Justin's Political Corner

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday afternoon that President Obama is preparing plans to send lethal weapons to rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

While the U.S. believes that chemical weapons have been used in Syria’s civil war, Obama said during a press conference on Tuesday that “we don’t know how they were used, when they were used, who used them.” Noting that he has said chemical weapons use would be a “game changer” in terms of escalating American involvement in Syria, Obama added, “When I am making decisions about America’s national security and the potential for taking additional action in response to chemical weapon use, I’ve got to make sure I’ve got the facts.”

The Post reports that Obama spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday and is dispatching Secretary of State John Kerry to Moscow in a bid to convince Putin to abandon his support for Assad.

h/t:  Think Progress

How this all began

The current crisis in Syria began in 2011, with civilian protests launched during a wave of pro-democracy sentiment known as the Arab Spring. Those protests were met with harsh repression from the Syrian government under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad. Assad’s regime continued to crackdown on protesters, eventually resorting to massive human rights abuses including torture, disappearances, extrajudicial executions and detention of medical patients. In response, civilians began to take up arms against the Syrian government, transforming a peaceful movement to increase democratic freedoms into an all-out civil war. Since the beginning of the conflict, more than 70,000 Syrians have died.

Who’s doing the fighting

Over the past two years, the make-up of the Syrian opposition has shifted considerably. In the beginning, the opposition was composed mostly of civil society leaders and Syrian citizens with a small armed group taking shape across the border in Turkey. Since then, the rebels have spawned an entire network of loosely affiliated groups fighting against the Assad regime — and each other at times. Instead of hiding across the border, rebels now openly control a large swath of territory in the north and west of the country as the Syrian government continues to push back.

While many of the rebel groups are secular, recent months have shown an influx of foreign fighters into the country, seeking to impose a harsh version of Islam upon Syria once the Assad regime falls. The U.S. has labeled one such group — Jabhat al-Nusra — a terrorist group for itsclose ties to Al Qaeda. These murky connections between the rebels and jihadis have proved difficult for Western governments seeking to effect the situation on the ground.

The effect on the Syrian people and the region

As time wore on in the conflict, the Syrian government unleashed more and greater violencewas against civilians, including the use of armored vehicles, fixed-wing aircraft and mortars against whole neighborhoods. Making matters worse, rebels are now accused of taking part in atrocities as well.

This has all led to a massive humanitarian crisis in Syria and the surrounding region. As of March, more than one million Syrians have fled into the neighboring countries of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, placing a massive strain on those states’ governments. According to the United Nations, over 4.25 million Syrians are now internally displaced within the country.

Did Syria use chemical weapons?

Whether or not the Syrian government utilized chemical weapons against its people is the primary reason Syria has exploded back into the news. Last week, the United States announced that it has evidence that chemical weapons were used in Syria, namely sarin. That revelation comes with several caveats, however: the chain of custody of the evidence the U.S. has isn’t clear, nor is exactly how the samples obtained were exposed to the chemical. The U.S. government has also not declared definitively whether or not it was the Assad regime that used sarin, an act that would cross a “red-line” the administration set forth as an action that would spur greater intervention.

The United States’ response

The Obama administration has declared several times that the Assad regime’s days are numbered and that the Syrian president must go. So far, however, the United States has stuck with its policy of providing humanitarian aid — more than $385 million worth to date — to Syria’s civilians and providing “non-lethal aid” to the opposition. That includes a recent decision to provide items such as night-vision goggles and bullet-proof vests to the rebels. The United States is also heavily involved in coordinating the flow of weapons to Syria from Gulf states while not providing such arms itself.

The question that remains is whether a greater U.S. intervention is necessary, and if so in what form. The range of possible responses under consideration range from directly providing armsto the Syrian opposition to establishing a No-Fly Zone in Syria to protect civilians and give the rebels cover to operate. The debate does not evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, with members on both sides advocating for swift action in Syria and members of both partiesurging caution in proceeding forward. Even hawks like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), however, arecoming out against the idea of American boots being on the ground in Syria.

The current policy towards Syria does not appear to be in the U.S.’ best interests, however. “It is time for a change in policy,” CAP experts said in a report on the situation in Syria released in February. “The United States needs to increase its assistance to the Syrian opposition with the goal of supporting an alternative opposition government that is better organized than at present.” Several CAP experts also last week released a series of recommended courses of action for the U.S. to lead the way in responding to the Assad regime’s possible use of chemical weapons. Such actions include coordinating with NATO and regional allies to provide a major humanitarian aid push for Syrian refugees and calling an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to put the onus on Russia to stand by the Syrian regime publicly in the aftermath of a likely chemical weapons attack.

h/t: Think Progress Security

(CNN) — North Korea’s leader approved a plan to prepare standby rockets to hit U.S. targets, state media said Friday, after American stealth bombers carried out a practice mission over South Korea.

In a meeting with military leaders early Friday, Kim Jong Un, “said he has judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation,” the state-run KCNA news agency reported.

The rockets are aimed at at U.S. targets, including military bases in the Pacific and in South Korea, state media reported.

“If they make a reckless provocation with huge strategic forces, [we] should mercilessly strike the U.S. mainland, their stronghold, their military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in South Korea,” KCNA reported.

Analysis: Just what is Kim Jong Un up to?

North Korean state media carried a photo of Kim meeting with military officials Friday. In the photo, the young leader is seated, leafing through documents with four uniformed officers standing around him.

On the wall behind them, a map entitled “Plan for the strategic forces to target mainland U.S.” appears to show straight lines stretching across to the Pacific to points on the continental United States.

South Korea and the United States are “monitoring any movements of North Korea’s short, middle and middle-to-long range missiles,” South Korean Defense Ministry Spokesman Kim Min-seok said Friday.

The fact is that despite the bombast, and unless there has been a miraculous turnaround among North Korea’s strategic forces, there is little to no chance that it could successfully land a missile on Guam, Hawaii or anywhere else outside the Korean Peninsula that U.S. forces may be stationed,” James Hardy, Asia-Pacific editor of IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly, wrote in an opinion column published Thursday on CNN.com.

North Korea’s latest threat Friday morning came after the United States said Thursday that it flew stealth bombers over South Korea in annual military exercises.

The mission by the B-2 Spirit bombers, which can carry conventional and nuclear weapons, “demonstrates the United States’ ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes quickly and at will,” a statement from U.S. Forces Korea said.

The North Korean state news agency described the mission as “an ultimatum that they (the United States) will ignite a nuclear war at any cost on the Korean Peninsula.”

The North has repeatedly claimed that the exercises are tantamount to threats of nuclear war against it.

But the U.S. military stressed that the bombers flew in exercises to preserve peace in the region.

“The United States is steadfast in its alliance commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea, to deterring aggression, and to ensuring peace and stability in the region,” the statement from U.S. Forces Korea said, using South Korea’s official name. “The B-2 bomber is an important element of America’s enduring and robust extended deterrence capability in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The disclosure of the B-2 flights comes a day after North Korea said it was cutting a key military hotline with South Korea, provoking fresh expressions of concern from U.S. officials about Pyongyang’s recent rhetoric.

Tensions escalated on the Korean Peninsula after the North carried out a long-range rocket launch in December and an underground nuclear test last month, prompting the U.N. Security Council to step up sanctions on the secretive regime.

The deteriorating relations have killed hopes of reviving multilateral talks over North Korea’s nuclear program for the foreseeable future. Indeed, Pyongyang has declared that the subject is no longer up for discussion.

On Tuesday, the North said it planned to place military units tasked with targeting U.S. bases under combat-ready status.

Most observers say North Korea is still years away from having the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead on a missile, but it does have plenty of conventional military firepower, including medium-range ballistic missiles that can carry high explosives for hundreds of miles.

Little said Thursday that the United States was keeping a close eye on North Korea’s missile capabilities.

H/T: CNN.com

The ongoing situation in Mali is gaining traction in the media with the reporting of Al Qaeda members within the ranks of the Tuareg rebels. The situation in quite complicated and involves not only France, but also the US and partially Canada and links to the interests of these Western powers with not just Mali, but with the African continent as a whole.

The Tuareg People

In order to get a better handle on the situation, there must first be an understanding of the domestic actors, namely the Tuareg people, who presently “live across the Sahara Desert, including in the North African countries of Mali, Niger, Libya, Algeria and Chad.”[1]

Tuareg are a people that have lived in northern Mali “as early as the fifth century BCE”[2] according to Herodotus. After establishing the city of Timbuktu in the 11^th century, the Tuareg “traded, traveled, and conquered throughout Saharan” over the next four centuries, eventually converting to Islam in the 14^th century, which allowed them to “gained great wealth trading salt, gold, and black slaves.”[3] This independence was swept away when the French colonized Mali when they “defeated the Tuareg at Timbuktu and established borders and administrative districts to rule the area until Mali declared independence in 1960.”[4] The Tuareg people have consistently wanted self-independence and in pursuit of such goals have engaged in a number of rebellions.

The first was in 1916 when, in response to the French not giving the Tuareg their own autonomous zone (called Azawad) as was promised, they revolted. The French violently quelled the revolt and “subsequently confiscated important grazing lands while using Tuaregs as forced conscripts and labor – and fragmented Tuareg societies through the drawing of arbitrary boundaries between Soudan (Mali) and its neighbors.”[5]

Yet, this did not end the Tuareg goal of an independent, sovereign state. Once the French had ceded Mali independence, the Tuareg began to push toward their dream of establishing Azawad once again with “several prominent Tuareg leaders [lobbying] for a separate Tuareg homeland consisting of northern Mali and parts of modern day Algeria, Niger, Mauritania. […] [However,] black politicians like Modibo Keita, Mali’s first President, made it clear that independent Mali would not cede its northern territories.[6]”

The First Tuareg Rebellion

In the 1960s, while the independence movements in Africa were beginning, the Tuareg once again vied for their own autonomy, known as the Afellaga rebellion. The Tuareg were greatly oppressed by the government of Modibo Keita, which came into power after the French had left, as they “were singled out for particular discrimination, and were more neglected than others in the distribution of state benefits,” which may have been due to the fact that “most of the senior leadership of post-colonial Mali were drawn from the southern ethnic groups who were not sympathetic to the pastoral culture of the northern desert nomads.”[7]

In addition to this, the Tuareg felt that the government’s policy of ‘modernization’ was in reality an attack on the Tuareg themselves as the Keita government enacted policies such as “land reform that threatened [the Tuareg’s] privileged access to agricultural products.”[8] Specifically, Keita “had moved increasingly in the direction of [establishing a version of] the Soviet collective farm and had created state corporations to monopolize the purchase of basic crops.”[9] In addition to this, Keita left customary land rights unchanged “except when the state needed land for industry or transport. Then the Minister of Rural Economy issued a decree of acquisition and registration in the name of the state, but only after publication of notice and a hearing to determine customary claims.”[10] Unfortunately for the Tuareg, this unchanging of customary land rights did not apply to the subsoil that was on their land. Instead, this subsoil was turned into a state monopoly due to Keita’s desire to ensure that no one became a capitalist based on the discovery of subsoil resources.

This had a major negative impact on the Tuareg as they had a pastoral culture and the subsoil helps to “determine what kind of crops can be grown in any area and, therefore, what livestock can be raised.”[11] Thus, by creating a state monopoly on subsoil, the Keita government was effectively in control of what the Tuareg would be able to grow and therefore in control of their very lives.

The Second Tuareg Rebellion

The raging inferno that was the spirit of independence of the Tuareg people once again came back to life in 1990. It must be noted that Tuareg had greatly changed since the 1960s and moved from a socialist government to a military dictatorship that (due to massive pressure from the people) quickly changed to a transitional government with military and civilian leaders, finally fully becoming democratic in 1992.[14]

While Mali was transitioning to a democracy, the Tuareg people were still suffering under the boot of oppression. Three decades after the first rebellion, the occupation of Tuareg communities still had not ended and “resentment fueled by the harsh repression, continued dissatisfaction with government policies, and perceived exclusion from political power led various Tuareg and Arab groups to begin a second rebellion against the Malian government.”[15] The second rebellion was sparked due to “attacks on non-Tuareg Malians [at] the southernmost edge of the Tuareg regions [which led to] skirmishes between the Malian army and Tuareg rebels.”[16]Yet it did not last long as the first major step to peace was made in 1991 by the transitional government and resulted in the Tamanrasset Accords, which was negotiated in Algeria between the military government of Lt. Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré (that had taken power in a coup on March 26, 1991) and the two major Tuareg factions, The Azaouad Popular Movement and the Arabic Islamic Front of Azawad, on January 6, 1991. In the Accords, the Malian military agreed to “disengage from the running of the civil administration and will proceed to the suppression of certain military posts,” “avoid zones of pasture land and densely populated zones,” to be “confined to their role of defense of the integrity of the territory at the frontiers,”[17] and created a ceasefire between the two main Tuareg factions and the government.

The transitionary government of Mali attempted to negotiate with the Tuareg. This culminated in the April 1992 National Pact between the Malian government and several Tuareg factions. The National Pact allowed for “integration of Tuareg combatants into the Malian armed forces, demilitarization of the north, economic integration of northern populations, and a more detailed special administrative structure for the three northern regions.”[19] After Alpha Konaré was elected president of Mali in 1992, he furthered the process of Tuareg autonomy by not only honoring the concessions made in the National Pact but by removing the structure of federal and regional governments and allowing authority to take hold at the local level. Yet, decentralization had a greater political purpose, as it “effectively co-opted the Tuareg by allowing them a degree of autonomy and the benefits of remaining in the Republic.”[20]

It must be noted that the introduction the Arabic Islamic Front of Azawad to the Tuareg rebellion is also the introduction of radical Islam to the Tuareg fight for independence. The emergence of radical Islam was greatly aided by the Gaddafi regime. During the 1970s many Tuareg had fled to Libya and other countries, mainly for economic opportunity. Once there, Gaddafi “welcomed them with open arms. He gave them food and shelter. He called them brothers. He also started training them as soldiers.”[22] Gaddafi then used these soldiers to found the Islamic Legion in 1972. The goal of the Legion was to “further [Gaddafi’s own] territorial ambitions in the African interior and advance the cause of Arab supremacy.”[23] The Legion was sent to fight the in Niger, Mali, Palestine, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. However, the Legion came to an end due to the price of oil declining in 1985, which meant that Gaddafi could no longer afford to recruit and train fighters. Coupled with the Legion’s crushing defeat in Chad, the organization was disbanded which left many Tuareg going back to their homes in Mali with large amounts of combat experience. The role of Libya played a role not only in the third Tuareg rebellion, but also in the current, ongoing fighting.[24]

The Third Tuareg Rebellion

The third rebellion was not so much a rebellion, but rather an insurgency that kidnapped and killed members of the Malian military. The insurgency began in May 2006, when “a group of Tuareg army deserters attacked military barracks in Kidal region, seizing weapons and demanding greater autonomy and development assistance.”[25] The former general Amadou Toumani Toure had won presidential elections in 2002 and reacted to the violence by working with a rebel coalition known as the Democratic Alliance for Change to establish a peace agreement that solely restated that Malian government’s commitment to improving the economy in the northern areas where the rebels lived. However, many rebels such as Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, who was killed just last year,[26] refused to abide by the peace treaty and continued to terrorize the Malian military until the government of Mali deployed a large offensive force to eliminate the insurgency.[27]

Yet, the fight for Tuareg independence remains and leads us into the current, ongoing rebellion.

The Current Rebellion

To understand this most recent rebellion, one must first go back to the ‘humanitarian’ intervention mission in Libya that was conducted by US-NATO forces in 2012. During the invasion of Libya, many Tuareg fighters fought in defense of the Gaddafi regime and once Gaddafi had been defeated, the majority of these fighters returned to Mali, armed with the weapons they had obtained while in Libya.[28] Once there, some of the fighters joined the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad which again started up the call for Tuareg independence and on January 17, 2012, began to attack towns in northern Mali.[29]

From there, the rebellion spread and the Tuareg making more and more headway in northern Mali would eventually have an effect on the government of Mali itself, namely in the form of a coup. Time Magazine noted that the coup began in March when “Sanogo led a mutiny at the garrison in Kati — a sleepy commune of cinder-block bungalows just north of the capital” and that it later “intensified into a coup.”[30] The coup eventually resulted in Sanogo taking power. In December 2012, it was reported that “Soldiers arrested Mali’s prime minister and forced him to resign before dawn on Tuesday” and that “coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo had ordered the prime minister’s arrest.”[31]

France

As was noted, Mali was a former colony of the French and thus it was not surprising when the French decided to intervene in Mali on the grounds that “Mali’s existence as a state was under threat”[34] and needing to protect the 6,000 French citizens living there. Airstrikes soon began to take place there, which was quite easy due to the proximity of French air bases near Mali.[35] Yet, there are more interests at stake than just protecting French citizens, namely oil.

The United States

The US has its own personal interests in Mali, which is why they have been backing the French in the form of transportation assistance.[40] The official line is that the main US concern is Al Qaeda, with the Congressional Research Service reporting that “The prospect of an expanded safe-haven for AQIM and other extremists and criminal actors in Mali is a principal concern for U.S. policymakers examining the situation in Mali and the wider region.”[41]

However, the real problem that the US has isn’t Al Qaeda, but rather China. China’s economic power has grown greatly within the past two years.

China’s trade with Africa reached $166 billion in 2011, according to Chinese statistics, and African exports to China – primarily resources to fuel Chinese industries – rose to $93 billion from $5.6 billion over the past decade. In July 2012 China offered African countries $20 billion in loans over the next three years, double the amount pledged in the previous three-year period.[42](emphasis added)

Thus, we see not only the increasing economic influence of China via trade, but also their increasing political clout due to the economic aid that China is giving African countries.

Canada

Unfortunately, even our friends up north have their own interests in Mali, with Canadian Prime Minister Harper giving transportation aid to the French and former diplomat Robert Folwer wanting Canada to play a bigger role.[46]

Like the French, Canada’s biggest interest in Mali is mining, mainly in the gold sector. The violence is currently hurting Canada’s mining interests, with CTV News stating that the violence threw a “monkey wrench in the Harper government’s ambitions for Canadian firms, especially in the mining sector” and that “The government is actively promoting Canadian business opportunities in Africa, but has no stomach for contributing troops to the French-led military campaign to drive al Qaeda-linked extremists out of northern Mali.”[47] Thus, while Harper are worried that the mining companies whom he has helped so much to make record profits will find themselves in trouble, he has no interests in getting his hands dirty to send troops to Mali.

h/t: Addicting Info

Perhaps you think you’ve read or heard it all. Hell, I even wrote my own book about it, So Wrong for So Long,. But now Rachel Maddow is promising surprising revelations in her MSNBC special Hubris: Selling the Iraq War, next Monday night in her regular time slot.

It will be President’s Day, but it looks like she sure won’t be celebrating George W. Bush. Or the mainstream media.

The special marks the opening of what will surely be a slew of tenth-anniversary programs and other media revisits.  If you want to go back yourself now: Ten years ago today Hans Blix made another fateful presentation to the United Nations on his team’s search for WMD in Iraq. It was said to bolster both opponents and proponents of a US invasion, since he still found no evidence of such weapons but Saddam was still not cooperating fully with inspections.

Why does this all matter? Well, consider this major Washington Post piece last night on Iran allegedly boosting nuclear program by pursuing certain…magnets. It never ends.

The doc is partly based on the book Hubris by David Corn and Michael Isikoff but reportedly goes beyond it. An NBC press release claims the documentary features “new and original interviews with members of the Bush administration, the CIA, members of Congress and other insiders who were part of the internal debate over the ultimately faulty-intelligence that led to the invasion of Iraq.

More excerpts on the Yellowcake lies here and on “Cheney’s Speech” here and on “The Build-up” here and WMD not found.

h/t: Greg Mitchell at The Nation

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says it might leave no troops in Afghanistan after December 2014, an option that defies the Pentagon’s view that thousands of troops may be needed to contain al-Qaida and to strengthen Afghan forces.

“We wouldn’t rule out any option,” including zero troops, Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, said Tuesday.

“The U.S. does not have an inherent objective of ‘X’ number of troops in Afghanistan,” Rhodes said. “We have an objective of making sure there is no safe haven for al-Qaida in Afghanistan and making sure that the Afghan government has a security force that is sufficient to ensure the stability of the Afghan government.”

The U.S. now has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan, down from a peak of about 100,000 as recently as 2010. The U.S. and its NATO allies agreed in November 2010 that they would withdraw all their combat troops by the end of 2014, but they have yet to decide what future missions will be necessary and how many troops they would require.

At stake is the risk of Afghanistan’s collapse and a return to the chaos of the 1990s that enabled the Taliban to seize power and provide a haven for Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network. Fewer than 100 al-Qaida fighters are believed to remain in Afghanistan, although a larger number are just across the border in Pakistani sanctuaries.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said he foresees a need for a U.S. counterterrorism force in Afghanistan beyond 2014, plus a contingent to train Afghan forces. He is believed to favor an option that would keep about 9,000 troops in the country.

His statement could be interpreted as part of an administration negotiating strategy. On Friday Afghan President Hamid Karzai is scheduled to meet President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss ways of framing an enduring partnership beyond 2014.

The two are at odds on numerous issues, including a U.S. demand that any American troops who would remain in Afghanistan after the combat mission ends be granted immunity from prosecution under Afghan law. Karzai has resisted, while emphasizing his need for large-scale U.S. support to maintain an effective security force after 2014.

In announcing last month in Kabul that he had accepted Obama’s invitation to visit this week, Karzai made plain his objectives.

“Give us a good army, a good air force and a capability to project Afghan interests in the region,” Karzai said, and he would gladly reciprocate by easing the path to legal immunity for U.S. troops.

Karzai is scheduled to meet Thursday with Panetta at the Pentagon and with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the State Department.

Without explicitly mentioning immunity for U.S. troops, Obama’s top White House military adviser on Afghanistan, Doug Lute, told reporters Tuesday that the Afghans will have to give the U.S. certain “authorities” if it wants U.S. troops to remain.

Rhodes said Obama remains committed to further reducing the U.S. military presence this year, although the pace of that withdrawal will not be decided for a few months.

h/t: AP.org

U.S. military planners have begun to help organize a multinational proxy force to intervene next year in Mali, the famine-stricken, coup-wracked African country that has become a magnet for Islamist extremists, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The international force would be led on the ground by several thousand Malian and West African troops but would receive extensive support from the Pentagon and the State Department, which would help train, equip and transport the troops, Obama administration officials said.

U.S. officials said the Pentagon’s planning efforts are contingent on the U.N. Security Council’s endorsement of the African-led force. U.N. officials and diplomats from other countries have said that U.N. approval is likely and that the military operation could begin next year.

The disclosure that U.S. military planners have started to prepare for the intervention was made by officials from the State Department and Pentagon at a Senate hearing Wednesday. It was the clearest sign yet that the administration has decided to take a more aggressive stance against al-Qaeda’s growing affiliate in North Africa and to try to restore order in Mali, a Saharan country on the verge of collapse.

A military operation in Mali, however, will inevitably be messy and unpredictable. The chronic instability in the country, one of the world’s poorest and riven by tribal divisions and corruption, has rapidly worsened since Islamist extremists took control of northern Mali — a chunk of territory the size of Texas — this year.

Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa, called northern Mali “the largest territory controlled by Islamic extremists in the world.”

Other U.S. officials said al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate, which for years attracted limited global attention, poses an increasing threat. 

U.S. law restricts the United States from providing direct military assistance to Mali because its democratically elected president was ousted in a coup in March. The coup was led by disaffected military officers who said the president, Amadou Toumani Toure, had not dealt effectively with the Islamist rebellion in the north.

The Pentagon had to withdraw Special Forces troops and other trainers and cut off military aid. The coup leader, Capt. Amadou Sanogo, had received training in the United States as part of a program to professionalize Mali’s tiny and ill-equipped army.

Administration officials said they want the remnants of Mali’s army to lead the international force. But because of U.S. law, the Pentagon must funnel equipment and other aid through West African nations, the European Union and other countries.

h/t: Craig Whitlock at Washington Post

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt announced on Wednesday that a ceasefire had been reached to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, starting later in the day.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr made the announcement in a joint news conference with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The ceasefire would come into effect at 15:00 EDT, said Amr, whose country has been at the heart of efforts to broker an end to the conflict.

“Egypt has made great efforts … since the start of the latest escalation in the Gaza Strip,” Amr said.

h/t: Yahoo! News