Canada's mission to Mali dead in the water

About a year and a half ago, the newly elected Grand Chief Sunny Daze, and his Minister of Defense, Turban Guy, made waves by hinting that our great nation was about to reappear on the world stage and re-commence "punching above our weight."

It's safe to say that like most Trudeau promises, this one has fallen by the wayside, and that's probably a good thing. After all, who can forget the early days of Hollande the Conqueror's foray into Mali?

Goaded along by the unctuous twat BHL, Hollande was to "earn his spurs" by re-liberating Mali for the umpteenth time from whatever it needed to be liberated from. The legacy of colonialism, mainly, but only an imbecile of the rank of BHL would find that an appropriate task for the former colonial power.

The think tank here at Falling Downs had a lot of fun with that mission. Alas, the French didn't. Nor do the Americans, who lost three special forces soldiers  just this week. No spurs for Hollande. No spurs for Uncle Sam. Just more death and destruction. 

So you can't blame our erstwhile neo-colonialists in Ottawa for getting cold feet. No, we'll settle for punching above our weight somewhere safer. Haiti maybe.

Meanwhile, having successfully liberated Iraq and Libya and Syria and Mali, the blood-thirsty cretin BHL is currently getting oodles of free column inches in major Western media lobbying for a sovereign Kurdish state.

What could go wrong?

Neo-colonialist Bernard-Henri Levi gets Globe & Mail platform to spew his neo-colonialist rubbish

The Globe's opinion page has been invaded by foreign prognosticators, which I suspect has more to do with Globe management cutting costs than anything else. After all, we've got plenty of competent pro-capitalist, pro-empire prognosticators right here at home.

But they generally want to be paid a living wage. Printing stuff from outside sources is a neat way around that.

Which might explain why the widely esteemed asshole BHL got a slot in today's paper. Maybe David Shribman is on vacation or something.

The gist of BHL's missive in the Globe today is that "we," meaning the Nations of Virtue, should be all in for granting the Kurds their own statelet in the Middle East, to be carved out of the countries we've been bombing to ratshit for the last twenty years or longer.

After all, the Israelis absolutely love the Kurds.

If the apartheid state of Israel is on board, we should be too, goes the conventional reasoning.

I'm not so sure.

Ya, they might hate Arabs, but check out this site re: female genital mutilation in Kurdistan.

Aside from hating Arabs, do we really have any common ground with the Kurds?

I think not so much.

How is it the responsibility of we in the West to meddle in the Middle East even more than we already have to ensure that a greater Kurdistan becomes a reality?

Haven't we caused enough damage?

Dropping names, dropping bombs, and why Obama needs to put US boots on Syrian soil

That indefatigable cheerleader for war, Bernard-Henri Levy, solemnly informed us this week that, make no mistake, we are at war with Islamic State.

"A new kind of war," no less.

And please note that this is not a war of our choosing; this war has been forced on the US and France and their allies. Yes, the sordid history of France in Algeria and America's serial wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria have nothing to do with the emergence of radical Islam.

They hate us for our democratic values, our openness, our tolerance...

Even the great BHL seems to be vaguely aware of what a putrid pile of shit he has concocted here. Perhaps that is why he has perfumed this outrageously dishonest dung-heap of a call to war with no less than twenty instances of name-dropping:

 Leon Blum

 Elie Halevy

 Georges Bataille

 Michel Leiris

 Roger Caillois

 Thucydides

 Clausewitz

 Carl Schmitt

 Saint Augustine

 Saint Thomas Aquinas

 Victor Hugo

 Paul Claudel

 Hitler

 Massoud

 Izetbegovic

 Mujibur Rahman

 Tariq Ramadan

 Abdelwahab Meddeb

 Churchill

 George Pitt-Rivers.

Wow! That's a staggeringly impressive level of erudition on display in one relatively brief essay! How is it possible that such a brilliant narrator could be lying to us?

And fear not, BHL already has a road-map to victory in the war that the forces of darkness have forced on the Nations of Virtue.

Yes, they've got us cornered, those "fascislamists" do, and we freedom-loving peaceable nations who have been ravaging and plundering and humiliating the Islamic world for generations have no choice but to fight a merciless war for our very survival...

And the very survival of Western Civilization depends on Mr. Obama putting American boots on the ground.

Now!

...at least according to that philosopher, war-monger, and imbecile-at-large, the esteemed Bernard-Henri Levy.

The King of the "New Philosophers" is nothing more than a shill for the sinking Empire

It would be easy to dismiss Bernard-Henri Levy as a vainglorious douchebag, but he's a douchebag who still has a lot of schlep. The great BHL, as he styles himself, took credit early on for the liberation of Libya. Given how that triumph has worked out, one can only marvel that any reputable news platform would bother to publish his ruminations viz the latest Nations of Virtue operation, the liberation of Syria.

But there he was the other day, in Canada's national newspaper of record (and no, that's not the National Post), waxing wise on the whys and why-nots of the crusade against Assad. The paper earnestly informs us that BHL is a founder of the Nouveaux Philosophes movement.

Wow! Guess we are meant to be mightily impressed!

BHL's essay begins with a couple of highly speculative assertions presented as facts in the first paragraph, and goes downhill from there. Hey, he's a philosopher, not a journalist!

Here's one of the few real working journalists still working the Syria file, Patrick Cockburn, contradicting most of what the great BHL has to say.

So who are you going to believe?

Having successfully brought freedom and democracy to Libya and Syria, France's Philosopher King casts his eye on Greece

I have no idea why, but today Canada's national newspaper of record gave an entire half page over to the international bon vivant and moron-at-large BHL.

The legend-in-his-own-mind BHL has it in for Tsipras and his referendum. Apparently holding a referendum on a matter that is life and death for the future of your country is anti-democratic.

Not only that, but it was an insult to 18 European countries, some of whom rolled over and cried "uncle" when they felt Frau Merkel's jackboot on their necks.

That's why Greece should roll over too...

That's pretty much the extent of the philosophical reasoning you're going to find here.

BHL discovers anti-Semitism in Tunisia

The great BHL, the worlds leading and perhaps only international public intellectual, made a surprise visit to Tunisia at the weekend. Alas, by the time he arrived an anti-Semitic mob had gathered at the airport to wish him a speedy return to France.

When BHL cut short his visit the next day, scores of anti-Semitic news organizations and websites around the world erroneously reported that the great man had been expelled from the country, causing BHL to pen a hasty rebuttal at the ever-accommodating Huffington Post.

Not that they're at all accommodating when I'm floating them a trial balloon... but this is about the great BHL, not about me, so let's get on with it, shall we!

The great BHL was revered across the Arab world for liberating Libya, a glorious achievement celebrated in the film classic The Oaf of Tobruk, produced and directed by none other than the great BHL himself! Sadly, when the Arab masses realized the liberator of Libya was a Jew, the adulation quickly turned to blind irrational rage, which is of course not unexpected from those people.

Titled "My Weekend in Tunis: Anti-Semitic Sound and Fury," the article reveals the true reason for the visit to Tunis. BHL held a series of secret meetings with leaders of the warring factions in Libya in order to forge a peace accord. He does not reveal in his article when we may expect some results from these peace-building efforts, but expect to see his new film The Oaf of the Levant; bringing civilization to the Arab, at a cinema near you soon.

After saving Africa from Africans, Hollande the Conqueror turns gaze on saving Middle East from Arabs

Hollande may be drowning in the polls, but he must be rising in the estimation of the esteemed BHL.

It was BHL after all, the man who saved Libya, who egged on the hapless Hollande in his pursuit of those mythical "spurs." And for Hollande, nothing else matters so long as he has the regard of the great BHL.

But those poll numbers are astonishingly dismal. Hollande has actually had the distinction of being named the worst politician in the world!

That can't possibly be fair... have those pollsters not heard of Stephen Harper? Or Bobby Mugabe?

Nevertheless, it is now estimated that if an election were held in the near future, both Le Pen and Sarkozy would make mincemeat of the hapless Hollande.

Be that as it may, the Conqueror has moved on from his rout of the evil-doers in Africa. Yes, there are still some loose ends to tie up, but by and large, African resources in the CAR and Mali have been made safe for democracy.

Thankfully, that has freed up the resources of the Republic to bring peace and freedom and democracy to Iraq yet again, as if they haven't had enough already.

No doubt Hollande is hoping for a bump in his polling numbers from this bold new venture.

Fat chance.

Does he not realize that there are more Arab immigrants in France than in any other of the Nations of Virtue?

He thinks bombing their homelands will make him more popular?

He really has been suckling at the BHL teat for much too long...

The only news event that has ever bumped Hollande's polling numbers was when he was caught out bumping that actress back in the spring.

Perhaps those invasions between the sheets are what Hollande does best. Forget the spurs, François, and for God's sake, stop listening to that imbecile BHL!

Angelina Jolie tries on "public intellectual" cap

Move over BHL; Hollywood star Angelina Jolie is going to give you a run in the unctuous public moralizer sweeps.

France's most grating gift to public discourse, the man who single-handedly toppled Libyan strong-man Gaddafi (see the Oaf of Tobruk), now has some competition in the realm of world-class pontification by persons with no clue as to what they're talking about.

Mind you, a three-day get-together in London by a few thousand government-funded "civil society" types, to discuss "ending rape in war and conflict" does sound like a do-gooders wet dream.

After all, who could possibly be against ending rape in war and conflict?

And the fact that Angelina co-chaired this shindig with British Foreign Secretary Willy Hague attests to the import this issue has in the halls of power...

Or not.

While Hague was waxing wise in London, the country that Britain and the US "liberated" in 2003 was being over-run by Islamic fundamentalists. As Foreign Secretary, a skeptic might suggest he's had bigger balls to keep his eye on than the noble but tragically whimsical quest to eliminate rape during war and conflict.

While I hate to be the party-pooper, I can tell you right now, no fancy London con-fab required, when rape will be eliminated from war and conflict.

Rape will be eliminated from war and conflict when war and conflict are eliminated.

In the meantime, the do-gooders could focus on doing something about eliminating rape in the college dorms of their home towns.

France liberates Mali again

Hollande's liberation merry-go-round in Mali is still spinning.

You will recall that France drove the terrorists out of Mali last January.

Then they drove the terrorists out again in February.

Several times since they have liberated the country from the same terrorists, and today they announced a "major" operation to, what else, drive out the terrorists!

At the time of the original French assault on the terrorists, Hollande's spiritual guide and main military adviser BHL proclaimed that Hollande was "earning his spurs".

Those spurs are as elusive as the terrorists.

Heady days for the Oaf of Tobruk

Or "le twat," as he is known in France.

If you're at all acquainted with the folks at the so-called "Foreign Policy Initiative" you'll realize that "le twat" is in good company, namely the company of the same blood-thirsty gang of dipshits who couldn't get Bush Jr. into Iraq soon enough back when they called themselves the Project for a New American Century.

BHL is still chuffed by his glorious rout of the forces of darkness in Libya, and all things considered, finding the disco dandy's name on the list of the usual suspects prescribing more war for America should not come as a surprise.

What should be a surprise is that the man retains any credibility anywhere on the media spectrum. From the disaster that is Libya to the disaster that is Mali to the fact that Francios Hollande still doesn't have his spurs, how is it possible that any serious person cares what imbecilities tumble from the lips of the aging buffoon?

Hollande declares Euro-crisis over!

Which came as startling news to 350 million Europeans!

Hollande made his declaration during a visit to Japan.  Assured by his top advisers that the Japanese did not have access to the internet, and that no one in Japan could read the English/French/German newspapers, he went out on a limb thinking he might be able to slip this whopper past his hosts.

This is but the latest example of the French President's inner circle giving him a bum steer. It was the court philosopher BHL who convinced the naive waif Hollande that invading Mali would be a good move.

Hollande fully believed he would "earn his spurs," as the persuasive Levy so seductively put it.

Not only did he fail to win any spurs, now he cannot figure out how to get out of Mali!

Nor does he have any clue how to turn around an economy that continues to shed jobs and accumulate debt. He remains totally befuddled about how to escape Merkel's austerity enema when in reality it would take merely two words; nein danke.

But it might do him good to visit a sovereign nation that doesn't do austerity and doesn't take orders from Merkel. If such independence is possible for Japan, perhaps it is possible for France too.

The fruits of freedom; a million people died so Psy could make "Gangnam Style?"

While they may not be held in quite the esteem as a bona fide European intellectual like BHL, you have to admit that some of those Harper cabinet types punch well above their weight, intellectually speaking.

Just last week we were treated to the insight that "the root cause of terrorism is terrorists."

Who knew?

The Harper gang is bent on remaking Canada as a "warrior nation," as opposed to the worrier nation we widely see ourselves as. To this end, many press releases have been issued and many millions of tax dollars spent glorifying Canada's contribution to any war that Canada, or any pre-confederation colonies, have ever contributed to.

Veteran's Affairs Minister Steve Blaney recently visited South Korea to celebrate the fact that Canadians punched above their weight in that conflict. Indeed, over 500 Canadians died in that war, or .05% of all deaths.

Yes, that would seem a modest contribution, but the Harper gang sets the bar quite low when invoking the "punching above our weight" metaphor.

Regardless of the scope of our contribution, it's good to know that it wasn't for naught; Blaney has informed us that without the struggle and sacrifice of the Korean war, the world would not have been blessed with the Psy pop-hit, "Gangnam Style" sixty years on.

Proving once again that while Canada's contribution to global conflicts has been mercifully modest, when it comes to bombastic rhetoric about that contribution, the Harper gang unequivocally punches above their weight.

No spurs yet, but a camel for Hollande

The biggest news story out of Mali in the past week was that the grateful dark people have presented Hollande with a new camel.

This is to replace the last camel that the grateful dark people presented to Hollande, which was unfortunately eaten by the (obviously hungry) dark people entrusted with its care.

Dark people will do that.

But where are the spurs?

When Hollande launched this ill-advised adventure, the unctuous imbecile BHL was crowing about Hollande's remake as a man of action. Hollande was "earning his spurs."

That struck me as fatuous nonsense then, and it remains fatuous nonsense.

Hollande's poll numbers at home are plummeting. In Mali they eat his camel. His allies have abandoned him. His stretched-too-thin boots on the African ground keep liberating the same towns over and over again.

And all the while his treasury bleeds red ink.

At least he has a new camel for consolation.

Hollande all alone in Mali after Chad Pres declares "mission accomplished"

Francois Hollande, aka "the Conqueror," aka "the Crusader," is finding things getting a little lonely in "Operation Spurs for Hollande."

France's only ally in the ill-advised (well, BHL advised it, so I'm sure at some level it must have been a stroke of genius) Mali adventure has served notice that the Chadians are outta there. Yup, President Idriss Deby may be black, but he's not stupid and he's not consumed with hallucinations of restoring past glory to his nation.

Unlike Hollande and his top military adviser Bernard-Henri Levy.

So now the French are good and stuck...

Look for AFRICOM to ride to the rescue real soon!

French forces liberate Timbuktu again

Here we go again.

Even though the forces of Hollande the Conqueror liberated Timbuktu back in January, they are liberating it again today.

Nevermind "Operation Spurs for Hollande," this is doomed to be deemed the war of everlasting re-liberation.

(doomed to be deemed? that's a good one! Wonder if that combination has ever been assembled before? Perhaps I have a claim on originality after all?)

What's noteworthy about this French initiative is that it marks a very self-conscious descent into self-parody by the Nations of Virtue. That is as it should be from the folks who brought you Paul de Mann and Jacques Derrida.

To say nothing of the media-savvy twat lurking in the background of every French headline. You know who I'm talking about.

So does he.

Which raises an interesting question. Do the forces of Hollande the Crusader even know that they are repeating history as self-parody?

Or will they chase the invisible forces of evil round and round forever, with an occasional inspirational essay from the great BHL every second or third lap to keep up the morale of the troops, and if not the troops, at least of the imbeciles who keep the troops going round and round?

Socialists need secret Swiss bank accounts too!

I detect a double standard here.

For generations it has been considered the conventional order of things that any self-respecting member of the French bourgeoisie, whether from the left or the right, the far left or the far right, or anywhere in between, has at least one mistress and one secret Swiss bank account.

"Ce la vies," as the French would say, which roughly translated means "so what?"

Well, poor Hollande the would-be "crusader" just lost his Finance Minister due to some trumped up scandal that wouldn't even be a scandal if everybody wasn't so utterly sick to death of the hapless Hollande.

Big in Mali, a bust in France, that's how Hollande's brief turn in the limelight has turned out so far. Jerome Cahuzac is just the latest victim of the anti-Hollande crusade being orchestrated by the three disgruntled Frenchmen subject to the 75% tax recently imposed on super-high earners.

What's really got the folks pissed is Hollande's headlong rush into the Malian fiasco. While heartily lauded by supposed left-wing philosopher-heavyweight and all-round buffoon BHL, the hasty intervention has thus far succeeded in draining the French treasury of many millions and getting a dozen French troops killed, all in the name of some imbecilic notion of colonial greatness.

Latest word from the UN is that at least 11,000 "peace-keepers" will be required to contain the mess that the French have stirred up. Number of troops offered for this mission thus far?

Zero.

In fact, the French are still resolutely waiting for most of their African allies to field troops for the now-almost-over intervention, let alone the peace-keeping mission that will allow the French to go home.

Mind you, given the number of times the city of Gao has been liberated in the past three months, it's not hard to see why putative allies might be getting cold feet.

Looks like you're on your own, Mr. Hollande... and good luck!

Oaf of Cannes makes posthumous attack on Hugo Chavez

Bernard-Henri Levy is an unctuous twat.

How he continues to be presented as a "leftist philosopher" in the mainstream media I do not understand.

But rightists and further rightists and fascists of every stripe will love his latest rant.

Hugo Chavez was a Jew-hating union-baiting woman-abusing dictator-loving monster.

This from the guy who takes credit for almost single-handedly bringing freedom and democracy to Libya.

Did Chavez wreck Venezuela's economy? Not according to the vast swaths of the populace lifted out of poverty during his tenure. But apparently that is not good enough for the leftist philosopher.

Chavez hob-nobbed with "dictators who have blood on their hands."

Is this in some way a more egregious violation of BHL's imaginary ethical code than hob-nobbing with democratically elected leaders with blood on their hands?

If the issue is "blood on the hands" we must question Levy's infatuation with those democratically elected tyrants he is so comfortable with.

Perhaps their saving grace is that they govern for the benefit of "the economy," rather than for the benefit of the poor.

France trapped in Mali quagmire after four days

Monsieur President can scarcely have had time to savor the adulation that came his way as he decisively established himself the bold and fearless leader he always believed he could be.

Four days into his operation to rid Mali of "Islamic terrorists" several facts have made themselves obvious.

The advisers who led Hollande the Conqueror to believe that the adversary would fade into the desert after a few days of bombing are imbeciles.

The delusion that this adventure would be over in a week was just that; delusional.

Many more thousands of boots will be required on the ground if the Islamists are to be routed in a land operation.

The lofty goals he has declared for a stable, democratic and Western-friendly Mali ensure that France will eventually have to concede defeat or be prepared to occupy the country indefinitely.

All of which facts were readily discernible to every moderately well-informed observer months ago.

Was the man so obsessed with "earning his spurs" that he chose to forge ahead regardless?

Mali; the terror threat on France's doorstep

Although the distance from Paris to Bamako is approximately 6,000 kilometers, the French President claims that the Islamist groups in the Malian desert represent an imminent threat not only to France, but to Europe and indeed, the entire word.

Mali is the "doorstep" of France.

The French public has thus far rewarded this idiocy with approval ratings of over 60 pct.

It was also France that initiated the bombing of Libya almost two years ago, in that instance not to save the French from a terror threat on their doorstep but to save the Libyans from themselves. That exercise has been uncritically assumed a success and it is only in the past couple of days that some major media outlets have explicitly drawn the linkages between the destruction of Libya and what has transpired in Mali since.

Once again the French, this time led by a different aspiring Napoleon, rush into a war that is unnecessary and poorly thought out. What are the ramifications for neighboring countries when the Malian insurgency spreads over their borders as surely it will? Where will France and the other Nations of Virtue be bombing in six months or a year to extinguish the fires they are in the process of lighting now?

All this so Hollande the Conqueror can prove to his critics that he is a decisive and fearless leader.

He has "earned his spurs..."  What rubbish!

Hollande the Conqueror has "earned his spurs" - Bernard-Henri Levy

That's the foolishness  emanating from the greatest French philosopher who ever walked the earth, the great BHL, the man who is so great that he is universally recognized just by his initials alone.

Did I mention that the man considers himself great? A "celebrity philosopher," no less.

This is the supposedly liberal humanist philosopher who couldn't get the Nations of Virtue bombing Libya soon enough.

The same humanist who has been bitterly disappointed that those same nations failed to heed his advice to apply the Libya blueprint to Syria.

But in this topsy-turvy world of war-mongering liberals, there is also a voice of reason. In a profound irony it happens to come from the right wing of the political spectrum.

You will remember Dominique de Villepen as the Foreign Minister who spoke against the Iraq war. He is speaking out now against this disasterous course France has embarked on in Africa.

Unfortunately the country at large seems for the moment to be swept with war fever.