Category Archive: Politics

Ivory Coast: French colonialism and UN lies

The first lie is “pro-Ouatara forces captured Gbagbo”. Lets look at the events. On Saturday night and all day Sunday, French attack helicopters fired rockets at the Presidential compound in direct violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1975 which gave a mandate for protecting civilians and not taking sides. Then on Monday morning, as reported by al Jazzeera, a column of thirty French armored vehicles and French special forces moved in on the residence. Fighting lasted the whole day. Now they tell us the Ivorians took Gbagbo.

To further underscore the lie, the video of Gbagbo’s arrest was released by the French! Maybe once the French took the compound they let Ouattara’s thugs in for the camera. Lets not forget that up until Saturday, Ouattara’s troops were being pushed back all over the city. A clear sign of the support Gbagbo has.

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Ivory Coast: France Squirms, the Press fails, Gbagbo resists

Today the head of UN troops in the Ivory Coast, Alain Le Roy, accused loyalist forces of « trickery » because they used a ceasefire “to consolidate their positions” the lapdog press reports.  What the press failed to tell us was that when President Laurent Gbagbo offered a ceasefire on Tuesday, rebels and the French army attacked his residence and that they never accepted the ceasefire in the first place.

 And, HELLO, when you are at war, you consolidate your positions!

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Cote d’Ivoire / Ivory Coast – Lessons in Imperialist hypocracy

“Laurent Gbagbo must understand violence will get him nowhere,” said French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet while French attack helicopters and troops attacked Abidjan.

There is a new Euphemism: “protecting civilians”. This is the catch word used to provide air to ground support to rebels in the Libyan desert and it now used to justify France’s destruction of the Ivorian Army while pro-Ouattara rebels conduct the ground offensive.

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Speech not so Free in France

French courts on Friday, February 18, struck another serious blow at Freedom of Speech in the country when they found conservative reporter and pundit, Eric Zemmour, guilty of “inciting racial hatred”.

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The US Must Reintroduce the Draft

In his 2004 book, Colossus, Niall Ferguson argues the United States is an empire and should assume its rightful place as the inheritor of Britain’s 19th century ‘White Man’s Burden’.  He decries the American schizophrenia of being an empire in denial, sending troops abroad without the intention of staying and being squeamish when GIs die.  Ferguson says we should go, stay and impose our will for world order and to prevent chaos. 

This may seem easy to say for a man comfortable in the Ivory Towers of Oxford and Harvard who never did military service, much less saw the harsh realities of war but he does have a point.  Americans need to back their wars or not fight them and that is why I say we need to bring back the draft.

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French Identity – the Impossible Debate

The French have been asked to debate on what being French is when what they really want to talk about is what being French is not: Muslim.

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Chad: Elections to nowhere

Ndjamena: Dec. 6 – 12, 2009:  Lake Chad is drying up faster then feared and water reserves are dwindling with famine predicted in the north in 2010 due to a short rainy season and over grazing; the 2009 census shows that the population of Chad has doubled in just 15 years although it was widely criticized when the authorities rigged the figures to favor the Muslims of the north to the detriment of the Christians in the south; 80% of the population is illiterate; the war in the east continues — but hey, lets hold elections!

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Sarkozy: a year of hot air and divisive politics

Paris – July 28, 2008 : I suppose if I had to describe this past year I would say it is a bad remake of the sit-com ‘Dallas’ with Sarkozy in the role of J.R. Erwing.  The rich and the beautiful, love and hate, intrigue, anger and insults, everything except the oil and nothing of what a level headed President is supposed to be.

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G-8: the mother of all hypocrisies

Paris – July 10, 2008: Our intrepid leaders just wrapped up the mother of all summits.  They condemned Human Rights abuses in Zimbabwe and in the same breath Bush and Sarkozy announced they will attend the opening of the Olympic Games in China and while prisoners in Guantanamo are still denied US Constitutional rights to a fair trial and Habeas Corpus.

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N’Djamena – the ticking disaster

N’djamena, Chad – June 1 – 8, 2008: The country’s government moved quickly to cover up the scars from the Feb. 2 and 3 fighting when Sudanese backed rebels almost conquered the city if not for President Deby getting a little help from his French friends.  The bullet holes have been repaired and painted over, windows replaced and roads repaired.  Only a few buildings still show signs of the fighting such as the Supreme Court and the Parliament.

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