Sarkozy's political resurrection dead on arrival

Poor Sarko! Maybe now he's run out of gambits to avoid facing up to those pesky allegations of Gaddafi connections that refuse to go away. At least we can hope!

As for the prospects of the French centre-right coming back after the ruinous reign of Hollande the Conqueror, don't hold your breath. Big Media claim that Juppe or Fillon can stave off Le Pen in the next election, but the think tank here at Falling Downs has another angle.

Hollande is a "socialist" in the same vein as Hillary Clinton is a "progressive." That is to say, not really. But the electorate in France has viable options that the US electorate never did when they elected Trump; genuine socialist presidential candidates well to the left of Hollande's pretend socialists.

We shall see.

Speaking of Gaddafi, that paragon of journalistic virtue, The Guardian, has an interesting story about Libya on view at their website today. Lots of juicy tidbits there, like the fact that the cumulative decline in Libya's GDP since we liberated them from their evil dictator has passed $200 billions. That's a lot of green for a nation of five million people to lose!

I found the article interesting in light of the "fake news" contrived controversy that's been swirling about recently. That's where, from what I understand, we the news consuming public must jettison our taste for alternative news sources and rely instead on the steady and reliable Big Media news outlets.

Like The Guardian.

I scoured that Guardian story end to end for some acknowledgement that it was in fact Sarkozy, Blair, and Obama who destroyed the most prosperous nation in Africa.

Nothing!

I did learn, though, that Libya is  "...the country the worst-hit by the political upheaval of the Arab Spring."

You see, it wasn't eight months of relentless bombing by the Nations of Virtue that destroyed Libya. It was the political upheaval of Arab Spring.

Thank God for responsible Mainstream Media!

Five years on, NATO's criminal destruction of Libya still Gaddafi's fault

After all, he forced our hand. Had the Nations of Virtue not dispatched the vile ogre, he'd still be slaughtering his own people in their millions to this day...

At least that's the nonsense professional apologist for Empire Dr. Guma El-Gamaty has on view at Al Jazeera today. He trots out all the usual canards that he's been trotting out for the past five years; the mass rapes, the imminent genocidal massacres that NATO stopped in the nick of time, the claim that "no Western troops set foot on Libyan soil." (A lie that was debunked even as the war was going on.)

Mr. El-Gamaty's sour grapes are understandable. When he became a much-favoured "Libya expert" on mass media back in 2011, he hadn't been to the country in almost thirty years. He was a British academic with no profile whatsoever in Libya, but for a few brief months he seemed destined for great things. The neo-colonialist "liberators" had him pegged for a prominent leadership role in the new era of democracy they were ushering into Libya.

Must have hurt to see his glorious future go up in smoke.

Speaking of going up in smoke, the record shows that the "rebels" were a lot less enthusiastic than what El-Gamaty recalls. I remember news stories about hash-addled rebels keeping their powder (and their hashish) dry while waiting for the NATO big dogs to do the heavy lifting.

The Libyan revolution was a fraud perpetuated by the Nations of Virtue on the people of Libya, who continue to pay the price today. From the highest standard of living in all Africa, free or deeply subsidized housing, health care, and education, to a bankrupt, violence-ridden failed state, only an idiot could continue to claim our liberation of Libya was a positive accomplishment.

Libya continues to enjoy blessings of "Operation Unified Protector"

As you may recall, that was the code name for the eight month long NATO bombing campaign against the infrastructure and government of Libya.

The Nations of Virtue don't actually win many military encounters with those pesky terrorists who insist on resisting their good intentions. That's a fact. But, goddam, do they ever deserve a prize for coming up with bullshit names for their military operations.

Operation Pillar of Bullshit.

Operation Over the Edge.

Operation Valiant Guardian...

But back to Operation Unified Protector.

Canadians were particularly pleased with this operation, because it's simply not every day that they get to drop bombs on a country with no air force or air defenses. Their pride stems in part from the fact that a Canadian was in charge of the NATO air war.

In fact, Ottawa was so chuffed they even minted a new military medal to honour our heroes.

So how are things faring out for the Libyans since we liberated them from their leader...

Not that well, as it turns out. Three years after we dispatched the Monster of the Maghreb to his reward, Libya is disintegrating into complete chaos. Even the virtuous NATO liberators are shutting down their embassies and fleeing the scene of their crime.

Hell, even that sweet Libyan crude we fought so hard to liberate is slipping from our grasp...

Somebody needs to be held to account...

GADDAFI!!!...

Yes, it's all Gaddafi's fault!

Pot-addled blogger predicts Gaza missile crisis AND Libya meltdown three years ago

Told ya so.

OK, so I was wrong about Gaddafi getting to Gaza to play chess...

But plenty of other stuff apparently made it to Gaza.

As for Libya, NATO, aka "the Nations of Virtue," have long since washed their hands of the failed state that they rendered a failed state.

Before NATO's glorious victory over Gaddafi, Libya was the most prosperous country on the African continent by a wide margin.

Gaddafi's subjects enjoyed free or subsidized housing, education, health care, foreign travel... but none of that was good enough in the eyes of the Nations of Virtue.

Because the Monster of the Maghreb was promoting pan-African unity and acting like a pied piper wanting to lead all those black folks out of the US sphere of influence.

No way was Uncle Sam gonna sit still for that...

Why are despots and tyrants not afraid to mingle with their own people?

The picture of Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani out for a hike, and the story behind it, reminds the casual western reader that our enemies have a different sort of relationship to their people than what we have here.

When is the last time an American president casually mingled with fellow hikers on an impromptu excursion into the hills? Not in living memory. Even the most mundane foray into the public sphere by Obama, or Bush or Clinton before him, is a massive security operation.

What's different about the "despots" is that they don't appear to be afraid of their people, whereas in America, the leaders are absolutely paranoid of unscripted spontaneous interactions with citizens.

Just before Saddam went to ground after the US invasion he was seen addressing a cheering and heavily armed mob. He was standing on the roof of a car as he gave them a pep talk. No American president would take that kind of chance.

Same with Gaddafi.  Sure there were people in Libya who didn't like him, but were it not for NATO air power those people would have held their tongues and held their fire indefinitely. The Libyans were a cultured, well educated, well informed people. By and large they knew things could be a lot worse, as subsequent events have shown.

So perhaps the trope of the "hated tyrant" is just that; a propaganda construct designed to placate the few who might ask questions here in our democratic utopias.

Things are not what they seem...

UK PM Cameron sucking up to Algerian terror state

There's a reason Algeria has been spared the dubious blessings of Arab Spring. The Algerian police state is by far harsher with dissidents than any of the so-called strongmen whose passing the West has cheered or facilitated.

Britain of course was gung-ho for clearing Gaddafi out of Libya. And Britain has been among the vanguard in braying for the destruction of the Assad regime in Syria. But here we have the spectacle of Britain's Prime Minister making nice with a regime that has a far more sinister track record than Gaddafi's Libya or Assad's Syria.

The reasons are beyond obvious. Algeria is a major profit center for prominent British corporations. The "B" in BP stands for something after all, and that headline-grabbing hostage incident of a couple weeks ago happened at a BP facility.

So Cameron is schmoozing the Algerians for greater security cooperation. He's not talking about greater security for political dissidents in Algeria obviously! No, he'd be talking about greater security cooperation in protecting British commercial interests.

He's talking to the right people. Those Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb types have more than a passing relationship with the Algerian security apparatus.

You could call it a love-hate relationship.

"Rolling hash joints and relaxing on mattresses"

Alright readers, today's title is a quote. Where are we? Woodstock? Strawberry Fields? At the drive-in movies in the back of your pick-up truck in 1968? Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

Nosiree. We are with our Libyan rebels on the front lines in the battle for Sirte. Last stronghold (except for the other ones) of the Gaddafi Loyalists. The quote appears on The CBS news site in an article by Ryan Lucas.

Seems like after the daily retreat our rebels like to kick back and let the NATO bombers do the heavy lifting. So there they are, rolling hash joints and relaxing on mattresses. No scummy WWI-style trench warfare for our lads. Mattresses. And I'm sure an occasional toke helps to take the edge off on any battlefield.

Nevertheless, this revelation explains a fair bit about our rebels. The stylin' scarves. The designer camouflage gear. The natty shades. Hey, these are guys who like to get stoned and then pose in front of the mirror.

Explains a certain lack of results on the battlefield too. It's hard to get motivated to kill other folks when you've been smoking hash. "Hey Faisal, it's time to attack!"

"What?"

"Let's go, we're attacking!"

"Attacking?.....fuck man..... that was good stuff... attacking where?"

"Dammit Faisal, get off the damn mattress. We're routing Gaddafi's bastards!"

"What?  Again!... OK man, give me a minute. Just wanna twist up another spliff...C'mon Mustafa, this is good stuff. Afghani."

"Oh alright, but hey man, we're gonna get Gaddafi's guys good tomorrow."

I'm thinking this last phase of the liberation of the Libyan oil fields might take a little longer than we expected.
And congratulations to Ryan Lucas for having had the good luck to get embedded with these guys.