#French military power

[david-tennant-in-chairs]

Je t'aime, Jean-François Mercier

[mimi-0007]

[politicoscope]

Why Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger Juntas Forge Sahel Military Alliance

Escaping France’s Grasp: How Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Juntas Ensure Security As tensions rise within the Sahel region in Africa, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have taken a remarkable step towards reclaiming their sovereignty and challenging the lingering influence of their former colonial power, France. In a historic move, the juntas of these three Sahel nations have forged an unprecedented…

[bunnys-kisses]

black ink & pink french tips

captain john price

cw: retired!price, tattooed!price, smut/pwp, sub!reader, dom!price, bimbo!reader, age difference (20s & 40s), power play, daddy kink, baby trapping

bunny says: happy 3,000 followers to me (and right before my exam)!

price remembered his retirement party. he remembered the pat on the back he got from higher ups for his service. he was supposed to be proud, but now in his mid-forties, what legacy did he have to show for it? his name was more often than not redacted, he entire career was in the shadows.

no wife, no kids, not even a fixed address.

so life outside of the military became aimless. that was until he found you. while most would frown at a twenty year ago gap, but you were an adult who could make her own choices. price felt protective over you, he needed to keep you safe.

you were an adult, but you had a lot to learn. and what started out as companionship quickly turned into mind-blowing sex. price could man handle you like no other man could dream of.

"men my age are simply too nice." you sighed as you examined your nails. you looked at him, "pussies."

he simply chuckled and went over to him, shirtless with a cigarette in his mouth. his walk was almost seductive as he got closer. he looked down at you and cupped your face, “well, love. daddy will take care of ya. ”

did he rile up your daddy kink? yes. did he often use it as an excuse to tease you? yes. did you almost rip his hair out when he asked you about your relationship with your father in the middle of sex? yes. 

price loved you on your knees, in his bed, over the couch, he loved on your side, back and stomach. he loved how his cock just sank into the sweetness of your cunt. it riled him up when he felt his tip poke at your womb. you were just perfect, he couldn't imagine himself with any other woman. you were his princess. 

he was laid out beside you on his side while you were on your stomach trembling on the bed. there was a bullet vibrator inside of you and he had turned the setting on to high. he heard your small squeaks and watched you squirm as he palmed your ass. he grabbed your ass roughly as he watched you come apart. 

tonight he was determined to get you as lust-drunk as he could get you. he had plans for you tonight. 

the night prior he had proposed to you, and you rejected him. you told him that you didn't want to get married! was he crazy? so he had to go an unconventional route to keep you firmly by his side. it meant going from lacey bralettes to cute nursing bras in a years time. you could still be your hyper pink self while pushing a stroller, right? 

at the time he shrugged it off, but his ability to plan started to form in his brain. so now he had you laid out as he touched you. his broad, strong hand groped your sweet ass. he watch it jiggle when he gave the cheeks a few smacks. he leaned into your ear, his facial hair touched your flushed skin, “how does it feel, baby girl?” 

you whimpered, “why did you turn it on so high?”

he chuckled, “because when i'm too gentle you turn into a brat.” he slapped your ass and leaned in closer. he kissed your cheek softly, “you kick your legs and whine until you get what you want.”

you whined, “i'm not always a brat.” you buried your face deeper into the pillow. you could feel price's scent cloud your head as he made you feel good. 

price reached down between your legs and started to rock the vibrator in and out of your pussy. you kicked out yours legs and he closed the gap between you, his other forearm across your lower back, “stay still, love.” his voice was low. 

his tattooed fingers lingered around your hole, his thumb even touched your clit which made you feel like you were on a live wire! but price kept you pinned down. he loved watching your little movements, everything about you was so delicate. with your glossed lips and the clips in your hair, the way you pouted at him earlier. 

he licked his lips and slid his fingers into your tight hole up against the vibrator. you moaned and arched your back. the pleasure raced through your body as he pleasured you. he knew you were getting more wound up the more he touched you. his naked little angel, all soft and vulnerable for him. 

you didn't know much, when he asked you hard questions you got confused. but your confusion was just the sweetest thing he had ever seen. now he was going to have you as his wife. you'd make a beautiful mother. the thought made his cock twitch, it was already at full attention. ready to fuck the living daylights out of you. 

you clawed at the mattress under you and arched your back. your noises was music to his ears. you made a deep noise when he pulled the vibrator out of your pussy. you went limp onto the bed, your head felt like a haze as you felt him roll you onto your back, your pussy glistened in the heated bedroom.

  “aren't you such a treat. dirty girl who wants to be fucked by her daddy.” he got between your legs, he rested his weight against you, pinning you to the bed. your hands found his shoulders as he hoisted your hips against his. his hard cock pressed against your entrance, “silly little things like you need to be kept safe. that's why your home is in the arms of an older man.” he pressed his forehead against yours, he felt the sweat against his skin. 

you moaned, “price, please.” 

he grabbed you by the face and moved back to he could stare at you. the look in his eyes was clouded by lust, but stern. stern in a way that showed that he was hardened by war.  he said, “price?”

you pouted “daddy…”

  “i should punish you for that. make ya wash your mouth out with soap for that.” he smirked at you, “or maybe ten minutes in the corner? or maybe i should make sure you don't get to orgasm?” 

you whined, “please, daddy! i'm sorry! my head feels all heavy.” you were running on the high of pleasure. you were barely thinking. 

  “it's alright.” he purred, “I can forgive ya tonight. you're always so good for me.” he said as he let go of your chin and kept you pinned to the bed by his broad chest. you could feel his chest hair tickle against your chest. it felt nice against your nipples. he took you by the legs and pushed his cock into you slowly. 

you were so relaxed and soaked that he slipped in with ease. he bottomed out into you and you jolted it. you clawed at his back, nit enough to draw blood but rough enough that it left the skin irritated. price had a few tattoos since he retired, the ink skin contrasted nicely with the prettiness of you nails. 

black ink and pink french-tips. 

he rubbed up against you as he thrusted into you. he loved the warmness of your sex, he could feel your heartbeat against his skin as he moved you up and down on his cock. he exhaled deeply, “that's it, baby girl. daddy loves that cunt of yours.” 

  “please, daddy.” you whimpered as you held onto him tightly. 

  “you feel amazing.” he groaned, “it was like you were made for me.  mind, body and soul. all mine.” 

you tighten your legs around his waist. you moaned into his shoulder, you almost bit into the meat of it as you felt him. every thrust felt like a nudge against the end of you sex. like he was in your stomach. 

  “so good for me. you felt so perfect around me. my baby girl.” he rocked his hips quickly. he slammed his cock deep into you. he held onto you as tight as he could, he knew it was going to bruising. 

  "please"." you whimpered, "it feels so good!'

  "that's what i like to hear.' he fucked you hard, your pussy clenched around his cock. your noises encouraged him as he moved against you. he sloppily made out with you as his pace started to stagger. pleasure clouded both of your mind. his stomach did flips at the idea of getting you pregnant. trapping you with his baby. 

he held onto you tightly, tattooed hand in your hair as he fucked you with vigor. with a few hard thrusts later, you both climaxed at the same time. you kicked out your legs pathetically as you clenched around his cock. you went limp after as you tried to catch your breath. your head was too fuzzy to notice that price was finishing off inside of you. 

spurts of cum hit against the back of your cervix and you felt like you were going to melt into the bed. but price continued to thrust into you even as he grew softer. he loved the feeling of your gummy, soft cunt around his length. it felt like home.

he whispered as he pulled out eventually, he laid out beside you and teased your cunt, “good girl.” he purred, “my good girl.” 

your were unaware of most things. you didn't even notice that price had eagerly seeded you. and his mission was a success <3

[gayvampyr]

CNN:

Hundreds of families gathered in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina on June 15, plotting their escape from what had become a hellscape of blown-out buildings scrawled with racist graffiti and streets strewn with corpses. The state governor had just been executed and mutilated by Arab militia groups, leaving civilians with no choice but to flee.

What followed was a gruesome massacre, eyewitnesses said, believed to be one of the most violent incidents in the genocide-scarred Sudanese region’s history. The powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and its allied militias hunted down non-Arab people in various parts of the city and surrounding desert region, leaving hundreds dead as they ran for their lives…

…residents set off en masse from southern El Geneina, many trying to reach the nearby Sudanese military headquarters where they thought they might find safety. But they said they were quickly thwarted by RSF attacks. Some were summarily executed in the streets, survivors said. Others died in a mass drowning incident, shot at as they attempted to cross a river. Many of those who managed to make it out were ambushed near the border with Chad, forced to sit in the sand before being told to run to safety as they were sprayed with bullets.

“More than 1,000 people were killed on June 15. I was collecting bodies on that day. I collected a huge number,” one local humanitarian worker, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told CNN. He said the dead were buried in five different mass graves in and around the city.

Conflict erupted between the RSF and the Sudanese army in April. Since then, more than one million people have fled to neighboring countries, according to estimates from the International Organization for Migration.

Now, a telecommunications blackout and the flight of international aid groups have all but cut off Darfur from the outside world. But news of the June 15 massacre began trickling out of the region from refugees who escaped to Chad. The evidence uncovered by CNN suggests that, behind a curtain of secrecy, the RSF and its allies are waging an indiscriminate campaign of widespread killings and sexual violence unlike anything the region has seen in decades.

The RSF’s official spokesperson told CNN that it “categorically” denied the allegations.

“To say you were Masalit was a death sentence,” said Jamal Khamiss, a human rights lawyer, referring to his non-Arab tribe, one of the biggest in Darfur. Khamiss was among those who said that they fled from El Geneina to Chad, surviving a series of RSF and allied militia positions by concealing his ethnicity.

The United Nations raised the alarm in June over ethnic targeting and killing of people from the Masalit community in El Geneina, after reports of summary executions and “persistent hate speech,” including calls to kill or expel them.

The vast majority of those who managed to make it out of El Geneina alive sought refuge in the Chadian border town of Adre, about 22 miles (35 kilometers) away from the city.

On June 15, the town received the highest number of migrants in a single day, along with the highest number of casualties — 261 — since the Sudan conflict broke out, according to Doctors Without Borders, widely known by its French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), which runs the only hospital in Adre. The number of wounded people that arrived at the hospital was even higher the next day: 387.

“The last time we recorded the death toll in Geneina it was 884,” one local humanitarian worker from El Geneina, who works for a Western non-profit organization, told CNN. “That was June 9. After June 9, it was a different story. The dead became uncountable.”

Action Against Hunger is accepting donations to provide health, sanitation and nutrition services to Sudanese refugees in Chad.

[fatehbaz]

Hey everyone, France says it doesn’t like “imperialism” in the Indo-Pacific.

French president: “There is in the Indo-Pacific and particularly in Oceania new imperialism appearing, and a power logic that is threatening the sovereignty of several states - the smallest, often the most fragile.”

Some stuff.

“Thanks to its overseas territories, France has an exclusive economic zone of nearly 11.7 million square kilometers, 93 percent of which is in the Indo-Pacific”:

"French military presence” in the Indo-Pacific:

Areas of Pacific and Indian oceans actively patrolled/monitored by French forces:

Tahiti and much of Polynesia?

French military presence in Africa:

Nations obligated to use the notorious CFA franc, subject to imposed debt conditions and French-directed investment and lending:

From July 2023, “President Macron reaffirms French ownership of New Caledonia” (one of the largest islands in the South Pacific, where in recent years Indigenous Kanak people have advocated for independence from France):

Overseas departments of France in the Indian Ocean (places still officially/formally administered by -- “part of” -- France):

Look at some of the recent dates of “independence” for these French colonies:

“From 1966 to 1996, France carried out 193 nuclear tests in the South Pacific”: 

“France’s exclusive economic zones”:

“French military presence in the Indo-Pacific”:

[sissa-arrows]

A settler organized in a militia killed a Kanak protesting for liberation from French colonialism in Kanaky.

They are trying to minimize it by saying (without proper investigation) that the settler was defending himself and calling him a “civilian” as well as by calling the Kanak man a “rioter”. The high commissioner also announced that if “calm” doesn’t come back he will organize a military intervention to bring back “peace” and “calm”. For the record there’s already a lot of military checkpoints (edit: I used the expression military checkpoint but it’s not the right one I’m talking about the control by the gendarmerie who are like cops except they are in the military) that Kanak people have to go through daily in certain area and a heavy military presence so when he is talking about military intervention he is talking about killing people.

Article (in French)

This is all happening because France wants to accelerate the colonization of Kanaky by allowing every single white French adult the right to vote locally. The Kanak resistance managed to negotiate so only settlers who had been in Kanaky for a decade or more in 1998 could vote locally. New settlers cannot do it. And France and its settlers want to go back on that accord saying that the 2021 referendum shows that people don’t want liberation so it’s racist (against settlers) to not let them vote (and take over Kanaky completely)

If any piece of shit brings up the 2021 referendum as a justification of French colonialism in Kanaky, know that it has zero value. The Kanak people and the resistance called for a report of the vote because of COVID. Mentioning that not only there was a health risk but that Kanak people have a long grieving period which meant that they wouldn’t be able to vote. That vote ended up being only a settler vote. If you compare it to the two previous votes with higher participation rate it’s almost certain that the Yes to independence would have won.

For those who don’t know it international law recognize Kanaky as a colony. The UN has Kanaky on the list of territories where indigenous people have no right to self determination and they recognize France as the occupying power (thanks to Palestine we’ve seen that international law doesn’t apply to Western backed colonialism but that’s an other topic)

[promises-of-paradise]

OKAY HEAR ME OUT:

All of these edgy science fiction / fantasy novels about overthrowing evil empires and then becoming the very thing that you sought to destroy and the main character ending up as bad as the regime they overthrew and all that, you know?

You could very easily make a dramatised version of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, transplant it into generic fantasy evil empire world, change the names of the historical figures to fictional names, and all the tumblrinas would eat that up.

Picture this: Napoleon Our protagonist is born the second child in a large family on Corsica generic fantasy island, is sent to a military academy in France evil empire, and begins to rise through the ranks of the army. A revolution occurs, in which the French evil empire monarchy is overthrown, and our protagonist, a supporter of the revolution, fights for the revolutionary government against royalist uprisings and the first coalition other evil empires. Along the way, our protagonist becomes increasingly powerful, as well as being an absolute slut. After a series of military campaigns, our protagonist, seeing the corruption of the directory new evil government, stages a coup and becomes first consul generic fantasy leader. However, over the course of the book, our protagonist has acquired a huge ego and lost many morals, and ends up themself the emperor of France fantasy kingdom. "Morally grey" shenanigans ensue. (Of course, our protagonist would have many many love interests, such as Josephine de Beauharnais hot milf, Jean-Andoche Junot hot best friend, and Tsar Alexander I enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-again.) (Main character would be characterised as being the most pathetic little person to ever exist who is frequently bullied for being quirky and not-like-other-girls)

[em-dash-press]

How Authors Write Fictional Wars

Some of our favorite novels include wars. They might stretch over a trilogy or build within a single book. Writing one might seem staggering, but it just takes a different planning approach. Use these tips to write a fictional war for your next story and make your readers feel like it really happened.

Foundational Factors to Consider

1. Your Opposing Sides

Wars always have at least two opposing sides. Start there and develop them before deciding if you need a third or fourth side involved. Cover details like:

What does each side want?

What would each side settle for?

What is each side’s worst-case scenario?

What is each side’s hard no? (What wouldn’t they sacrifice or do to win their cause?)

2. Who Supports the Opposing Sides and Why

As a war progresses, each side loses resources. They start running out of money, soldiers, and whatever public support they had when they started the war due to citizens losing their loved ones or sacrificing for the cause.

Your protagonist and antagonist will need to ask for help eventually. Who would support them and why?

There are numerous reasons why someone might pick one side of a war over another. Politics and economics are often the first things leaders consider. The morality behind each side is another factor.

Consider the American Revolution. Many historians believe America would have lost without France sending money, troops, food, and supplies. Why would France support a budding nation over Great Britain? People argue it was because the French:

Wanted to humiliate the British king

Wanted to hurt their British military rival by partnering with America

Wanted to weaken the British kingdom by ending the colonial taxes they benefited from

Wanted to gain power on a global standing by overcoming Great Britain and rising as America’s first ally

These reasons are great examples of what your novel could include. Another country, kingdom, or group could rise in sudden support for your protagonist or antagonist, ultimately throwing chaos into the determined path of war for better or worse.

3. The War’s Terrain

People can break into battle almost anywhere, depending on your fictional world. Your characters could fight:

On land

On sea

In space

In the air

Underground

Online

Some terrain also comes with other considerations. If your war happens on an ocean, will storms and hurricanes affect battles or the ultimate outcome? How will the soldiers and leaders on both sides deal with the weather?

Note these possibilities as you plan your novel. You can add them in as background or crucial plot devices once you have a skeletal structure in place for your story.

Need help remembering everything you’ve imagined? Try making a map and keeping it wherever you write.

4. What Would Make Each Side More or Less Powerful

There’s always something that could give one side an advantage over the other. It’s often in an unexpected way, although you could make the advantage a goal. The bad guys might feel confident in their ability to win, but they have a secret mission to develop a new weapon just to give them a greater advantage.

Other factors to consider would be one side or another doing something like:

Discovering or enacting a magic system

Eliminating a crucial resource their enemy depends on

Removing funding that makes their enemy able to fight by befriending or overcoming their enemy’s financial backers

Changing the positive or negative public perception of the other side’s reason for fighting to change national morale

Doing something that makes one side’s leaders more or less moral (which could change public perception, the soldiers’ vigor, the leadership’s advisory team together, etc.)

6. What Kinds of Conflict You’ll Write

There are two types of basic conflict you’ll likely write when navigating a fictional war. You may not need both if your story is shorter, but adding both makes the plot more realistic.

First, there’s external conflict. You’ll have at least two opposing sides on some kind of battlefield, sneaking around on spy missions, planning surprise attacks, etc.

Secondly, there’s internal conflict. Soldiers might start fighting amongst each other, people in leadership positions could lose trust in each other, citizens might turn on their country’s cause for one reason or another, etc.

7. What Weaponry Your Characters Will Use

The weapons used in your war depend on numerous factors. It will draw from the genre you’re writing, the time period your story takes place, the advancements made in each civilization’s weaponry prior to the war, and any advancements made while the war goes on.

Examples of these could be:

Guns

Swords

Bows

Bombs

Drones

Armed ships

Armed space ships

You should also consider if one side’s weaponry is more likely to change during the course of the war. That’s more plausible if your story or characters change locations where regional cultures use different weapons. Also if the war spans years, people will naturally develop new weaponry during that time.

If you want extra details to daydream about, think about which weapons will become outdated during your story. Some will prove less useful due to complicated usage or cleaning. They also may not work, like if your science fiction characters follow their enemy underwater, but their laser guns require a dry atmosphere to function.

Include Emotional Plot Arcs

Writing always involves some kind of emotional work that results in a plot arc. It keeps the reader engaged by evoking their core feelings. That’s what makes a novel different from a textbook (in a very basic sense).

Work on details like these to find what emotions will be most present and relevant to your story:

Your overall theme

Your characters and what they experience

The action your characters will go through

How the above action will change your characters by affecting their loved ones

What your characters’ goals mean to them emotionally

If your characters’ will undergo things that change their perception of their world, leaders, country, or themselves

You don’t need all of these things to have an emotional plot arc, but they’re relatable human elements that can drive your plot right into your readers’ hearts.

Avoid Some War Story Tropes

Tropes have a bad reputation that I don’t think is entirely deserved. People recognize them as overdone stereotypes, but sometimes they’re useful.

When you’re writing a war, you’re going to have necessary tropes like:

The hero

The unit or squad

The antagonist

What they undergo and who they become is how you make them fresh concepts for your readers.

Some tropes aren’t helpful because they’re what readers expect from every story. If you give them what they expect, your story isn’t as engaging (unless you get the occasional reader who exclusively reads war novels and never tires of overdone tropes).

Keep these in mind as things to avoid, unless you have an ingenious way to make them a brand-new experience:

One soldier dying in another’s arms

A character dying by going out “in a blaze of glory”

Characters using guns in ways that are obviously wrong (i.e., firing more bullets than the gun-type/model holds)

Getting military rank incorrect (if your characters exist in a real-world, already existing military structure)

Injury-proof characters (even your protagonist will eventually encounter some physical harm, whether it’s illness in bad weather or getting shot on a battlefield)

You can check out this great resource to discover more tropes to avoid/consider as you draft your plot outline. 

-----

If it feels like writing a war over the course of a book or a series is challenging, you’re not alone. There’s a lot to consider to make it have an engaging flow.

Keep notes on things like these to develop your story as much as possible before starting your first draft. You can always go back and add or edit things out as needed while developing it. Writers do this all the time—you don’t need to get any manuscript perfect on your first try.

[originalaccountname]

Finally caved and did my perceived timeline of what happened to Chuuya, from being brought into the lab for project Arahabaki to being taken out of it.

I originally thought about mentioning it in my Chuuya's true original ability being to amplify others' abilities post, but it was way too long, and not as solid an argument to that specific topic.

Because this is about Chuuya being the original, not the clone, but more importantly the why and how that is the case.

Chuuya's humanity is the core question of SB, and the most important part is that in the end, Chuuya chose to accept himself despite it all, and that no matter what, he is himself and no one can take that away from him.

But once we have been given all the pieces of the puzzle, we can try connecting the dots and deduce the true story behind it all.

-

Project Arahabaki was built to create an ability weapon based on the recovered notes of Pan, a French researcher and Verlaine's creator. The technique uses the clone of a human with a "fake" psyche (persona model) who is fused with a singularity life-form. The clone's original should have an ability able to create a self-referencing singularity (to manifest gravity powers). Pan even had a special ability metal to brainwash that individual. Basically, this concept is supposed to create an overpowered flesh puppet.

So. Project Arahabaki. They needed an original with an ability that could produce a singularity on its own, which is super rare. Joy oh joy, there just so happen to be this boy, the son of a military doctor, who fits these needs! They just need his DNA/some cells to create a clone to use in their project. It's the middle of the war, ethics are disregarded, plus no "real child" should be harmed in the making of this weapon. No biggie, right? Lend us your son for the sake of the country!

Except we know that boy, officially at least, died during the war.

According to N's timeline, there once was this certain boy who managed to create a singularity with his ability while under the supervision of scientists, but got swallowed by the black hole it created, never to return.

He also had Chuuya's supposed "original" stuck in a tube full of mystery liquid, the same kind Chuuya once was in, but that one's flesh and organs melted when exposed to air (normal behaviour), changing it into a skeleton that can be ordered around like an overpowered puppet (literally on strings. The tubes in its back controlled it and kept it going, but would severely limit its range)

Back to our Chuuya:

All N does is lie, so we can't take his word as the simple truth. Chuuya was a miracle they never managed to reproduce. Why is that?

In Rimbaud's notes, he says how in their operation to retrieve the new ability weapon Japan was developing (based on Verlaine), they managed to identify the artificial being, aka the clone, A2-5-8. In the flashback, Rimbaud is absolutely positive it is him, so we have to assume this information was recorded as-is somewhere.

And yet, Dazai is the one to suggest later that, perhaps, the original and the clone had been swapped.

And wouldn't that make everything else make sense?

The clone(s) never managed to hold up to the quality standard necessary to be useful outside of their confines. The skeleton approach was the lab trying something different, like N admitted so to Verlaine. There ever only was one successful attempt, a "miracle", Chuuya. The original child is thought to be dead, yet N the liar supposedly had him in a tube, ready to turn him into a skeleton(???). Rimbaud and Verlaine thought for sure they had the artificial life-form, the clone, but they got Chuuya, who has a graphite scar from before he lost his memories, with a past that was able to be dug up by the Flags and Port Mafia.

My conclusion is this: N swapped out a clone for the original child. His research wasn't giving the proper results, but he had found a workaround, where he could use the original instead of his clone, for better/faster results.

Chuuya is the only one who could harness "Arahabaki" in any way that would remotely resemble "Guivre". Chuuya is the only one who could operate autonomously. That's why N wanted to remove "Arahabaki" and try to factory-reset Chuuya before putting it back in: because there really is only one of him, and he couldn't afford losing him if he wanted to continue his research.

[psychotrenny]

I really do think this is the end for Israel. The beginning of the end at least. They're essentially a relic of an earlier time, a time when, through a complex confluence of factors, the military power of Europe was so far beyond the rest of the world that it could openly keep the world in shackles. The Imperial powers of Europe could do as they wished and respond to any resistance with overwhelming violence that, no matter how costly in money or lives or how many years it took, would eventually force open resistance to come to a (temporary) end. You saw exceptions of course, such as Ethiopia's successful repulsion of Italian invaders in the 1890s (although even that victory is somewhat undercut but Italy's more successful invasion about 40 years later), but in the majority of cases even the most brave and intelligent of resistance fighters would see themselves worn down and defeated. Just off the top of my head you have figures like Samori Toure, Omar al-Mukhtar, Samuel Maharero; all inflicted numerous defeats on their European Imperialist enemies but in the end couldn't overcome the sheer force that was arrayed against them.

Of course such supremacy was never absolute even at it's apex, and this height was so very short lived. Resistance never fully stopped; outbursts of violence were frequent and various forms of passive resistance like migration, tax evasion and industrial slowdown were ubiquitous. Resistance movements learned from past failures, acquired the weapons of modern war and soon proved a credible threat to the Imperialist forces that by the middle of the 20th century had exhausted themselves through in-fighting. Whether evicted through direct violence or choosing to leave under the inevitable threat of it, the European powers largely ended their direct domination over the colonised world. That's not to say Imperialism was over, far from it, but it mostly took on subtler forms; more soft power with only the occasional resort to hard. Imperial domination is now more than ever exerted through various local proxies and the broader forces that keep them in check as direct subjugation just isn't especially viable.

In the parts of the world without substantial settler populations this withdrawal was accomplished smoothly enough; most of the Europeans present either left without a fuss or found some sort of niche under the new order of things. But the liberation of colonies with large settler populations was a longer and bloodier process; just compare the French withdrawal from Indochina to that from Algeria or the fate of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). A large number of Europeans were heavily entrenched in these colonies and had both their material wealth and sense of pride tied to the maintenance of white supremacy. Many politicians back in Europe were less willing to abandon such settler colonies, while with or without support from back home the colonists engaged in their own bloody wars of oppression against indigenous people.

But in the end they all fell. Algeria, Rhodesia, Angola, South Africa, the list goes on. Even as these places continue to suffer under the yoke of less direct Imperialism they can take pride knowing that the scourge of direct setter subjugation was defeated. Exploiting people is one thing; there are many ways you can accomplish this without the exploited truly catching on. But the sort of violence it takes to brazenly steal control of a people's land, settle yourself on it while keeping the original inhabitants as second class citizens is going to engender the fiercest resistance no matter what. The only remotely stable settler colonies are those where the indigenous peoples were already decimated by disease before being subjected to centuries of genocidal policies, reducing their current population to a small minority of the nation. And even then the survives continue to resist fiercely. In places where the settlers remained the minority there was simply no chance of such regimes surviving for long.

Israel as a state is among the last of its kind, and I see no reason why it shouldn't meet the fate of all other such colonies. The way I see it the end of Israel is inevitable. The only question is just how much bloodshed and suffering it'll take. The struggle has been ongoing for so very long. I truly hope that we're seeing the final stages of it, but I suppose only time can tell. All I know for sure is that from from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free

[pinchan]

i was inspired

[determinate-negation]

In 1952, West Germany paid reparations to Israel — not as compensation to Holocaust survivors, but in the form of supplies to the Israeli state. Coming at the same time as denazification reached its end, the move had little to do with moral atonement, and everything to do with whitewashing West Germany's international image.

Founded in the aftermath of World War II, West Germany was from its formation a state on the front line of the Cold War. The Federal Republic founded in the UK-, US-, and French-occupied zones in 1949 had initially lacked full sovereignty, but the NATO powers increasingly sought to make it a formal — and rearmed — part of the Western alliance. After abortive moves to bring it into a European Defense Alliance, in 1955 West Germany itself became a NATO member.

West Germany’s rehabilitation sparked opposition from many quarters — not least given the weak purge of Nazi-era officials in the police and judiciary, or even the dubious anti-fascist credentials of many of its political leaders. Yet, even as denazification reached its end, West Germany’s leaders found a means of giving a formal sign of remorse, by way of reparations to Israel. If the Germans’ transactional approach sparked widespread resistance in Israel — and not least among Holocaust survivors — Bonn became an important source of financial and military aid for the new Israeli state.

[seulszn]

WHAT’S GOING ON IN HAITI 🇭🇹

Haiti is a country in the Caribbean and Latin America that has been exploited and oppressed by colonial powers and imperialist forces for centuries. Its people have suffered unimaginable horrors and atrocities. Haiti was the first Black republic in the world, and the second independent nation in the Americas and the first Latin American country It achieved its independence in 1804, after a successful slave revolt against France. Haiti's independence was a threat to the racist and capitalist system that dominated the world. It inspired other enslaved and oppressed people to fight for their freedom and dignity. Haiti was also punished for its independence by the colonial powers. It was forced to pay a huge indemnity to France, and faced trade embargoes, diplomatic isolation, and military interventions.

Haiti was also exploited by multinational corporations and NGOs, who profited from its cheap labor, natural resources, and humanitarian aid. They also imposed their agendas and policies on the Haitian people, undermining their sovereignty and democracy. Haiti was also devastated by natural disasters, such as earthquakes ( a earthquake they are still recovering from that happened in 2010 and then a earthquake that happened in 2021 that killed 1,419 people) hurricanes, and floods, which worsened its already dire situation. Haiti was also victimized by diseases, such as cholera, malaria, and COVID-19, which ravaged its population and health system. The diseases were often introduced or exacerbated by foreign actors, such as the UN peacekeepers who brought cholera to Haiti in 2010. Haiti was also marginalized and silenced by the mainstream media, which portrayed it as a hopeless and helpless case, ignoring its history, culture, and achievements. The media also spread misinformation and stereotypes, fueling racism and stigma.

Haiti was also betrayed and abandoned by its allies and neighbors, who turned a blind eye to its plight, or worse, contributed to its misery. The United States of America, in particular, has a long history of meddling and undermining Haiti's sovereignty and stability. Taking 500,000 dollars from Haitian banks and still collecting money. The United States of America has invaded, occupied, and intervened in Haiti numerous times, imposing its political and economic interests. It has also exploited Haiti's labor and resources, and blocked its development and trade. sugar refining, flour milling, and cement and textile manufacturing, clothing, scrap metal, vegetable oils, dates and cocoa are all things given to other countries by Haiti. The United States of America has also supported and funded the Core Group, a coalition of foreign powers that has interfered in Haiti's internal affairs, manipulating its elections, constitution, and government. The United States of America has also failed to protect the human rights and dignity of the Haitian people, both in Haiti and in the US. It has deported and detained thousands of Haitian refugees and asylum seekers, and discriminated and criminalized them.

Here are a list of countries who agreed to help the United States and Canada evade Haiti:

Germany

France (the same country that we had to pay just to be free)

Benin

Jamaica

Kenya

Yes I am Haitian my dad side is from Haiti. My fathers family moved up here to Seattle because Haitian was going through a small silent genocide and have been since they have been free from France in 1804, France took my countries money and told them that they have to pay reparations just for existing and they had to pay France just to be free from the French. And then America jumps onto the bandwagon and decides to take billions of dollars from Haiti. Haiti was once the richest country but became the most poorest because of ignorance.

My people are being killed everyday just for speaking out against their government, my people are being killed because nobody was their for them when the 2010 and the 2021 earthquake happened because “Haiti is a bad country and helping them won’t do anything” and they are still recovering from that to this very day. Families are being displaced, the violence is getting worse, innocent people are dying and are fighting trying to stay alive, women and children are being r$ped and kidnapped. I have family that live in Haiti that I lost all contact with because they are fighting everyday, and who knows if they are even alive.

Here are some important links to help you get a better understanding on what’s going on in Haiti and stuff to donate to

Donations:

Haitian Health foundation

Partner in Health: Haiti

Hope For Haiti

Haiti Aid

Haiti Children

Haiti Twitter Link for More Donations. P2 P3

Videos

FYI a lot of these videos are from last year but a lot of them speak really well on what is always going on and why they are going through it

Haiti Debt

What is Happening in Haiti

Haiti and the Rice

Listen Part 2

Free These countries as well

What we want to free in Haiti

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TAKE THE TIME OUT OF YOUR DAY TO AT LEAST LOOK AT THESE LINKS. For the sake of My dad and the sake of my family I want to see them happy they wanna go home but won’t be able to until Haiti is free I will update this if I need to and please Like, comment, reblog anything is appreciated

[flagbridge]

The Raoul (de Chagny) Navy: An Exploration of the Vicomte's Naval Background:

Our beloved Vicomte, Raoul de Chagny, is a young junior officer in the French Navy ("le Royale"), but this hardly gets much exploration. It's a detail that is often glossed over--I anticipate because Naval historians and Phans often do not have much Venn diagram overlap--until now. Let's just say my username is a Naval reference.

Note: the "Raoul Navy" is not my invention--our hilarious and wise "Phantom Dark Web" friends at Leroux Less Traveled (incl. @box5intern) came up with it, and I love it.

I've started digging into book Raoul and his Naval background and turns out we are missing out a whole lot about Raoul's character background if we don't dig into it. So I'm going to tell you what the book tells us and what that means. I'm going to give you the overall pieces up front, and then explain:

Raoul looks very young and feminine (except for his "little" mustache, which he effectively has grown to prove that he can)--and everyone treats him like a baby

Raoul at this point has already completed three years of Naval training including a world tour, so he is fairly experienced and even worldly for his age. He is described in the French as a "cadet", but he would likely be a sub-lieutenant at this point since he has graduated from the Naval Academy.

He's on a six month leave before going on a very dangerous mission to recover remains of a lost Arctic mission--a mission he himself is unlikely to return from.

And everyone still treats him like he's a baby (especially the old dowager widows), even though he has had quite a bit of life at this point--so he has something to prove.

What we know about Raoul and the Navy (Here is the English):

"He was admirably assisted in this work first by his sisters and afterward by an old aunt, the widow of a naval officer, who lived at Brest and gave young Raoul a taste for the sea. The lad entered the Borda training-ship, finished his course with honors and quietly made his trip round the world. Thanks to powerful influence, he had just been appointed a member of the official expedition on board the Requin, which was to be sent to the Arctic Circle in search of the survivors of the D'Artois expedition, of whom nothing had been heard for three years. Meanwhile, he was enjoying a long furlough which would not be over for six months; and already the dowagers of the Faubourg Saint-Germain were pitying the handsome and apparently delicate stripling for the hard work in store for him."

We also learn in another paragraph that the de Chagnys had admiral in the family, so the Naval connection is likely a family business for second sons. Raoul is a second son, so a career as a military officer would have been a distinguished career for him.

Borda: First ship

Brest is the main port of the French Navy and home of the Ecole Navale (or French Naval Academy. In the 20th Century it moved, but Brest is still, along with Toulon, a major naval base)

According to the French: Le jeune homme entra au Borda, en sortit dans les premiers numéros et accomplit tranquillement son tour du monde (Note that the French calls him a "young man", not a lad)

The Borda is traditionally the training ship of the French Navy, and there have been six of them. This would have been a cadet/midshipman cruise for Raoul. He would have been on the ex-Valmy, an 120-gun ship of the line, which became the Borda training ship in 1864.

The Borda is also the ship of the Ecole Navale (French Naval Academy)—this means that Raoul attended the academy.

The Naval Academy is two years in Brest, and then their third year is the World Tour—so that timing also aligns with where we are in the book. Raoul would have begun at the academy at 18, and he is at the start of the book, 21 years old.

After the Borda, which he completed with honors, he did an uneventful world tour.

This would have been his third year, still as a midshipman.

He could have been assigned to any ship for this training cruise—possibly a cruiser (the d'Estang is pictured below in 1884 in Algiers), which did long range missions. Note: Their max speed was about 15 Knots (which is a very respectable speed that some warships still transit).

This world tour cold have been as far east as what is now Vietnam, or through the Suez--but likely near French colonies.

With influence, he is assigned to the Requin expedition.

French: Grâce à de puissants appuis, il venait d'être désigné pour faire partie de l'expédition officielle du Requin, qui avait mission de rechercher dans les glaces du pôle les survivants de l'expédition du d'Artois, dont on n'avait pas de nouvelles depuis trois ans.

The Requin was a real ship in the Mediterranean fleet, but did not go on its first mission until 1885, which means that this is a deliberate or unintentional oversight of either Leroux himself or his narrator. The Requin was a steel hull—and the Artois was actually a 18th century Royal Navy ship so this piece is a complete fabrication. However, Arctic missions at this time were frequent and tended not to go well.

However, Raoul could also be excited about getting to go on a new steel-hulled ship. The Redoutable was already in commission—commissioned in 1876.  Most of the rest of the fleet at this point were ironclads.

[sissa-arrows]

God, I read liberal Zionists & centrists and I’m just so insanely happy that Algeria got its independance 60 years ago, imagine the horrifying opinions and articles about the FLN.

I mean we still got the horrifying opinions and articles about the FLN and about Algerians in general but we sure did avoid social media and whenever colonizers open their throats online I’m glad that I wasn’t alive back then and I admire Palestinians and Sahrawi people especially the women who stay strong despite all the doxing, insults, threats and constant dehumanization.

1st headline: Brutal terrorist soar in Algeria

2nd headline: Algeria is France and France won’t recognize any other authority than itself on its own territory

3rd headline: Really bad situation in Algeria where outlaws attacked military outposts

4th headline: Mr.Guy Mollet will have extended special powers for Algeria

5th headline: De Gaulle “I understand you!” (It’s about De Gaulle speech reassuring the settlers telling them he understood them and intended to keep Algeria under French rule.

6th headline: Bloody insurrectional movement started on Saturday at noon is crushed in a couple hours

7th headline: Good catch in a murderers den in the Casbah (the people they call murderers were the Freedom fighter under the orders of Yacef Saadi)

8th headline: You need to get in the mountains and stay there. Out first objectif “pacify” the rest will happen naturally.

That being said… this is how it ended. With headlines about ceasefire and independence. And this is also how it will end for Palestine. With a ceasefire followed by freedom and independence from colonialism.

9th headline: A huge victory for peace: ceasefire in Algeria

10th headline: With independence and teamwork; Algeria will live.