IMBECILE!

We now return to the continuing story of Nikolas Sarkozy, the tragically misunderstood mini president who just wanted to be uuuuuuh UNDISPUTED EMPEROR OF FRANCE AND THE COOLEST GUY IN THE WORLD!
But, he's been having a lot of bad days lately and today was one of them. I'm suure most of American has seen the aborted 60 Minutes interview with Diane Sawyer. He was busy, he didn't know the mike was on, OKAY? Why was she asking him stupid questions about his wife 2 weeks before he could use the info in an attempt to defuse the first big strikes of his presidency? He probably didn't realize how popular 60 Minutes was in America.

So, all America is laughing at the tiny hyper prez, making French lily livered surrender monkey jokes, it's sad. Don't worry, all of France is, too.
Meanwhile, his Minister of Justice today, defending her decision to eliminate regional courts all across France in a cost cutting measure that is predicted to only increase the cost of Justice and inconvenience Judges and Lawyers and people involved in the system had to endure a full fledged riot of lawyers and judges protesting this move. There was great TV footage of screaming judges and lawyers being forcefully manhandled by cops. Talk about great reality TV!

The real tragedy today, though, is the story of the Zoe's Arche Group being held in Chad. This is a complex tale of political intriguing and misguided charity and charlatans.
The Zoe's Arche Group is an organization led by a charimatic leader who has been involved in relief attempts in the Tsunami, and some earthquakes in the last few years. He has been able to raisse a lot of money and get volunteers through various religious affiliations. Because of the vagueness of what he has actually done with the money, he has had to move the group out of France to Australia.
This time, they raised a lot of money to save children from Darfur. The plan was to bring orphans in need of medical attention to France to be cared for sponsor families. They were able to find families and raise quite a bit of money.

Flags went up earlier this year and there were warnings about the reliability of this group and the wisdom of their paln to take Muslim children to France to be raised as Christians. They were able to go ahead, rent the planes and get clearance and assistance from the French governemnt in spite of everything.

Meanwhile, Sarkozy was elected and appointed Bernard Kuchner as Foreign Minister. Kuchner was the founder of Medicines sans Frontieres and was involved in a lot of great humanitarian relief work personally. He made the problem in Darfur his personal mission. France has worked hard to get the UN Peacekeepers into Darfur. Both Sudan and Chad have resisted the UN. Kuchner, though was on the verge of his personal project which was to negotiate a "Relief Corridor" into the region.
The last thing the Chadians wanted though, was a bunch of foreign relief workers seeing the child soldiers they use in violation of every human rights agreement to fight their war.

The backdrop for this debacle also includes the highjacking of the release of the Bulgarian Nurses, The Tripoli 7, by the Sarkozy government after he was elected. Sarkozy and his PR Machine was able to steal the credit for the release in a very calculated stunt. It gave the impression to the world that France had acted alone to pay the ransom. In reality, the EU had raised the money and had negotiated for years for the goal. Sarko was able to ride the coat tails to make some pretty sweet deals for the French Nuclear and Autoroute Industry.

So, last week, the Zoes Arche plane lands in Chad and they start to collect the children to be taken out of the country. Very strangely, most of the children are not orphans and are in pretty good health. the speculation being that the organization wanted to score a PR coup back in France with a plane load full of happy healthy good looking babies to help the organizers realize their grandiose dreams of more flights and more money..

Parents in villages start complaining and BINGO! The Chadian government scores big time. It is pretty easy for them to start to claim that the organization is really a front for a child trafficking ring...sex slaves! It is easy for them to make a stink about children being stolen from parents to be forcibly converted to christianity!
The entire group is arrested. The Chadian government, who is guilty of real child exploitation charges, can take the high grouund and portray themselves as the protectors of the little innocents. They are, of course, going to extort as much money out of France as they can in ending this debacle.

Now it gets messier in France. First, the government denies any knowlege of the group and only hours later, the entire history of it's involvement comes out.The group is able to hire a high powered lawyer and there are 2 Associated Press Reporters in the group of arrestees, who came along to cover the story.

Yes, it's a tragedy for the French Government and Kuchner, who were really trying to negotiate a way to get needed aid into Darfur. It's a tragedy for the tiny hyper prez, who after a week of unrelenting bad press was about to score a real PR coup.
The aids workers and donors who really thought they were involved in a legitimate humanitarian effort.....
But the biggest tragedy is for the people of Darfur, who had a door begin to open for them and now tragically slam shut!