"Pas de migrants dans nos villages!"

Here's a little photo essay -- two pix that tell a story that politically correct politicians refuse to hear.

French villagers are protesting the arrival of migrants who are being dispersed around the country as the government shuts down the slum-like camp in Calais that has become a flashpoint in Europe's migrant crisis.

Yesterday, the mayor of Pierrefeu -- a village in southeastern France -- led several hundred people [Possibly the majority of local residents, from the looks of it! Ed.] into the street to protest a proposal of the socialist government of (((François Hollande))) to house "migrants" (read: "refugees") in an abandoned wing of a psychiatric hospital while they apply for asylum or study other options, such as figuring out how to get to Britain or Germany.

The banner reads "Pierrefeu says no to the creation of a reception centre for migrants". Another banner says simply "Pas de migrants dans nos villages!", which Walt thinks needs no translation.

Why do the good burghers of Pierrefeu (and every other village, town and city in France) feel that way? Take a look at this.

This is a picture -- not the worst one to be revealed by a simple Google search -- of the "migrant" camp in Calais, just across the English Channel from Old Blighty. President Hollande has promised that this camp will be dismantled by the end of this year. But the asylum-seekers have to go somewhere, so spread them around France like Nutella on a baguette and hope that they won't be so noticeable and so unwelcome. Unfortunately for M le Président, his people noticed!

End of photo essay.

UPDATED: MS804, another MH370?

This is developing news, so I'll update this post tonight or tomorrow, but want to put out a first thought.

AP reports that an EgyptAir Airbus 320, operating flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo with 66 pax and crew on board, crashed in the Mediterranean early this morning. French President François Hollande told the mdia, "Unfortunately the information we have...confirms to us that the plane came down and is lost. No hypothesis can be ruled out, nor can any be favoured over another."

Egypt's Civil Aviation Minister, Sherif Fathy, takes a different position. While not yet confirming that the plane crashed, he said that the possibility of a terror attack as the cause of the plane's disappearance from the radar screens is "stronger" than a technical failure.

Here's what we know so far. Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said the plane was about 10 to 15 miles inside Egyptian airspaqce when it made two abrupt turns and suddenly lost altitude before disappearing from radar. "It turned 90 degrees left and then a 360-degree turn toward the right, dropping from 38,000 to 15,000 feet and then it was lost at about 10,000 feet."

Haven't we seen this movie before, just over two years ago? Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was heading northeast towards Beijing when it abruptly made a 90-degree turn to the west-northwest, then (according to the searchers' hypothesis), made a further turn towards the southwest and disappeared into the Indian Ocean somewhere off the west coast of Australia.

Regular readers of WWW will know that Walt does not agree with the theory that MH370, whether controlled or uncontrolled, slowly flew into the sea. But supposing the "experts" are correct, that's what seems to have happened to MS804. The search for wreckage is under way. Stay tuned.

UPDATED at 1225. A couple of lifejackets and some other debris has been found off the coast of the Greek island of Crete. Given that Crete is some distance north of the last known location of MS804, Walt thinks it's more likely this junk came from boats carrying "refugees". More later.

War begets terrorism begets war begets terrorism... etc

Note from Ed.: Walt began this piece around lunchtime yesterday, then got distracted by the terrorist attack -- for that's what it was -- in California. I asked him to get up early today and finish this, by which time the connection between these thoughts and the San Bernardino massacre should be clear. And so it is.

Three announcements were made today [Wednesday] in Washington, Ottawa and London, all connected more or less directly with the jihadist attacks in Paris. French President François Hollande has declared that his country is at war with ISIS, and has urged his NATO allies to do more to help.

In Washington, it was announced that the Paranoid States of America would be sending a few dozen more "advisers" to help the good guys fighting ISIS in Syria. Their problem, of course, will be identifying the good guys -- separating the sheep from the goats, as it were. Nevertheless, dozens of American troops will be on the ground in Syria within a few days. Then hundreds. Then thousands. (Walt's lifetime pct .985)

In Ottawa, Rona Ambrose, the fragrant new (interim) leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, has urged Canada's hot new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, to reverse his decision to withdraw Canada's CF-18 fighter-bombers -- all six (6) of them -- from the mission against ISIS in Syria. Ms Ambrose told her caucus that there are times when you have to "go out to meet the enemy".

In London, British Prime Minister David Cameron won (on the second try) the support of the House of Commons for Britain to join the "coalition". This was after an intense debate of over ten hours, just before which Mr. Cameron is said to have accused those who didn't support British intervention in Syria of being "terrorist sympathizers".

So... the terrorist attacks in Paris lead to an increase in the West's involvement in the Muslim civil war in the Middle East. The Arabs, unsurprisingly, aren't altogether pleased to have the "crusaders" "helping out", while dropping death from the air on thousands of innocent civilians and generally laying waste to the already barren countryside.

Some of the militant Islamists are so displeased that they decide to go and meet their enemies -- that would be US -- on their (OUR) soil -- Madrid, London, Paris... or San Bernardino. And so the wheel of death turns, becoming ever more vicious, ever more unstoppable.

In A War Against Truth: An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq (Raincoast Books 2004), Paul William Roberts writes: If our response to terrorism is merely to terrorize other people in return, we are not in fact fighting terrorism at all, we are creating yet more terrorism for the future.

In 1997, the American Defense Science Board reported that "historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States." Given that "involvement" is a standard euphemism for covert or overt military intervention, what you have there is the real explanation for terrorist acts.

Indeed. That brings us to what happened in San Bernardino, which is my topic for the next post.

Hellery Clinton denies ISIS connection with radical Islam

Rex Murphy is one of Walt's favourite Canuck pundits. Whether he sticks his tongue firmly in his cheek on CBC-TV's The National, or dips his pen in vitriol for a piece in the National Post, he invariably says/writes comments that are often contrarian, but always sensible.

Today, in a piece headlined "Hillary's Hypocrisy", in the Post, Rex -- I always think of him as "my old friend Rex" -- marvels at the Crown Princess's stubborn refusal to admit that ISIS is an organization of Islamic terrorists. They say so themselves, but Hellery and her erstwhile boss and (she hopes) predecessor in the Oval Office, can't bring themselves to call a Muslim a Muslim. Here (only slightly edited) is what Rex thinks.

A Euclidean axiom in the new geometry of gender and progressive thought is that names -- what people are called, and what they themselves wish to be called -- matter greatly. So if [Bruce] Jenner says "Call me Caitlyn," Hillary will not oppose the right-thinking baptism.

However, on another naming subject -- one possibly of more import and global consequence than Jenner’s choice of restroom -- that of ISIL and radical Islam, Clinton appears to hold an opposite view. ISIL just completed a killing and wounding rampage in Paris. It went about its murderous fling with the usual chants of radical Islam, hurling “Allah Akbar” at its victims -- some, dear Lord, in wheelchairs. ISIL is of course Islamic, and it is radical by any definition of that weary word. The president of France, François Hollande, declared war on radical Islam in the wake of its multiple ambushes on Paris’ defenceless citizens. He recognizes it for what it says it is -- radical, Islamic and terroristic.

Yet in a debate on this very subject, Clinton refused to utter the phrase "radical Islam", pushed vigorously against the idea of naming Islamic terror for what it is, even though ISIL itself wears its radical Islamist motivations, goals and methods with arrogant pride.

On Jenner’s right to call herself what she wants, Clinton is on board. On a fanatic organization brutalizing the Middle East and exporting terror to the capitals of the world, she declines.

She is one with US President Barack Obama on this -- they steadfastly refuse to call our enemies by their name. In other words, when it comes to words and concepts that correspond to unalterable reality, she will deny words their meaning to the point of refusing to say them. But on matters that Glamour magazine takes seriously, on which DNA itself has spoken, Clinton is one with all the buzz factories of trendy thought.

She was, it must be noted, for four years the secretary of state of the most powerful country on Earth, and now wishes to be its president. Heaven help us.

TEASER: I left out the preamble in which Rex quotes Germaine Greer on the subject of "Ms" Jenner's self-identification as a female. I don't want the NP to sue me for copyright infringement! I don't think they'll complain, though, when I suggest strongly that you click on the link to read the entire column, including Ms Greer's pithy comments.

How about we fight back?!

Just the facts...

As of this morning, 127 people are confirmed dead in the wave of terrorist bombings across Paris yesterday. They were, almost without exception, non-Muslims.

8 of the killers are dead -- 7 who blew themselves up (suicide bombers) and 1 "neutralized" by French police. They were all Muslims -- Islamic terrorists, jihadists, whatever term you like -- determined to slaughter as many non-Muslims as possible before going to the Paradise promised by the Prophet Mohammed.

Interviewed by the CBC, a "security expert", John Thompson, suggested that some of the terrorists might have entered France "mixed in" with the 1000s of "refugees" from Syria and elsewhere whom the French government has welcomed into the country. A Syrian passport was found amid the body parts of one of the suicide bombers.

ISIS has claimed credit for the biggest attack on Paris and the French people since World War II. All the bleeding-heart liberal media types and politicians who kept telling us that it was too early to be sure who was responsible, we mustn't jump to conclusions, beware of Islamophobia, yada yada yada, were wrong, and IMHO deliberately so.

From the very first report, I knew who did it. So did you, dear reader. Everybody knew it, except those who refuse to face the facts. The Paris killings are yet another attack in the Muslim war against the rest of us. French President François Hollande even called it an "act of war". But it is more than "war". What the Islamists are waging is jihad -- so-called "holy war".

The question is: when and how are we going to fight back? I can't answer the "when", but I think if we were smart -- a doubtful proposition -- we would begin by ceasing immediately the suicidal stupidity of admitting to our countries aliens who threaten our security and our culture. Will we do it? Is the Pope Catholic? (Answer to both questions -- NO!)

Today the Senate, tomorrow the Élysée Palace!

This is the Le Palais de l'Élysée, the residence of the presidents of France. Quite an impressive pile, isn't it? More so than the White House, although I'll give you the latter's better lawns.

The Élysée palace is currently -- and temporarily -- occupied by one François Hollande, the most unpopular French president of modern times. But all that could change with the next presidential election, due in 1917. Walt is sending a tape measure (so she can measure windows for new drapes) to Marine Le Pen, leader of France's rightist Front National (= National Front) party.

Supporters of the FN were mightily encouraged this weekend, when the party won its first two seats in the French Senate, in what Mme Le Pen described as a "historic victory... beyond what we hoped for."

Half of the Senate's seats are elected by regional officials across the country every three years. Final results today are expected to confirm control of the Senate passing to conservative parties such as the UMP and UDI, and the ultra-conservative Front National. They are expected to share a majority of 10 or 20 seats in the 348-seat chamber.

The win comes on the heels of a strong showing by the FN and other Eurosceptic and right-wing parties in May's elections to the European Parliament.

Stéphane Ravier, one of the two newly-elected FN senators exulted, "There is only one door left for us to push and it is that of the Élysée." Vive le Front!

Further reading on WWW: "The next president of France? Could be!"

The next president of France? Could be!

Manuel Valls is the Socialist Prime Minister of France. He is lying awake nights, worrying about the increasingly certain prospect of this lady -- Marine Le Pen -- becoming France's next president. Recent opinion polls suggest that Mme Le Pen will easily make the run-off in the presidential elections scheduled for 2017. And, if she is opposed by the feckless and unpopular François Hollande, she'd be virtually guaranteed to win!

At the top of the list of issues which could well put Mme Le Pen's rightist Front National into power is immigration, of which the French have had entirely too much, if you ask Monsieur Untel. [That's French for "Mr. Someone" or "Mr. Anonymous". Ed.] Just last week, 1000s of disgruntled Frenchpersons rallied in Calais to demand that the port city be "saved" from the large numbers of migrants who have arrived there in recent months.

Why are all those Afghans, Pakistanis, North Africans and so on flocking to Calais? Easy. They're really trying to get to No-longer-great Britain -- just across the Channel -- where welfare and social benefits are perceived to be even more generous than those of France. If they can just get on the ferry to Dover, they reckon, no-one's going to stop them settling in Old Blighty... unless the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) gets into power, which is not bloody likely.

Getting back to M Valls... he warned a group of fellow left-wingers in Bologna, Italy [Bologna, indeed. Ed.] that "In France, the extreme right of Marine Le Pen is at the gates of power. We have to act differently. We have to speak differently. In order to be listened to and to be heard."

In other words, the lefties would have to abandon the experiments in wealth redistribution and social engineering that have made France and many other countries of Europe a haven and a heaven for those who think the world -- the rich, white world -- owes them a living. If Europe closes its doors to third world migrants, where will they go then? There'll be no place left except, errr, North America.

Against Islamization, the French send in La Marine!

If Pauline Marois were honest [What? An honest politician?! Ed.], she'd admit that the appeal of the Charter of Québec Values to the pure laine Québecois -- outside of Montréal's West Island -- is its promise to put a brake on the Islamization of la Belle Province.

If enacted (as now seems doubtful) it would proscribe the wearing of religious headgear and other symbols. That would include the Sikhs' turbans and the Jews' kippas, but the main target would appear to be the hijab/niqab/burqa worn by Muslim women. (See "Hijab, niqab, burqa -- what's the difference?" -- one of Walt's most-read posts.)

Although it's not politically correct to say so, les Québecois are sick, sore and tired of accommodating themselves and their distinct society to the foreign beliefs and practices being imported into their province by the tidal wave of Muslim refugees and immigrants who live large off benefits provided by the state, but refuse to integrate themselves into the host society.

The people of Québec are not alone in their resentment of Islamization and forced multiculturalism. Walt suspects that the majority of Canadians (outside of Toronto and Vancouver) would support some changes to the Canadian Charter of Rights to give a few rights to the majority, for a change. And the citizens of France -- the cradle of liberty, equality and fraternity -- have just given a ringing endorsement to the policies of Marine Le Pen's Front National (= National Front) which advocates controlling imports of foreign goods, leaving the Eurozone, dismantling the European Union, and -- especially -- stopping immigration. Completely.

In local elections held in March, the FN stunned France by winning several significant mayoralties. Pundits now predict that Mme Le Pen may match the achievement of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, by getting into the second round of France's presidential election due in 2017.

What's the secret of Marine Le Pen's success? According to The Economist, a large segment of the electorate -- especially the native French working class -- is taken with her frankness, and the way she "attacks politicians from the mainstream parties as an out-of-touch metropolitan elite with no notion of how to reverse their country's economic, political and cultural decline." [My emphasis. Walt]

Of course this has the socialists and secular humanists who run France (Allo, M Hollande!) and the lamestream media all bent out of shape. In the same editorial, The Economist whines that the FN "offers only a nasty and negative set of policies suffused with xenophobic, anti-Muslim and illiberal instincts." Maybe so, but those "instincts" would seem to accord perfectly with those of the majority of the French people.

There's a lesson there -- even The Economist admits it -- for the leaders of the ABC countries (America, Britain and Canada), who should realize that "populist parties are on the march across Europe"!

With the proposed Charter of Québec Values, the Parti Québecois seemed to have learned from the example of France. But then Mme Marois introduced issues of separation from Canada and economic management, which did not play so well in the Saguenay. Now the PQ is going to lose. (Lifetime pct .987)

What lessons do we learn from this, boys and girls? The Economist warns that "if Europe's leaders cannot reconnect with their citizens, Ms Le Pen's success will be just the start". Indeed. If you want to get elected or re-elected, don't listen to the lamestream media and the metropolitan elites -- listen to the people!

Further reading: If you read French and are opposed to the New World Order, check out Le citoyen engagé - Portail de l'éveil citoyen contre le NOM.

Pray for Syria?

Pope Francis has asked us -- Catholics and non-Catholics alike [What about the atheists? Ed.] -- to pray on Saturday for an end to the war in Syria. That's the flavour of the month, it seems. There will be talk of little else behind the scenes at the G20 summit, which by happenstance is about to get under way in Moscow.

Amongst the world "leaders" present at the G20 will be Hussein Obama, the alleged president of the US of A. Perhaps we should pray that the Prez will be unwilling or unable to make good on his sabre-rattling, or airstrike-rattling if you will. He has just been authorized so to do by a vote of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But that won't mean anything if the full Senate votes otherwise next week. And then there's the House. Don't hold your breath waiting for anything to happen.

But even if America hits Assad hard, as this week's Economist recommends, will that end the civil war? Does peace come out of the barrel of a gun or a rocket launcher? Did intervention work in Iraq? In Afghanistan? In Libya? The Pope's day (or moment) of prayer might prove more efficacious... not that I'd bet on it.

[Ed. here. Len is not a betting man, but I am. In addition to praying for peace in Syria, I'm going to pray that I hit the trifecta three races in a row. I figure that prayer has a better chance of being answered.]

OK, that's quite enough. Let's not make light of this. According to the UN, 2 million refugees have been displaced by the war in Syria. 1000s of innocent people have died. It won't hurt for us to pray for peace, and it might help.

Mind you, it would help even more if the Pope would do what Our Lady of Fatima requested, and consecrate Russia (by name) to Her Immaculate Heart. After all, there are those, including Obama, who see Russia as the stumbling block to making peace in the Middle East. Perhaps the Consecration of Russia really is Heaven's key to peace, as the "Fatimists" keep telling us.

And it's not just Syria that stands in the need of prayer. Spare a thought for the Central African Republic. "Wat's dat?", I hear you ask. Behold the map.

It's a dungheap, not long ago called the Central African "Empire", more or less in the middle of Africa, just north of the Heart of Darkness that is the Congo.

There's a civil war going on there too. A million refugees are fleeing into the neighbouring dungheaps or other parts of their own country, running from mostly Muslim insurgents who are looting, pillaging and raping as they descend on the more-or-less Christian south.

The war in the CAR has been little noted and less discussed or prayed about. French Président François Hollande said the country is facing "Somalisation", by which he means it is becoming yet another African failed state.

But are the French about to intervene? Non! They just got through cleaning up a similar mess in Mali and have had enough of the Dark Continent. They would rather bask in the reflected glory that will accrue to the USA when Assad is toppled and peace returns to Syria. Just as happened when Gaddafi was toppled and peace and democracy were restored in Libya.

Well... Len is certainly not going to be the one to disparage the Pope's call for prayers for peace. The Holy Father's intentions are good, I'm sure. The intentions of Messrs Obama, Putin and the rest are another matter. God only knows.

How long will we stay in Afrighanistan?

So it has begun. The French have invaded Mali, the Americans are supporting them (kind of) and the Canadians are helping (a bit). Here's a roundup of facts and opinions as of this morning.

First, the Canadians. As reported in WWW a few days ago, the Canucks generously sent one (1) C-17 Globemaster to do a bit of the heavy lifting, literally. They committed the jumbo transport for one (1) week, which was to have ended Wednesday. (Canadians take loooong weekends.)

The usual gang of "progressive thinkers", led by ex-diplomat and former al-Qaeda hostage Robert Fowler, suggested that a week wasn't enough time to flatten even a bunch of sand naggers.

Canadian PM Steve Harper and his bumboys, Nancy Baird and Peter Machackey, are always ready for a scrap, as long as it's in defence of Israel. But defending the government of Mali is something else. Or at least it was until French President François Hollande cried "Shame, shame, al-Qaeda knows your name."

That moved Mr. Harpoon to extend the mission, not by sending another plane but by saying the C-17 would stay another three weeks. French applause was reportedly muted.

We turn now to today's opinion piece by Walt's old chum, Gwynne Dyer. Mr. Dyer know a lot about international politics, and has the courage to write the truth as he sees it, even when it goes against conventional wisdom and the party line. His peace-mongering political incorrectness has gotten him banned from a slew of papers in America and, err, Israel, but Google his name and you'll find lots of links to his columns.

Today, Mr. Dyer suggests the "Mali war could end up like [the] Afghan conflict"  . Indeed.

Mr. Dyer tells us that the French prefer to draw analogies with Libya, rather than Afghanistan, since Libya was something of a success. The term is relative. What about the Benghazi "incident", still being downplayed by Hellery Clinton? And what about the British, just this week, ordering their nationals to leave Libya because of a "real and imminent" threat? But I digress...

The journalist points out the serious dissimilarities between Libya and Mali. First, in Libya, the French and British and their less-than-willing allies were supporting the rebels. In Mali, they are propping up a military government which came to power in a coup just last year. That government, composed as it is of black people from the southern part of the country, is like most other sub-Saharan African governments -- ignorant, incompetent and corrupt.

Moreover, the rebels -- mostly Tuaregs and other quasi-Arabic people from the north -- are, if not better organized than the Libyan rebels, certainly better armed. That's because a large chunk of the military aid sent to the Libyan rebels by stupid Westerners mysteriously vanished into the sands of the Sahara, only to reappear this winter in Mali.They're fighting us with our own weapons!

To make matters worse -- if that's possible -- the presence of Mali's army at the front is usually counter-productive (Dyer writes) as it is brutal, militarily incompetent, and prone to panic flight. The other African armies are of variable quality, but it is obviously French troops, and especially French air power, that will decide the outcome of the war.

What we have, then, is a Western-run war in a Muslim country, pretty much the same as what we had in Iraq and still have in Afghanistan.

And who is responsible for the sad state of the so-called Malian army? Step forward, the United States of America! It's not just Gwynne Dyer or Walt who says so. The BBC quotes the US military commander in Africa, General Carter Ham -- previously mentioned in WWW in connection with the Libyan affair -- as saying the Pentagon made mistakes in its training of Malian troops now trying to oust Islamists from the north.

Gen. Ham said American "trainers" had failed to teach Malian troops values and ethics, and had failed to inculcate "a military ethos". "We gave them plenty of tactical training," said the general, "but not enough ethics training."

The general was responding to reports of "abuses" -- meaning rape and pillage -- by Mali government troops taking part in the French-led counter-offensive. Murder too. Human rights groups have accused Malian troops of killing Arabs and ethnic Tuaregs as they advance north.

The reports have caused alarm and no little embarrassment in the West, not to mention the reluctance of Canada and other NATO countries to not involve themselves further in what is -- or should be -- another nasty and dirty little African affair. I haven't heard Ron Paul say "I told you so" yet, but well he might.