CHANGE OF THE GUARD IN DOWNING STREET 10...

... Tony has left the building.



One of those nice expressions the French have is: "Voilà un homme!" Meaning "Now there's a ballsy fella!" or "Ese hombre tiene cojones!" depending on whether you live north or south of the Bush Border Fence. It's been ten years since Tony Blair first set foot in Downing Street 10 and he certainly left his mark, so much that the quiet way he slipped away last Wednesday came as an anticlimax. In his place has come Gordon Brown, a Scotsman and Blairs Chancellor of the Exchequer - in the UK something like a Super Minister responsible for Finance, Economy, Budget and Treasury - during three Labour governments. If popular myth is to be believed, the two men arranged for the takeover thirteen years ago in the Granita restaurant in Islington, where they reportedly struck a deal in which Brown would stand aside for some time while the more charismatic Blair would win over Middle Englands crucial swing voters. The bold goal was to end 15 years of Tory rule, first under Margaret Thatcher and then under John Mayor. The agreement would have promised Brown unparalleled power over domestic policy as Chancellor, should Labour win the 1997 elections, and, "at some future date", the premiership itself. Whether or not this story is true, that day has now come.

At first sight the Blair years meant ten years of socialist rule over Britain, but in many respects Blair has been a socialist the way Joe Lieberman has been a Democrat. Already prior to Labour chasing the Tories from power, there was an expression in the UK which went that "I am Tony Blair, MP" in reality meant "I am Tory, Plan B". Interesting is also that young Blair, while a pupil in Choristers School, Durham, northern England, served as the Conservative candidate in a mock school election, and that his father Leo, who Tony named a son after, was Chairman of one of Durham's conservative associations. Certainly it is so that Tony Blair led the Labour Party away from its hard-left leanings towards a rather centrist course, earning his politico-economic philosophy the moniker "The Third Way" (although other, not necessarily comparable policies have also been called that way"). Blairs "Third Way" was a radical mix of free market and interventionist theories, rejecting both the pure laissez-faire aproach as old-school socialism with its nationalizations and massive redistribution schemes through heavy taxing. In fact, he had a clause referring to Labour's committment to "the common ownership of the means of production", read nationalization of key industries, scrapped from the party's constitution. Of course, it would be wrong to label him as a closet rightwinger - after all, the man was e.g. instrumental in developing a controversial Minimum Wage policy. And in the ethical field, he once even supported lowering the age of consent for gay sex to 16 (!), something not exactly jibing with his being a devout Christian. Which, btw, is yet another feature which made him stand out in Britains top leftwing spheres.

But taking it all together, ten years of "socialist" Blair rule over the British Isles hardly compares to socialist rule on the Continent. True, public spending has increased sharply, especially in the fields of Health Care and Education - but at the same time Blairs government has introduced market based reforms in these areas. And, all that extra money did buy something: shorter hospital wait times, better care through tens of thousands more of doctors, nurses and teachers, and a tuition scheme that has put Britains universities on a better financial footing. Economic growth has been sound, though not spectacular, on average some 2.5% per year. However, it was steady, and in fact "The Blair Years" marked the longest uninterrupted period of economic growth in 200 years. Of course, some will say this period of recovery started before the Blair/Gordon tandem, when John Major was PM and Kenneth Clarke Chancellor of the Exchequer, but the fact remains that at least the growth continued on a relatively stable level for ten years, which is an accomplishment in itself. One cannot deny that Blair (and Brown) proved themselves good, though probably boring, stewards of the economy.

In line with the importance the "Third Way" adheres to technological development, under Blair spending on scientific research tripled. Add to this - apart from the longest sustained period of economic growth in modern British history - low inflation, actually less spending on unemployment benefits AND all this while not (significantly) enhancing income taxes, and you begin to understand why the UK's Conservative Party has such a hard time re-establishing itself - New Labour fulfilled part of its agenda. Of course, one notices that the inflation graph to the left shows an upwards jerk over the past two years, but this has of course everything to do with the surging prices for energy and raw materials - we feel that just as well over here too.

In light of all this, it is perhaps remarkable that a man who is, apart from his being an able and efficient statesman, by his very nature an amiable person, towards the end seemed to have lost all this credit on account of just one decision. Naturally, we are talking here about his decision to ally himself unconditionally with President Bush and his Middle East initiative, the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the enforcing of democracy with arms. Time will tell Bush's decision was the right one, and in time too, historians will merely be able to confirm that. Ergo, many years ahead from now Blair, without the alleged "stain" of the Iraq "adventure", and with basically only positive accomplishments to be remembered, will be judged much more favorably than today. And then we haven't even talked about that fitting end to his career as PM, the Northern Ireland Peace Deal. Personally, from the (limited) POV of a foreigner, I have but one caveat concerning Blair rule, and that's his government decade-long keeping the gates wide open for all kinds of immigrants, but especially those from muslim countries. Plus, of course, its apparent failure to deport any hate-inciting mad mullah on the first Hercules available to the hellhole he came from. A price will have to be paid for that - not all nightclub porters will see the smoke in time. Plus, creeping islamization does in fact not need carbombs at all. Mindless walking tents willing to breed like rabbits for their usurpers can do the trick too, in a matter of decades. By the time everyone realizes what a visionary Enoch Powell was, it may be far, far too late.

In the here and now, however, Tony Blair has been succeeded by Gordon Brown. With regards to economic policy, not much change is to be expected, Brown in fact being the architect of much of the good work of the past ten years. David Cameron's Tories like to depict Brown as a more leftist Blair, but they forget that the two men long ago agreed on a Labour which should distance itself from the socialist dogmas. The reality is that the Blair AND Brown tandem not only gave free market mechanisms a "free" hand in the private sector, but that they ALSO introduced them in the public sector: the NHS, national security and even in jails (!). It is safe to say that under Brown, the days of John Smith and Neil Kinnock won't come back. Where Browns accents will differ from Blairs is in his approach to the EU though. Blair was pro-Europe, an advocate of more European integration beyond the economical aspects. Brown, on the other hand, is a staunch Euroskeptical: e.g., it was his work that Britain did not join the eurozone in 1999. So if there is more European integration in the coming years, it will be without the UK, at least as long as Gordon Brown rules.

Less change, if any at all, is to be expected with regards to the transatlantic relationship. Like Sarkozy in France, Brown is a great admirer of the US. And just like Blair, Brown sees a solid relationship with America as the cornerstone of the UK's foreign policy. It is therefore unlikely that Brown will suddenly downgrade the UK presence in Iraq or Afghanistan anytime soon. In short, Tony Blair may be gone, at least as PM, and many Americans may - will - remember him with fondness. But under his successor, the fabric of the US/UK alliance will remain strong.

And six years into the WOT, that is something to be grateful for.





MFBB.

A FORGOTTEN CAMPAIGN. FORGOTTEN VALOUR.

May 28. 1940. 8.30 am. French PM Paul Reynaud in a radio address:

"The Belgian Army has brusquely and unconditionally surrendered, in full campaign, on the orders of its King, without warning to its French and English brothers-in-arms, opening the road to Dunkirk to the German divisions. Eighteen days ago, the same King sent us an appeal for help. To this appeal, we responded according to a plan drafted up last December by the allied general staffs. Well then, here's how King Leopold II (sic) who, before May 10, always trusted the word of Germany as much as the one from the Allies, King Leopold II (re-sic), without warning General Blanchard, without regard, without a word for the French and British soldiers who, after his distress call, had come to the rescue of his country, King Leopold II (re-re-sic) of Belgium has laid down the arms. This is a fact without precedent in history."

Such were the words of a man white with rage at the sudden Belgian capitulation. The message stuck with the French. Belgian refugees in France suddenly faced a hostile population. The scornful soubriquet "Les Boches du Nord" was born. But worse than this still was the reaction of the British, and especially their Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In a subsequent radio address to the British people, Churchill suggested that the Belgian surrender was an act of cowardice and the king a traitor. Often I have been wondering if not, in these two radio broadcasts, lies the origin of the low esteem for my country, especially in defense matters among allies, ever since that fateful month in that lang ago Year of the Blitzkrieg. But while the poor reputuation my country enjoys in this field may be justified in the world of today, and the lackluster Belgian support in the WOT thus far is but one example, debunking Belgium for its alleged traitor role in May 1940 is grossly unfair. I'm honored to be able to tell a part - because that's what it is, even if it is just a very small part - of the real story. What had really happened in these 18 days since the beginning of the German invasion?


Throughout the latter half of the thirties, it had become clear to most Europeans that war, sooner or later, would break out again. To the credit of the Belgian government, it must be said that it understood this full well from an early stage on. Starting in 1936, and following an announcement by the Belgian King, Leopold III, our small country on the North Sea pursued a policy of "Armed Independence", reckoning that any attacker - any - planning to militarily deploy on its territory would think twice before doing so. To be sure, before 1936 it had had a pact of mutual assistance with France, but as the war clouds over Europe grew more menacing, and the French strategy seemed to be to wage the next war with Germany on Belgian rather than French soil, Belgium's government thought it wise to return to a policy of the strictest neutrality, to be safeguarded by the strongest army ever in Belgium's history. To this end, no less than 25% of the GDP was spent on military purposes, a figure nowadays belonging in the realm of phantasy. This surge in military funding had by early 1940 led to a total of 650,000 men under arms - an impressive number by any standard. The bulk of these served in the Army, which fielded 22 divisions - 17 of them infantry, two Cavalry, one heavy artillery, several specialized regiments and last but not least, two divisions of the famous "Chasseurs Ardennais", elite formations which would give the Germans a hard time. The other two services, the Militair Vliegwezen (Air Force) and Marinekorps (Naval Corps) were small and, especially in the case of the latter, actually rather neglected. In early May 1940, another 150,000 men were drafted to be organized in reserve formations in France. Thus, by the outbreak of the war, a total of 800,000 men were either in active service or on their way to reserve units. If you count that the Belgian population numbered 8 million at the time, one wonders if World War II would even have taken place had Belgium's allies invested comparatively in their armies. Because then Britain would have fielded an army of 4.8 million instead of the paltry 237,000 it had in the 10 divisions plus auxiliary units of the BEF, the British Expeditionary Force under Lord Gort, on May 10. Judging by numbers, the French armed forces, totalling over 6 million men, represented a fearsome adversary, but of these, only 2.2 million served in the North on May 10, organised in 93 divisions, and morale was low. As for the Dutch, they had only mobilised 350,000 men, out of a population of over 10 million. Their ground forces numbered no more than eight or nine divisions, all very badly equipped and with barely a couple of armored cars for AFV's.


Belgium did possess a small albeit not negligible armoured force at the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. Estimates place the number of Belgian (tracked) AFV's at around 278. However, their effect on combat operations was purely local since none were assigned to "true" armoured divisions. Instead, they were dispersed piecemeal among the infantry, cavalry and Chasseurs Ardennais divisions. Belgium's most potent AFV available in a comparatively significant number was the T-13 which, though it had a rotating turret, was a self-propelled gun rather than a tank. This gun, a caliber 47mm of Czech origin, was quite potent for its time and was also used widely throughout the Belgian army in its tracted version. The T-13's undercarriage was actually a Vickers-Carden-Loyd design, up-armoured and upgunned as a stop-gap measure to circumvent the politicians' decision not to buy, or build, actual Renault tanks (see later). As it was, almost 200 T-13's were built under licence by the Ateliers de Construction de Familleureux and the Miesse company at Buizingen. Of course the T-13 was a diminutive vehicle, but so was the bulk of the Panzerwaffe, of which only a couple of hundreds were the heavier PzkW (Mark) IV type, which the T-13's gun was quite able to deal with. The majority of German tanks were the lightweight Mark I (armament only two machineguns!) and II types and the Mark III. The era of the German heavies, Panther and Tiger, still lay some three years into the future. It was tactics and concentration in armoured divisions which made the German tanks Kings of the Battlefield.



Despite some powerful voices like a De Gaulle in France and Liddell Hart and Fuller in Britain, French and British military thinking in the interbellum hadn't evolved much beyond the 1918 stage. It was with little imagination and even less attention for novel tactics that the military planners envisaged how the coming conflict with Germany would develop. In fact, generally it was assumed that the German offensive would be a simple copy of the Von Schlieffen Plan used in summer 1914, which had guided the mass of the German army over Belgian territory north of the Meuse river, thus avoiding the Ardennes Forest, towards the Borinage border region whence the major southern thrust towards Paris had been made. In fact, the first plan drafted by the German General Staff under Halder envisaged just that. But Hitler, not content with merely repeating Schlieffens "strong right one", wanted something else. And two field generals, Guderian and Von Manstein, did come up with something else: while the "classic" approach opposite Liège would go through, as it had in 1914, the real knockout would be delivered by two Panzer groups consisting of a large number of armored divisions. These Panzer Groups would - and herein lay the novelty - attack right through the Ardennes Forest, deemed impenetrable for tanks. Once on the other side and across the Meuse/Maas river, they would move as fast as they could towards the coast in a wide arc roughly following the Franco-Belgian border, thus trapping the French and British armies, coming to the rescue of the Low Countries, in a gigantic bag. This manoeuvre was the famous "Sichelschnitt" move.




War in the West started on the 10th of May. Among the first to know it were the pilots and ground crews of Belgium's small air force. By the end of the day, at least one quarter of its two hundred planes would be lying like smoldered wrecks on the airfields. The following is an excerpt from a log written by Captain Max Guisgand, commander of the 15 Gloster Gladiators of the 1st "Comet" squadron, 1st Fighter Group at Schaffen airfield, in Belgium's east. Since the Belgian High Command suspected the Germans knew the exact locations of all operational airfields, every squadron had been assigned a "secret" (so it was hoped) airfield to which the planes would redeploy before assuming combat operations:

A glance on my watch, it's 4.20 am. Already the first engines are humming. They turn, sputter, give up, start again. In the pale blue sky white trails appear and these become ever more numerous. Big offensive against England! That's the opinion of the majority of those present. An alarm just like the other ones. Once again we will get off with tiredness and agitation. Suddenly I have a feeling of looming danger. The pilots walk by still sleep-drunk. One looks for his goggles, the other one for his flying helmet, yet another one for his maps. I hear Rolin bitch and curse in a hundred different ways while young Pirlot looks on laughing and Wegria carefully closes his equipment bag before it is loaded onto a truck. Suddenly I give a series of frantic commands: it would be too foolish to be caught off-guard by the planes with the black crosses. I shout on the top of my lungs to shake off the apathy, which was the result of numerous useless alarms. They have understood me and everyone hurries to his plane. At 4.25 am the fifteen Glosters are ready, engines running, the wheelblocks are removed.

400 meters to the right the eleven Hurricanes are lined up. They are the only Belgian planes which are qualitatively a match against the enemy. They are lined up impeccably. The engines have been tested but the planes don't take off. The minutes crawl by slowly. Finally a Hurricane is taxying, then another one but the second wingman does not seem to be in a hurry. The waiting starts again. I can't take it any longer. Contrary to the given orders, I give the "Go!" sign to my Glosters. I quickly cross the field followed by my two wingmen and we lift off after a few seconds and set course for Bevekom (Le Culot). During the flight we hear explosions from the direction of the airfield."

For the Glosters it was not a moment too early. The commander of the 2nd "Thistle" squadron, whose Hawker Hurricanes were the most advanced fighter planes of the BAF, was not as alert as Captain Guisgand. At 4.32 am, the first three of eighteen Heinkel He 111 bombers swooped over Schaffen airfield, strafing everything on the ground with machinegun fire and dropping 50kg bombs. The last two of the fifteen Gladiators were shot up or bombed to rubble, as were nine of the eleven Hurricanes. The cream of Belgium's fighter aircraft was destroyed on the ground, a scene repeated on most Belgian airfields that morning. Only Captain Van Den Hove and Corporal Jacobs succeeded in taking off with their Hawkers amidst the inferno. Between Leuven and Brussels Van Den Hove spotted a formation of some fifteen Heinkel bombers. After three attacks from an angle of 90 degrees, he saw how the right wingman of the last Kette of three bombers dropped away from the formation. This is believed to be the only aerial victory by a Belgian Hurricane during the Eighteen Day Campaign. At Schaffen airfield, Belgian AA guns accounted for one Heinkel bomber shot down.



The opening shots of the Blitzkrieg were just as devastating for the garrison of Fort Eben-Emael, Belgium's eastern bulwark guarding the Meuse/Maas river crossings and dubbed "the strongest Fort in the world" by Hitler himself. Although it contained more than 700 men and boasted 16 75mm guns, two 120mm guns and several machinegun cupolas, it was rendered useless in a couple of hours by no more than 85 German glider troops who landed on the fort's "roof" in a surprise attack and neutered most of the guns using the novel "hollow charges", able to blast a hole through 30cm of armor.



Indeed, Eben-Emael was no fort in the classical sense of the word, but a 65 meter high rocky hill with a diamond-shaped plateau, measuring 800 by 650 yards, on top. Out of this plateau protruded the numerous gun emplacements, observator "bells" and machinegun cupolas, while inside the "Rock" were endless hallways, ammo compounds, sick bays, communication centres and so on. As it was, 11 DFS-230 gliders landed with hair-raising, cold blooded determination in the concrete "stub-field" which was the fort's "roof" and spilled their deadly charge. This was one engagement which the men inside the bunkers could never have envisaged. The hollow charges killed the men inside after which the glider troops took possession of the bunkers. Ground troops from 7th Division counterattacked and at one point forced the Germans to the northern end of the fort's plateau, but they were unable to dislodge them completely. Also, they were constantly under aerial attack by Stuka divebombers who could pinpoint every enemy move. Major Jottrand, the fort's commander, asked the nearby forts of Pontisse, Barchon and Evegnée to lay an artillery barrage on his own fort's roof to get rid of the invaders and in one day and a half 2,200 rounds were fired, but this had the adverse effect of making the counterattacks impossible, while the Germans were relatively safe inside their concrete strongholds. It was to no avail, for German ground forces were soon crossing the Maas river in two localities nearby, Vroenhoven and Veldwezelt. Only in the third village, Kanne, was the bridge across the Maas blown up in time, but there the Germans immediately set to work on a pontoon bridge. Gradually, as the German bridgeheads across the Maas were consolidating, the full weight of Von Reichenau's Sixth Army with its eleven divisions, attacking over the roughly 30 kilometers wide river front, was making itself felt. Eben-Emael, with its long-range 120mm guns, had been designed specifically to cope with the threat of such a breakthrough between The Netherlands and the Ardennes. But most of its guns had been silenced one day after the attack, and the scene inside the fort was hellish, with electricity cut off and ammo dumps exploding. At noon on May 11, Major Jottrand decided to surrender, and nearly 700 men went into captivity.

The loss of Fort Eben-Emael, deemed invincible, was a terrible blow not only to Belgian, but to allied morale as a whole.





Without the fort's strong support, and under constant aerial attack, the Maas defense was crumbling. Despite occasional successes, such as the heavy losses sustained by the German 269th Infantry Division, it was clear that the undamaged bridges across the Maas at Vroenhoven and Veldwezelt, as well as another one at Briegden, a little further north, would seal the fate of the Belgian defense. The High Command ordered bombers to destroy them, but this attempt failed completely. For one thing, the only bombers technically capable of such a task, were the 15 Fairey Battles of 5th squadron, III Bomber Group of the 3rd Aerial Regiment. Of these, only 9 could be readied for the attack, and to make matters worse, on its emergency airfield not even 125kg bombs were available. The nine Battles took off with the useless 50kg bombs, escorted by six Gloster Gladiator fighters. The few bombers which reached their assigned targets barely scratched the bridges' surface. Of the 15 aircraft, 10 were shot down.

Thus ended the first two crucial days of the War in the West. In the north, Von Kuechlers 18th Army had succesfully invaded The Netherlands. In the centre, Von Reichenau's 6th Army had cracked the Maas/Meuse defence. And in the Ardennes, the entire Army Gropu "A", consisting of 15th Panzer Corps under Hoth, 41st under Reinhardt, and 19th under Guderian, were advancing like a whirlwind through the rugged woods, deemed impenetrable for tanks. They were pushing aside the thin screen of Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais and French Cavalry troops and would soon reach the Meuse, Dinant and Sedan in a broad, southwesterly sweeping manoeuvre (blue arrow). One hundred and fifty kilometers to the west, the British Expeditionary Force and the French armies of the north, crossed into Belgium along a northeasterly axis (dotted red arrows), thinking the main adversary was Reichenau's army. The Sichelschnitt was about to begin, and the harvest would be rich.


(end of Part I)


MFBB.

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM

In line with what's happening in the rest of Europe, Belgium's voters shifted to the right. Or at least, away from the left. The ruling coalition of liberals and socialists suffered huge blows to the extent that the PM, Guy Verhofstadt, of the liberal VLD party, could definitely abandon his plans for a third term and the socialist candidate for the top job, Johan Vandelanotte, who was also party chairman, resigned brusquely and clearly depressed, leaving party HQ in disarray.

The big winners of the Sunday, June 10 elections are however not the Vlaams Belang in Flanders, nor the Front National in Wallonia. Instead, in Flanders the Christian Democrats (CD&V) of Yves Leterme, who is also Minister-President of the Flemish Region, won big, while in Wallonia - and this is extraordinary - the center-right Mouvement Réformateur (MR) of federal Finance Minister Didier Reynders finally de-throned the Parti Socialiste as Wallonia's biggest Party. The success of the Christian Democrats in Flanders is remarkable, given the fact that the grand majority of Flemings do not attend church anymore. Personally, I suspect that after eight years Verhofstadt, whereby the latter's once grandiose visions for a model state all too quickly watered down to a nightmare of even more pork barrel spending, spiced with gay marriage, gay adoption, municipal voting rights for non-Belgians, dhimmitude vis-à-vis an ever more radicalizing muslim community, and steeply rising criminiality, people just had enough of it. But instead of opting for the VB, many Flemings, perhaps not surprisingly, chose for the more boring alternative.

The results for Flanders: big wins for the opposition party CD & V (Christian Democrats, first pillar from the left), a slight win for the VB (second pillar from the left), heavy losses for the ruling liberals (third pillar) and socialists (fourh pillar), sudden emergence of breakaway rightwing party LDD (fifth pillar, light blue), Green nutters (last pillar) winning a bit. If not a shift to the right, definitely a shift away from the left.

Noteworthy too is the sudden rise of a small breakaway rightwing party from the liberal VLD. This LDD party, for Lijst De Decker, which secured in Flanders some 7% of the vote, seems to have attracted most of the malcontent "dark blue" liberals of the VLD, who could not stomach anymore how their once great party - I myself was a VLD member till 2004 - had become nearly indistinguishable from the socialists.

In light of the shift towards the centrist Christian Democrats and the sudden appearance of the rightwing LDD (rightwing only with regards to economics, ethically it has a "progressive" agenda, it is perhaps surprising that the VB still stood its own, and even gained 1.1% as compared to the previous parliamentary elections. Given the peculiarities of the Belgian voting system this will however not translate in another seat in Parliament, to the contrary, the VB loses one, from 18 seats to 17. By contrast, the Christian Democrats now have 30 seats in the 150-seat Kamer (Lower House).

To sum it all up, there IS a rightwing shift in Belgium, both in Flanders and Wallonia. In Wallonia, the loss of the Parti Socialiste the "Party of 1,000,000 scandals" - and its being second now cannot be underestimated. Theoretically, in Flanders a rightwing family, a "Forza Flandria", is possible between CD&V, LDD and VB. It won't happen though, because the Christian Democrats hold onto the vile concept of the cordon sanitaire, a nineties vow of the so-called "democratic" parties never to cooperate with the VB, as if it was some leper colony - keep in mind that the VB programme is as clean as the GOP's, and extremely similar. No, the most likely outcome for a federal government is a minority government of Christian Democrats with ... some of the losers of the June 10 elections, the Flemish Liberals of the VLD. The federal government's coalition would then encompass CD & V and VLD (Christian Democrats and Liberals on the Flemish side) and CDH and MR (the same, but on the Wallonian side). Most likely choice for Prime Minister would be Yves Leterme. This does not have to be a bad thing in se. The eighties saw just such a coalition, from 1981 till 1987, and it performed quite well. Actually, the Budget Minister in that period was... Guy Verhofstadt, who succeeded in a remarkable two-year stint to dramatically reduce a severe budget deficit. For this, he was rewarded with his ousting by a powerful Union Leader - in those days, Unions decided Belgian politics. Today, their influence has a little waned however, and the next government eighties style may perform even better. Internationally, Belgium may (finally) follow the rest of the European countries in abandoning the virulent anti-Americanism so characteristic for European politics only three years ago. Gradually, European voters turn away from socialism, and with their departure a new era of cooperation with the US becomes possible. In this light, it is perhaps telling that the second man of the Flemish Christian Democrats, Pieter De Crem, has, shortly before the elections, spoken out in favor of "more risky operations" for the Belgian Army. This may very well be interpreted as a more active involvement in the WOT. It is about time. For eight long years, the Belgian Army has been mismanaged to an unprecedented extent by a Defense Minister of the Parti Socialiste, André Flahaut, and anno 2007 the Belgian Army is on the brink of collapse. It is this Pieter De Crem who last spring announced in Parliament that "André Flahaut is the biggest disaster happening to the Belgian Army since the defeat against the Germans in 1940." And about two months ago, shaken by the umpteenth Flahaut blunder, he even exclaimed, trembling with rage, in full Parliament, "that he would make sure that Flahaut would never again be Secretary of Defense". By God, do I hope so. Civilized countries should have written it in their constitution that a socialist can never be Secetary of Defense. It's akin to appointing Naomi Klein for Fed Chairman. Worse. Ask the Israelis.


As for the first round of France's parliamentary elections, also on June 10, Royal's socialists suffered another huge setback. The map shows in blue the districts were Sarkozy's UMP and its allies had the majority. The purple districts are Royal's. The map speaks bookmarks. Ten years of forced 35-hour working weeks have driven an awful lot of French into poverty and not lessened unemployment a bit. Analysts forecast Sarkozy's UMP could win at lest 383 of French Parliament's 577 seats. In fact, it is now already certain there will be no cohabitation - a French President having to work with a stubborn and antagonistic Parliament. Instead, Sarkozy is likely to get the green light for sweeping economic reforms. Sarkozy has vowed a new finance bill which will no longer tax overtime earnings. The 35-hour week will very likely abolished. There will be tougher immigration rules. And France may finally become a true ally to the US again.

Something is changing in Europe.


MFBB.

NO JIHAD STREET.

For Filip Dewinter, VB-strongman and leader of the VB faction in the Flemish Parliament, it was business as usual again last week, i.e. a full frontal bashfest from the well-meaning community, politicians and media alike, in this country. What had happened? On Wednesday, he hung a sign reading "Zonder Jihad Straat" - No Jihad Street - on a lamppost on the Turnhoutsebaan in Borgerhout, an Antwerp suburb. Normally I would not have commented on this, but since I picked it up at several English-spoken websites - here, here and here, and found the background lacking, I changed my mind. After the short film, you find some context:



About one year ago, an 18-year old lunatic from Antwerp called Hans Van Themsche bought himself a shotgun, went out on the streets dressed like a Trenchcoat Mafia gangster, and shot a two-year old toddler and her Malinese nanny as well as a Turkish woman sitting on a bench. Only the latter survived. Had it not been for an alert police officer who shot the loon in the stomach, the carnage might have been much worse. The perpetrator obviously being extremely influenced by Nazi ideology and White Power nonsense, for the politically correct establishment the incident was Gefundenes Fressen to attack the Vlaams Belang. For the umpteenth time a "Silent March" was organised to condemn "senseless violence" while in reality the aim was to discredit the VB. An utterly dishonest move, since the VB's streetfighting days are over since 25 years and the pary itslef condemned the crime in the strongest possible terms. In fall 2006, a subsequent initiative was organized, a "Zonder Haat Straat" pamphlet campaign whereby supporters hang such a sign - you guess it, it says "No Hate Street" - behind their windows. Here, too, the idea was and is to discredit the VB by suggesting the party is inciting "Haat" - hate. Hate between the different communities, while the VB is basically only demanding that immigrants abide the law.

Then, from fall 2006 on, a couple of trends became clear. Or rather, one trend, highlighted by several meaningful incidents. First, there's a muslim group operating in full Taliban garb active in Antwerp. To the wider public, it manifested itself for the first time on December 9, when a group of those islamonutters - pakistanis, so it seems, of the sect Da'wah Tabliegh - tried to block the entrance to immigrant youngsters visiting the Roma youth center/dancing in Borgerhout. Try to imagine the scene: bearded fundamentalists appropriating entrance tickets and threatening violence if their less fanatic co-religionists intended to proceed with visiting a western Temple of Doom. A curious conversation took place afterwards with the local imam, a certain Nouredine Talouil. This "gentleman" calls music "a sin". Not a great sin, but a sin nevertheless. In an interview, he deplored that the Da'wah Tabliegh arseholes used violence to block the entrance to the Roma dancing, but discouraged visiting the place anyway. "Discos and concert halls are usually places where youngsters go to to learn bad manners."

Know what I'm thinking of? Police flicks with good cops and bad cops. Only, substitute "cop" with "muslim", and you have Da'wah Tabliegh nutters operating as the "baddies" and Nouredine Talouil as the "goodie". But their aim is the same.


Second, in January four armed and masked men broke in at 8pm in the Lawyer's Office of Marijke Dillen in Borgerhout. Marijke Dillen is the daughter of VB founder Karel Dillen. She herself was not present, but the wife of her business partner was. The perpetrators threatened her with a gun and wanted to know where Mrs. Dillen was. Then the business partner intervened, and after a short fight the perps fled. Mrs. Dillen was moved to a secret location and received police protection.


Thirdly, the islamification of Borgerhout continues unabated. We have already remarked on these pages that during last fall's municipal elections the VB seemed to stagnate in this place. The reason? Not less VB appeal among indigenous Belgians. But a simple question of numbers instead. Indigenous Belgians pack up and leave, since life in the wonderful multicultural utopia does not seem to be that great taking it all together. From time to time, heartbreaking stories emerge where you can read between the lines (or not so between the lines) how our wonderful "new" Belgians interpret concepts like solidarity and mutual respect. Here's an April 7 interview excerpt, from a desperate (indigenous) "shopping street manager", Koen Borms. Note that the shopping street in question is the Turnhoutsebaan, see intro.

"Only a quarter (of the small business owners) want to invest in their business, even though half of them think they could do better". Don't tell me these are indigenous Belgians. "Six 'Belgian' business owners consider to pack up and leave. This would bring the neighborhood in a new negative spiral". Aha. "The indifference is great." And then it comes: "Indigenous shop owners have a very negative idea of their immigrant colleagues. Especially the many telephone and nightshops and barbers cause irritation".

Fourthly, in late April a number of concerned indigenous Belgian clients of Moroccan eateries and pizza parlors on the Turnhoutsebaan in Borgerhout took to the authorities to report that a significant number of the restaurants and snackbars they frequented had scrapped alcohol off the menu. While it is clear that a number of business owners did so out of free will - they don't feel well selling alcohol, not even to filthy infidel clients - there were strong indications that in a number of cases, a group of fundamentalist muslims had toured the Turnhoutsebaan and warned the owners to get alcohol off the menu, or else! Alain Herremans, Chairman of a society of neighborhood shop owners, noted: "The fear exists that soon (indigenous) Belgian eateries will be targeted." A not inconceivable development, given the fact that the salafist gang has until now disturbed at least one catholic mass by ostentatively entering a church on the Coxplein in Borgerhout and holding a quran in front of the priest!


Fiftly, and this starts with a flying pig moment, the socialist mayor of Antwerp, Patrick Janssens, is, for the moment at least, pushing through his plans to forbid town personnel of wearing religious symbols. There is no problem with Christians wearing small crosses, nor with (the very few) jews wearing yarmulkes. There is however a HUGE problem with islamic female town personnel wearing headscarves. Instead of doing like all the rest, they are organizing protests, supported, foolishly enough, by a group of artists, leftists and feminists(!), which set up the action BOEH (Baas Over Eigen Hoofd - Boss Over one's Own Head). In short, these fruitcakes' slogan is that "the woman decides herself whether she wears the headscarf or not". Now, I'm willing to buy that - for the ones who really want to wear it. For those the headscarf has simply become a "fuck you" signal towards everything the West stands for. For the other ones, however... only a loon would believe that salafist-fathered muslim girls not wanting to wear the headscarf could choose themselves. But then we are talking about loons here. Btw, BOEH... If you ever spent some time in Europe in the eighties, you may remember the slogan hey had then was BIEB (Baas in Eigen Buik - Boss in One's Own Belly). The goal then was to liberate European women from the yoke of male chauvinist pigs craving to procreate like, uh, myself, and in this they succeeded wonderfully well since every day in Europe around 3,300 children are murdered in the mother's womb. Or, 1,200,000 a year. Or, over the past 5 years, some 6,000,000 white Europeans who would today have come in handy as a counterweight to a certain reciprocal demographic reality. Btw, 6,000,000 humans killed over a period of five years time reminds me of another age and another breed of socialism. But I digress.

Where was I? Oh yeah, abortioning feminists who labored their entire lives for liberating themselves from the tiranny of their western men and who now fight for the plight of their breeding like rabbits islamic sisters, living pleasant lives under the benign guidance of their muslim men. Anyway, the headscarves controverse is getting very hot, what with the June 10 Parliamentary elections and all, and on May 30, a group of 6 female politicians of islamic background, none of them wearing headscarves, organized an election debate in the Brede IMS School along the... Turnhoutsebaan in Borgerhout. It is a girl's school, and a frightening number of pupils are muslim and wearing headscarves. Many, if not most, indigenous girls have already left. The glorious multiculturalism is a bit too much of a sour apple to bite through, especially if one of the cultures has no interest in multiculturalism. One of the six politicas was Mimount Bousakla, until recently belonging to the socialist party but now member of a centre-rightwing (!) splinter party. Mrs. Bousakla is the muslim politician who in 2004 received death threats from an islamonutter who could not stomach her liberal lifestyle or sumpin.

Mrs. Bousakla was the only woman who dared defend the decision of the mayor to forbid the wearing of religious symbols including headscarves for civil servants while in function. The hall, packed with muslim girl students erupted in jeers. Insults were hurled at Bousakla and she left the building. Or had to leave? Notice that she had police protection. I wonder for what? Global warming mayhaps? Well, these young muslim students are the future (sixtuple) Belgian mothers. They gave a very fine show of their interpretation of a typical western value like freedom of speech indeed. With citizens like them, who needs jihadists?


So, I think that this will do, for starters anyway, to explain that there is definitely something going on not very halal in Borgerhout and especially along its Turnhoutsebaan. It is in this light that one has to see Filip Dewinters "Zonder Jihad Straat" initiative. One would think, that with such an obvious disintegration of a neighborhood and flatly frightening developments, he'd at least get the benefit of the doubt. Or at least someone in charge would start paying serious attention to the slow but unmistakable islamification of not only a suburb, but an entire metropolis.

Not so.

I will spare you the plethora of negative reactions. Suffice to mention the comment made by Karel De Gucht, Belgian Foreign Minister:

Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht (Open VLD) cannot appreciate the "No Jihad Street" action organised by the Vlaams Belang on Wednesday in Borgerhout. "In such a manner you stigmatise an entire population group and you add nothing to society." he stated in a TV debate with VB strongman Filip Dewinter.

What will it take for the Karel De Guchts of our time to wake up?


EPILOGUE.

The June 2, 2007 news from Antwerp.

One dead and three gravely wounded men in shooting an stabbing incident in Borgerhout

Two police inspectors gravely wounded by Moroccans

Police arrests thirty Moroccan youngsters terrorizing supermarket

I know, I'm stigmatizing an entire community.


MFBB.

MEMORIAL DAY 2007.

The Henri-Chapelle American Military Cemetery, where almost 8,000 American soldiers and airmen rest. May we never forget.

"On Memorial Day, Americans pause with solemn gratitude and deep respect for all our fallen service men and women who have given their lives for our country and our freedom.

Through the generations, the courageous and selfless patriots of our Armed Forces have secured our liberty and borne its great and precious cost. When it has mattered most, patriots from every corner of our Nation have taken up arms to uphold the ideals that make our country a beacon of hope and freedom for the entire world. By answering the call of duty with valor and unrelenting determination, they have set a standard of courage and idealism that inspires us all.

All Americans honor the memory of the lives that have been lost in defense of our freedom. Our Nation mourns them, and their example of strength and perseverance gives us resolve. We are also thankful to those who have stood by our service men and women in times of war and times of peace..."

Excerpt from the Memorial Day 2007 Proclamation by George W. Bush, President of the United States.


MFBB.

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.