Niger

lizzyjane

https://twitter.com/upholdreality/status/1690379812173443072?t=2jjWpdgQ5YmkWMbHtLkC0g&s=19

https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1690421155172114433?t=gUAJKQmWewS_2Aud7KhLig&s=19

On the ground in Niger, seems like alot of people want the French out of the country.

Big Ears

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120971161#Comment_120971161

Do you think it'd be enough to win an election over it ?

SortingYouOut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120970010#Comment_120970010

and put trainers on your feet.

God bless America 🥲

SafeSurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120971518#Comment_120971518

Yes, without America, those Chinese made trainers, transported by Danish ships, powered by Qatari oil just wouldn’t be possible.

As for heating homes. It is a well known fact that were it not for the Americans, Europeans would have died in their beds from the cold long ago.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120971650#Comment_120971650

The US secures the world trade routes from the Straights of Melacca to the Straights of Hormuz, to the entry point of the Suez canal. NATO secures the North Sea that allows for the gas heating your home this winter.

I realise you're completely ignorant of that and think the world works by magic.

The US is indespensible to the security of huge swathes of the world and has kept tankies in Europe sheltered from the consequences of their bird brained ideologies for decades.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120971502#Comment_120971502

Tankie World Order: Legitimacy comes from the barrell of gun and a rent-a-mob for clips to be retweeted by account that worship serial rapist Gaddafi.

Big Ears

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120971827#Comment_120971827

It certainly seems strange that someone who is quite active on the thread, replying to people and posting clips from twitter, seems to continuously refuse to answer any questions in relation to elections and democracy.

Almost as if they don't want to talk about it because it might ruin their arguments.......

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969425#Comment_120969425

Are elections really “democratic” when the West is bankrolling their candidates and supplying them with whatever is needed to win??

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120970076#Comment_120970076

How many gold mines does France have VS Niger?

How much gold does France hold VS Niger??

France is raping the country if its resources.

brickster69

Very powerful speech.

https://twitter.com/ChinasaNworu/status/1690437777077227521

Big Ears

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120971991#Comment_120971991

Well certainly more democratic than the likes of Russia, yes.

Discrepancies in funding between parties are not abnormal in elections and while it can have influence, it does not preclude a lesser funded party from winning.

Do you have a preference for the military junta to hold power forever in Niger and never hold an election ?

SafeSurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969868#Comment_120969868

Development aid is not an exclusively western phenomenon. Neither are “soft” or interest free loans. The whole canard about western aid being good and inspired by benign motives while non western aid is malign is something only a pith helmeted, ruddy faced colonialist could believe.

China did not have African colonies, (despite reaching Africa by ship in the 1400s) Russia did not have African colonies. The Western European powers enjoyed over a century of exploitation. Even after African countries gained their independence, their former colonial masters like France forced these countries to pay for the infrastructure constructed during colonisation. When Guinea, opted not to pay following a 95% in favour of not paying, referendum. France vindictively burned the country’s school books, demolished schools and health centres, destroyed farming equipment. Destroying anything that could not be carried away.

Sexual abuse by aid agencies was described as “endemic” in a British government report. Much of the privately funded aid from the US, which as a country spends a pitifully small amount of GNI on development aid, comes from evangelical Christian organisations which have been converting hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Africans.

Contrary to perception, the Wagner Group, despicable as there are, are not the only mercenaries in Africa.

Western powers have a long and blood stained history of using mercenaries in Africa.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972150#Comment_120972150

Russia tried to establish a colonial enterprise in Djibouti, Sudan and Ethiopa with the support of the court in St Petersburg in the late 19th century. They just f*cked up. Not to mention that Russia's landmass was taken by the sword and the bullet.

China is and always has been an imperial construct taking lands from ethnies on the periphery.

Wake up. You don't have to guzzle Kremlin or Beijing approved histories, you live in a free country and have access to all the world's knowledge, yet you choose to imbibe information from bot Twitter accounts and take it as fact.

Yurt2

And yes developmental aid to Africa is almost exclusively a Western phenomenon (+Japan and South Korea, who you can lump in with the West as far as I'm concerned).

The OECD estimated China's aid programme as the same size as Norway's. Wow much generous, such international solidarity to the global south.

SafeSurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972241#Comment_120972241

You really are scrapping the bottom of the barrel even by your standards if you are trying to compare Russian empire building in Africa with that of European powers.

Also stating that the Russian landmass was taken by the sword and bullet. Remind me again about the history of Britain, the US, etc, etc.

Maybe the depth your reading has room for improvement.

Your personal attacks and aggressive accusations are uncivil and unnecessary.

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972241#Comment_120972241

You have an extraordinary appreciation of world history.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972303#Comment_120972303

You think Russia reached deep into the Caucuses Central Asia and into the pacific by singing folk songs? Come off it SafeSurfter, you're not that silly. And you don't even have to ask a Dagestani or Tajik, talk to a Ukrainian refugee or a Polish collegue about if they think Russia practiced colonialism or not. And what's more...they're at it this very minute in Europe in 2023.

18th & 19th century-style invasion, butchery, rape, ethnic pogroms and plantation of Russian citizens. Textbook colonialism. In 2023. And you're soft selling it.

SafeSurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120971800#Comment_120971800

I am afraid, yet again, despite your hubris and condescension, you display your ignorance.

The notion of the US navy securing the world’s trade routes is a myth.

https://defense360.csis.org/bad-idea-assuming-trade-depends-on-the-navy/

Would it be impossible to bring gas ashore via the Rossport pipeline without the presence of a US carrier battle group off Erris Head? Yes.

You accuse me of believing the world works by magic. It seems you believe the same, just that the US is that magic.

SafeSurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972324#Comment_120972324

Mod

Warned for this.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972328#Comment_120972328

Don't know who that goon is, but he's an idiot. For instance, US navy, and the US navy alone kept the Straights of Hormuz open several occasions over the last few decades after Iran threatened to close it.

And they'll keep the Straights of Melacca open along with other chokepoints if China tries f*ckery over Taiwan. Every nation with a head on their shoulders who are threatened by China (and it's a long list now), go to the US to backstop their maritime security.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972334#Comment_120972334

I read it and you got your response. You're a soft-peddler of colonialism. Which is happening live in 2023 on the periphery of Europe. And there can be no doubt about what you're doing.

SafeSurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972348#Comment_120972348

The goon is

“Benjamin H. Friedman was a research fellow in defense and homeland security studies. He writes about U.S. defense politics, focusing on strategy, budgeting, and war. He has co‐​edited two books and has published in International Security, Political Science Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, the Philadelphia Inquirer, USA Today, the Hill, Politico, the Christian Science Monitor, and various other journals. Ben is a graduate of Dartmouth College, a PhD candidate in political science at the MIT, and an adjunct lecturer at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.”

But no doubt an aggressive poster on Boards probably is better placed to give an opinion on the US securing world trade.

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972116#Comment_120972116

Yes, some countries need a strong dictatorial stance to keep them in line. See Gadadfi in Libya. Hussein in Iraq.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972360#Comment_120972360

I don't care who he is or where he got his PhD. His article is laced with idiocy. I'm less impressed with Beltway think-tank creatures than you imagine. Most of them could do with spending some time on the hard-edge of security matters either in the field or in the rooms where life-and-death decisions get made.

This particular individual could do with riding shotgun on a freedom-of-navigation flotilla in the South China Sea getting harassed by PLA navy and airforce, which keeps international waters and sovereign waters of other states free from becoming a Chinese lake threatening international trade. I'll put it this way, Benji the think tanker holds an extremely minority and peripheral opinion - within and without the US.

And you hadn't heard of him until you spent hours googling furiously trying to find anything to rebut the post that I made. Took you a hot minute to find him.

SafeSurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972393#Comment_120972393

But there is no need for you ride shotgun on a freedom of navigation flotilla or spend time on the hard edge of security issues for your opinion to be superior. Of course your opinion is superior. It just is. 😉

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972409#Comment_120972409

To yours? You're a soft-peddler of Russian butchery, murder and the colonialism of Ukraine. It goes without saying its superior to that.

The bar is low given what you're bringing, I didn't exactly need to break the metaphorical high-jump world record for it to be "superior" (your adjective, not mine)

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972007#Comment_120972007

Seeing as you asked, France or French companies own precisely zero industrial gold mines in Niger.

The only foreign owned industrial gold mine is owned and operated by a Morrocan / Canadian consortium with a minorty stake owned by the government of Niger.

In more recent years deposits have been discovered in northern Niger, which generated a rush of informal prospectors from other parts of Niger as well as pirate prospectors from Chad and Mali. All off-the-books, no revenues to the state, and all degrading to the environment with zero labour pracitices or fair pay for miners that is present in the Morrocan / Canadian / Niger government mine.

Islamic extremist groups are in the mix as well looking for their cut (who the French are there to combat at the invitation of the legitimate government).

Are you seeing the picture yet? Can you think why scumbags might coalesce around a junta and Wagner might start sniffing around with the backing of the Kremlin?

No one quite as naive and credulous as the European Russian-sympathising hard-left who hears some boilerplate fake anti-colonialism palaver and drinks it in one go.

rock22

And yet the people on the ground in Niger want the French gone . Presumably they don't know what is happening in front of their eyes

And Areva certainly seem to control most of the uranium mines in Niger. Or is that wrong too?

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972495#Comment_120972495

There's 25 million people "on the ground" in Niger. You saw a clip with a rent-a-mob in a capital that's been taken over by a junta at the barrell of a gun. Not exaclty a safe-space for frank and honest civil society discussion is it?

French military activity in Niger is restricted to rooting out Islamic extremists, and their role is badly needed, whoever does it.

If the looper Kremlin-snaking-regarder European left doesn't start seeing the wood from the trees they will soon enough, the Sahel generally will become the new wasps nest of Islamic extremism and exporter of conflict and masses of refugees. And all because you were suckered by a rent a mob video disseminated by pro-Kremlin bot accounts on Twitter.

If the French security presence exit (I predict though they will dig in and African neighbours will as well), the Sahel will become warlord central and Islamic extremist central, with Wagner rapists fanning themselves with mineral money laughing in the face of student-union bird brains who think the revolution is just around the corner.

Good old laugh eh lads? Africa truly liberated. Much victory.

Yurt2

To answer your ninja edit, Areva jointly own the uranium extraction mines with the Government of Niger. This is all freely available information.

The poster asked a grandstanding question about gold mines in Niger, presuming France / French companies owned them. The reality is they own zero.