Radio War Nerd #278 — Idriss Déby & Chaditude
Recorded: April 22, 2021
News that Chad president Idriss Déby was killed in battle got us thinking: it's time to talk about Chad, which is practically synonymous with technicals.
Maps:
*Chad cities & provinces
*Chad topography
Total time: 1:32:00
Comments (24)
Way late to this but is there any more information about the decision to give Chad all those Toyotas? Seems like there's a movie there or something
Until recently, I didn't understand why these Hiluxes and and Landcruisers were called technicals... They aren't exactly the most technical weapons of war.
Offtopic: now that i realise why the rain came down all of a sudden. Its easier to fix the man of glass. Long story short it takes energy to keep it together. If idiots who own you or you existential relationships attack, find the piece of mind to put energy in good stuff. Try not to hold grudges
We never know with Toumaï, that was 7 million years ago :))
Great episode! Just one omission I noticed: you neglected to mention that Chad totally looks like a guy wearing a beret. Important information here.
I think one on french neocolonial efforts in mali and other african countries would be good. Also their murky dealings in rwanda etc.
French foreign legion episode sometime?
totally! people don't know enough about the imperial fuckerations of the French
Great podcast - you just forgot to mention Toumaï who is THE other hero of the country :) thanks a lot
Ah, but did Toumai die in battle?
Did the French assistance to the Chadians coincide with the blowing up of that French Airliner by the Libyans?
The Chad Chad vs. the Virgin Libya
Ah crap. I have a 2017 Dodge 2500 for our business. The front drive shaft recently broke at about 60,000 miles, can't wait to have the airbag slap me in the face...
American trucks, hell any American cars, have declined steeply in reliability over the last 20 years. All muscle and chrome, only to leave you stranded when the transmission goes out. I got a chuckle out of thinking of an army of Dodge Ram 1500s going out to battle
I wanna add to this because I used to be privy to *insider knowledge*. Dodge Rams are especially bad. Some recent model years had this problem where the clock spring in the steering wheel would wear out and eventually break. The clock spring is a flexible electrical connection between the steering wheel and the rest of the truck which conducts current between the horn, and crucially, the *airbag assembly*. The thing about airbags is they have to be redundant, right? If the airbag suddenly loses its electrical connection, it has no choice but to assume that the vehicle has crashed, otherwise you might get into a crash that severs the connection and the airbag would fail to go off. What this means is you might be driving your shitty Ram, and then you turn the wheel and the airbag immediately goes off in your face. That's especially dangerous since a turn is the point at which you should be paying the most attention and thus are most vulnerable to a pyrotechnic charge immediately and unexpectedly inflating a giant bag in front of you. Never buy chrysler.
two things about technicals: 1) some american trucks definitely make it over there, famously a texas plumber saw his old Ford in the news with the name of his business and his phone number still painted on the side 2) a huge reason american automakers have such a stranglehold on the us domestic market is a good ol' 25% import duty on foreign made light trucks! Toyota makes its way around by having a factory in the US and they do sell a solid number of Tundras, but it's still a pretty nationalist market and a tough nut to crack
Informative episode. But I still don't clearly understand what the current fighting is about. What is the political conflict?
There isn't one, AFAIK. It's a power struggle between Zaghawa and Toubou, who together are less than 10% of the population.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Négritude Chaditude has got to be a direct descendant of Negritude, a movement popular in pre-independence Francophone Africa emphasizing African empowerment and resistance to French cultural assimilation. Tombalbaye would certainly have been familiar with the term given his early political activism, but I honestly cant find any direct references to Chaditude’s etymology in the anglosphere internet.
Nice Paco Pomet painting on the episode art 😅
Ok real goofy muck muck but while the satire is directed at American ads and ideology I assumed think the Canyonero was based on the Toyota Land Cruiser
Re: the Simpsons reference
Just started listening to this ep and anything with technicals makes me giddy... Further technical (noun) appreciation could be partially sated by AwesomeTechnicals and ShittyTechnicals subreddits, or by booting up 2003's hilariously geopolitically prophetic RTS masterpiece Command & Conquer: Generals and playing as GLA.
God damn that was a good game. "AK-47s for eeeveryoooone!"