Timbuktu Gives France’s President an Ecstatic Welcome

France’s president, François Hollande paid a triumphant visit to this ancient city on Saturday, receiving a rapturous welcome from thousands of people who gathered next to a 14th-century mosque to dance, play drums and chant “Vive la France!” The muezzin, whose singing calls residents to pray five times a day, wore a scarf in the colors of the French flag as he shouted, “Vive Hollande!

Attention - big idea ahead! Here's my big idea: Neo-colonization.

Obviously, there are failed States around the world. The people living in these areas are devastated with violence, abject poverty, disease and death. They are incapable on their own to get out of these conditions and join world civilization. Civilized conditions will need to be imposed. The question is how to do it.

My model is charter schools. Allow international organizations like NATO, Organization of American States, the UN, the European Union, Organization of African Unity and unknown others to authorize a State to take control of a failed state (like France in Mali).

There would be conditions and oversight of the neo-colonization. The goal would be to bring up that State to the condition, where it can successfully run as an free and independent state.

The neo-colonialist would be responsible for setting up the rule of law, providing justice, keeping the peace, setting up property rights, encouraging commerce, education and communication and bringing the indigenous population along. Local elections should be held, elected and non-elected officials need to be held accountable.

The controlling State would be subject to oversight by the chartering organization. Accounts would be audited, the justice system would be overseen, conditions in prisons, activities in keeping the peace would be reviewed. The point being that everyone will be held accountable.

Local leadership would be encouraged and aid in the oversight. Voices from the bottom will have to be heard and actual conditions examined.

“Well at least now everybody knows where Timbuktu is.”

As Mark Twain pointed out, war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.

Even though a Socialist has taken the reins of the very powerful office of the French presidency, foreign policy, especially military affairs, is the portfolio of a class of specialists who are pretty sober, pragmatic and consistent across changing French administrations.

Its nice to see France out there contributing to the defense of the West. We can use all the help we can get.

A priest and a shepherd from Australia participate in a TV game. After answering all the questions, there is a tie.

So both are given one final assignment. It is to write a poem in three minutes, using the word “Timbuktu”.

The priest returns with the fruit of his inspiration:

“I was a father all my life,
I had no children, had no wife,
I read the bible through and through
on my way to Timbuktu ... “

The poem makes a great impression, and the priest smells a sweet victory. But then comes the shepherd….:

“When Tim and I to Brisbane went
We met three ladies cheap to rent.
They were three and we were two,
So I booked one and Tim booked two ... “

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