THE TIMBUK TWO

THERE ARE THOSE WHO OPINE that we should make our presence felt on the international front as the statesmen standing up for righteousness and general do-gooding that needs to be done on the world stage, even if this means getting involved in what has been termed as "Britain's Vietnam" in the North of Africa.

 

THE VIETNAM REFERENCE is not without a less than innocent and careless whisper when it is stated by the American press, given that what they mean by "Vietnam" is something that was ballsed up by the French and then the Americans had to come in and try to help them out. And even so had to deal with snarling and spitting arrogance from the French who had hitherto "ruled" the colony and run it into the ground.

 

SOMETHING SIMILAR SEEMS to be on the cards in relation to the French ex-colonies in North Africa. Not a single one of these territories seems to have been settled sensibly. The French "forces" (I am being a little generous) were either forced out, hurried out, shot at or -- more usually -- bribed to leave their colonies in the fifties and sixties.

 

BUT NOW DAVID "DAVE" CAMERON has decided to step in to help someone, without really making clear whom. This was announced in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Then arose Sir Peter Tapsell, the longest-standing member of the House and someone with a belief that we can learn from the past.

 

AS HE STATED: "As my right honourable friend sets off on his pacific mission to Algeria, will he, with his great historical knowledge, bear in mind that when Louis Philippe sent his eldest son on a mission to Algeria in the 1840s it took a century, massive casualties, the overthrow of the Third Republic and the genius of General de Gaulle to get the French army out of the Algerian desert!"

 

NONE OF THIS SUGGESTS, of course, that the United Kingdom may end up mopping up the shit left behind by the French. Heaven forbid. But perhaps one might watch, as they say, this space.