{"id":4381,"date":"2014-06-18T18:08:55","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T16:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=4381"},"modified":"2014-06-18T18:08:55","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T16:08:55","slug":"behind-the-cover-story-eliza-griswold-on-the-roots-of-extremism-boko-haram-and-the-weight-of-public-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2014\/06\/behind-the-cover-story-eliza-griswold-on-the-roots-of-extremism-boko-haram-and-the-weight-of-public-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Cover Story: Eliza Griswold on the Roots of Extremism, Boko Haram and the Weight of Public Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n

By RACHEL NOLAN JUNE 16<\/p>\n

Eliza Griswold wrote\u00a0the June 15 cover story about U.S. Special Operations forces in Africa<\/a>. She is the author of \u201cThe Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam\u201d and a book of poetry.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

How did you first hear about Brig. Gen. James B. Linder and become interested in doing a story about the United States Africa Command?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I first met General Linder eight years ago when he was a colonel in command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force \u2014 Philippines. At that time, I was traveling along the geographic fault line where Christianity and Islam meet in Africa and Asia for \u201cThe Tenth Parallel.\u201d Along that line, I was watching the rise of violent extremism among both Muslims and Christians. Nigeria is one of the countries in which I\u2019ve reported extensively. Nearly a decade ago, Boko Haram already existed. Over the years, I\u2019ve watched its rise, along with the rise of different dangerous militant groups \u2014 Al Shabab in Somalia and Kenya, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.<\/p>\n

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have bled into a whole new generation of decentralized jihadis, who take advantage of the vast expanse of the Sahel, as well as local grievances in Nigeria and Somalia, to recruit followers to their cause. There\u2019s little evidence to suggest that poverty breeds extremism, but plenty to suggest that injustice does. As a legacy of colonial history, many of the governments in Africa are weak at best, rapacious at worst.<\/p>\n

Was there anything about seeing U.S. Special Operations forces on the ground that surprised you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, their degree of ingenuity was fun to watch. They built picnic tables and Adirondack chairs, and magazine\u00a0racks\"\"<\/a>\u00a0in latrines, in order to enhance their forward positions. What did impress me deeply, though, was the level of expertise that some have on local subgroups of subgroups, commands of history, language capabilities.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Boko Haram\u2019s kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls grabbed headlines recently. Did that happen after your reporting trip?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It did, and it is a horrific example of what Boko Haram is capable of. I\u2019ve reported on Boko Haram since before Boko Haram was Boko Haram. If you have been following this group, the kidnapping of schoolgirls was not shocking. It was horrible, but it was not surprising. This time, it just happened to get the world\u2019s attention. It\u2019s excellent to see people caring about Africa. I hope they continue to engage in the underlying issues that made it possible for Boko Haram to take nearly 300\u00a0girls\"\"<\/a>\u00a0from their school.<\/p>\n

Did you and Linder share notes on how to engage the American public\u2019s attention on African issues?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, and this is really important to understand. The United States Special Operation forces are not interested in mobilizing public opinion. They carry out policy that is made in Washington. They are not making policy; they are simply carrying it out. They are not focused on public opinion in the United States at all. In fact, many think public opinion would prefer that they not be on the ground. One of the legacies of 14 years of war is that the U.S. military, especially Special Operations, is not sure that it has the support of the American public. They sense that America is tired of boots on the ground. And our Hollywood image of them is of door-kickers. These are the guys who do the Bin Laden raid, knock down\u00a0doors\"\"<\/a>, come in the night and unilaterally do what they are doing to seize people. That\u2019s how Hollywood has sold them to us. That is a major distortion. What\u2019s going on in Africa has been going on since World War II. It\u2019s really what the Green Berets, in particular, were built for, and that is training indigenous militaries \u2014 either helping \u201cfreedom fighters\u201d rise up against undemocratic governments or training the indigenous forces of what the U.S. deems \u201clegitimate governments.\u201d I had one operator say to me, \u201cWe are teachers before we are door-kickers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: New York Times By RACHEL NOLAN JUNE 16 Eliza Griswold wrote\u00a0the June 15 cover story about U.S. Special Operations forces in Africa. She is the author of \u201cThe Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,85,122,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editor-selection","category-human-rights","category-politics","category-world","country-world"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4382,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381\/revisions\/4382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}