War is Africa's natural condition. Can we change that?

Since the end of the colonial era, there has always been war in Africa. With one or two exceptions, such as Botswana, you can't point to a map of sub-Saharan Africa without finding a country that has at some point been wracked by riot, revolution, war or even genocide. It's the nature of the people -- emotional, excitable, easily led and predisposed to mindless and horrendous violence. I know it's politically incorrect to say that, but read the histories of Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Moçambique, both Congos, South Africa -- the list goes on -- and see if that's not right. Check out How De Body by Dutch journalist Teun Voeten (St. Martin's Press, New York, 2002) for a graphic description of how things were in Sierra Leone in the 1990s. We'll come back to that book in another post.

Right now there's a "civil" war going on in the Congo which was formerly known as Zaïre and has its capital at Kinshasa. The government's writ runs only in the capital region. The rest of the country is divided amongst a number of cruel and evil warlords, fighting for control of the immense mineral wealth that includes "blood diamonds". In spite of the efforts of United Nations "peacekeepers", the Congo has never, repeat never known peace since it was "liberated" from the Belgians.

In west Africa, most of which was (and in some ways still is) run by the French, another "civil" war rages in Mali. What? Never heard of it? If you've ever been told to go to Timbuktu, well, that's in Mali. You could look it up. That war has racial and religious overtones (surprised?) with the Muslim Arab(ish) north pitted against the Christian/animist African (read: black) south. The UN stepped in to referee that vicious conflict a couple of years ago, and so far hasn't had much luck keeping the combatants from each other's throats.

In June of this year, Canada's loopy prime minister Trudeau, in yet another act of virtue-signalling at the expense of his people, sent a couple of hundred Canadian troops to Mali, where Canada has no dog in the fight but is going to jump in anyway. The Canadian contingent consists of a few helicopters and support crews, whose task is to medevac other UN soldiers who get caught in the crossfire. So far they've flown exactly two (2) missions, both on 9/11.

Yesterday Maj-Gen. Dave Fraser (Retd), who led Canada's troops in the ill-fated Afghanistan mission, admitted on CTV's Power Play that the Canuck peacekeeping mission in Mali has "no prospect of immediate success." He told host Don Martin, "The political overtones and what's going on in this country and this mission are ugly. This is not going to be short mission." No kidding!

Although Mr Socks promised that Canadian soldiers and airmen (not many female troops could be persuaded to go) would not be placed in harm's way, since they would only be flying medical evacuation missions and providing support from the skies, the likelihood of some poor non-com coming home in a body bag is increasing, as the security situation in the shithole has deteriorated sharply in recent months. Says the retired general, "It’s as bad, if not worse, than what we experienced in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria."

Continuing in mililtary-speak, Maj-Gen. Fraser said, "It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this mission isn’t going in the right direction from a trajectory point of view." He explained that the key issue is a lack of leadership. Despite no-worse-than-usual elections this summer, he said the insurgents are winning the fight on the ground. That's because "Peacekeeping can't be effective without a strong civilian government leadership that’s running the government, that's actually providing oversight for the military and the police forces and that’s not happening fast enough." For "fast enough", read "at all" and that's all ye need to know.

At the end of the day, the general warned, this hurts some people more than others. In a brilliant statement of the obvious, he said, "The local people are the ones who are going to be adversely affected." Can the problem be solved? Yes, says Maj-Gen. Fraser, if the United Nations changes its approach. "The UN's not getting the locals to get the leadership or the women engaged fast enough, and they're going to lose this race." If nothing changes, he said, the situation can only continue to deteriorate. So the answer to Walt's headline question is, errr, probably not. Which begs the question of what we're doing there!

Further reading: "Mal y soit qui Mali pense", 15/1/13. Kudos to Ed. for that brilliant headline, which only a monarchist would get!

1000s of migrants turned back, left to die in desert

You think -- or rather, the lamestream media leads you to believe -- that the Paranoid States of America treats illegal immigrants badly? Being detained for a few weeks and then given a hearing, with at least a chance of being allowed to stay is nothing, nothing compared with what happens to border jumpers in other parts of the world. Like Africa, for instance, where this picture was taken.

This is what happened to more than 13,000 would-be "refugees" and aslyum-seekers who tried to cross from central Africa -- shitholes like Congo and Nigeria -- northward through Niger and Mali into Algeria, from where they would go to Libya, get on rickety boats and then be rescued by well-meaning Europeans and dumped onto the shores of Italy, Greece or Malta, who only occasionally turn them back. See "New Italian government turns back boatload of 'refugees'", WWW 11/6/18.

Getting across the Mediterranean is nothing compared to the difficulty of getting across Algeria, according to the latest report to have the do-gooders and (((controlled media))) wringing their hands. In the past 14 months, newly-released statistics say, the Algerian government -- Algeria is a majority Muslim state, by the way -- has abandoned more than 13,000 people in the Sahara Desert, expelling them without food or water and forcing them to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, under a blistering sun. Some get their just desserts [Let's not make light of this. Ed.] and die.

Algeria has increased the number and rate of mass expulsions since last fall, as the European Union renewed pressure on north African countries to head off migrants going north to Europe. One of the "Brussels sprouts" (as Private Eye calls them) said the EU was aware of what Algeria was doing, but that sovereign countries can expel migrants as long as they comply with international law. Quite true. And that goes for the USA and even Canada, although Canuckistan's Liberal government seems unaware that they could actually close their border if they wanted to.

Algeria provides no figures for its involuntary expulsions, but the number of people crossing on foot to Niger has been increasing since the International Organization for Migration started counting in May 2017, when 135 people were dropped, to as high as 2888 in April 2018. In all, according to the IOM, a total of 11,276 men, women and children survived the march. At least another 2500 were forced on a similar trek into neighbouring Mali, with an unknown number succumbing along the way.

Just to be clear, the key word in the IOM's full name is "for" -- not "against". According to its own website, the organization "is the leading inter-governmental organization in the field of migration and works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners...to [promote] humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all." That's "promote", meaning "encourage", "support", "assist", the opposite of "discourage" or "deter", in spite of the fact that literally millions of mostly Muslim economic migrants from the Middle East and Africa are overrunning Europe, to the detriment of all.

Further reading: "Merkel government could fall over failed open-border policy", WWW 19/6/18.

Canadian Army officer cadets punished for desecrating Qu'ran

Does the name "Bagram Air Base" ring a bell? It's the largest American military base in Armpitistan, still very active in spite of that misguided war being over... more or less. You may remember that in February of 2012, 1000s of angry Afghans tried to storm the base when it was learned that American forces had burned hundreds of old Qu'rans that had been used by Taliban prisoners.

In the mélée that ensued, at least 41 people were killed, including several US soldiers who were shot by their allies in the so-called Afghan National Army. Desecrating the Holy Book is something Muslims take very seriously!

Canadians are always kind of slow to pick up on the latest trends, following months and sometimes years or even decades behind their cousins south of the World's Longest Absolutely Undefended Border. So it wasn't until a few weeks ago that four cadets from the Collège Militaire Royal at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu QC thought to have some sport dirtying a copy of the Qu'ran. They are alleged to have smeared the book with bacon and "bodily fluids" during a cottage party over the Easter long weekend.

The incident is said to have involved at least eight army officer cadets, most of them first-year students at the Canadian Armed Forces' military college. According to Lt.-Gen. Charles Lamarre, the CAF Chief of Military Personnel, "Four of those individuals went to sleep at some point and four other individuals stayed up and unfortunately desecrated a Qu'ran. They actually desecrated it with, if I'm not mistaken, bodily fluids, and there might have been bacon involved."

While the head honcho of the HR division Lamarre would not divulge the nature of the "bodily fluids", sources told Canadian Press that it appears to have been, errr, semen. [I would've expected that of the Navy! Ed.] Military commanders have expressed frustration and disappointment over the allegations, particularly at a time when they are pushing to make the Forces more inclusive -- "Diversity is Canada's strength!" dontcha know! -- and say they are taking the case extremely seriously.

More worrisome to the rank and file, especially those about to be sent overseas to keep the peace in yet another shithole country, is the threat to the safety of Canadian military personnel, given the violent reactions that such incidents (like the one at Bagram) have provoked in recent years. Canada is preparing to send troops and helicopters to assist the Disunited Nations mission in Mali, and continues to operate in Iraq, both of which are populated mainly by Muslims. "So we did ask for an [threat] assessment to be done," said the general, "And we have come back and I'm satisfied with where we are right now on force protection and we'll continue to be that way."

Lt.-Gen. Lamarre also said it was fortunate that no videos of the alleged incident were posted to social media. Officials said military commanders have not actually seen any recordings and they are believed to have all been destroyed. Anyone who has a copy is invited to e-mail it to Walt, and I'll see that it gets posted where it will get Maximum Exposure.

Footnote: One of the Islamophobic miscreants has been booted out of the college, while a second has been reprimanded and ordered to write 500 lines saying "Islam is the religion of peace." The cases of two other officer cadets are under review, and the four who fell asleep have been reprimanded for not snitching on their comrades quickly enough.

Note from Ed.: Credit where credit is due. We scraped the meme from one of Walt's favourite blogs, Blazing Cat Fur.

The Economist's snarky putdown of Bono

Unlike ageing rock star and SJW Bono, I have never been to Timbuktu, although many people, including my sainted mother, have told me to go there. Timbuktu is the fabled chief city of what was supposed to be a great African kingdom, once upon a time. Today it is more or less in the middle of Mali, one of those countries President Trump rightly described as "shitholes".

Until 1960, Mali was a part of l'Afrique Occidentale Française (French West Africa), a colony of, errr, France. As in the rest of post-colonial Africa, things started to go downhill once the French let the local people run their own railroad. I'm speaking metaphorically, as to the best of my knowledge Mali doesn't actually have a railroad any more. Half of the population is under the age of 16. The average Malian woman has six children. Barely a third of the population can read.

To make matters worse, ancient divisions of race and tribe turned into a shooting war which has heated up, cooled down, then heated up again in a vicious cycle ever since independence. Seems that the Tuareg and Arab minorities, who are concentrated in the northern part of the country don't like being ruled by black Africans. Whoda thunk it? There were major rebellions in 1963 and 1990, but the most major of all occurred in 2012, when the northern rebels went from being a secular nationalist movement into a militant Islamist insurgency.

In 2015 the warring parties signed a peace deal, which has proved meaningless. Violence has continued to escalate. Just last month, four separate attacks killed scores of people. According to an article in this week's Economist (from which the previous two paragraphs were excerpted), Mali's vast northern desert is a breeding ground for jihadism. And "insecurity", as the newspaper calls it, has spread to the central part of the country, including Timbuktu.

Reporting from Timbuktu, the anonymous writer of the article -- the Economist never runs bylines -- says, in what must be the best putdown of the year, so far: "...all is not well here.... At one time tourists used to pour into Timbuktu to ride camels across the desert. Now most of the foreigners at the airport wear army uniforms. The city has said goodbye to Bono, a rock musician who once played there. But in most other respects things have got worse."

Bravo, anonymous writer! That brilliant bit of snark puts you in the lead in the competition for Walt's prestigious Golden Finger award for 2018. Keep up the good work!

Chaos in the CAR: an African mess gets messier

Sub-Saharan Africa is a mess. Don't let articles written by lamestream journalists wearing rose-coloured specs fool you. Walt's agents are everywhere (especially in southern Africa) and they send us the real news. With the exception of one or two countries, Africa and its people are in worse shape today than during the much-reviled colonial era.

One of the countries which is not an exception to the rule that Africans are demonstrably unfit to govern themselves is the Central African Republic. Walt has written about it before: "
"Pray for Syria" (has a map) and ""Christians attacked every day in Mid-East, Africa and Asia

The CAR used to be a French colony, called Ubangi-Chari, later part of French Equatorial Africa.

Some of the people used to wear huge lip plates as ornaments, to the delight of such as P.T. Barnum who brought them to America to exhibit as freaks. (Before you laugh, check your mirror for tattoos and piercings!)

We'll skip over the post-colonial episode of the Central African Empire, ruled by the Emperor Bokassa 1st who used to keep chunks of his enemies' bodies in the palace freezer so he could eat them later. Bokassa was overthrown with the connivance of the French -- because he was an embarrassment -- and the CAR hasn't had a stable government since.

One of the reasons for the CAR's instability is that it is one of those countries which is torn between the Musilm north and the Christian/animist south, like Mali, Nigeria and the Sudan. As I write, Islamic extremists, supported by invaders from Chad (another basket case), Mali and Libya, are invading the CAR's capital, Bangui. The customary raping, looting and pillage has ensued. Chaos reigns.

The French (embarrassed again) have put 1500 pairs of military boots (and counting) on the ground to combat the Muslim terrorists, but are far from clearing the area. Meanwhile, more than 100,000 refugees are thronging the cathedral and the airport, clamouring for protection from the savages.

Speaking of "savages", here's a quote from Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, by Max Hastings (William Collins 2013):

Lucien Laby was in charge of an escort taking fourteen German prisoners to the rear, when their little column was suddenly beset by Senegalese troops determined to cut off the Germans' ears. After a violent scuffle, the colonial soldiers were driven back.

One big Senegalese saluted Laby and said wistfully, "O my lieutenant, you might have let me cut off two ears -- just two ears!"

A French army chaplain, while applauding the terror that such colonial infantry inspired among the Germans, deplored the difficulties of dealing with their wounded patients at his hospital: "The blacks from North Africa are almost as civilised as their Berber or Arab compatriots...[but] there are others from West Africa and the French Congo...who are very primitive indeed".

That was 99 years ago. As the French say, plus ça change...

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.

Updates and miscellany

As I write, Flt Lt Ace McCool and his crew are winging their way eastward to Mali. They are flying the Royal Canadian Air Force's backup Globemaster, not the one that got stuck on the runway at CFB Trenton this morning. That's all ye know and all ye need to know about the capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Quick, what do you call the 600th anniversary of something? The 200th is a bicentennial. The 300th is a tricentennial. After that it all gets a little hazy. I hope a reader will enlighten me, though, because this year marks the 600th anniversary of a significant development in English Common Law. Read on.

How are you described in your will or on your title deed. In much of the UK, USA and Canada you are probably identified by your given and surnames, as well as your place of residence and your occupation. Like this: Walter Whiteman, of the City of Springfield and County of Nassau, Orthoepist.

We owe that very specific form of description to the Statute of Additions, enacted in England in 1413. [Yes, Kramer. It's "statute", not "statue". Ed.] Happy whatever-ennial.

In my review of Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, I pointed out that the author speaks -- rather a lot, actually -- of two of the Anglo-Saxon words for the female genitalia. The more common of the two was, in Chaucer's day, relatively harmless, certainly not the C-bomb that it has become today. Speaking of C-bombs, though, Bryson tells us later in the same book that the corresponding word in Danish is "cock". Can any Danish-speaking reader verify this? Sounds like a cock-and-bull story to me.

Mal y soit qui Mali pense

You remember Mali, don't you? The Not-so-inevitable Mitt mentioned it twice during one of the debates. No-one knew, including the Prez, knew what he was talking about. But now we know.

Turns out Mali is a landlocked "nation" in part of the former French West Africa, a half-vast expanse of sand and not much else, shared rather grudgingly by Tuareg Arabs to the north and blacker people to the southwest.

For the last few months, militant Islamists -- part of the African arm of al Qaeda -- have been pushing southward, aiming to overthrow the black(ish) government and take over the country. Their success this month attracted the attention of the former colonial masters, who decided to send in the Foreign Legion. [Really? Does the Foreign Legion still exist? Ed.]

Well, maybe not, but the French Air Force certainly exists and last week started bombing the shit out of rebel-held villages and other "military targets". The governments of Britain and the USA have offered to hold the French coats, so to speak. Calls have gone out for African forces to intervene, but your typical African dictator is loth to send troops he needs at home to protect him from a coup.

And that is why the president of Gabon, who also heads up the so-called African Union, went to Canada earlier this month. Canada should do something, he told Prime Minister Harpoon, because Canadians speak French [Maybe. Ed.] besides which Defence Minister Mackay had already said Canada would send in the Mounties... Or something.

What the Gabonese president didn't know is that even as his plane was landing, Harper had yanked Machackey's chain, telling him to cover up not just his mouth but also his ears lest Canadians realize there's nothing in between them. Said the organ-grinder said to the monkey, "Remember Afghanistan? We won't be doing that again!"

Enter Robert Fowler, a Canadian dip who managed to get himself and a "colleague" kidnapped by those damn Islamists a couple of years ago, and was only ransomed at the cost of several barrels of maple syrup which the Arabs mistook for sweet oil. Fowler thought it disgraceful that Canada should abandon its commitment to international peacekeeping, the poor and downtrodden Africans, and so forth.

So... This weekend Harper agreed that at least a token effort should be made, in the name of peace, democracy, the war on terror, and so forth. The Canucks are sending 1 (one, une, uno) C-17 transport to help the French with a bit of the (literal) heavy lifting. It left CFB Trenton just minutes ago, and Agent 3 reports that he just saw it fly over his house, which means it's going the wrong way.

Machackey, ever eager to curry favour with the boss, will announce this afternoon that the Royal Canadian Navy will send three ships -- HMCS Nina, HMCS Pinta and HMCS Santa Maria -- to provide further support. Has the minister forgotten that Mali is landlocked? (See above). Well, no. That's where the C-17 comes in. It will be used to carry the frigits [check spelling please] from the Atlantic to wherever Mali is.

Watch WWW for more stories of French-Canadian co-operation and derring-do.

CORRECTION! Agent 3 has just advised that it was not the RCAF C-17 that he saw overhead. The plane destined for Mali is apparently stuck on the runway at CFB Trenton. Mr. Harper, did you get that? God is trying to tell you something!

Book non-review: A white liberal guilt trip to Timbuktu

Now that the roads have dried out, more or less, Walt ventured out to the library, over Fort Mudge way, looking for some intellectual nourishment. I picked up two pieces, one of which turned out to be quite tasty and digestible. The other was nausea-inducing. I'll tell you about that one first.

Rick Antonson (it says here) is an internationally respected tourism executive, which one supposes is a cut or two above being an internationally respected used car dealer. For reasons unclear, Mr. Antonson set out with "entertaining train companions Ebou and Ussegnou, a mysterious cook called Nema, and intrepid guide Zak" to reach the ancient city of Timbuktu, the capital of Mali, one of the most backward states of Africa, the most backward continent of the world.

The jacket blurbs compare Antonson with Eric Newby, Redmond O'Hanlon and Bill Bryson. Walt has read Newby, O'Hanlon and Bryson, and -- trust me -- Antonson is not in the same league or even on the same planet. What Antonson is is a member of the Noble Savage school. You know... "These Africans were once a great people, with a civilization much greater and more, errr, civilized than ours, but since they came into contact with the evil white men, their fabulous city crumbled into dust and their people descended into the deep pit of poverty, which we really must throw money into, to help them get out of the trap we created..." etc etc ad nauseam.

Does the book actually say this? Alas, I can't tell you, because I didn't get as far as the text itself. I was stopped by the foreword by Professor Geoffrey Lipman, a citizen of the world -- meaning I couldn't figure out his actual citizenship -- Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations World Tourism Organization and professional spokesthingy for sustainable and politically correct tourism.

Obviously Prof. Lipman is a progressive thinker and someone who does well out of doing good. No flying economy class for him, I'm sure! Here is what he has to say about Mali and about Antonson's book.

At p. 8 (first page of the Foreword) - Rick Antonson's personal odyssey is peppered with commentary on issues that are geopolitically relevant...

At p. 9 (second page of the Foreword) - We [Walt's emphasis] owe the children of Africa a seriously better future...

At p. 10 (third page of the Foreword) - What is heroic here is Mali itself and the indomitable spirit of its people.... Mali has a history as proud and rich as any country on the planet, but it is a nation that has also been dealt an incredibly tough hand...

At p. 11 (fourth and -- thank goodness -- final page of the Foreword), Lipman quotes from the book itself - Travel holds immense hope for a better world. Two hundred and eighteen countries call this tiny planet home: each of us is but a step or two away from a person in every one of those nations.... Tourism, more than any other industry, can bring people together to celebrate differences.

That was all I could take. Unfortunately I started the book while sitting down to dinner -- yes, yes, bad habit, I know -- and was obliged to put it aside at the end of the foreword lest I regurgitate Mrs. Walt's excellent dai dop woy.

Mr. Antonson's alleged book is called To Timbuktu for a Haircut. If you're a guilt-ridden liberal of the Hebrew persuasion, you'll surely love it. Being none of those things, I'm surmising from the foreword, not from having read it.