In Mali’s capital Bamako, I met a Tuareg officer in the Mali army. He was rawboned with thick, leathery hands and heavy lines creasing his forehead and around his eyes. Years of desert fighting have made him look much older than his 42 years. As a young man, he said, he was lured to Libya in the 1980s by radio broadcasts of Qaddafi calling young Tuareg to join his revolution. “I admired the way he wasn’t afraid to stand up to the West, to anybody,” he said.
But after being sent to the Libya-Chad war and seeing how Libya’s Arabs used the Tuareg to do all the “difficult fighting,” he lost his ardor for Qaddafi. He left Libya and joined the Tuareg rebels who were fighting the Mali government in the early 1990s.
I asked about the implications of mercenaries such as Abdullah coming back home to find few economic opportunities. “It is not good,” he said, listing the security threats Mali faces, including a resilient, well-financed branch of al-Qaeda, which in recent years has kidnapped dozens of foreigners, effectively wrecking the country’s tourism industry, and a fragile peace in the restive Tuareg region. “It is like dragging a dead tree on top of two small fires,” he said. “Soon we may have one big fire.”
“If Qaddafi goes, it’s going to be very bad for Mali.” He estimated that roughly 10,000 Tuareg remained in the Libyan army, most of them from Mali. “If Qaddafi is killed or loses power, they will all have to leave. The Arabs won’t let them stay,” he said. “I know many guys there. When they come here, they will fight. I have no doubt. I know them. The revolution is not over.”
”—Peter Gwin talks with former Qaddafi mercenaries about their experience fighting in Libya. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ethnic Tuaregs left Mali to fight for Muammar Qaddafi. Now, some are returning home to tell their story. Read more at The Atlantic.We might be able to accept that a modern American principle allows for intervention. The hand-wringing over the genocide in Rwanda, and the hemming and hawing over Libya, Syria, Yemen, and even the Balkans certainly suggests that might be the case. But again, to declare that this intervention has been done right when it’s not even over yet — when the rebels do not have a replacement government, when we do not know where Gaddhafi is hiding, when we do not know if there will be a horrifying post-regime insurgency like there was in Iraq, when we do not have the slightest clue what to do now apart from vague pantomimes to Libyan sovereignty (at least!) — that is worse than premature.
America has never had much of a challenge with the fighting part of a war. The aftermath of war, however, especially when there is no surrender but only defeat, is where America has an especially poor record. Since World War II, in fact, Americans like Roger Cohen have been quick to declare victory when crisis are not yet solved, simply because some or most of the fighting has ended. As a result, we almost never plan for what comes next: no transition, no reconstruction, no stability operations, no development.
”—For The Atlantic, I ask how American interventionism really is (hint: not very). (via theconjecturer)We’ve been getting lots of responses like this. Care to share yours?
onepagefiction writes:
There are three stories, here: one is about the girl I was; the second, about who that girl became; the third, about what that girl doesn’t know. They are all important to my narrative of unemployment. I am sure they are not entirely unique.
In the first, I am in seventh grade. Small (like I will remain). A good athlete, already: a runner and a soccer player. Later that year, I will make the school lacrosse team, having never played before. But right now, it is the start of basketball season, and the first year I’m eligible to play for the school. I am small – this is crucial: I do not make the team. I was cut before they put a ball in my hands. I am my father’s daughter. I don’t remember what he told me that evening; whatever it was, it refused to let me quit. I got better. I showed up, humbled and irate, at the same summer basketball camps as the girls who made the team. I ran (probably too much). I lifted (also probably too much). I worked with a speed trainer. The next winter, in eighth grade, I made the freshman team – I jumped an entire level. In eighth grade, I believed that raw ability and a ferocious work ethic knew no smallness.
In the second, I am in college – a senior. I’ve earned a scholarship to play lacrosse at one of the best programs in the country – at one of the best academic schools in the world. I have been hurt, now, for a long time. Hip surgeries, shin injuries, stress fractures – all have sidelined me intermittently since my sophomore year. College for me becomes learning how to be without the uniform. I spend hours in rehab. My backpack rattles with pill bottles – anti-inflammatories of every variety, painkillers, antacids, vitamins (glucosamine, chondroitin, E, B, Calcium +D) that unfairly promise hope. About to graduate now, it has been over a year since I last held a lacrosse stick. I redirected: I win several major university awards for my writing abilities. On my college graduation day, I believe what college graduates should: that I can turn any challenge into success. I have been blessed with talents; I have been tested in how to use them – in how to carry the characteristics of one into the other. I do not believe in fate: I believe that I have done the work, and it will pay off. It has been this simple for ten years.
The last story takes place this morning. Mornings are the easiest part of the day: they follow a routine, one virtually unchanged in over a decade. Wake up. Flex out the kinks. Change. Still half-asleep, guide my mess of blonde into a high ponytail. Slip on and tie up the running shoes. Bound out the door, reluctant at first, still sore, still stiff, a little cold on this early fall morning. Wander down the driveway, stretching a calf against the fence, a quad by the tree whose roots threaten the blacktop. I take a deep breath – and I’m off. This is the best part of my day: it is the only part that is quiet, the only part that is simple, the only part that involves that unique combination of talent (my speed, my lungs, my heart) and work ethic (this run, as so many runners know, is the result of tens of thousands of miles before it). For however long I run, the world goes still. When I finish, I will face a day without structure; a day marked by unanswered emails and phone calls and desperate Internet scouring. I have never known this desperation. I foolishly did not think I ever would. I believed that I was uniquely gifted, and uniquely focused.
I suppose this has been humbling. One can only run so many miles in a day.
Want to share your joblessness story? Send us a note at aboutmyjob1@gmail.com, tweet us @TheAtlantic with the tag #AboutMyJob, or submit a post.
nessaaaa writes:
When people recollect moments of job-hunting, they remember their best answers to interviews, the instant they sign the contract, or the glee they felt when the offered salary is higher than their asking. Yes, five months is just a snap of a finger compared to others who wait for years, yet, in those five months, the thing I vividly recall the most is the agony of waiting.
When you look at thousands of available positions in jobsites, it’s hard to imagine why so many people are jobless. However, when you’re the one depending on new ads to appear because you’ve exhausted every job post that you could apply to, it’s hard to imagine why you never get a single invite even when your CV boasts of a reputable school and impressive work background. You don’t think about others anymore - except that they do get the job, they do get their dream company, they do get their desired salary. And you’re there, sitting in front of the computer, wondering where in the world would you get the money to pay for the internet and electricity bill.
It’s not enough that you feel low because you’re unemployed, you have to be dig your own hole back to the earth’s core so old friends and relatives won’t have to ask you about what you do for a living. You try to cut yourself out from the world because that would also mean not having to make up an imaginary job, an imaginary workplace and imaginary colleagues. Why wouldn’t my turn come any sooner? Friends would tell you it’s going to come your way, that you’re great and someday an employer would see your worth; still - no job is knocking at your door, or even an interview invite waiting by the phone. You feel like you’re ready to do just anything to get out that rut you’re in.
Nonetheless, after months of moping, you decide to get back up. You pick up the pieces, you cheer yourself up, you tell yourself it’s going to be okay. You know it’s not okay, but what’s the difference anyway? What’s the point of wishing for a magic calendar that’ll tell how long you still have to wait when you know it’s not going to happen? At the end of the day you’re still broke and jobless, but I’m telling you my dear friend, that doesn’t have to be synonymous to being worthless. Sometimes, those horrible days are necessary so you’d realize that having nothing could really make you gain everything.
So I tell you this: just hold on.
Want to share your joblessness story? Send us a note at aboutmyjob1@gmail.com, tweet us @TheAtlantic with the tag #AboutMyJob, or submit a post.
liblyx writes:
My Mom told me to look for a job. That was back in the summer of 2008. At first I didn’t take too seriously to it. Applied for a position at a fairground, and didn’t get it because I applied too late. Then, whenever I was prodded, i’d look for work again, and apply anywhere where the answer to “are you guys hiring?” was in any way a yes. How long could it have possibly taken to find work then?
15 months.
In December of 2009, I finally got a call back for an interview, and then sometime later, a call for a position. It was pretty nice finally having some sort of income. It was a tolerable job up until I began college. Liberal arts colleges must have that sort of effect, because once I understood what I was really doing, even as a mere cashier for a wholesale club, it caused a severe clash between what I knew and what I was required to do. I learned the one thing low-level workers we never supposed to: How to critically think.
So, now that I had become a quick-witted thinker who put a dent in profits, I became practically intolerable. However, because I have a specific charm with the customer base, getting rid of me was near impossible, especially since I learned enough to not fall victim to their write-up corrective system that had cost 10-15 cashiers their job for money they didn’t actually lose. Of course, since I didn’t like playing along, it cost me job advancement, led to intimidation by 2-on-1 meetings, and even implications of theft. Its almost difficult to imagine this happening to an 18-year old, isn’t it?
Teen thinkers entering the job market, beware.
Want to share your joblessness story? Send us a note at aboutmyjob1@gmail.com, tweet us @TheAtlantic with the tag #AboutMyJob, or submit a post.
A Syrian Activist Speaks from Damascus
A young man involved in the opposition movement discusses the mood in Damascus, his torture, and what activists want from the outside world
What You Don’t Know About the Job Search: Responses From the Jobless
Want to share your joblessness story? Send us a note at aboutmyjob1@gmail.com, tweet us @TheAtlantic with the tag #AboutMyJob, or submit a post.
What are you guys reading this week? And what should we be reading? Bonus points if it’s hurricane themed.