http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ivan-eland/us-imperialism-and-nigeri_b_5398019.html

Ivan Eland Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty, The Independent Institute

U.S. Imperialism and Nigerian Schoolgirls

Posted: 05/28/2014

It took awhile to find the Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, and during that time officials from Western governments--likely the United States, Britain, and France--anonymously criticized the Nigerian government for being slow to accept foreign help and then being slow and incompetent in the search. These Western governments are under tremendous pressure at home to show that they are "doing something" about the schoolgirls. That's because, despite Boko Haram's even more monstrous prior acts--for example, slaughtering entire villages and shooting and burning to death 59 school boys--the admittedly shocking kidnapping of the schoolgirls (they have not been killed) became the cause célèbre of women's groups and women politicians in the West, who in turn exerted tremendous pressure on their governments to find the girls.