Comments on: Cannon fodder http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/cannon-fodder/ Tim King on French politics Sat, 17 May 2008 05:16:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 by: French Blue http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/cannon-fodder/#comment-37002 Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:29:02 +0000 http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/cannon-fodder/#comment-37002 Agree on the drug angle Tim and Pierre - but I don't think going to war is necessarily the answer here. In fact the hugely expensive US-funded and US 'adviser' led wars against drug cartels in S America don't seem to have achieved anything, other than making Europe awash with cocaine. We have to accept that Afghanis have always grown opium (and hashish too) and that they're rather good at it, conditions are ideal etc. The problem is that the wrong guys have got control of it at the moment, are deliberately pumping heroin into the West to destabilise society and are using the profits for their war chest. Instead of ripping up poppy fields and trying to persuade farmers to grow beans or whatever - thus slashing their income - shouldn't we use the money currently being spent on an unwinnable war to instead buy up the entire opium crop every year to turn it into medical morphine? This would put income where it's needed in Afghanistan - at the bottom. It would remove the financial clout of the Taliban and take away their raison d'etre as defenders of the homeland, whilst providing sufficient decentralised wealth for the country to return to equilibrium. The problem I guess is that this would require the US to back down and admit that like other imperial invaders before them, they have been unable to defeat the Afghani tribes. Agree on the drug angle Tim and Pierre - but I don’t think going to war is necessarily the answer here. In fact the hugely expensive US-funded and US ‘adviser’ led wars against drug cartels in S America don’t seem to have achieved anything, other than making Europe awash with cocaine. We have to accept that Afghanis have always grown opium (and hashish too) and that they’re rather good at it, conditions are ideal etc. The problem is that the wrong guys have got control of it at the moment, are deliberately pumping heroin into the West to destabilise society and are using the profits for their war chest. Instead of ripping up poppy fields and trying to persuade farmers to grow beans or whatever - thus slashing their income - shouldn’t we use the money currently being spent on an unwinnable war to instead buy up the entire opium crop every year to turn it into medical morphine? This would put income where it’s needed in Afghanistan - at the bottom. It would remove the financial clout of the Taliban and take away their raison d’etre as defenders of the homeland, whilst providing sufficient decentralised wealth for the country to return to equilibrium. The problem I guess is that this would require the US to back down and admit that like other imperial invaders before them, they have been unable to defeat the Afghani tribes.

]]> by: Tim http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/cannon-fodder/#comment-36940 Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:11:29 +0000 http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/cannon-fodder/#comment-36940 I agree with you, Blue, about the man's character and perhaps I am merely trying to find some small grain of presidential thought behind all the sickening razzamatazz. After all, we have to assume that while his style is perhaps of his own making, matters such as foreign policy must be worked out by others - and his people are not all as approval-seeking as he is (though I am willing to be proved wrong on that). No, what I find interesting is quite what Afghanistan means to him. It's a low-priority war, there was no reason for him to get involved. His big obsession is the Mediterranean. I am willing to believe that he genuinely sees the Med. as a place to found a Sarko empire. He knows he can't do that any more in Europe, but he may well see France as the pivotal country which politically as well as geographically can bestride both. But the Americans are already in the Mediterranean. I don't think he wants to "fend them off", on the contrary I think he wants to work with them, believing, as Tony Blair did, that he can get concessions out of them for good behaviour. In return for 800 troops in Afghanistan he hopes to get some freedom in the Mediterranean. I also agree with you that this might just be the beginning of the end for him (which is what I meant when I wrote that sending the troops might be the single most important act in his presidency, as similar decisions were for Bush and Blair). I also think, Pierre, that you're right about the opium producers. My knowledge is not great on this, but I've accepted the reports which say the Taliban are responsible for the return to high levels of opium production. If that is true that I can't believe people can say we should sit down round a table and negotiate with them. The cost in human suffering due to opium and its main derivatives, including of course AIDS, is phenomenal. Again the question about Sarkozy's action as I wrote in the blog is why did he not communicate this better? Going for the drugs angle actually would work better than trying to raise the spectre of Al Quaida which no longer seems to cut ice in Europe (maybe still in the US). STOP PRESS: It seems George Doubleyou this afternoon (Thursday) told NATO leaders that Sarkozy "is the latest incarnation of Elvis". I agree with you, Blue, about the man’s character and perhaps I am merely trying to find some small grain of presidential thought behind all the sickening razzamatazz. After all, we have to assume that while his style is perhaps of his own making, matters such as foreign policy must be worked out by others - and his people are not all as approval-seeking as he is (though I am willing to be proved wrong on that). No, what I find interesting is quite what Afghanistan means to him. It’s a low-priority war, there was no reason for him to get involved. His big obsession is the Mediterranean. I am willing to believe that he genuinely sees the Med. as a place to found a Sarko empire. He knows he can’t do that any more in Europe, but he may well see France as the pivotal country which politically as well as geographically can bestride both. But the Americans are already in the Mediterranean. I don’t think he wants to “fend them off”, on the contrary I think he wants to work with them, believing, as Tony Blair did, that he can get concessions out of them for good behaviour. In return for 800 troops in Afghanistan he hopes to get some freedom in the Mediterranean. I also agree with you that this might just be the beginning of the end for him (which is what I meant when I wrote that sending the troops might be the single most important act in his presidency, as similar decisions were for Bush and Blair).

I also think, Pierre, that you’re right about the opium producers. My knowledge is not great on this, but I’ve accepted the reports which say the Taliban are responsible for the return to high levels of opium production. If that is true that I can’t believe people can say we should sit down round a table and negotiate with them. The cost in human suffering due to opium and its main derivatives, including of course AIDS, is phenomenal. Again the question about Sarkozy’s action as I wrote in the blog is why did he not communicate this better? Going for the drugs angle actually would work better than trying to raise the spectre of Al Quaida which no longer seems to cut ice in Europe (maybe still in the US).

STOP PRESS: It seems George Doubleyou this afternoon (Thursday) told NATO leaders that Sarkozy “is the latest incarnation of Elvis”.

]]> by: Pierre http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/cannon-fodder/#comment-36928 Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:35:48 +0000 http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/cannon-fodder/#comment-36928 Isnt Afghanistans still the World's Largest Opium Producer? well it still seems like it http://coirault-neuburger.blog.lemonde.fr/2007/09/23/paradis-artificiels-quen-est-il-de-lafghanistan/ i quote Un trafic de plusieurs milliards de dollars Selon l’ONU, l’Afghanistan fournit en 2006 environ 92 pour cent de l’offre mondiale d’opium, qui est employé pour préparer l’Héroïne.L’ONU estime qu’en 2006, la contribution du trafic de drogue à l’économie afghane est de l’ordre de 2.7 milliards de dollars. “ couldnt we justify the war on terror, why could we not justify it on war on drugs... being french i couldnt be against that! i dont know how you feel about that but i still think that drugs needs to be stopped at least needs to be fighted against? Troups against the talibans No .. but maybe against the mafia that makes millions out of it? Isnt Afghanistans still the World’s Largest Opium Producer?
well it still seems like it
http://coirault-neuburger.blog.lemonde.fr/2007/09/23/paradis-artificiels-quen-est-il-de-lafghanistan/
i quote
Un trafic de plusieurs milliards de dollars Selon l’ONU, l’Afghanistan fournit en 2006 environ 92 pour cent de l’offre mondiale d’opium, qui est employé pour préparer l’Héroïne.L’ONU estime qu’en 2006, la contribution du trafic de drogue à l’économie afghane est de l’ordre de 2.7 milliards de dollars. “

couldnt we justify the war on terror, why could we not justify it on war on drugs…
being french i couldnt be against that!

i dont know how you feel about that
but i still think
that drugs needs to be stopped at least needs to be fighted against?
Troups against the talibans No ..
but maybe against the mafia that makes millions out of it?

]]> by: French Blue http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/cannon-fodder/#comment-36923 Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:44:28 +0000 http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/cannon-fodder/#comment-36923 I think it's pushing it to suggest that Sarkozy's on-the-fly decision to send troops is a cunning, thought-out ploy to fend off America. Far more likely that it's yet again his deep-seated psychological flaws coming to the surface with alarming results. His strutting, show-off persona isn't about confidence, it's all about over-compensating for insecurity; the flipside of that is a desperate need to please, to seek approval - it doesn't matter from whom, and it doesn't matter if it upsets the people you really ought to be thinking about. I think Sarko's inner child was unable to overcome the temptation to make a grand gesture intended to get the approval of his British hosts (and the attentive UK press). It's all about instant gratification of his own insatiable need for reassurance. That's what all the bling nonsense is about, that's why the trophy woman on his arm, that's why the cockiness - all of which is pretty harmless. But when he's gratifying his own psychological needs by putting lives on the line and getting further entangled in a complicated and probably unwinnable war, things have got very serious indeed. This might just be the beginning of the end for him. I think it’s pushing it to suggest that Sarkozy’s on-the-fly decision to send troops is a cunning, thought-out ploy to fend off America. Far more likely that it’s yet again his deep-seated psychological flaws coming to the surface with alarming results. His strutting, show-off persona isn’t about confidence, it’s all about over-compensating for insecurity; the flipside of that is a desperate need to please, to seek approval - it doesn’t matter from whom, and it doesn’t matter if it upsets the people you really ought to be thinking about. I think Sarko’s inner child was unable to overcome the temptation to make a grand gesture intended to get the approval of his British hosts (and the attentive UK press). It’s all about instant gratification of his own insatiable need for reassurance. That’s what all the bling nonsense is about, that’s why the trophy woman on his arm, that’s why the cockiness - all of which is pretty harmless. But when he’s gratifying his own psychological needs by putting lives on the line and getting further entangled in a complicated and probably unwinnable war, things have got very serious indeed. This might just be the beginning of the end for him.

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