One thing the recent military intervention in Mali does is legitimize the French military and security presence in Africa and its role in keeping dictators in power in neo-colonial states like Chad and Togo who participated in the "liberation" of Timbuktu. This is not a good long term trend. The French supported dictatorships in Chad, Togo, Gabon and other places have been far more brutal to far more people for far longer than the Islamists were in northern Mali. Providing them with enhanced international political legitimacy is a disservice to the people laboring under these repressive regimes.
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