too chaotic for an outside western nation to deal with to any long-term success.

Unfortunately for Africans, they are best left to themselves to figure out their own destiny. In doing that we have to accept the reality that they have decades more of extreme violence and instability ahead of them.   There’s really nothing we can do about it. To ever be successful they have to figure it all out on their own. We can offer education when they want it, and expertise when they ask for it. Otherwise the best policy for the west to follow in Africa is to stay out and let them sort out their problems on their own. It could mean the entire continent is a Muslim enclave one day. Then again, it could also mean the various interest groups one day figure out how to reach amicable solutions that allow them to finally go forward as full members of the family of nations.   It could be that they’ll reach a conclusion we never conceived of. But, whatever they do, it will be lasting only if they do it themselves instead of having nations like ours interfere. It’s their business.

If I didn’t understand NPR’s motivations for the way they reported on the incident in Mali I wouldn’t be bothered. In the main, not getting overly worked up about things going on over there appears to be consistent with my own beliefs regarding how we should approach the place. But, because I do understand NPR’s motives I have to take exception to them and call them dishonest. Just so you understand fully, I’m not nearly as worked up about what’s going on in Mali as I am over NPR’s attempt to hide material facts about it. I can’t do anything useful over there. You can’t either, and our government has no compelling interest in interceding. We can use “helping to bring peace” as that interest, but that’s such an amorphous rationale that I’d call it “the reasoning of an idiot.” The pure truth is there’s nothing going on in Africa that’s new or different. The truth is Africa has enjoyed very brief periods of calm, but overall is, and always has been a hyper-violent place where death and destruction are nothing unusual. The emotional human cries for them. The rational human regrets, but accepts. If Africa is ever to be more than a repetitive train-wreck only the people of Africa can make it so. Sanity, love of peace and liberty, and stability can never be imposed on them from without.

              My thoughts for the day.

In Liberty,
Steve