Son of Kenya and Hawaii inaugurated as president of the United States of America. SJ Dodgson MJoTA v6n1 p0122
In the week of the 3rd anniversary of the 2010 catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, anyone knowing the history of French theft from Haiti will understand that I am not a great fan of French colonialism, or even French domestic policy.
France again and again has shown that it is governed by greed and bad accounting and inability to look beyond its own interests, even when its survival is at stake. I believe this has something to do with libel laws and the French constitution. Corruption is well hidden.
Here is an example of bad governance in France. The Maginot Line stole the youth from my parents and the life from their friends, relatives and colleagues. Beautiful barricade against German invasion, no expense spared, built between the 2 wars. The barricade stopped at the forests, and the German army simply walked through the trees and France "capitulated". And that was the end of France for years, and resulted in an aspiring film-maker, my uncle Tony Dodgson, losing the use of a kidney and his intestines and his legs. You can bet I take bad accounting personally.
That was 70 years ago. But I do not see any improvement in accounting or in understanding that France is part of the European community, the world community, and what it does can still deeply wound the rest of the world.
I did not enjoy learning about the voracious sexual appetites of Dominic Strauss-Kahn, an old ugly man who greatly influenced how money is moved around the world. I was arrested myself a day later by New York police, on the lies of a West African national, exactly as he was.
The fact that his accuser was found to be a liar does not improve my opinion of DSK, a man who, at the time of his arrest, was expected to become the next president of France. France was on track to be led by a man whose appetites lead him to throw caution to the winds, and led him to believe that anything he wants, he gets?
The current president, Hollande, seems to be unravelling bit by bit.The public spat over France's senior artist Gerard Depardieu, resulting in him accepting Russian citizenship, oh my.
President Hollande's message is clear: being French is wonderful, everyone needs to pay to be French, and the president will make a fool of any Frenchman he pleases. President Hollande is not a master diplomat.
Which brings me to Mali. Clearly the citizens of Northern Mali are in trouble. But sending in 2,500 French soldiers is plain wrong.
So many United Nations and national embassy diplomats have spent their careers working out how to defuse danger and reduce and stop bloodshed. If military intervention is needed, it should have been by a United Nations force, not a force from France, a country in the European Union that is in trouble financially.
A costly war that France cannot win can bring France to its knees financially, and has the potential of collapsing the European Economic Union.
Can the collapse of the EU collapse Mali? I don't know. But the battle has been joined. France is now fighting militants in Mali. The Malian war is now a French war.
Another view, read article on right.
