By Gift Habib

Burkina Faso and Mali have deployed war planes to Niger Republic following the Economic Community of West Africa possible armed intervention to restore democracy in Niger Republic.
Niger television station reported joint efforts by Mali and Burkina Faso in support of Niger and the deployment of warplanes within Niger’s borders on Friday.
“Mali and Burkina Faso turned their commitments into concrete action by deploying warplanes to respond to any attack on Niger,” it said, noting the planes were Super Tucano fighter jets.

The coup leaders imprisoned President Mohamed Bazoum on June 26 and dissolved the elected government of Niger, a major uranium producer and Western ally in the fight against an Islamist insurgency.
On July 30, ECOWAS, led by Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, decided on sanctions against the military personnel in Niger and gave a week ultimatum to the military junta to restore ousted Bazoum to office.
After the one-week ultimatum expired, West African leaders met on August 10 and approved a “standby force” to reinstate elected Bazoum.

The coupists had called the bluff of ECOWAS and vowed to resist foreign intervention.
Subsequently, ECOWAS Defence Chiefs were ordered to activate the region’s force for action to restore civil rule in Niger, noting that it will invade the country on the “D-Day.”
But the military governments in Mali and Burkina Faso called ECOWAS’s bluff, saying an armed intervention in Niger would be met with force.
The television station said the military leaders from Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger convened Friday in the Nigerien capital Niamey to decide on “concrete measures” in case ECOWAS chooses to “escalate a war.”


https://punchng.com/niger-coup-burkina-faso-mali-deploy-war-planes-after-ecowas-threat/

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Matters Arising




Wittyness

Target practice

E done set.

Col Richard h black retired.


Lt me just point out the illusion of Russian and Chinese aggression around the world. You hear this repeated many, many times that, you know, any day, you know, Russia's going to take over the entire world.

China is taking over the world. They're doing all this stuff. If you look at the the number of foreign bases between the US and the UK, we have about 900 overseas military bases, bases where we have troops stationed in foreign countries.

The total bases of the the Russians and the Chinese are about 35 or 35 in total. China only has five overseas bases compared to the 900 or so US UK. This we've created this bizarre illusion because the deep state, the war industrial complex must have enemies. You cannot manufacture weapons when you don't have enemies.

And so we create this illusion that they're coming to get us. They're they're on our doorstep. And the fact of the matter is that China is out to make a buck. They want money. They. Yes, they they the Belt and Road Initiative is very important, but they have a different paradigm. Our paradigm is we we go into a country, we set up NGOs. We take over, you know, the government by coup.

If we can't, then we just we just bomb the place to smithereens half the time. And you compare that with the with the foreign policy of China, which is you go in, you work with whatever government is there, you don't you don't you're not judgmental, but you make hard business decisions. You make investments.

And I think for people who are comparing the foreign aid paradigm of of the US and China, they're saying, you know, my my my likelihood of surviving is much higher if I follow the Chinese paradigm. So we need we need to just get away from this feeling that we have to constantly be at war with the entire world. You know, Great Britain has the the 21 mile English Channel that's separates it from Europe.

And that 21 miles has kept it quite, quite safe from from invasion over, you know, many, many centuries. There have been a couple of exceptions. And the Vikings came in and different different things, bigger ones than that. But but in any event, they're basically safe. 21 miles of ocean.

You look at us, we've got 5000, 6000 miles of oceans separating us from the nearest threats that we perceive. So we probably have less reason to be militaristic than any great nation on earth. And yet here we are. We our budget is the last I checked, it was it was as large as the next largest 11 defense budgets of the biggest defense spenders in the world. So we had we had a single check to Ukraine that is as big as the entire military budget of of Russia for a year. So we need to we need to escape from this illusion that that they're out to get us because they're not out to get us. There is nothing aggressive either in the policy of China or of Russia. And the only the only aggression is with the US, UK, the NATO countries, which, you know, I look at the at the the history of the wars of the Russian Federation.

You have the tiny, tiny war in Georgia. You have the war in Syria, which they they didn't get involved in until four years after the terrorists had been there. And then finally at the last moment, they agreed to go in at the request of of Syria because ISIS and al Qaeda threatened to overwhelm the country. Very reluctant, somewhat limited involvement in Syria. And now you have the situation in Ukraine.

You compare that to our situation where we've we've fought multiple wars against Iraq. We fought in Somalia, we fought in Bosnia, we fought in Haiti, we fought in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Uganda, Syria. I probably missed half a dozen wars that that we fought. We fight everywhere. You can literally have a soldier who retires with 30 years active service in the US Army.

And he will retire and never have served a single day when the United States was not invading and occupying some country. So to compare that with the situation with with Russia and China, where has China had fought? Who have they invaded? They've had a couple of little border border disputes, but that's it. They don't invade people. We invade people. So we need to get away from this illusion. If we can ever break away from the illusion that they're out to get us, which is totally false, then we can start chopping back on our on our defense budget.

World tensions could reduce and we could get back to making cell phones or whatever we do for a living and and have a genuine economy that wasn't based on killing people in foreign countries.



Many military officials are speaking up