A FORGOTTEN CAMPAIGN. FORGOTTEN VALOUR (PART TWO).

The advance through Belgium was no milkrun for the Germans. The photo shows a destroyed Schwere Panzerspaehwagen SdKfz 231 (heavy armoured car) in the town of Aalst, roughly halfway Ghent and Brussels. Upon entering the town, the German ccame across one of our T-13's, hidden in some narrow alley. Inhabitants of Aalst may be able to trace the exact location since AFAIK the railway viaduct in the background is still there. Although the T-13's gunsights had been busted the day before in an engagement at Willebroek the day before, the gunner had the reflex of aiming through his 47mm gun's barrel! After locking onto his target, he quickly loaded, closed the breech and fired. It's a kill!





On May 17, tanks 829 and 833 were sent to Kapelle-op-den-Bos to back up a regiment of cyclists. At around 3pm, they encountered the advance guard of the German 192nd Infantry Regiment. Tank 829, with adjutant Pulings as commander, destroyed a PaK (PanzerabwehrKanone) antitank gun but was then hit itself by a 37mm antitank round, which instantly killed the gunner, Albert Coffez, and gravely wounded the driver, Albert Lutin. Tank 833 (Dumoulin) then destroyed the Pak gun, but had to withdraw shortly thereafter since its turret jammed. In the engagement, the Germans also lost the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion/192nd Infantry Regiment, Major Kessler.




After the Battle of the Lys, haggard-looking Belgian POW's are led away by their German captors. They carry with them a wounded or dead comrade.



A sad day for Belgium and a sad day for the Belgian Army. On orders of its King, Leopold III, the Belgian armed forces lay down their arms, despite the fact that they are not beaten yet, although many formations are already less than half their initial strength. The photo is ironic in the sense that the victors, the German column to the right, use horse-drawn traction, while the vanquished, the Belgian column to the left, are fully motorized with state-of-the-art motorcycles. Very likely they are part of a "Bataillon Moto de Chasseurs Ardennais". The location is with great certainty the road between Koolskamp and Lichtervelde, to the west of Tielt.


The photo shows the bodies of two soldiers of 31st Linieregiment, who fell defending the railway dyke in Passendale, a locality (in)famous for its WWI past. In case you look for the second one, his helmeted head is visible just across the first man's shoulder. It's not that I take pleasure in posting pictures like this. I'm not a war junkie. In many ways, I'm a family man, and I enjoy being with my wife and kids. My activities are basically peaceful, if you discount the occasional leftist bashing. But the question is: are these soldiers, and indeed their families, served better if the final testimony of their presence on this earth - call it essence, if you want - remained shelved in some dusty archive for eternity, only to be glanced at every couple of years by some history student doing research? Once these two men were human beings who very likely enjoyed life just as much as I do. Men with names, men with an identity, men who fancied a drink now and then with their mates, dated girls they had passionately fallen in love with, or went home after work to enjoy the evening meal with their spouse and offspring. Maybe they were Karel and Geert, or Dirk and Albert, or Gerard and Johan. Maybe they were from Oudenaarde, maybe from Roeselare, maybe from Mechelen, Huy or Mons. I suppose there's no way I'll ever know. But whoever they were, wherever they came from, they saw themselves placed between the people they had to defend and a ruthless invader... and took up the fight, despite the odds. They were no exceptions.



Liddel Hart De Franse leiders hadden een zondebok gevonden in de persoon van Leopold om zich te kunnen witwassen van alle blunders die ze begaan hadden. En, na een moment van twijfel, nam ook Churchill hun beschuldigingen tegenover de Koning over omwille van politieke belangen en onder druk van de Franse regering”.

http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2007/05/remembering-plucky-belgium.html


In 1936 Belgium started its policy of "Armed Independence", which is different than a policy of strict neutrality. The Policy of "Armed Independence" was highly supported by the Belgian people even if it meant that 25% of the national budget was spent on the military and that in times of economic recession. Nor Britain or France were able to outline such a policy. In both countries military expenditures were highly criticized by public opinion until it was too late.

The inability of the French and British government to react when Germany re-occupied the Rhine-land had brought the German army at the Belgian-German border. The international agreements were broken (Locarno pact). At that time Belgium was the only country prepared to help France in case of a war with Germany. But France didn’t react, as Britain didn’t want to support a war.


The majority of the Belgians were against the Germans, but also against the French and this goes back to what happened after WOI, where Belgium was completely forgotten by the French in the Versailles Treaty. Also by not extending the Maginot Line at the Belgian-French border, the French practically invited the Germans to attack France through Belgium. The Belgian government asked the French government, on several occasions, to extent the fortifications, but as the French post-war commission wrote the French military preferred to fight the war with Germany in Belgium. This refusal resulted in a growing mistrust of the French by the Belgian population.
In 1940 Belgium would have the best-prepared army in its history. Even Germany was impressed by the military built-up in Belgium and Hitler counted to need one million troops to defeat the Belgian army. While Belgium was doing an extraordinary effort to strengthen his army, Britain was following a policy of "no responsibility". Or in military terms, in the winter of 1939 the British Expeditionary Force was only 152.000 men strong. In May 1940 the BEF counted only 237.000 men. If it had spent the same proportional amount of its national budget on the military as Belgium, Britain would have had an army of 4.8 million men strong.
...
For the British government (except Churchill) these conditions were unacceptable. The French decided that they didn't need to wait for an invitation and if Holland was attacked would march into Belgium with or without Belgian approval. The speech of Churchil on the 30th March stating that the neutral countries were scared to chose a side was an insult to the efforts which Belgium had done regarding its military efforts far more greater than Britain or France.

It started in a beautiful part of Europe on a beautiful day.
10/11 May 1940: Battle at the Albert-Canal.

On a sunny day WWII started for Belgium. The Germans obtained tactical surprise by attacking without any warning a large number of military targets and succeeded in destroying most of the already small Belgian airforce on the ground. It succeeded in taking two bridges over the Albert-canal and destroyed the strong fortress of Eben-Emael.
Read it all - read about the 17 days of an incredible fighting retreat.
Battles at the Lys River: At the Lys river the most fiercest battles of the Belgian campaign occurred.

While the battles at the Derivation canal took place 6th Army of Von Reichenau attacked the positions of the Belgian troops at the Lys river. The Belgian troops had extended their front to Menin to link up with the British front. Both fronts formed a 90° angle. The British front was diagonal with the German attacking direction. Which made the German left flank very vulnerable to British flank attacks and British artillery

The Belgian front was held here held by two divisions. The 1st (only 7000 men left) and 3rd (only 6000 men left) division and the 10th in reserve. The lack of material was even worse (no radios, few machine guns left). The divisions were supported by twenty artillery formations, something the Belgians still had plenty. These two divisions faced 6 German divisions and one division (7th) in flank protection against the British front.

Already on the 23rd of May the Germans made contact. The whole day and night the German artillery bombed the Belgian positions and the sky was full of German planes. The Germans lost on the 23rd 16 planes over this area, which is an accomplished as the Belgians didn’t have any plane in the sky. The Belgian artillery also participated and as usual dominated the German one. Several German units designated to attack the next day were replaced because the casualties they had taken by the Belgian artillery.


On the 24th of May the epic "Slag om de Leie" - Battle of the Lys - began. The Lys/Leie is a 20-3à m wide, 202 km long river, left tributary of The Scheldt. It springs in Lisbourg, France (Pas-de-Calais department) and joins the Scheldt in Ghent. On 22 May, the Belgian GHQ had decided to mount a strong defense along the Lys, and built up its front the best it could, given the circumstances. On the eveof the Battle of the Lys the Belgian front resembled an eastward bulging "bag", of which the southern half ran along the Lys from Menen, a town right near the French border, till Deinze, some twenty kilometers southwest of Ghent. From Deinze the front followed the Afleidngskanaal - Drivation Canal - a waterway which made a wide northeaserly arc till it reached the coast near Zeebrugge. Somewhat apart from the rest of the Army were the two cavalry divisions, in Zeeland.
24th May: On the 24th of May 6 German divisions attacked the Belgian positions near the city of Kortrijk. The first attempt of the 30th division failed completely, as did the second, third and fourth one. But after two hours, 26inf managed to cross the river after sustaining very high losses in men and material. At two other places the German division managed to get over the Lys river, at Bavikhove (German 19th division) and Beveren. After a day of fighting the Belgian troops needed to retreat here, but some units remained fighting off the Germans until being eliminated. In the history of the German 30th division is written, "the resistance was much higher than expected"

Between Kortrijk and Menin the 31st German division attacked and managed to break through the Belgian front of the 1st division. The town of Bissegem was lost. The front was lost here as the Germans were now attacking two regiments in the flank. The Germans created a bridgehead of 3km long. The 1st division received units to perform a counterattack to retake Bissegem, but these units could only move slowly to their attacking positions because of the constant Stuka attacks. Still they managed to stop the German breakthrough and reduced the German Bridgehead(4km long and 3km depth)

The main German attack took place around Kortrijk. 4 German divisions, the 18th, 14th, 19th and 30th smashed in the front of the Belgian 3rd division. The 3rd division put up a tenacious fight, defended every meter, and inflected heavy casualties to the German troops. The division itself sustained heavy casualties and its defenses cracked everywhere. The German commander of the 18th division would later write that the attack against this elite Belgian division was very hard and costly.

It wasn’t an elite division, hell it wasn’t even on half it strength. The 3rd division was starting to give away when it supporting artillery fell out of ammo. The supply convoy had been destroyed by another air attack. At 21.00 P.M remnants of the division retreated behind the Roulers canal, leaving a temporary breach of 9 km in the front.

Between the Kortrijk area and the Derivation canal the Germans attempted also to cross the Lys river. The German 255th division failed completely. The German 216th division managed to get a foothold over the river by using two regiments (348 and 396 infantry) but they were quickly beaten back by the precise shooting of the Belgian artillery. The German commander wrote, "The enemy shoots with such a precision that we were only able to retreat back over the Lys river during the night"

25th May: On the 25th of May the Germans had created two bridgeheads, only separated by a small corridor in the Kortrijk area. This corridor included the city of Kortrijk itself. Still the city of Kortrijk was evacuated as it was endangered by encirclement. Belgian troops were moved from other places of the frontline to strengthen this sector, as there were no reserve units left.
A fight to the end.
On the 27th May Belgian command realized that the situation was hopeless and that the army was on its last legs. The army couldn’t dislodge anymore and casualties increased by the day. The supply situation was dramatic. While for many different weapon types there was simply no ammo left, the real problem was that the German Luftwaffe had gradually paralyzed the supply convoys.

The information coming from the corps commanders to the Belgian high command on the 27th was dramatic:

The I Corps reported that is was endangered to be encircled
IV corps was heavily attacked
V and VII corps reported enemy breakthroughs and that their front was broken
With other corps commanders contact was lost
It was cleat that the Belgian army was falling apart.

In the evening of the 27th of May negotiations started and unconditional surrender was accepted. The cease-fire started at 4.00 A.M the next day.

And what did that buy?
The battle at the Lys river had been very costly for the Belgian army as it had sustained 40.000 casualties (4000 KIA, 36.000 WIA), but it had managed to disturb the Germans plans and had aided, without their knowledge, in the escape of the BEF at Dunkirk.
Dunkirk. With not an hour to spare, the nucleus of the Army and the Allied forces that would liberate Europe 4 years later was saved. Saved by the Belgian Army.s

THE VLAAMS BELANG GOES TO WASHINGTON (PART 2).

On February 21, DowneastBlog reported on the visit to Washington undertaken at that time (February 20-23) by Vlaams Belang leaders Filip Dewinter and Frank Vanhecke. In the meantime, a summary of that visit has appeared in the party magazine, and its author, Jan Lievens, who is a town council member for the VB in the town of Lede as well as chairman of the VB chapter there, has posted it on his site Amerikaans Conservatisme as well. I thought it would be interesting for our conservative readership to have a translation of that summary on our blog. Readers should therefore know that the views expressed in this summary are not necessarily the same as MFBB's, though the correlation is of course very close. Through DowneastBlog I want to express my sincere thanks to Mr. Lievens for kindly permitting me to use the photos from his site, as well as for answering my phone call on the ungodly hour of 11.45pm last week.


VLAAMS BELANG GOES TO WASHINGTON - by Jan Lievens

In February a delegation of the Vlaams Belang took to Washinton, D.C.

The purpose of the journey was to establish contacts and have talks with equal minded politicians, opinion makers, organizations and think tanks. The conservative movement is still the most powerful political movement in the US. That fact alone justifies the trip to the US to clarify the goals of the Vlaams Belang, and to highlight the political prosecution in Belgium and the lack of freedom of speech in Europe. On top of the agenda stood the immigration problem - in particular the islamization of Europe - and promoting Flemish independence. Of course the Vlaams Belang has for years tried to get these views known to a wider public through, amongst others, our English-language newsletter The Flemish Republic, but it was felt that there was a need for more direct and closer contacts.

Party Chairman and European MP Frank Vanhecke and fraction leader in the Flemish Parliament Filip Dewinter first addressed the influential Wednesday Meeting. This group was established by conservative activist Grover Norquist of "Americans for Tax Reform" shortly after Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992. When Hillary Clinton in 1998 dubbed her husband's political enemies as a "vast rightwing conspiracy" she undoubtedly also had the Wesnesday Meeting on her mind. Their weekly meetings are meant to coordinate the conservatives' activities and strategies. The day after the delegation was awaited by Guy Vanderjagt, a former Republican member of Congress from Michigan - with Dutch roots - for a visit to the Capitol. After viewing the House of Representatives and the Senate some talks were held in Capitol Hill Club where Republicans meet.


ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

The US is currently facing an ever more serious immigration problem. An estimated 10 million illegal immigrants live in the country. Bush pleads for amnesty, the conservative base revolts. So the Vlaams Belang held talks with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an important organization with around 250,000 members. FAIR wants the immigration policy to serve national interest: "With more than a million legal and illegal immigrants settling in the US every year, immigration has an impact on education, healthcare, government budgets, employment, environment, criminality and countless other aspects of American society. For most Americans it is evident that massive immigration does not serve the needs and interest of the country."

FAIR is politically independent and counts liberals as well as conservatives among its members. They support enhancing border controls, a halt to illegal immigration and plead for a temporary moratorium for all immigration with the exception of spouses and minors of US-citizens and a limited number of refugees. Their focus is mainly on investigation, awareness of public and media, government relations and supporting local initiatives. Academicians and politicians use their publications for preparing new immigration legislation. FAIR is regularly in the media given their expertise. They are also frequently consulted to witness for Congress with regards to immigration legislation, more than any other organization.

Filip Dewinter (left) and Frank Vanhecke (right) listen attentively to Mr. Buchanan.

The peak moment of the journey was undoubtedly the meeting with Patrick Buchanan, author of amongst others "The Death of the West", "Where the Right went Wrong" and recently "State of Emergency". Buchanan was twice a presidential candidate for the Republicans in 1992 and 1996, and a third time for the Reform Party. In 2002 Buchanan was one of the founders of the magazine The American Conservative which serves as a counterweight to the neoconservatives and their campaign for the invasion of Iraq. He is so to say the most important representative of traditional conservatives (also called paleoconservatives - a term used to distinguish themselves of the neoconservatives). The Vlaams Belang-delegation attended the NBC's recording of "The McLaughlin Group" programme, where apart from Buchanan Tony Blankley, a conservative journalist of The Washington Times and author of "The West's last chance", is a political commentator.

After the NBC's talk show The McLaughlin Group was recorded, Frank Vanhecke and Filip Dewinter posed together with talk show host John McLaughlin, journalist Tony Blankley and Patrick Buchanan.

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION.

On the last day the Vlaams belang delegates ceossed the Potomac to Arlington, Virginia, to address the Robert A. Taft Club - a debating club named after the conservative senator from Ohio and where traditional conservatives and libertarians meet each other. Their speeches on immigration, multiculturalism and the end of freedom of speech in Europe were well received. Frank Vanhecke expressed his view as follows: "Europe is slowly becoming a totalitarian society. We think that Americans should be aware of his. What happens in our country, can happen in yours too, if you are not watchful. There is, however, a positive way to look at this. The fact that we are constantly harassed with lawsuits against us shows that our enemies regard us as dangerous. They fear the truth, but ultimately the truth will prevail."

Filip Dewinter addresses the Robert A. Taft Club.

The VB's most important message, that Flanders is preparing for independence, was well received too. Filip Dewinter: "We want Flanders to become an independent nation because we believe that Flemish independence offers the best guarantee for the well-being and future of the Flemish people." This Flemish independence must be promoted too overseas. Not once but on a regular basis with regards to future international recognition.

The Vlaams Belang's visit was suspiciously monitored by the Belgian regime. The commentaries in the regime press were as prejudiced as they were predictable. In contrast to what Greet De Keyser claimed in her coverage for the VRT (24 February), as well as the De Standaard newspaper in its 26 February issue, was it not that Buchanan had had a problem with the Vlaams Belang but that he hadn't given authorization to be filmed by a Belgian TV crew. Moreover, the report above disclaims Greet De Keyser's suggestion that the Vlaams Belang had paid a visit to the Ku Klux Klan.


Jan Lievens.


Those who have followed DowneastBlog for some time know that, while I can find myself in 75% of the VB programme, I disagree with the most basic tenet of the party - Flemish Independence. Personally, I think we Flemings have still much more to lose in case of an implosion of Belgium. Belgium is riding - and let us be honest about it, benefiting greatly too - on the waves of the European dynamic towards a USE - a United States of Europe. We have been talking about that before and let us for a while forget the hollow anti-EU rhetoric - if the European peoples are not pleased with European laws, let them elect other European lawmakers instead of breaking the building down. As for Belgium, already, the country's capital, Brussels, is seen throughout the world as the EU's Capital. It is home to hundreds of international organizations and thousands of international companies. The very peculiar geographical situation of Brussels as lying in Flanders while not formally being a part of it - Brussels, like Washington, is an entity on its own - places it in the position of a pin securing the belt of the Belgian federal framework around Flanders and Wallonia. To those unfamiliar with Belgium, these are our country's Flemish-speaking and French-speaking regions respectively. Any attempt of the Flemings to break free would lead to a geopolitical calamity of the first order in the heart of Europe, because the Walloons - so much more shrewder in their negotiations - will never allow Flanders to take Brussels with it. Think a very ugly divorce with the ex-spouses burning the house down. Do we really want that? Then there is also the fact that Belgium boasts both NATO's headquarters in Evere as well as SHAPE in Cambron-Casteau. The country erupting in vicious quarrels at best and civil war at worst is, in the current international climate, the last thing the occupants of the NATO and SHAPE buildings want on their plate.

The reason of course why the VB so fiercely strives for Flemish independence, are the financial woes of poverty-stricken Wallonia, Belgium's French-speaking, socialist dominated southern half. Here the Parti Socialiste, arguably Europes most corrupt party - it is nicknamed "the Party of 1,000,000 scandals", but these days it seems one could add a zero - has managed to completely ruin an economy and industrial assets that were once among the foremost in the world. This near-communist state is in such a dismal condition that it needs a Flemish financial influx of 11 billion EUR annually - some 2,300 US$ for every Fleming from the youngest newborn to the oldest centenarian - just to keep the basics of its decrepit social security system afloat. In fact, the only solution to Wallonia's problems would be the total destruction of the Parti Socialiste. That is not to say there is no place for leftist discourse - in a democratic society, there should be a leftist discourse. But just not from this party. The truth for Belgium's belgicists - those who want to keep the country together at all cost - is not that the VB is the greatest danger for Unity. The greatest danger for Unity is the Parti Socialiste. Had it governed over Wallonia the right way, there would be no need for the Vlaams Belang's call for Flemish Independence - probably not even a need for the VB itself. Personally, I find myself in the strange situation of wishing the VB to keep up its fiery fight - if only for the mere reason of scaring sufficient Walloons that the manna from their northern brothers is not going to last forever.


MFBB.

MUSLIM, ERM, FRENCH YOUTHS, LEFT NOT AMUSED WITH SARKOZY VICTORY.

cars torched in France during the night of Sunday, May 6, to Monday. This in response to Nicolas Sarkozy's victory in the French presidential elections. The perpetrators are violent groups of muslim youths and hard core extreme leftist youth movements. And it was not just one outburst. The night after, an estimated 365 cars went up in flames. That makes almost 1,100 cars destroyed in a little over 24 hours. Some reports even cite a total of 500 plus instead. Nor were vehicles the only targets. Police officers were pelted with stones and moltov cocktails, resulting in 28 wounded nationwide during the first night. In Normandy's well-known capital Caen, a UMP Headquarters (Sarkozy's party) was set alight, luckily without human loss. The perpetrators were a mob of the LCR (Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire).

All of which now sheds a rather unpleasant light on a warning - The Brussels Journal called it a threat - Ségolène Royal, Sarkozy's adversary, gave just days before the elections:

FRANCE'S ROYAL WARNS OF VIOLENCE IF SARKOZY WINS.
Fri May 4, 2007 11:22 AM ET - By Kerstin Gehmlich

PARIS (Reuters) - Socialist opponent Segolene Royal said on Friday that France risks violence and brutality if her opponent right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy wins Sunday's presidential election.

On the last day of official campaigning, opinion polls showed Sarkozy enjoyed a commanding lead over Royal, who accused the former interior minister of lying and polarizing France.

"Choosing Nicolas Sarkozy would be a dangerous choice," Royal told RTL radio. "It is my responsibility today to alert people to the risk of (his) candidature with regards to the violence and brutality that would be unleashed in the country (if he won)," she said. Pressed on whether there would be actual violence, Royal said: "I think so, I think so," referring specifically to France's volatile suburbs hit by widespread rioting in 2005.

In other words, vote Left, or else! Luckily, enough French made the Right decision, and if anything, the viciousness with which the alliance of leftist and islamic youths demonstrated their anger, proves how utterly necessary it had become for France to change course. Last year, massive demonstrations by the former sufficed to thwart the government's plans to implement a law which would without doubt have resulted in hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Today, demonstrations and riots by the former AND the latter aim at destablizing and frightening the better part of a nation in accepting their baseless demands: perpetual pampering of the lazy by the state and gradual submission to other laws than French Law, in casu Sharia. There is something else: in Europe, for decades the Right has lost elections, but always accepted it. By contrast, now that by and large the voting behaviour of the greater majority of Europeans shows a shift to the right, the left reacts with anger. Bad losers, I says.

NoPasaran! has a telling series of videos from the French riots over the past days. The following one shows the Place de la Bastille, one of the focal points of the Parisian riots, literally engulfed by tear gas, testimony of the tough measures needed to keep the "disgruntled" in check.

Look, it's high time we in the West wake up. I there is still anyone out there who thinks the violent riots in France, where muslims constitute 10% of the population, the arrest of ten islamic extremist planning to attack Fort Dix, NJ, muslims taking over the city of Blackburn, Lancaster, the ongoing slaughter in Thailand by muslim separatists, Umberto Eco lamenting that muslims in Milan, Italy, succesfully demanded all non-muslim kids be expulsed from a school class, or Britain's MI5 tracking 4,000 islamic terrorists are non-related items, you are increasingly beginning to look like a fool. In my opinion, since I assume no sensible human being desires as yet to wipe out 1.3 billion muslims to save the planet, all support should still be given to the one and only strategic undertaking the West has currently in motion: the prodigious, albeit costly, US-led endeavour to remake the Middle East. Indeed, the very viciousness with which Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are trying to thwart democracy of taking root in Iraq and Afghanistan, is testimony of their fear that the US plan might actually work. Squemish leftists in the US are trying to derail that crucial undertaking by stabbing the troops in the back. It is the same squeamishness shown by European leftists when confronted with our homegrown islamic extremists. Both forms of squeamishness may be equally dangerous. The former because pulling back the troops will only embolden the islamists. AQ's no.2, Ayman al-Zawahiri recently said that the bill refected America's failure and frustration, and if after such a confession you still feel like voting for Baraka Hussein Obama would be cool, like Matt Damon, you must be an idiot, like Matt Damon.

The latter squeamishness may be dangerous because caving in to islamic demands is eroding our power base in our very countries. In few places is this more apparent than in Antwerp, where non-muslim kids have to eat halal meat too, and where gangs clad like Taliban forbid westernized muslim youngsters to enter discos. Or threaten to smash the shops of muslim alcohol vendors in Borgerhout if they don't remove the beer bottles from their shelves. In the meantime, Antwerps leftwing leadership looks decidely the other way.

On both fronts, in the Middle East and on the home front, the West must show resilience and patience, and above all, CONFIDENCE in our own culture and values, which have brought humanity so far. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we should soldier on, how ungrateful that job may look like sometimes. At home, we must make it clear to our muslim communities they have to abide Western Laws, or ... LEAVE.


MFBB.

SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN FWANCE.

The horrible Chirac Era is over. Nicolas Sarkozy has won and will be the next French President. Today, May 6, was the second round of the French Presidential elections, which had become necessary since none of the candidates got over the 50% treshold in the first round, two weeks ago. As of midnight, Sarkozy's and Royals electoral results stood at 53,28% for the former and 46,72% for the latter. At that time 3/4 of the vote, with a record turnout of 85%, had been counted, and Royal conceded defeat. One must conclude that finally - finally, after a dreadful Chirac presidency which left France with a stagnating economy, a public debt of 66% of GDP, and 25% of those under 24 without work - enough French apparently decided that enough is enough.




It is in this light that the defeat of the Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, must be seen. To combat France's woes, she promised... more of the same. E.g., as late as the televised debate between the candidates, one week ago, she still gave lukewarm support to the catastrophic 35-hour working week implemented virtually everywhere, from cafes over large companies to public offices. By contrast, Sarkozy, the 52-year old son of a Hungarian immigrant, has vowed that 35 hours of working a week should be a minimum, not a maximum. For decades, Frances politicial class has actually looked down on labor itself, and indeed, when the 35-hour working week was introduced in the mid-nineties by then Minister of Work and Employment Martine Aubry, one of the stated goals was that the French should have more leisure time! Talk like that never cut wood with human dynamo Sarkozy, who was already a mayor of the Parisian suburb Neuilly at age 22. Instead, he, a great admirer of Anglosaxon work ethics, based his campaign on the right of people to work, and work hard, and get rich with it:

"I want the workers to be respected. I want to protect the French from seeing their jobs going abroad. I don't believe in living on social welfare. I don't believe everyone is the same. I believe in merit, I believe in effort and reward for that effort and I believe in social mobility. But above all, I believe in hard work."

As for the other chalklines of Sarkozy's policy, it is assumed that the relations with the US will become significantly better. With regards to Europe, he champions a softly-softly approach towards more integration, proposing a mini-Constitutional Treaty to be ratified by French Parliament instead of risking a new referendum to get the European Constitution through. Being a firm believer in a United States of Europe myself - although I am aware that it will create even more "state" at the supranational level - I think this is indeed the right way too follow. After all, as long as Europeans don't bother to actually understand what the European Project really is, a ratification by Parliament is perfectly legal and sufficient. A referendum is useless as long as people generally don't even know what it is they are against. The only caveat I am making here is that the 500-plus page monstrosity be reduced to at least one tenth of its actual size, and with the US Constitution as an example.

Furthermore, Sarkozy wants to reduce the number of French bureaucrats - the French State is indeed top-heavy, with one in four jobs being provided by the government in one of its forms. As good as that may sound, though, it would be premature to call Sarkozy a libertarian, or indeed even a free markets advocate. He, too, does not want to touch the social welfare state, apart from some streamlining. And he; too, has protectionist reflexes. But all in all, I expect French policy under Sarkozy to undergo a sea-change to the right after Chirac, who was a rightwinger in name only. Another very significant stance: he doesn't want Turkey in the EU. And given the developments in that country - I am not overly optimistic about the recent secular showdown there - damn right he is.

Last but not least, as for France's un(der)reported Intifada, we may expect a crackdown on the bad*sses, and I do hope the new French President will make hard his promise to "kaercher the banlieuses" (a "Kaercher" is a High Pressure Water hose). Hell, as far as I am concerned he can deploy Leclerc tanks instead of Kaerchers. As if in anticipation, the more it became clear this evening that Sarkozy would be the winner, the more the famous French "youths" became agitated. They were obviously not amused. The irreplaceable French blog NoPasaran! reports:

Mohamed Mechmache, President of AC Le Feu -- an association created following the November 2005 riots, has ominously warned that "France did not understand the message sent during the riots in October and November of 2005."

In Lille, just before 22h00, around 200 anarchists French youths with black flags grouped around the Grand Place and chanted "Fascist Sarko, the people will have your hide". After pelting riot police, the demonstrators were dispersed. One demonstrator was injured. Firemen in the south of Lille have answered 20 alarms for torched vehicles...

*sshole. To me it looks like France DID understand the message. Anyway, here's more:

500 demonstrators, composed of people coming from Ségolène Royal's
headquarters as well as suburban French youth, converged towards a barge docked on the Rhône river that was rented for a Sarkozy victory party. Fully loaded garbage cans were thrown from a nearby bridge, missing the barge. Fights broke out on the riverside shortly shortly after. Riot police surrounded the barge and aimed flash guns at the demonstrators.

At 10PM France2 TV mentions anti-Sarkozy demonstrations by French youths in the city centers of Rennes and Nantes. Groups of 20-30 French youths have started pelting police in Sevran, Blanc-Mesnil, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Villepinte. TF1 TV has just shown video of French youths vandalizing the area around the Place de la Bastille in Paris where Ségolène Royal would have had her victory celebration had she won.

and:

Several towns in Essonne have experienced violence following the Sunday night election results. Open air sporting event structures and schools have been targeted by firebombs in Ris-Orangis, Corbeil-Essonnes et Evry. In Evry, a police patrol was shot at at the Place de la Commune. Unidentified gunmen armed with pump rifles were spotted in the Grande Borne à Grigny."

So it already looks like France's president elect has some work cut out for him. However, let some reports from no doubt very upset and extremely humiliated muslim French youths whose just grievances are not listened to not spoil the party folks. If you don't have to work tomorrow, get drunk as a monkey because France... France has the most pro-US President ever!!!!!


MFBB.

IT'S THE COWS, STUPID!

You can't make this stuff up. Today in my dad's newspaper De Stavda, sometimes referred to as De Standaard, an item about Bart Staes, of the Belgian/Flemish Green Party Groen!:

"You can laugh about it...", said Bart Staes yesterday at the press conference for the presentation of the "Ecological Food Plan" of Groen!..."but all the cows in the world and the other cattle produce more greenhouse gases than car traffic". The next federal government [Belgium has parliamentary elections on June 10 - MFBB] must again make livestock reduction a number one priority. The action plan of Groen! provides financial incentives for farmers who reduce their number of cows.

Other paragraphs in the Ecological Food Plan of Groen! included jewels like a promotion campaign meant to exhort people to eat less meat. "In the past, we had a day without meat on Friday. Why shouldn't we declare Thursday a vegetarian day?" dixit European Parliament member Bart Staes. And of course, they want to reduce the number of kilometers food travels before it arrives on our dinner tables. The plan provides for a distribution sector obligation to put labels on their foodstuff indicating whether it was ecologically transported or not. A red plane label would mean high environmental costs, a blue ship on the other hand an eco-friendly product. According to Groen! a bad example is "a can of tomato soup travelling 32,000 kilometers before we can eat it." AFAIK, the place where the earth's circumference is biggest is the equator, where one has to travel 40,000 kilometers in either direction before arriving again at his starting point. I suppose it's because I am not so smart as a Greenie, but I wonder why on earth, even in the worst of cases, a can of soup would have to travel 32,000 kloms if it could also land in your plate after only 8,000? The only explanation I can find is that Greens must be living on another planet.

Okay now, who TF is Bart Staes? He's a Belgian member of the Green fraction in the European Parliament and active in a number of commissions. If you are crazy enough, check out his site and find out he's quite a busy boy. Look, we may laugh about it, but the fact remains that the Green fraction, although it only has 42 seats in the 785 man strong EP, has an influence on decisions belying its actual size, because it often forms a tandem with the socialist fraction, which is the biggest but one group. A scenario comparable to the national level, btw. It is high time the EP gets cleaned up, but for that we will have to wait another couple of years. Either way, the example shows how far disconnected from reality the weirder strings of Euro politicians have become.






MFBB.

DEATH OF A SOCIALIST.

There are those who keep saying MFBB is a Nazi, so tell me then hmmmm, why didn't I celebrate April 20, the Fuehrer's birthday? There are two reasons for this. First, I am definitely NOT a Nazi. Let others celebrate, e.g. these clusterf*ckers. Even if Adolph killed 27 million of their compatriots. The second reason is that there are much more interesting people to celebrate the birthday from, like, uh, Jessica Lange Luther Vandross, Henry de Montherlant, George Takei etc etc etc. Carmen Electra comes to mind. Osama, Ayman, Mahmoud, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Don't clic on that pic!!!!!! The DEVIL is in there!!!! Aaaaaaaarrgghhhhhhhhh, too late....

However, when the time is there and the calendar shows April 30, you bet we're online, the champagne corks are popping and the dvd plays Wedding Crashers or something. Indeed, the last day of April is the day Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin. To give some very brief info about his last days on earth, that bunker, which he had moved into on January 16, 1945, was but a mere shadow of the other Fuehrerhauptquartiere he had conducted his war from, like Wehrwolf in the Ukraine, or the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia. It was humid because the concrete hadn't had the time to dry properly; ventilation was inadequate; and the rooms were cramped. There was but scant communication with the outside world and his staff had to rely on the telephone to get info about the Russians' troop movements. These launched their final offensive on April 16 across the Oder river, a mere 60 kilometers from Berlin. Despite prodigious resistance from the army directly opposing them, 9th under Busse, the main Russian wedge under Zhukov broke through after 2 1/2 days. Another wedge under Koniev was already well on its way from a southeasterly direction. By the 24th both marshals were in Berlin's outskirts and a general Bersarin, a bit premature, was made City Commander. Resistance was tough though, not only from Waffen SS units but also from depleted Wehrmacht and Volkssturm formations. During the last week of his life, Hitler for the last time tried to direct armies to come to his rescue, and it must be said that one of them, 12th under Wenck, made remarkable progress and got as far as Potsdam, just southwest of Berlin. But when Hitler learned this attempt, too, ahd failed, he finally could no longer deny reality. On April 29th he dictated his testament, in which he repeated the basic tenets of the vile Nazi ideology, and named Grossadmiral Doenitz his successor. He then married his mistress, Eva Braun, whom he had known since 1930. On April 30, Hitler had a brief meeting with the Nazi Party secretary, the sinister Martin Bormann. After that he had a small lunch prepared by his vegetarian cook, Fraulein Manzialy. The couple then said their personal farewells to the Fuehrerbunker staff and its other occupants, the Goebbels family, and around 14.30 withdrew in Hitlers study. Around 15:30 a gunshot was heard. Hitlers valet, Heinz Linge, then entered with Bormann at his side. The Hitlers were sitting on a small sofa, and apparently the Fuehrer had shot himself through the head and taken cyanide. His wife had only resorted to poisoning herself, also with cyanide. The bodies were taken upstairs (the bunker was deep under the ground) and set on fire with 200 litres gasoline brought by Hitlers driver Erich Kempka.

Such was the end of one of the most evil men who ever lived.

"Nazi" means National Socialist. The Nazi Party was the NSDAP, the Nazional Sozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, National Socialist German Workers' Party. Hitlers regime and ideology embraced collectivism, and subordinated the individual to the community. The Nazis tried to make Germany an autarky - the very antithesis of an open, free-market based society. They centrally planned the German economy with four-year plans, not unlike another infamous socialist state. The regime's secret police silenced dissenting voices. Parliament was shoved aside, industries nationalized - echoes of which can be perceived right now in Latin America. The Nazi state thought it should control the lives of its citizens to the most minute details. Christianity was abhorred, in contrast to what may of today's leftists claim. In its place, the Nazis tried to reinstate the old Germanic pagan worshipping.

The Nazi Regime was as leftist as could be. And its grandmaster proudly proclaimed himself a socialist. He unleashed unseen evil over the world which would cost the lives of 55 million people, ruin the existence of tens of millions more, and cause immeasurable material damage. April 30 is a day which should be feted.




MFBB.


N.B.: the photo does NOT depict Hitler. Very likely it's a Soviet propaganda photo, and historians unanimously agree that the man shown is not the Fuehrer. His body was practically totally consumed by the fire, although the remains found their way to Moscow. But as a mean to illustrate this post, I thought it came in handy. Sorry if you find it macabre.

SARKOZY OR BUST.

The following excerpts tell you a lot about a man who might well be the next French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. Back in September 2006, he paid a visit to Manhattan to commemmorate the victims of 9/11. He also had a meeting with President Bush.

On a four-day trip to America, the 51- year-old interior minister and the leading presidential hopeful on the right, pinned a medal on the police commissioner of New York, honored firefighters in midtown Manhattan for their losses suffered on 9/11, and signed hundreds of copies of his best-selling book of memoirs for French supporters. He told Jewish leaders of his love of Israel, told American business leaders of his love of free enterprise, and told Francophiles of his love of America. "My dedication to our relationship with America is well-known and has earned me substantial criticism in France," Sarkozy declared Tuesday in a speech before the French-American Foundation in Washington. "I'm not a coward. I'm proud of this friendship and I proclaim it gladly."

In case you missed it, France held Presidential elections last Sunday, April 22. These were quite important, since not only are presidencies relatively scarce in "Old Europe", what with a number of key European nations never having dispensed with their crowned heads like the French did, but also because a French President, like his American counterpart, wields considerable power. Indeed, it is he who chooses the Prime Minister and it is he who is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces - including France's still impressive nuclear deterrent of 348 warheads. Also, a French President can pardon convicted criminals and even dissolve Parliament. So there was quite a lot at stake la dimanche dernière.

There were twelve candidates for the French Presidential elections, of which only four had any real chance: these were Nicolas Sarkozy of the center-right UMP, Ségolène Royal of the socialist party, the center-left François Bayrou, a Christian Democrat, and the eternal presidential wannabe Jean-Marie Le Pen, of the so-called "extreme rightwing" Front National, which is actually a leftwing party with an anti-immigrant agenda, but more about later. So that's actually two leftwing contenders, one center leftist and one center rightwinger. If you think, golly, the Left has quite some appeal in France, you are thinking in understatements. Of the TWELVE presidential candidates, SIX adhered to Marxist principles! What to think for instance of:

* Arlette Laguiller, trotskyite, the candidate of Lutte Ouvrière (LO - Worker's Fight). Her plan to combat France's rampant unemployment is to forbid companies to fire workers as long as the companies make profits.

* Olivier Besançenot wants to raise minimum wages immediately to 1,500 EUR (some 1950 US$)

* José Bové, the biofarmer, wants to use the profits of the CAC40, the French Stock Exchange, to distribute among the people.

* Gérard Schivardy, of the trotskyite Parti des Travailleurs (PT) has an original solution for France's public debt: abolish it.

* Marie-George Buffet, of the Communist Party, wants much more social expenses, even if it is clear that the current expenses will kill public finances in two decades.

* Dominique Voynet of the Verts (the Green Party), wants extension of the 35-hour working week towards small and medium-sized companies, even if the sign is on the wall - has fallen off it, actually - that the monstrosity is backfiring big time. There's ordinary workers who want to earn more and don't bother doing 50-hour weeks; since they are not allowed to, they leave for the UK.

I kid you not. The smorgasbord of clowns above disguised as gentlemen and ladies vied for the Presidency of what is still a powerful nation, a G-8 member with the world's third largest nuclear arsenal. I have shuddered for far less. For them it's:

* Never mind the collapse of the Soviet Union.
* Never mind how Africa and the Middle East, who embraced socialism in the post-colonial periodn saw mass starvation and unseen impoverishment.
* Never mind that East Germans drove Trabants and West Germans Mercedeses.
* Never mind how Tanzania's collectivist Ujamaa adventure ruined the country.
* Never mind the sluggish economic growth and high unemployment of the European countries themselves, where socialist parties wield considerable power.
* Never mind that the failure of Israel's collectivist kibbuts system is plain for everyone to see.

And never mind the graphs to the right, relative to Ireland's economic miracle, which started halfway the eighties - coincidentally together with the Irish government's drastic slashing of its expenses, read excess personnel, as well of the taxes it imposed. The graphs are drawn from the excellent Belgian/Flemish free market think tank WorkforAll, and they describe in a nutshell how excessive government spending/taxing and high unemployment are interrelated. Until 1985 Ireland was Europes sick man: unemployment of 17%; sky high taxes, high import tariffs, big government. And then... it applied Reaganomics. In three years public spending was slashed 20%, income taxes were lowered drastically, and the market was thrown wide open for foreign products. The results were and are baffling. Today, Ireland is Europes second wealthiest country per capita; over the past twenty years, its economy has grown a staggering 169%; and it has one of the lowest European unemployment rates. In relative terms, it also has the smallest governement. The Irish example is but one in a (very) long string of free market and lean government-induced economic successes. The last striking example came from... the arab-world, where a number of free trade agreements between most countries of the Arab League, one year ago, immediately resulted in an as yet unnoticed economic surge. Actually, taking it all together, socialism is as dead as a deceased whale stinking on a beach. That two-digit IQ square dumbasses like Morales and Chavez still believe nationalizing industries is good for their economies can be understood to some extent, but western leftists, especially the European ones, should now better. They actually remind me of John Herod in The Quick and the Dead, played by Gene Hackman, who before he sees how the sun shines through holes blasted in his corpse, does not realize he's dead. Zapatero, Royal, Schroeder, Prodi: they are the John Herods of our time.



Across the Irish Sea and the Channel now, back to France, because we haven't talked yet about what seems the most reasonable person in the socialist camp, but what is actually by far the most dangerous individual. We are talking about Ségolène Royal, the candidate of the Socialist Party for the French presidency. And one of the two contenders left for the final round. Because Sunday's elections yielded two winners: Sarkozy and Royal. Indeed, under French law a candidate has to have at least 50% of the vote to become President, and if all candidates fail to reach that goal the two leading adversaries proceed to a second round two weeks later. As it was, most candidates had mediocre or downright disappointing results, e.g. Le Pen, who chalked up just under 11% - quite a humiliation indeed, and it showed: the man looked spent. If I'm not mistaken, we have seen here the end of the Front National as a force to be reckoned with. The sextet of marxist parties collectively secured only 8% of the vote, which means that the French did figure out the most radical leftists are indeed hopeless bozos. So, as it was, Sunday April 22 had two clear winners: Sarkozy obtained some 31% of the vote, and Royal just under 26%. So while Sarkozy is clearly the favorite, the difference with his socialist counterpart is not unbridgeable. There still is a chance that Madame Royal, of shaking hands with Hezbollah fame, lands in the Elysée as France's first female president. Well, we have just seen the beneficial effects of stripping the government size to galvanize an economy. What do you think Mrs. Royals remedy is for youth unemployment, now at 20%? In a country where one in four jobs is a government job? Her answer is simple: create 500,000 more government jobs! In a 2006 interview with a Times correspondent, Royal remarked: "The capitalists have to be frightened. There is no alternative. They can't just dispose of people as they wish. They have to be held accountable. We need to tax businesses who want to move out jobs and tax their products when they re-import them." And when Airbus unveiled plans to lay off 10,000 people to cope with the financial losses caused by delays in the A380 programme, she said: "We have to end this ultra-liberal system, put in place by the policies of the right wing government, that ensures it's always the employees who pay for the problems of companies and management errors."

Such nonsense, contradicted by 60 years of post-WWII experience with Capitalism as the one and only Global Wealth Creator, is music for far too many French ears. An item on BBC online described the reactions of some French students in a Parisian café, and one of them, a certain Laurent, explained in two sentences why being dumb does not hurt: "I think globalisation today is the modern equivalent of the slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean. I am for human globalisation, but I am against the capitalist economic system and I think we need to make capitalism history."

In short, even though polls for the May 6 final round give Sarkozy between 52 and 54% of the vote against 46-48% for Royal, there is still cause for concern for France's most successful immigrant (Sarkozy is of Hungarian descent). Because practically all the defeated leftist formations are now endorsing Royal. And it is highly unlikely this will be offset by Le Pen advising his voters to support Sarkozy. It seems the key figure in the final decision is François Bayrou, who got more than 7 million French behind him. He has not yet publicly endorsed Royal, but his policies are far closer to hers than to Sarkozy's. Still, for the second time in this post I pronounce myself moderately optimistic we will get to know, in two weeks, the most pro-US French President ever. A man who, though he too professes at times his confidence in a strong (read big) French state, is bound to represent a sea change in French politics after the dreadful Chirac era. A man who will cut back excessive public expenses. A man who will take on the unreported French Intifada. And a man who has vowed to "make the French less afraid of economic successes." So, MFBB endorses Sarkozy, but I guess you had already come to that conclusion.


MFBB.

NATO WINNING IN AFGHANISTAN!

Remember all the bruhaha about the imminent Taliban Spring Offensive back in January and February? Apart from CNN, CBS, the New York Times, the LA Times, Le Monde, the BBC, the Guardian, The Independent and what not wrininging their hands over the upcoming quagmire there was also e.g. Al-Jazeera on February 21, quoting a Mullah Dadullah, close aide to Mullah Omar and reportedly the Taliban's new military commander:

"The attack is imminent," he told Al Jazeera's Arabic channel in an interview aired on Wednesday. "The number of Taliban mujahidin who are ready to launch the spring battle has reached 6000," he told Ahmed Zeidan, the Kabul bureau chief of Al Jazeera's Arabic channel. Dadullah said that the fighters were concealed in tunnels and elsewhere in preparation for launching their attack. He said he might even be able to deploy even more volunteers if Nato troop increases continued to prompt more Afghans to take up arms. "It may rise to 10.000," he said. "The more the number of Jewish and Christian soldiers who fight us increases, the more the Afghan people will be encouraged to join us."

And if you did not believe Ahmed Zeidan over there in Kabul with his pal Mullah Dadullah, savouring Danish butter cookies and Carolina Pride pork sausages and whisking them down with Jack Daniels, there was always Matthias Gebauer, Der Spiegel correspondent in Pakistan, who, while on a stroll in Peshawar, noticed DVD's being sold with Mullah Dadullah's latest inspiring massages, which inspired him on March 1 to submit the following copy to Der Spiegel Online:

THE STAR OF AFGHANISTAN'S JIHAD: -The images on these DVDs reveal the Taliban's self confidence and new professionalism. The films herald a bloody spring in Afghanistan, one in which Western troops will face a newly strengthened Taliban army under a re-organized leadership. Well armed and better logistically organized than ever before, the Taliban are preparing for their fight against the hated NATO troops, whose alliance has recently shown signs of internal division. "They say it will be the decisive summer," says a man who occasionally drinks tea with the Taliban commanders.

MEANWHILE.......

...in the real world.......

...the hated NATO troops whose alliance recently showed signs of internal division issued on April 8 the following statement, by word of Dutch Major General Ton Van Loon (yeah, I know, his name sucks for Anglosaxons), who recently commanded British, Dutch, US, Canadian, Danish, and Estonian ground forces supported by Dutch, British, and US aircraft during Operation SILVER (a sub-operation of Operation ACHILLES) with the aim of taking Sangin and the Sangin Valley:


“We continue to make steady progress in Northern Helmand and even though the Sangin District Centre is in the control of Government of Afghanistan forces, Operation Achilles is not over,” stated Major General Ton van Loon. He added, “We adopted a deliberate and systematic approach to our offensive operation, not because Taliban resistance was strong, but because we wanted to remove them from Sangin with a minimum amount of collateral damage to the civilian infrastructure. It is a testament to the skill and professionalism of our troops that they have done this difficult task as asked.”

The Dutch NATO Secretary General, Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, is equally upbeat about Operation ACHILLES thus far:

March 27, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- NATO commanders say they are pleased with the initial results of their spring offensive in southern Afghanistan. A month into the operation, NATO commanders say their deployment of several thousand NATO and Afghan troops is eroding the ability of the Taliban to fight.

"[Some] 4,500 NATO troops with 1,000 Afghan national security forces are active there and they focus on Helmand Province in the southern part of Afghanistan," de Hoop Scheffer said. "The aim of the operation is to create security -- more security -- in the south, and in particular, to allow [for] the installation of a turbine in the Kajaki dam." There are more than 14,000 reconstruction projects under way in Afghanistan. But Hoop de Scheffer says the Kajaki dam has the most strategic and psychological significance. That's because of the economic benefits residents of the area are expected to reap once reconstruction is finished.

"When the turbine in that dam is [installed] it will give power to 2 million people and their businesses. It will provide irrigation for hundreds of farmers. And it will create jobs for 2,000 people," de Hoop Scheffer said. "The Taliban, the spoilers, are attacking this project every day to [try to] stop it from going forward."

The ground troops enjoy considerable air support day after day, with substantial losses for the Taliban. Here are some exerpts from the April 15 CENTAF summary:

In Afghanistan, an Air Force B-1B Lancer dropped a guided bomb unit-31 and GBU-38s on an anti-coalition militia firing position near Kajaki*. A joint terminal attack controller confirmed all weapons hit the desired targets. U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets conducted reconnaissance for suspicious activity near Ghazni**. French M-2000 Mirages performed shows of force over a suspected mortar position and an insurgent-occupied building near Asmar***. The shows of force were reported as successful. In total, 46 close-air-support missions were flown in support of ISAF and Afghan security forces, reconstruction activities and route patrols.

And even the Belgian contingent, still guarding Kabul International Airport, is not completely asleep. Two weeks ago it received its second Dingo II troop carrier, a new MultiPurpose Protected Vehicle (MVPP), recently purchased from the German constructor Kraus-Maffei-Wegmann (KMW). The Belgian Army will have 220 of them in five versions: as troop carrier, Mobile Command Post, ambulance, battlefield guard and forward observer, and there's an option for another 124. The first photo shows a Hercules unloading the Dingo on KAIA, the second one a version with remote controlled machinegun.



The Belgian contingent in Afghanistan will receive in all four Dingos. They will not replace the Pandurs, but supplement them. Since they are totally brand new vehicles and only one unit, 3rd Para Batallion from Flawinne, could muster competent crews right away, the Dingos are manned by ad hoc personnel from that unit. Afghanistan is not the only theater where the Dingos are deployed. The 400-strong Belgian Army detachment in the south of Lebanon, guarding the no-man's land and demining there, also uses several of these vehicles. Thus far, one critical note was observed. It seems that the remote-controlled machinegun gets stuck if it turns too far to the left, and can then only be manually unlocked.




MFBB.

ROBERT FALCON SCOTT (1868-1912): PUTTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT.

You are looking at a photo of doomed men.



Date: January 18, 1912. Place: the South Pole. From left to right are Dr. Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers, Edgar Evans, Robert Scott and Lawrence Oates. The Polar Party of the British Antarctic Expedition which had set out in 1910 with the aim of raising the British flag at the South Pole. Sadly for them, a Norwegian expedition under Roald Amundsen had forestalled them, arriving first at the South Pole one month earlier. The location of their camp was marked by an abandoned tent and a black flag. One wonders whether the sight of that flag instilled in Scotts men more than the feeling of just having been beaten... a feeling of looming death perhaps... Because none of them would make it back.


I have been reading Ranulph Fiennes' excellent Captain Scott [Hodder & Stoughton, 2003]. Like most people of my generation with an interest in history, I was fairly well acquainted with the story of Robert Scott's second polar expedition, which ended so tragically. More specifically, being post-1965, most stories I read about it paid a lot of attention to the reasons for Scott's failure. These varied from using cotton-based Burberry clothing instead of Inuit furs, over relying on manhauling power and Manchurian ponies instead of dog teams, to prematurely deploying prototype motorized sledges. Or from choosing wrongly composed rations to poor planning. Even "typical" imperialistic arrogance in the face of earth's most hostile environment was used as an explanation. The authors of this kind of biographies though, have one thing in common: they never set foot on the Antarctic. Indeed, there is e.g. a biographer who possibly did more than anyone else to ruin Scott's reputation, Roland Huntford, who not only wrote the Amundsen-glorifying and Scott-bashing Scott and Amundsen (1979) but who also had the honour of seeing his book serve as the basis for a Central TV film script, a film which acquired the status of a documentary to the extent that as late as 2000, the 7-episode (!) drama was still shown at US science stations in Antarctica. Yet Huntfords main experience with snow and hazardous situations mainly confines itself to... skiing in the Alps. By contrast, Sir Ranulph Fiennes is, apart from a gifted writer, possibly the world's greatest living explorer, having led over thirty expeditions including the first unsupported crossing of Antarctica as well as the first polar circumnavigation of the Earth. The flap cover of "Captain Scott" reads: "For the first time Scott's story is told by someone who has experienced the deprivations, the stress and the physical pain that Scott lived through. Fiennes has suffered all but the final tragedy endured by the much maligned Scott: he is determined to put the record straight." I found out that was not a word too much.

To grasp the importance of the early 20th century south polar expeditions, one has to understand that in those days, the real nature of Antarctica was generally still not fully understood. Only some seventy years before, in 1831, had a British naval officer, James Clark Ross, spotted land below 85 degrees, the most prominent feature of which he called Cape Adare. On the map below to the right, this is the tip protruding from Victoria Land. Sailing 360 miles further south, Ross found his passage barred by an enormous, solid ice wall, in some places up to 200 feet high. On its eastern extremity (actually its western, but relative to the maps below its eastern) was a deep bay, which he called McMurdo Sound. Sailing along the Barrier, Ross met land again a staggering four hundred miles further. Only later was it understood that the Barrier was in fact the front ridge of some gigantic glacier starting somewhere on the Antarctic mainland. Comparison of the satellite and geographical maps below makes it clear this glacier is roughly triangular in form; while the satellite photo shows this "ice triangle" as land, it is actually a gigantic floating ice pack, and so on the geographical map is only indicated by a line: the Barrier. Clearly visible on the satmap is a prominent mountain range, now called the Transantarctic Mountains, starting at Cape Adare and describing a faint "S" before petering out in the land ashore the Weddell Sea. It is clear that there is a huge height difference between the Ross Ice Shelf and the plateau across the mountain range and indeed, the South Pole itself is on this plateau. Therefore, any expedition attempting to reach the Pole using McMurdo Sound as its starting point, would have to cross the mountain range at some point before resuming the journey to earth's southernmost point - and this last stretch would have to be made at a considerable height above sea level. These elements are critical to understanding antarctic travel bound for the Pole. As for Ross, in 1843 he finally headed back home, and the sea over which he first entered the polar region now bears his name: the Ross Sea. Consequently, the floating ice pack became known as the Ross Ice Shelf.



As mentioned earlier, Scott's 1910-1912 expedition to the South Pole was actually his second one. In 1901-1904 he led the first attempt to reach the Pole, using a hut on Ross Island, in McMurdo Sound, as his base camp. The spearhead party of this expedition consisted of only three men: Scott himself, his close friend Dr. Edward Wilson, and a certain Ernest Shackleton, a young Merchant Navy officer. Shackleton would become another famous polar explorer of his own, and to this day a controverse exists as to whether he was Scott's nemesis or not. Many biographies depict both men as hostile rivals, but Fiennes' work reaches a different conclusion. Whatever their later personal relationship was, initially they must have come along quite well, because after all Scott plucked Shackleton from a crew of around 50. In the first week of November 1902 they set out, and after much hardships and having had to kill all of their dogs (Scott did use dogs as sledge haulers during this first expedition), came as far south as 82°11'S. At this point, they were well within range of the Transantarctic Mountains and actually, a deep-cut valley in the mountains opposite their southernmost point was called the Shackleton Inlet. But they never got across the mountains.

Six years later Shackleton would. Leading an expedition of his own, he succeeded in getting his four man strong polar party as far south as 87° - only 97 nautical miles from the South Pole. Given the circumstances, it was an amazing feat, about which more later in this story. But the really important thing for Scott was that during his journey, Shackleton found a way to traverse the Transantarctic Mountains. Cutting through the mountain range from high up the plateau towards the Ross ice Shelf, was a gigantic glacier, which Shackleton called the Beardmore Glacier, after a former employer and sponsor of his. With some justification, one could call this Beardmore Glacier a "stairway to heaven" - for it was riddled with extremely dangerous crevasses - hidden chasms under the surface ice crust which could suddenly give away and swallow man, dogs and sledges into unknown depths. I have included the map below because I think it does an awful good job of depicting the geographical situation around the Ross Ice Shelf. It is incongruous to some extent since it marks both Shackleton's 1908 expedition and Amundsen's one three years later without any hint to Scott's two journeys. But one can clearly make out how the Beardmore slashes through the mountains and thus seems to offer a "quick" way up to the polar plateau more than three thousand meters higher. Likewise, you can also make out how Amundsens course, which took him due south in 1911, by sheer luck directly brought him at the foot of a similar, albeit shorter glacier, which he called the Axel Heiberg Glacier, after a financier of his.



So when Scott's ship, the Terra Nova, arrived in McMurdo Sound in January 1910, he could rely to a considerable degree on Shackleton's experiences. For instance, not only would they follow in Shackleton's trail, but also would they use ponies for sledgehauling instead of dogs, since Shackleton had shown that ponies could haul heavier loads than dogs on snow, ice or a mixture of the two. Scott used Manchurian ponies, procured for him through a certain Cecil Meares, an Army major's son turned adventurer. A man of careful preparations, Scott did not intend to go for the Pole immediately upon arrival. Also, the British expedition was never meant to be merely a race for Earths's southernmost point, as was Amundsens undertaking, but a scientific endeavour also. Scotts best friend, Dr. Wilson, had gone to great lenghts to ensure that they would set out "to take the largest, most professional and best equipped scientific team ever assembled to Antarctica." And so the expedition comprised a.o. physicists, zoologists, geologists, biologists as well as a meteorologist, George Simpson, who later would become Director of the British Meteorological Office. The result was that the expedition spent 10 months before the polar party finally set out on its quest. Of course, it would have been foolish to set out in the middle of a calendar year, since then the Antarctic winter is at its most severe. In those months several crucial depots along the polar route's first leg were laid out, the last one of them being One Ton Depot at 79°29'S, as well as some minor scientific explorations. One of these returned with the shocking news that the British were not alone in their polar endeavour: in the Bay of Whales, some three hundred miles along the Barrier, they had come across the Norwegian expedition. Suddenly, the undertaking took the form of a race.

On November 1, 1911, the main expedition finally set out with eight men and ten ponies. They were preceded by a small party under Teddy Evans (not to be confused with Edgar Evans) using first the motorized sledges and then manhauling with the aim of establishing even more depots beyond One Ton Depot. As it was, Scotts group found the abandoned broken down motor sledges after only 51 miles. As much as Scott has been criticized for employing them in the first place, in reality their use was a relative success, since they carried the bulk of the supplies the crucial first days when the expedition traversed a dangerous crevassed area; the result was that once firmly on the Ross Ice Shelf the ponies were relatively fresh. On the 21st of November, the main group caught up with Evans' group. United, they arrived at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier by early december, and between them and One Ton Depot they had established three more depots. At this point the first two men were sent back. Indeed, the whole idea was that as more depots were laid down, teams would be gradually ordered back, until a core group carrying with them the last supplies would remain for the final effort. When this group would return, it would use the supplies stored in the outbound journey.

The expedition, now 12 strong, toiled up the 120-mile long Beardmore glacier, killing the by then wasted ponies and storing their meat in three depots, Upper, Middle and Lower Glacier, as they went. The Beardmore was a killer, and as the teams, now all of them manhauling, ascended the thirty-three mile wide, 9,000 foot glacier, the first sledge teams began to lag behind and expedition members began to show signs of frostbite. On 20 December, still on the Glacier, they reached the 85th parallel. Here Scott had to decide which further men to send back. A party of four returned under the leadership of the young Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who would in 1922 write the widely acclaimed "The Worst Journey in the World". At least three of the four were very unhappy about having to return, being only 283 miles from the Pole now. One of them though, a certain Atkinson, was already near the end of his tether, and his state would prove prophetic for the rest of the crew. On 23 December, the eight remaining men were finally on the plateau, and on 31 December, they laid their last but one cache, which they called Three Degree Depot - they were as far south as Shackleton had come, 87°, three years earlier. Next to go was a party of three led by Teddy Evans, and here we come upon a main criticism for Scott. Of eight men, he sent back three, so the final polar party counted five men. But the expedition's tents were designed for four. Moreover, there were only four pairs of skis, so the last sledge would have to be pulled by four men using skis with the fifth man plodding along on foot. While these arguments sound very reasonable, Fiennes, bearing on his vast polar experience, rebukes them convincingly, since early expedition reports ascertain that five men could sleep comfortably in a four-man tent, and that the state of the polar plateau's surface was such that it did not make much difference whether one would use skis or go merely on foot. Fiennes comes to the conclusion that Scott took a fifth man for a simple reason: sheer manpower. So, with five men they set out for the journey's final leg, and as we have seen these men were, apart from Scott himself, Dr. Edward Wilson, Royal Navy Petty Officer Edgar Evans, Army Captain Laurence "Titus" Oates, and RN Lieutenant Henry Bowers. The "indestructible" Bowers acted not only as the group's navigator, but also as its photographer, and the historical photo above, showing his comrades at a distance of only 75 nautical miles from the Pole, is his work.

On 16 January 1912 Bowers was the first to spot something he thought was a cairn. In Scott's diaries, an entry reads: "Soon we knew, that this could not be a natural snow feature." And so it was. The Norwegians had beaten them by more than a month, on 14 December 1911. Scott's expedition had never been planned as a race - they had mapped their journey, taken photographs, made sketches and meteorological readings, taken rock samples - but nevertheless the taste of defeat was bitter. A close-up of the first photo of Scott's face, left, speaks bookmarks. Only Wilson and Bowers manage to smile. By contrast Amundsens crew had "merely" made a dash it, without manhauling, purely relying on dog power to pull their sledges... but the flag of their newborn state - as a nation, Norway was barely a couple of years old - flew first at the Pole. The Brits took ten photographs, planted the British flag nevertheless, and headed back for their base on Ross Island, 800 miles away, on 19 January. Unnoticed for Scott, Wilson and Bowers were Evans' badly cut hand, leaking pus, and Oates' frostbitten foot, slowly turning black.

When Amundsen reached the Pole, in mid-December, the brief Antarctic "Summer" was still in full swing. Now, five weeks later, the weather began to deteriorate quickly, and snowdrifts limited the Brits' sights. Temperature averaged -21°C. In Scott's diary, disturbing entries begin to appear. January 20: "I think Oates is feeling the cold and fatigue more than the rest of us." January 23: "There is no doubt Evans is a good deal run down - his fingers are badly blistered and his nose is rather seriously congested with frequent frost bites." Wilson's notes, being a surgeon's, offer more details. Around January 30: "Titus' toes are blackening and his nose and cheeks are dead yellow." February 4: "Evans' fingers suppurating, nose very bad and rotten looking." Still, 4 February was also the day the group neared the rocky outcrops of the Beardmore Glacier's upper markers, for despite the bad weather and intense cold they had made very good progress. Once on the Beardmore, they did not neglect their scientific agenda, for they took one day to collect rock samples. Scott's diary on February 8 reads: "It has been extremely interesting... Wilson, with his sharp eyes, has picked several plant impressions, the last a piece of coal with beautifully traced leaves in layers, also some excellently preserved impressions of thick stems, showing cellular structure". In all, they collected 35 pounds of rock samples on the Beardmore.

On 16 February, one month after reaching the Pole and almost at their lowest supply depot on the glacier, the group noticed that Edgar "Taff" Evans had seriously lagged behind. They went back and found him totally collapsed, sick and unable to even stand on his feet. They laid him in the tent, where shortly thereafter he died quickly and quietly. It has been suggested afterwards that he died from a brain haemorrhage, since Wilson's diary, and Scott's, mention a serious fall Evans suffered two weeks before in a crevasse. The harsh realities being what they were, there was not time for a formal funeral - any lingering out in the cold while standing still could lead to fatal hypothermia. Their companion was buried on the spot. But prayers will certainly have been said over poor Evans' body, since Bowers and Wilson were deeply religious, and Scott himself was religious too, although he did not take the Bible at face value. Now there were just the four of them, basically at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier, and theoretically still with a fair chance to make it back. After all, they were halfway back. They had always found their depots and thus were well stocked. They would no longer suffer from altitude sickness as they had up on the plateau. Under normal circumstances, survival was within their grasp.

But they were not to encounter normal circumstances. Because from 25 February on, the temperature dropped suddenly and unexpectedly to unprecedented levels. By 30 February, it was -40°F. In addition, where normally they could expect a strong wind from the south, which would have allowed them to put up a sail on the sledge, they now had to fight against strong northerly winds. On top of it all, while they were not short of food, they had precious little fuel, since they had found out at the last depot that the fuel cans had lost a great deal of primus oil. Leaking leather washers allowing the liquid to evaporate were to blame. Less fuel meant less cooked food and less melting of ice for drinking water, so that they had to resort to eating ice and melt it in their mouths. This depleted their body warmth even more, so they "drank" less ice - but this in turn led to dehydration. Still, until 4 March they managed to do averages of over ten miles a day, a pace which might still see them through. But Oates was by now suffering horribly from his frostbitten feet, and since his hands were also very bad, required help one hour and a half each morning just to get him dressed. Scott's diary reads: "We are in a very queer street since there is no doubt we cannot do the extra marches and feel the cold horribly." By that time he was the only diarist. On 6 March Oates was unable to pull anymore and trodded along the sledge - but no complaint came from his lips. On 8 March, an alarming entry in Scott's diary: "Wilson's feet giving trouble now." On 10 March, a blizzard kept them in their tent; it cleared the following day and incredibly, Oates was still able to keep up with the rest - but his fingers had frozen to total uselessness. Wilson, on the other hand, had deteriorated to the point he could not reach down himself to unbind his skis. On 13 March, a blizzard kept them again in their tent; the day after, they managed to do another couple of miles before the awful wind and the temperature, between 10 and 20 degrees lower than "normal", forced them to camp again and stay put for the following two days. Scott wrote: "Truly awful outside the tent. Must fight it out to the last biscuit." Then, on the evening of 16 March, Oates somehow wringled himself out of his sleeping bag and got out of the tent on his dead feet, speaking the immortal words: "I am just going outside and may be some time." He disappeared forever.



Oates' final words, the epitome of British understatement, will live on forever. He willingly walked into his death in order to save his comrades. Without him, and with weather improving, they still had a minor change to get through to base camp. Already the year after, the famous Victorian painter, John Charles Dollman, crafted a work which convincingly depicted Oates' sacrificial suicide. The painting may be extremely close to the truth except for one thing: the tent Titus Oates left is still lit. By that final stage of the expedition, whatever drops of fuel were left were surely not used for lighting a tent, and it's hard to imagine Oates leaving his comrades while they were preparing one of their last meals on the primus stove. Six months later, a search party from Base Camp fruitlessly looked for his body, and finally left a cairn topped by a cross with the text: "Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Captain L.E.G. Oates of the Inniskilling Dragoons. In March 1912, returning from the Pole, he walked willingly to his death in a blizzard to try and save his comrades, beset by hardship. This note is left by the Relief Expedition of 1912."



Now the tragedy quickly came to an end. The three remaining expedition members managed on 18 and 19 March to come within just eleven miles of One Ton Camp - one of the first depots on the Ross Ice Shelf. But yet another blizzard struck and forced them into their tent. There, out of food and fuel, and with the temperature inside barely a couple of degrees higher than outside, they contemplated their options. By now Scott himself was immobile, due to a frozen foot. Despite his frostbite, Wilson was still slightly better off. Clearly, the strongest was Indestructible Bowers. His last letter to his mother reads: "I am still strong and hope to reach this one [the depot] with Dr. Wilson and get the food and fuel necessary for our lives. God alone knows what will be the outcome of the 22 miles march... but my trust is still in Him and in the abounding Grace of my Lord and Saviour whom you brought me up to trust in and who has been my stay through life... There will be no shame however and you will know that I have struggled to the end."

In this life, however, Salvation was not to be. The wind did not die. Bowers and Wilson stayed put in their tent together with their commander. On 21 or 22 March Wilson wrote to his parents that "two of the 5 of us are already dead and we three nearly done up". Over the following days, bereft of food and warmth, and with only ice water to drink, they slowly starved to death. Apart from their ability to walk or even stand up, it appears that the oldest man, Scott himself, who was 43, lasted the longest. It must have been horrible for him to see his comrades, one of whom, Dr. Wilson, was his best friend, slowly waste away. Somehow he managed to write intermittent entries in his diary, till the end, as well as a letter to his wife. The latter's entire content was not made public until January of this year, 2007. It contains heartbreaking passages, like "Dear, it is not easy to write because of the cold – 70 degrees below zero and nothing but the shelter of our tent. You know I have loved you; you know my thoughts must have constantly dwelt on you… the worst aspect of this situation is that I shall not see you again – the inevitable must be faced."... or "When the right man comes to help you in life you ought to be your happy self again,..."... "I wouldn’t have been a very good husband, but I hope I shall be a good memory. Certainly the end is nothing for you to be ashamed of and I like to think that the boy will have a good start in parentage of which he may be proud."

Scott's diary ends on 29 March, and it reads: "Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of our tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more... Last entry. For God's sake look after our people. R. Scott." That day, or possibly the day after, all three men were dead.

Six months later, on 12 November 1912, a search party from Base Camp found the bodies of Scott, Bowers and Wilson. They took all scientific data gathered during the journey, including the Beardmore rocks and meteorological records, built a twelve-foot snow cairn by the tent, of which they draped the cloth over the dead, and sang "Onward Christian Soldiers". As we have seen, they then searched in vain for Oates' body. Back at Base Camp on Ross Island, they erected a nine-foot high memorial cross, with the names of the five inscribed, as well as a verse from Tennyson: "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."

Magnificent.


MFBB.


EPILOGUE.

Today's role models for our youth are Britney Spears, Eminem and Snoop Dogg. As a father, and a much smaller man than those heroes of past times, I cannot really recommend our children follow in the footsteps of Captain Scott and the likes. At least not if a similar final fate is to be foreseen. But apart from that... am I convinced much more is to be learned from these men's lives than from Oops!.. I Did It Again! Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.