As events unfold in Mali and Algeria, we need to avoid jumping to too many grand conclusions.
People often end up doing jobs that they never intended. In 2004, I found myself on a blisteringly hot day eating freeze-dried raw octopus and drinking Japanese Ocha with a Colonel from the Japanese Self Defence Force. We were sitting in his tent in a Japanese military camp in south west Iraq miles from any other human inhabitation. Later, driving across the desert back to Basra, I pondered on what odd combination of events had led me to be taking tea with Japanese soldiers while Iraq descended into sectarian-fuelled violence all around us. [Read more…]