Marauding Islamists, Hungry Locusts
Adult desert locusts, one of roughly twelve species of short-horned grasshoppers, are voracious predators. They are capable of consuming their own weight in food daily. A small part of an average swarm - a ton of locusts - can consume the same amount of food daily as ten elephants, or 2,500 people. As a bit of incidental kind of factoid, it is interesting, to be sure.If you live in Africa where these crop-and-life-destroying insects abound, and are wont to cyclically rampage, it can become a life-or-death issue. Without the food harvested from crops, how will people endure? The locusts will do very well, but the people will be consigned to starvation. But in countries like Mali, equipment has been developed, and insecticides to aid in the battle against the swarming pests.
That equipment includes computers. There is nothing scientifically or technically backward about Mali; it is capable of aiding itself in its ongoing bid to vanquish the conquesting insects. Except for one incidental and unfortunate fact; a rebel attack in the area has destroyed all that equipment; the insecticide sprayers, the computers used to monitor the insects' predations.
Now croplands in Mali and neighbouring Niger remain at 'imminent' risk from those desert swarms. Steadily moving south from Algeria and Libya, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Mali was once considered uniquely democratic in western Africa. Chaos has reigned since the collapse of the Libyan regime led by Moammar Ghadafi.
Mercenaries who were once gainfully employed by the Libyan dictator now are without a purpose to keep them employed. They have scattered across the Sahel, along with weapons looted from the Libyan regime's stockpiles. "The jihadis control the situation in northern Mali. The other forces with other objectives are marginal. The main forces are the jihadis and drug traffickers", explained Niger's president.
"If terrorists implant themselves in Africa, they will threaten Europe", he stated baldly. Boko Haram, the Islamist group that is a security threat in Nigeria, partnered with Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb was busy operating training camps. In Mali, terrorists have aligned themselves with secessionists.
In Mali, a vestige of civilization has been destroyed, allowing locusts to move in.
Throughout Africa, Islamists are gathering strength in their battle to turn countries into Islamist states with the imposition of Sharia law. And once that has been accomplished, according to Niger's Mahamadou Issoufou, the next stop is Europe.
Labels: Africa, Agriculture, Chaos, Conflict, Corruption, Heritage, Islamism
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, June 09, 2012
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