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?

Jews joining ISIS?! - get outta here!

If you thought all those youngsters decamping to Berlin is a scandal, get a load of this!

Yup, French Jews joining ISIS, the Islamic State... who can even imagine such a thing?

Well, some official in the Hollande regime, apparently. I knew those people were incompetent beyond belief, but to drive Jews into the arms of Islamic State?

Then again, maybe those conspiracy theorists were right all along... ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State has always been a Zionist plot...

Oh my golly... this gets way too complicated for me... I think I'll stick to tending my garden.

The very moment Poroshenko loses all hope for a NATO intervention, France cancels warship contract

That was an odd bit of political sleight of hand, wasn't it?

After playing the "we are being invaded by Russia" card again and again, with absolutely no credible evidence emerging to support the claim, and not one iota of Western support, beyond the strictly rhetorical (see the Harper, Baird, Tusk file) on the horizon, Poroshenko decides a peace plan might be a good idea.

Even corn-fed hillbillies up here in the Bruce knew from the beginning that nobody was going to war over Ukraine.

But NATO knows back-room arm-twisting like nobody else. The weakest link at the moment is lame-duck Hollande, whose poll ratings have dived so low that a syphilitic Parisienne prostitute could easily oust him in the next election.

Just when Poroshenko, a NATO stooge through and through, is ready to make peace with Putin, we get the lamest of lame Euro-pols throwing a spanner in the works by announcing the cancellation of that multi-billion warship contract.

Both Poroshenko and Hollande have just sealed their fate. They are men of the past.

Leaders of the future will join Putin in forging relationships that are mutually beneficial for the people of all countries concerned, instead of pursuing policies for the benefit of Monsanto and the fracking lobby.

Hollande the Conqueror now Hollande the Loser

Remember the glory days?

Those glory days when no less an authority than BHL announced to the world that Hollande had earned his spurs?..

Was that in Mali?.. Libya?.. Central African Republic?..

As usual, it is proven yet again that BHL is FOS.

Full Of Shit.

Not that this latest debacle will diminish BHL's standing in the intellectual salons of Paris.

France is known world-wide for having the stupidest intellectuals after the US and Canada.

Zimbabwe has a more vibrant intellectual community than France.

BHL wouldn't last five minutes in Zimbabwe without being unmasked as a total fraud...

Anyway, back to the motherland.

While Hollande may be fucked, France is not.

Due to the successes of France's education system, there remain millions of Frenchman who recognize immediately that Merkel's "austerity enema" is not the only option.

They recognize that Hollande's loss is the nation's gain.

Fuck austerity!

Go France!

D-day hijinx shows Putin anything but "isolated"

If anything, today's to-ing and fro-ing in France suggests that the NATO leaders are tripping over themselves trying to get face-time with Putin.

CNN tries to put a pro-NATO spin on things by making it sound like Putin is worried about avoiding another round of sanctions.

Meanwhile, Canadian media, who have been wallowing in adoration for PM Harper for being the most "hawkish" G-7 leader in his over-the-top anti-Russian proclamations, got a sharp slap when Obama abandoned the freeze-out-Putin camp by having a cozy chat with the evil Russian dictator at lunch today.

The isolated Putin also met briefly with the guy western media like to portray as his arch-nemesis,
Petro Poroshenko, president elect of Ukraine, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and dined yesterday with President Hollande of France.

I'd say the only world leader "isolated" is that most hawkish doofuss from Canada.

Hollande gets cold shower in municipal elections

Hollande the Conqueror may be a hero in the CAR and Mali, but he's toxic in France.

The big winners in the municipal elections are allegedly the centre-right main opposition, but read between the lines and it's obvious that the real winners are the once-marginalized National Front.

We've said it before and we'll say it again; once the mainstream left makes itself irrelevant, the fringe right will pick up the pieces.

National Front is long past being on the fringes. The roots of the far right go deep in France. Yes, there is a substantial "silent majority" that will be in denial about that forever, but look at the election results and tell me who is in the ascendancy.

A big part of the reason is that the left cannot seem to come up with viable candidates who capture the imagination of the people. What did Hollande ever have to offer?

Those with even a marginal appreciation for the difference between left and right would have been putting their eggs in the Melenchon basket two years ago.

National Front soars as Hollande dithers

After almost two years at the helm, Hollande has impressed the populace with his non-existent grasp of issues both domestic and overseas.

The early enthusiasm for foreign adventures, as typified by the ever-unctuous BHL claiming that Hollande would "earn his spurs" in Mali, has long faded.

It has so faded that Hollande is now the single most effective recruiting tool for the National Front.

Hang in there Francois, if anyone can bring back Vichy it will be you!

African leaders gather in Paris to discuss "African solutions to African problems"

So why would they be meeting in Paris?

Because they have been summoned by Hollande the Conqueror, liberator of Mali, and saviour of the Central African Republic, who realizes that at this moment in history there are some rather big shoes to fill at the top of Africa's leadership ranks and supposes that he, a white European, might be just the man to fill them.

Besides, the ungrateful French seem more interested in driving his poll numbers ever lower, so he may as well focus his attention where he is appreciated. Africa has historically been considered France's back yard, after all, at least by the French.

Also, there is no city in Africa that has sufficient five-star hotel suites to accommodate forty African leaders and their expansive delegations.

It is only in the last few paragraphs of the linked article that the nitty-gritty of the Elysee summit is addressed; France wants to regain market penetration that has been lost to those Chinese and other interlopers doing business in her back yard.

So much for "African solutions to African problems."

The "credibility" of the USA

I was listening to Senator McCain pontificate on the grave disservice the first black president is doing to the nation by not invading Syria right away.

According to war monger #1, Obama is "undermining the credibility" of the US.

Where in the world does the Senator imagine that America retains any credibility?

The Saudi's have been going behind Uncle Sam's back to pursue their own agenda.

Ditto Qatar and the Gulf gang.

Nobody trusts Obama in the Holy Land.

The Generals in Egypt thumb their nose at America even as they keep taking the billions in aid.

India? Pakistan? China? Does any serious person believe America still has clout over there?

As for Russia, Putin's contempt for Obama is almost palpable, and no wonder.

Everybody in Russia understands who runs Russia.

Everybody in America knows Obama doesn't run America, let alone anything else.

Here is the list of who still believes in America's credibility;

• mainstream news platforms in the NATO states
• Francios Hollande
• the Free Syrian Army

... and two out of three of those are faking their faith.
 

So much stupidity, so little time...

Even though Francis Fukuyama authoritatively declared the final triumph of imbecility twenty-five years ago, it's impossible to open a newspaper without realizing that politicians the world over conduct themselves as though it's still "game-on."

There are at least a dozen stories that demand a good skewering today, and I fear I don't even know where to start.

Over in NATO's weakest link the wily but not-too-bright Erdogan is up a stump of his own making. Anti-Erdogan rioting has spread to multiple cities, and the media want us to believe that these "protests" are about resistance to a shopping mall! The flames are burning so bright that no less a moral arbiter than Noam Chomsky has been provoked to comment.

The protests in Turkey are the result of Erdogan's slow but steady progress down the Sharia highway to Shariaville. Today we ban booze, next week we ban Bon Jovi... it's a slippery slope, mark my words.

Had the glorious victory over the Alawite infidels next door played out the way his NATO betters convinced him it would, much could be forgiven. Alas, the wily-as-Erdogan but substantially brighter Assad refused to follow the script, and we know the rest. Odds are Assad will still be in power long after Erdogan takes a teaching post at Princeton.

Still in the "hoist by his own petard" department, the hapless Hollande has given an interview at France 24 which confirms our worst fears; the man has utterly no clue what he's doing. He wants to eliminate Islamic terrorists from Africa but arm them in Syria.

Makes perfect sense to me...

He'll be on the faculty of an Ivy League university not long after Erdogan.

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 the Conqueror seeks his place in history books

Watch out AFRICOM, those socialist Gauls are outflanking you on the left! American hegemony over Africa is at risk!

Hollande the Conqueror has launched not one but two military forays into the heart of the Dark Continent in the past twenty-four hours.

In Mali Bwana Hollande has unleashed helicopter gunships to push back the evil-doers who threaten to overrun the nation's goldfields from their stronghold in the north of the country. That the coup in Mali and the current troubles there are the direct result of NATO having liberated the Libyan oilfields from the clutches of the evil dictator Gaddafi in 2011 are facts not often commented on in the Nations of Virtue.

Simultaneously at least three French troop helicopters dropped commandos in Bulo Marer, Somalia to free intelligence operative Denis Allex who has been held captive by al Shabab for the past three years. The elite French troops met fierce resistance and sustained an unconfirmed number of casualties before fleeing. At least one French soldier is believed to have been taken captive by al Shabab fighters.

This is the biggest victory for the Shabab in months and is sure to inspire their many sympathizers in Somalia and beyond. There's nothing like a dimwitted military fiasco to boost the morale of the enemy.

Socialists struggle with White Man's Burden

Whatever delusions may have attended the rise of Francois Hollande must be laid to rest by now.

I am referring to our delusions, not his. He appears to have fully embraced the Sarko-BHL delusion of an ascendant France reclaiming her colonial glory. If anything there is more bellicose tub-thumping coming from the Elysee Palace today than a year ago.

With respect to Syria, Hollande  has distinguished himself among the leaders of the Nations of Virtue with his undue haste in embracing the "opposition". To recognize the Syrian National Coalition as the "only legitimate representatives of the Syrian people" at a time when "their" liberation campaign has been thoroughly hijacked by Islamic fundamentalists seems, at the least, reckless and premature.

On a visit to Algeria this week Hollande acknowledged the residual ill will that lingers in that land even fifty years after independence. To make amends he promised them a Renault factory, but behind the scenes he was lobbying hard for Algerian support for France's next adventure in neo-colonialism.

That would be the upcoming re-liberation of Mali. It was a major diplomatic coup for the French to get unanimous Security Council support for their resolution to assemble and train a liberation army that will put the run to the Islamic radicals currently establishing Sharia law in the north of the country.

The French have nominated themselves to take the lead in this adventure, but press reports stress the actual boots on the ground will come from the neighboring ECOWAS nations. As it stands, the plan has several fatal flaws.

First of all, the numbers make no sense whatsoever. A 3,000 strong ECOWAS force might be able to hold Gao and perhaps a handful of smaller centers in the north, but that will hardly impact Ansar Dine and their al Qaeda cohorts, let alone defeat them.

Secondly, the time line is ridiculous. If  the ECOWAS force can be trained, and if  the Malian army can be brought up to a suitable standard, then the earliest intervention date would be in late 2013, almost a year hence. Judging by the success of "training" programs in Iraq and Afghanistan, this expectation in itself will be the kiss of death for the entire operation.

The training issue seems a bit dodgy to begin with. The leader of the coup that overthrew the civilian government is a Colonel in the Malian army who was himself trained in the US, but perhaps the French think they have superior training skills.

A lot can happen in a year. The two most lucrative gold mines in Mali are scheduled to be worked out by the end of 2013. Their closing will take some of the urgency out of the West's call for intervention, and they are located in the south west of the country far from the al Qaeda threat.

The think tank here at Falling Downs has a simpler and wiser solution, one that conforms to the humanitarian ideals of Hollande's Socialist Party. We simply take a page from Hollande's Syria playbook and recognize Ansar Dine as the legitimate representatives of the Malian people!