If reports are to believed, the French forces the Canucks are deploying to 'assist' have been a fighting a tribal/religious war between Catholic and Islamic militias in the C.A.R and in Mali. Or, according to the UN, they've been acting like sex tourists with females of either side. It's our NATO duty. 

These parts of the Sahel, formerly part of the French Empire have been well-poked over the decades since independence by frequent French military deployments to 'defend' them from aggressive neighbors, to stifle 'uppitiness' getting in the way of business or to change unwanted regimes. The recent episodes seem to be taking on the 'failure to win' dimensions of the kind of Quagmire that wasted so much in Afghanistan.

By the away Canada's new 'focus' for foreign aid is, where, somewhere in Africa?   We did so very well spending billions in Afghanistan - sad that here, too, all we have to do, first, is create an environment of security for the do-gooders.   That's why the bang-bang.