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Amnesty International Asymmetric Security Report On Nigeria By Col. Sagir Musa

June 18, 2015

Analysis of the intricacies and dimension of terrorism and the international responses to it, is likely to show one peculiar cyclical tendency- that of international conspiracy! This, often comes in many forms; arms proliferation disguised as 'arms aid', human rights rhetoric, doomsday predictions or 'financial entanglement'.

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Among these, the most dangerous is the 'silent warfare' or what the Bolsheviks referred to as 'active measures' - the human rights orotundity, propaganda and provocation as elements of 'partisan warfare'. In terrorism situation, human rights triumphalism offers more problems than solutions; it slows down the momentum of counter operations (albeit temporarily), influences local and international perception as well as public opinion and thus presents the possibility of starting afresh, becoming stagnant or 'one step forward, three backward'.

The internationalization of human rights and dignity is of equal measure. Security agents are massacred in defense of their respective countries, non-combatants are beheaded, traumatized and infected with the most deadly of all diseases, and terrorists and their atrocities are somehow shielded in the shade of human rights triumphalist reports, just like the latest one from the Amnesty international.

Amnesty international seems to burrow some lessons (without acknowledging) from the Russia's 2020 military doctrine which favours a shift from outright confrontation and total destruction of  an opponent, - to influence, from eradication of targeted adversaries to their inner decay; from conventional battlegrounds to information, psychological and perception war, from physical conflict to 'conflict of human consciousness'. Otherwise, how else could one explain the latest in the series of amnesty international reports against the Nigerian Armed Forces? 

As an admirer of Paul W. Blackstock - a professor of government at the University of South Carolina and a former Army intelligence and psychological warfare specialist who died in 1979, - particularly his book entitled- 'Agents of Deceits, Frauds, Forgeries and Political Intrigue among Nations (1966)', I, therefore, have no better words to describe the Amnesty report as a mere distraction, a cock-eyed report that breads false familiarity about Nigeria, Nigerians and the Nigerian Armed Forces.

Fighting terrorism is not an easy task, often it requires deeper restraint on the part of the fighting forces, forces that are toiling under the sun or in the rain, day in, day out, at times, with or without food or water, moving higgledy- piggledy arising from the fog of war - somewhere, somehow far away from the comfort of their families - nay in the Sambisa and other evil forest in the border areas of Banki, Bama, Baga, Gombarun-Gala, Malam -Fatori, Monguno and the mountainous area of Gwoza.  

All over the world, the military salvage nations in period of calamity. Nigerian military have done it before and will soon do it again. Support your country's Armed Forces and other security agencies during the most trying period of Nigeria's very existence.