[RCIT] Down with France’s Colonial War in Mali!

[Thirsty Crow]

I think our differences here are ones of terminology, i agree that there are 'huge and real differences' between countries and that no country 'operates outside of these confines'. It's precisely them being part of the same capitalist system that leads to the domination of one by another, i call this difference imperialist countries and colonial countries or oppressor and oppressed, France and Mali.

I think that the differences are terminological and rhetorical.

Rhetorical, in that I think that arguing that some nation-states are "not imperialist", there is a possibility for confusion, that due to their weak position they somehow escape the global dynamics of imperialism. That might be nitpicking, but I think it makes sense.

Terminological, in that you're using the term "colonial" in a metaphorical way without explicitly stating either the reasons or even that you're doing so. Are there any colonies (territories with a population under direct administration by another state) left today? Anyhow, again, this brings up confusion.

I haven't read anything to suggest anything like that. Algeria opposes the Islamists, fought a civil war against the islamists and just recently killed islamist terrorists in the hostage situation.
Algeria completely supports French imperialism in Mali and if it were to interfere would do so in the interests of French and American imperialism.

I posted the article, and I can mention ICT's as well:

Members of AQIM, such as Abu Zayd and Yahya Gawadi and Mokhtar Belmokhtar, are believed to be close collaborators with the Algerian DIS. Even the head of Ansar al Din, Iyyad Ag Gali, and Sultan Wuld Badi, head of Mujao (recently formed organisations inspired by Al Qaeda’s Islamic jihadism and Salafism) are suspected of being in the pay of Algerian Intelligence. As for Gali, his collaboration dates back to the eighties when he worked for an Algerian state agency in Tamarrasett. Leader of the 1990 Tuareg revolt in northern Mali, he facilitated the division between the rebel forces which brought a compromise peace with the government that neutralised the secessionist wave. In May 2006 he cooperated as usual with the DIS to undermine the Tuareg revolt of Kidal, again in northern Mali. Algerian Intelligence records reveal his role in a couple of terrorist attacks where he collaborated with US Intelligence in order to reinforce the image of AQIM. Since 2009 we find him inside AQIM itself, this time with direct responsibility for the lucrative drug trade and kidnapping of Western hostages, as well as a top rank political leader.

The same goes for Sultan Badi. Currently head of the Mujao, in 2009 he was arrested in Mali with other characters of the Polisario Front (national liberation movement of Western Sahara) for drug trafficking. To obtain his release Badi threatened the Bamako government he would reveal the relations between the Algerian secret service and AQIM itself. The threat was effective. In a political initiative taken by Merkel, Bouteflika, President of Algeria, was obliged to hurriedly send a delegate — General Rashid La Alali (not by accident responsible for security with the DIS) — to Mali to resolve the delicate question of the embarrassing links between AQIM, the Algerian government and that of Bamako concerning both the use of terrorism and the involvement of the Mali government itself in drug trafficking. The result was the immediate release of Badi who, presumably, has continued to have links with the DIS right up to recent events.

In this particular case the Bouteflika Government has some interest in establishing “anomalous”[1] relations with the jihadists for two reasons. The first is that infiltrating them is a more successful way to control them, even to the point of commanding their activity, as they have done in some cases. The second is that keeping the terrorist bogeyman in existence allows them to tap the USA and France for arms and finance even at the cost of facing attacks on their oil infrastructure when the relationship with the above mentioned formations gets out of hand.

http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2...trings-in-mali

I don't think it's a support for the status quo, if you mean the actual situation on the ground then yes it's unlikely that without a movement of workers and peasants whatever a communist group says is not going to have much effect, but it's important to take a position anyway to show that we always stand on the side that benefits the workers and peasant or oppose further harm.

Of course, I agree that it is important to stand in solidarity (although it is essentially an ineffective solidarity, based on common class position) with the dispossessed classes everywhere they happen to live, but another matter is how is this realized.
In my opinion, the great majority of radical organizations position themselves as though they wield significant influence and thus fantasize about the "to do" lists of demands and so on. Which is ridiculous and bordering on a pathetic self-aggrandizement. What is actually needed is clarification and thoroughgoing analysis, which is the same as the famous ruthless criticism argued for by Marx.

But it's also a way of organising French workers in solidarity with Malian workers and peasants by opposing their own government.

No, it is nothing like it. It is merely an assumption that such an organizing, proclaimed from above, will magically happen when a group spews forth a set of demands or positions. There is no coherent and concrete account of how this organizing is going to happen. Moreover, this neglects the fact that imperialist wars and military inervention has been changed. At the time when this assumption would make sense, you wouldn't have 6000 (or is it 3000?) French soldiers there, but tens and tens of thousands if not more. Do you understand how this affects radical propaganda and agitation?