Well fair enough. I agree that falling bullets would have wounded in other parts of the city unless they were shooting almost straight up with no wind. My thinking was that nobody’s perfect/a couple guys were fuckheads and a number of the shots simply went low or ricocheted badly, though the main intention was to fire high. I think you are “jumping the gun” (heh) on your conclusion based on the injuries in the videos but I assume there is no need to argue the point. I doubt the French would try to cover up using non-lethal weapons, so it ought to come out soon enough.
I don’t think that anyone can argue that in the second video the troops did not fire directly into the crowd - they clearly did - but in the first video I don’t think it’s so sure. There were very few wounds shown - as opposed to after the shooting in the second video.
Not to be difficult, and certainly not to agree with Brutus ( ), but I didn’t see it. Can you give me the timestamp in the second video where you saw them shoot directly into the crowd or at least what has convinced you so?
Why ex post-facto? The Ivorian president asked for french troops. Later, after the Marcoussi agreement was drafted, an UN resolution was passed. The recent events largely postdate the agreement.
I can’t give the timestamp precisely, and you’re right that it’s not directly shown, but there’s a point in the video which shows the crowds getting too close to the soldiers, and then the video goes haywire as the cameraman runs away to the sound of gunfire. I also note that the starting point of this sequence is closer to the troops than the end point.
Oh, for cryin’ out loud. You’re obviously looking for bullshit to bitch about. Haven’t you ever heard the sort of construction used in the thread’s title? People use it all the time. So-and-so makes so-and-so look like so-and-so. If you could ever dislodge your knee from your teeth long enough to think, you’d stop being such a crybaby. You make ordinary hand-wringers look like Pontius Pilate.
The OP’s choice of comparison’s was ill-concieved if he really wanted pure discussion of the French incident. It risked turning this into yet another Iraq war discussion or a debate on the OP’s motives. Somehow it managed to get over that, so do you mind Liberal not dragging it back there just because this 6 day old hair got up your ass?
For some unknown reason, the protesters have selected the Irish flag as their rallying point. The crowd is awash with orange white and green. If it weren’t for the clearly african origin of the protesters, they could be mistaken for Dublin soccer hooligans.
For what it’s worth, the current US actions in Iraq (Fallujah, etc) are legitimate in terms of being under the auspices of the UN and the nominal direction of the Iraqi government, such as it is.
I still don’t get the OP’s reference to France forgiving Iraqi debt, though.
[QUOTE=TranquilisRestraint is a relative term, and the main reason you’d not use tanks to fire on the crowd is that tanks are grossly coarse tools for crowd control - You either waste a very expensive round killing a very few people, or, if you have the ability to fire cannister (most tanks do not have cannister ammunition for their main guns), you wind up killing everyone in front of you. Two very poor choices. So, the lack of tank main-gun fire isn’t really an issue of restraint in either direction. They’re just the wrong weapon for the task.
.[/QUOTE]
Agree about it mainly being restraint, though I would imagine the tank also has some sort of subsidiary weaponry - machine gun(s) and/or autocannon. Plus some sort of HE hybrid shell for the main gun. Of course, as soon as the tank does any shooting at civilians it’s probably game over from a peace-keeping utility point of view.
I had no hidden agenda in my OP. This thread was intended to highlight the hypocrisy of French policy and question why such a story has essentially been omitted from mainstream media. Pitting the actual act seems obvious; I don’t pit things with which no one will disagree. Here’s some more on the story:
KidCharlemagne, could you say what is exactly hypocritical here? Have the French declared an oath to pacifisicm? What policy are they ignoring? I guess by bringing up Fallujah marine you wanted to highlight France’s condemnation of the US for the shooting-- do you have a link?
Also from you link, but not seen in the video:
Where are your second and third quote blocks from BTW?
Fair enough. But I again would like to point out that despite Liberal’s usual protestations and cheap shots, it wasn’t me, but the OP that went looking for moral equivalency between French and American actions.
), but I didn’t see it. Can you give me the timestamp in the second video where you saw them shoot directly into the crowd or at least what has convinced you so?