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!

Ralph Nader asks: What's happening to Canada?!

Thanks and a tip o' the tuque to Agent 34, who has passed along Ralph Nader's open letter to Canada's Dear Leader Steve Harper, expressing concern about what he (quoting the Globe and Mail) calls Harper's "Secret Policeman Bill".

Just like America's paranoid "Homeland Security Act", Bill C-51 threatens Canadians' civil liberties for the sake of protecting them from the threats of ISIS et al., which wouldn't even be a problem but for Mr. Harpoon's rabid Zionism and pointless meddling in the Muslim civil war in the Middle East.

In his weekly piece on CBC's The National, Rex Murphy warned that the "terror legislation" -- a phrase that cuts two ways -- sits at the intersection of public safety and individual liberty. He said that any proposal to protect the citizenry by abbreviating the liberties of the same citizenry must be examined as to its ultimate necessity, and put to the fullest parliamentary, media and democratic testing. Amen.

Now comes Ralph Nader -- long-time enemy of the abuses of power in the USA -- to ask why Canada is following his country down the Bush-Clinton-Obama road to a police state. Here are excerpts from "What's happening to Canada? Open letter from Ralph Nader to Prime Minister Stephen Harper"

Many Americans love Canada and the specific benefits that have come to our country from our northern neighbor's many achievements. Unfortunately, your latest proposed legislation -- the new anti-terrorism act -- is being described by leading Canadian civil liberties scholars as hazardous to Canadian democracy.

You are quoted as saying that "jihadi terrorism is one of the most dangerous enemies our world has ever faced" as a predicate for your gross over-reaction that "violent jihadism seeks to destroy" Canadian "rights." Really? Pray tell, which rights rooted in Canadian law are "jihadis" fighting in the Middle East to obliterate? You talk like George W. Bush.

How does "jihadism" match up with the lives of tens of millions of innocent civilians, destroyed since 1900 by state terrorism -- west and east, north and south -- or the continuing efforts seeking to seize or occupy territory?

What has all this post-9/11 loss of American life plus injuries and sickness, in addition to trillions of American tax dollars, accomplished? Has it led to the stability of those nations invaded or attacked by the U.S. and its reluctant western "allies?" Just the opposite, the colossal blowback evidenced by the metastasis of al-Qaeda's offshoots and similar new groups like the self-styled Islamic state are now proliferating in and threatening over a dozen countries.

Have you digested what is happening in Iraq and why Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said no to Washington? Or now chaotic Libya, which like Iraq never had any presence of Al-Qaeda before the U.S.'s destabilizing military attacks?

Canadians might be most concerned about your increased dictatorial policies and practices, as well as this bill's provision for secret law and courts in the name of fighting terrorism -- too vaguely defined. Study what comparable practices have done to the United States -- a course that you seem to be mimicking, including the militarization of police forces.

You may think that Canadians will fall prey to a politics of fear before an election. But you may be misreading the extent to which Canadians will allow the attachment of their Maple Leaf to the aggressive talons of a hijacked American Eagle.

Canada could be a model for independence against the backdrop of bankrupt American military adventures steeped in big business profits…a model that might help both nations restore their better angels.