Allies of Inconvenience

I read yesterday about the Tuareg in northern Mali splitting with the al-Queda shitheads who have hijacked their independence campaign, but I can't find the article online so you'll have to take my word for it. It should be easy to verify if you take the time, but in any event events with the Caliphate Clowns are following their now historical pattern.

They come in, ban everything even remotely fun, smash anything that looks like someone put some effort into making it (idolatry!) and piss everyone off. This was done in Afghanistan (Taliban) Iraq (al Queda) and to some extent wherever the Islamic hardcases reach critical mass (Saudi does a reasonable approximation). The program doesn't stop with that however.

In comes the "pissing everyone off" part, and the Tuareg have now realized what sort of tiger they were riding. The Tuareg are too tough to be "eaten" by the likes of al-Queda (much better men have tried), and the refugees streaming away from the jihadis are also doing their approval polls with their feet. Conditions are being set for the one thing that weakens any sort of insurgency: it gets too strong and concentrated for its' own good.

If you lose your ability to "swim as a fish in the sea of the people" (Mao) the big guns can take you out. The Tuareg rapprochement with the international community and the southern Malians vis a vis their autonomy expectations ("like Quebec" seems to be the new version) sets the stage for somebody (USA?) to come in and kick some al-Queda ass.

The tag "unintended consequences" alludes to the position the Tuareg now find themselves in, but more so to the less proximate cause of the current Mali shenanigans, the West's regime change in Libya. The Tuareg are bandits and have been completely outgunned by the jihads loading up in Libya and rolling over the border to set up another "Islamic Republic". If we now need to go in there and kill the latter we have no one to blame but ourselves.

The Libyan Army's arsenal has scattered to the four winds, mostly ending up moving through North Africa to various Salafist organizations. Mali, Egypt, and Gaza, possibly Tunisia and Algeria too will have a lot more guns and bombs, maybe even missiles. I know what needs to be done here and I'm sure I'm not alone, but we'll see who steps in.