Our own Brian Jones, of The Telegram, recently raised a good
point.
Mali is less well known than its
legendary city, Timbuktu.
In the West, “Timbuktu” has long
been used to describe extreme distance or isolation, in such phrases as “from here
to Timbuktu” or “all the way to Timbuktu” and so on. It even became part of pop
culture with “Between Time and Timbuktu,” a script by American author Kurt
Vonnegut.
Over the past few decades,
Timbuktu has receded — so to speak — even further in Westerners’ consciousness.
Reminders of its existence came in news reports last spring when gun-lugging
louts who are really enthusiastic about their religion took control of the
town.
Current rules in Timbuktu
prohibit music, drinking and football/soccer. Adulterers are stoned. (Not with
pot, with rocks.) Thieves are mutilated. Westerners can only wonder whether
residents of Timbuktu shot off fireworks this week to celebrate the arrival of
the 7th century.
Thus we come full circle, to
newspaper headlines about the possibility of sending Canadian troops to Mali to
help its government deal with its internal mayhem and discord. Defence Minister
Peter MacKay said this week Canada could send military advisers to Mali
sometime this year to help train its army.
Full story here…
Shouldn’t we know, as Canadians, what our goals and policies
are in regard to foreign
intervention in Mali and other Muslim nations overtaken by (or sympathetic
with) radical Islam? I think a strong argument can be made that whatever our
Defence Minister says, there is too much vagueness about what Canada has
achieved by expending energy (and lives!) in Afghanistan, Syria, etc. Do we
want more of the same fuzzy thinking? Have we even honestly identified
our enemy in this struggle against "terror?"
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