Kidnapped Nigerian Girls

Should the US intervene to assist in the recovery of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls?

  • yes

    Votes: 24 50.0%

  • no

    Votes: 24 50.0%
  • Total voters
    48
  • Poll closed .
I remain strongly against most interventions, but I think we should help out in this one, because I think it would serve our national interests.

Nigeria has the biggest economy in Africa, it is a major regional trading partner which is strategically located in a part of Africa that is of particular concern to us at the moment, and the fight is against an AQ-aligned group that would and will attack our people and our interests in the region. Additionally, unlike a lot of other places where people want the US to "do something," as a country, Nigeria is (or could be) pro-Western.

In short, helping recover the lost children allows us to establish an even closer relationship with a major regional ally, lets us get after some major terrorist shitheads, helps secure US trade, and could help give the US's reputation an international boost.

I think the best ways we can contribute is through intel sharing and drone strikes. Not only should we help recover anyone currently held by Boko Haram, we should severely reduce that organization's ability to carry out similar operations in the future- and by that I mean by killing as many of them as we can.
 
Mara has hit on my fallback position when it comes to these things. If there is a PLAUSIBLE argument that intervention in (insert crisis here) is in our National Interest then I support it. This of course means that there will be times in which hindsight will show that intervention wasn't really the best course of action in a particular situation. The people making these decisions are flawed as are all humans, mistakes will be made. That doesn't mean we should just ignore these situations when there is a potential up side to them. It DOES mean that we certainly should ignore them when it's readily apparent that there is NO upside.
 
TLDR20 said:
Not worth a single second of American time, or a penny of American money.

I say this because let's be honest, it isn't. Kids go missing and are sold into various forms of slavery on the daily, probably by the minute. It may seem cold hearted, but honestly I don't think we should have our foreign policy dictated by the tears of moms imagining it is their kids who were kidnapped. Nigeria should take care of their own fucking problems.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. BH has been a pain in Abuja's ass for 5 years now and NOBODY cared...except the oil companies.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13809501
 
I seriously wonder is all this hype mid-term related? The US handling of Libya, Syria, and Ukraine are total failures so is this a chance to show "leadership" during the run up?

The US gave BH free reign but NOW we care? Notice how "the state of the State" is no longer in the news?
 
Marauder06 said:
I remain strongly against most interventions, but I think we should help out in this one, because I think it would serve our national interests.

Nigeria has the biggest economy in Africa, it is a major regional trading partner which is strategically located in a part of Africa that is of particular concern to us at the moment, and the fight is against an AQ-aligned group that would and will attack our people and our interests in the region. Additionally, unlike a lot of other places where people want the US to "do something," as a country, Nigeria is (or could be) pro-Western.

In short, helping recover the lost children allows us to establish an even closer relationship with a major regional ally, lets us get after some major terrorist shitheads, helps secure US trade, and could help give the US's reputation an international boost.

I think the best ways we can contribute is through intel sharing and drone strikes. Not only should we help recover anyone currently held by Boko Haram, we should severely reduce that organization's ability to carry out similar operations in the future- and by that I mean by killing as many of them as we can.
Click to expand...

That's a nice realist argument you put for intervention @Marauder06 and I tend to believe that if they (US ) do intervene it will be on these grounds..
 
That's how I think all of our national affairs ought to be governed: "Is this in our long-term national interests?" If yes, consider doing it; if no, then it should most likely be rejected. That's why I'm against intervening in the Syrian civil war, and for helping out against Boko Haram.
 
Marauder06 said:
That's how I think all of our national affairs ought to be governed: "Is this in our long-term national interests?" If yes, consider doing it; if no, then it should most likely be rejected. That's why I'm against intervening in the Syrian civil war, and for helping out against Boko Haram.
Click to expand...

Why does everyone dislike Boko Harem? I thought a Whiter Shade of Pale was up there with Nickleback?
 
Terror defeats itself due to its decline to a lower baseline. So the locals are having a crack now.

Villagers in an area of Nigeria where Boko Haram operates have killed and detained scores of fighters who were suspected of planning a fresh attack, the residents and a security official said.

http://m.aljazeera.com/story/2014514152412389219
 
CQB said:
Terror defeats itself due to its decline to a lower baseline. So the locals are having a crack now.

Villagers in an area of Nigeria where Boko Haram operates have killed and detained scores of fighters who were suspected of planning a fresh attack, the residents and a security official said.

http://m.aljazeera.com/story/2014514152412389219
Click to expand...

One of the best days of my last trip was when the local police brought in a named target after the local villagers assisted the police in fighting off an insurgent ambush.

Second best day: hearing about my old area making peace with the Afghan government because the Taliban killed two members of the local council. It is sad that good people had to die, but their deaths pushed the "on-the-fence" crowd over to the government's side.
 
I'd be on board with rescuing the girls, if it were conjunction with (at least battalion sized) operations to inflict massive casualties on BH and cripple their networks.

Preventing terrorist attacks and rescuing hostages doesn't do much to prevent the same thing from occurring in the future.

If the US (or Canada, or UK, or Australia, or...) is prompted to act, the belligerent organization should be punished accordingly.
 
I think we should do something- as in send in US military forces to rescue the girls.

We should simply because we can. The fact that we've failed to act on other instances of mass slaughter should not deter us from making the right choice this time. We're really great at getting involved in murky circumstances where the outcome in uncertain, but when something is cut and dry evil, we twiddle our thumbs and philosophize about it...

We have the power to do something right therefore we should. Also, the total lack of humanitarian concern displayed by other nations has never been the measure by which Americans engage the world. We traditionally were the nation that did things because they were right, not because they were popular. We have a lot of black marks in our history, why not put a check mark in the "right thing to do" column for a change?
 

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