via Armée de l'air...
Chief Sergeant Thomas Dupuy was engaged in Mali since August 2, 2014. The NCO was holder of the cross of the military Valor with Silver Star and bronze star, the overseas medal clip Sahel and Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, the silver of national defence Medal and the Medal of the wounded.A couple of things here.
The Aviator lived in concubinage, without children.
32 years old, he died in the accomplishment of its mission in the service of the France.
The air force share the pain of his family and his brothers in arms. (Translated by Bing)
My sympathy goes out to his family. Next. I don't know what an Air Commando is. Are they similar to USAF Special Ops or are they somewhat like a type of "Ranger" unit? I have no idea.
But the point of this post is that the low grade war in Mali appears to be raging on.
Now we have the US in Liberia. The Brits are in Senegal and Kenya. The French are in Mali. I don't know where the Dutch are but they're roaming the continent.
Africa is really lining up to be the next battle ground for the Western world.
France retains interests in its former colonial empire in Africa, and Mali is at the geographic center of these interests. To the north of Mali is Algeria, where France has significant energy investments; to the east of Mali is Niger, where France has a significant stake in the mining of mineral resources, particularly uranium; and to the south of Mali is Ivory Coast, where France plays a major role in cocoa production. The future of Mali matters to France far more than it matters to the United States.
ReplyDeletethat's how i like breakdowns of events. straightforward, skip the BS and to the heart of the matter. i wondered why France was so quick to do the Mali thing and that explains it. at least they have clearly laid out economic reasons for intervening in Africa.
DeleteThink that's a good summary of what's at stake economically. And the Niger uranium production is of strategic interest to France first, but also to the West in general, because you want to know where that uranium is going at all times.
DeleteMakes you wonder however why some shit-brains in DC thought it was a smart idea to pump a few billion dollars in Mali in the early 2000s and restructure, re-equip and train their army ... an army that fell apart when AQIM came along, and whose northern units even went over to the islamists of the MUJAO or the Tuaregs of the MNLA, who both were allied at least for a while to AQIM ... Makes you really wonder what kind of people are running US foreign policy ...
French has no interest in MALI, but in almost all countries around.
ReplyDeleteWe have more than 1 million french citizen in this african sector, threatened by islamist.
And we have the rwanda syndrom, which push us to move before it was too late.
Algeria don't need protection, it 's the mightest country of north africa...
French air commando, or CPA 10/20/30, are specialized commando of air force :
CPA 10 : weapon guidance specialist + all common commando stuff
CPA 20 : overseas air force base protection, and air police ( they are the guy with sniper rifle on helo which stop lost aircraft )
CPA 30 : Search and rescue specialized unit + all common commando stuff
All basic ground troops of air force are called "Commando de L'air" ( without the P of parachute ), and act as mainland air base protection.
I'll add a few info and comments to Fabsther's post.
DeleteFirst of all, if you got interests in an area, you got interests in every country of that area, even if you got no nationals in that country.
Second, France has a defence agreement with Mali I think, so they got interest there per se.
Third, regarding the Rwanda syndrom, that's a case of R2P bullshit that you feed the media and whoever is naive enough to believe that kind of stories when you want to go in for certain reasons, but you can't say which reasons ...
As for the French "CPA" units, they total up to 750 personnel, which is quite a lot for an Air Force the size of France's ... Story is, when the French Navy and Army started building up their own "high speed" units, the Air Force didnt want to look stupid and insisted on having their own "commandos" and "paras". The usual pissing contest ...
So today, they stuck with a battalion size group that's part of the French "Special Ops Command", but has a mission statement that overlaps with other units that are better trained and better equiped for those missions than these Air Commandos ... Should be cut down to size, same as with all those special-ops forces in US, but you know how it goes. Everybody wants his piece of the SPEC-OPS cake ..
Almost forgot to reply to Sol's take on the war in Mali going on. True, in fact, it's coming back to areas which had been sweeped clean of Al-Qaeda fighters in 2013 (Amatetai valley in Ifoghas mountain range). Means Djihadis have actually come back to an area all the cells they had there were destroyed about a year ago. In plain English, as could be expected, mission creep is setting in ...
DeleteAnd, lest we forget, Mali has vowed to keep its borders totally open, it borders Guinea and Liberia, and Ebola is already in Mali.
ReplyDeleteSuch a deal!