I think most here know my opinion of the French. These videos are on my “suspected propaganda” list.
There’s audio of everything happening, but no commentary. This could be because it was someone with a Sony Handycam, or it could be because it was a set-up. The set-up was my thought when I saw all the women shown topless with seemingly no injuries. Panic attacks at best. And the headless guy. Well, I hope it was what it looked like, a cheap special effect.
Judging the entire thing (both sequences) it looks like the viewer is supposed to sympathize with the innocent crowd being fired upon, and therefore sympathize with all Iraqi’s. The army in question being French would help reinforce this idea.
I hope to God this was staged. If not, yeah, we’ll take out France. And we won’t wait 50 years.
I hope I’m right in thinking this is a joke thread.
Hmm… the Hotel Ivoire in Abidjan. I haven’t see that since I was 6 years old in 1964. I used to play by the pool. My parents listened to Miriam Makeba sing there. Times have changed.
As for the video, contrary to the OP’s sensacionalist charges and his obvious scorn for the French, it is impossible to draw any definitive conclusions from it.
I didn’t say it was bullshit. I’m just waiting for confirmation.
The wounds in Saving Private Ryan, Goodfellas, Rambo, etc all looked pretty real as well. Though none of those had the gratuitous tit shots during the violent scenes.
It does seem like the French troops opened up on the crowd. There’s a lot of people hit. We only see one actual French soldier firing however.
At the end of the 2nd video we see some burning cars one of the has UN on the front. Whether this is after the incident or during is unclear.
I would have been very helpful to have a voice over telling what was happening.
From he evidence given it certainly looks like the bastards opened up on a large unarmed crowd that didn’t seem like it was too threatening but it’s hard to tell.
If there was other evidence or better backed up reports made I’m sure they’ll start to hit the mainstream press over here soon.
The BBC has several stories none of which seem to address this specific incident but do give some background.
As to mentioning this with Iraq I don’t see the reason to. Other than to try to do some childish finger pointing. It has no relationship to the US and Iraq at all other than it being another possible incident of heavy handed troops killing unarmed civilians.
If the French forces shot unarmed peaceful protesters then they should be loudly condemned. There seems some question whether they were shooting at peaceful protesters or a mob bent on violence to foreign nationals.
Describing France as being imperialistic is also a little misleading. It’s true that it’s the former colonial power, but the French troops are stationed there as peace-keepers. There is a UN mandate for them to be there. For a year and a half, they’ve managed to keep two sides seem to be intent on mutual destruction. The French government were the guys who brokered the fragile truce in the Ivorian civil war last year.
I haven’t seen the video, nor do I know what happened in this particular incident, but to use the world imperialist is, well, silly.
If you want to read a little bot more on the background of the situaution, the BBC has an interesting introduction.
The fact that so many seemingly non-bloody people were lying on the ground, half-undressed and being fanned, and that afterwards the ground is soaking wet where it had been dry earlier in the footage (in the second clip) suggests many of the injured were hurt in a stampede prompted by the use of water canon rather than were shot.
The few nicks and cuts could have been from rubber bullets while the shot of the unattached limb seems hard to pin on the use of firearms.
It is hard to verify that the one, awful scene towards the end with the mans head blown apart actually happened at the same incident as did the rest of the footage as it seems out of context and could well have been spliced in.
I have no doubt that some sort of stand-off took place but, on the evidence present - not having time to download the first clip, I would suggest the video has been manipulated somewhat to exaggerate the culpability of the French.
The French say that the claims that they beheaded demonstrators are “outrageous” and “stripped of credibility”. The demonstration was in response to the French destroying aircraft which had killed nine peacekeepers, and was clearly contrived by the Ivorian government which is indulging in some blatant anti-French rhetoric (de rigeur in international diplomacy these days, it seems.
I have not seen the video, but the fact that it has not been picked up by any international news agency (and the BBC rarely misses an opportunity to stick one on the French) is a little fishy.
I think the “beheading” claim is pretty easy to figure out. There was a man lying on the street with no head. Somewhere along the line that morphed into a beheading.
Yea its sooo much more noble to scorn the US isn’t it? Interesting how you’re critical of sources in a thread criticizing the French but don’t mind taking an eyewitness account from from an Iraqi coming from a Mosque that was just “stormed” in your own thread.
Here’s something I’m not sure I’ve ever seen on this board: I think Reeder is right. Between the title of your thread, which brings up Iraq for no reason, the out-of-nowhere mention of Iraqi debt, and the tone of the OP, with references to ‘imperialist France’ that come across as mockeries of people who call America imperialist, it DOES sound like you’re just trying to stick it to the French - ‘see, see, you’re bad too, suck it!’ - instead of earnestly decrying something that is horrible enough if it happened as described. If that’s not what you intended, it’s just a case of misreading. But I see where he’s coming from.
This supposedly happened on the 20th? I’m not even seeing much in the way of reporting the allegations. I looked (admittedly quickly) at CBS, ABC, CNN, FOX, the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters and the BBC and didn’t find even a mention of what would be a serious atrocity.
…I don’t want to speak for Redfury, but I think his point is illustrated by the following quote in his OP:
says it all, doesn’t it? Lets, for the sake of this discussion, make the assumption that everything stated by Abu Talat weren’t a completely accurate picture of what happened in the mosque. Does that change the way the story is played out in Iraq? The reliability of the eyewitness isn’t important, when the message that he is relating strikes a chord with other Iraqi’s…
Quite, all the childish bleating of ‘they started it’ etc from the usual morons here aside. If the game is hearts and minds you have to be clever, not do precisely what the enemy wants each time and in a way calculated to create more insurgents.
In the first one, noone seems to be injured severely. At the time the gunfire is going on, most everyone is laying down. After it stops everyone gets back up again and starts yelling at the french soldiers. Some even close the distance between the protestors and the soldiers. The only wounds shown are a couple of scrapes and one possible bullet wound to the leg. Most of the other people shown seem to be suffering from dehydration. Lots of shaky people but not a lot of hardcore injury.
IMHO, the french either fired rubber bullets or were aiming warning shots above the crowd to disperse them for the vehicles shown in the second tape.
The second tape is worse than the first. The beginning shows them on dirt (as opposed to the cement in the first)and they appear to be closer to the soldiers shown in the first. In one part the soldiers that they were close to appear to be african, but the video is so shaky that it’s hard to tell if it is even the same area. It looks like there are more bullet wounds in this one, or the wounds look more severe. Quite a few passed out or out of it people receiving water. The two most indicting parts are the severed limb and the missing head, but they also lack any sort of context. I’m no expert on bullet wounds, but they would have to be throwing some powerful ammo around to do something like that to a person.
The second video is inconclusive to me. I’m not even sure if the first part of the video comes from the same place as the second part.
Overall, I can’t make a judgement. The lack of international outcry makes me think that this is highly fishy.
