French FAMAS military rifle:
The second picture shows the first 'FAMAS F1' generation, but the troops in the video are carrying the updated 'FAMAS F2' version.
Where do you think those gunshot wounds came from, Destro?
Posted on 11/19/2004 8:53:17 PM PST by BigRedState
FRENCH SOLIDERS OPEN FIRE ON INNOCENT CIVILAINS ON THE IVORY COAST (WARNING VERY GRAPHIC VIDEO)
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Chirac continues insane onslaught on US methods
The Scotsman ^ | Fri 19 Nov 2004 | JAMES KIRKUP
Posted on 11/20/2004 3:26:28 AM PST by M. Espinola
JACQUES Chirac, the French president, yesterday undermined a show of Anglo-French unity by criticising the US-led drive to spread democracy.
Mr Chirac’s warning about the dangers of advancing western values came days after Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, went to Washington and declared himself a whole-hearted devotee of democratising the world.
At a press conference yesterday, Mr Blair and Mr Chirac attempted to gloss over their differences over Iraq at the start of the French leader’s two-day visit to Britain.
But in a lecture afterwards, Mr Chirac openly questioned Mr Blair’s belief that the spread of western values will reinforce western security.
"We must avoid any confusion between democratisation and westernisation," Mr Chirac said. "The peoples submitted to the West’s domination in the past have not forgotten and are quick to see a resurgence of imperialism and colonialism in our actions." Hellooooo Ivory Coast, French troops, coffee & cocoa beans ..Chirac lives in a world all his own ..this is incredible ranting!
Pretty interesting out of the mouth of "OLD EUROPE"!
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I think you are right. We are not getting the whole story here. As others have pointed out, there may be some creative editing in the video clips. At first brush this appears damning, but with thought, it could be deceiving.
Granted, the French have possible motives--including possibly simply being sold out to Islamic factions (food for oil)--for backing the rebel faction in this, but the jury is still out.
I live on the outskirts of nowhere...and I have DSL.
It looks like France is in so deep, thwy can't get out. IC produces 40% of the world's cocoa, but is France's main supplier. Here's some numbers from 1998:
The French Chocolate Industry
Number of companies : 103
Turnover* : US$ 3,3 billion
Production* : 383 000 Tons
* estimation for 1998
Chirac can't walk away from this. The Spice must flow so to speak, and I'm no fan of the Dune series.
I didn't think the woman dancing and the one on the ground were the same either. Slight sleeves on the one on the ground, different neckline, and no band around the waist, thother woman dancing looked like she had something around her neck also.
RedBigState is correct, cibco.
You need a higher end system and broadband to do this type of thing.
I was able to download the file in seconds.
The beginning of the video shows the typical crowd of jumping and screaming idiots.
Once the shooting starts, the video is a bunch of nothing but blurred jerky images.
However, once the shooting stopped, it is excellent quality footage of the dead and injured. There are clear and quality images of the dead and the injured and that runs for a good length of time. The camera person walked among the dead and injured and showed graphic close-up shots of many people.
great tag line
After the failed coup, Muslims rebels took control of the northern third or so of the country. There were other rebel groups for a while, in the west in particular. Some of them backed pre-democratic strongmen, exiles from foreign wars sheltering in the Ivory Coast, etc. Lots of marxists and simple thugs. They didn't last, in the resulting three way war. The Muslims did.
The French and UN tried to step in and broker a peace deal. They pressured the Christian government to do a power sharing agreement. The rebels insisted on control of the defense and interior ministry posts, which the government thought a classic threat of a renewed attempt to seize the country, and resisted. But under French pressure, the president agreed to the power sharing agreement.
When he did, he failed from bring the southern Christian population along. They denounced the deal as a sellout, and rioted. They called for French withdrawal, said they wanted American not French help, that they wanted to fight the Muslims and win, not share power with them and lose. The president reacted by asking for more in the peace talks, and retracting the offer of defense and interior posts, in particular. Instead, he insisted the rebels disarm, in return for some local automony and full political participation, amnesties, and the like.
The rebels agreed to that deal, after a period of fighting when the government did better than before. This last month, October, was the deadline for the rebels to turn in arms. The government had already fufilled most of its side of the bargain. Well, the deadline came, and the rebel spokeman said they weren't going to turn in any arms, and nobody did. The president views the agreement as null, because the rebels failed to keep their side of it, on the critical point.
So, after that deadline past, the government restarted military operations. They did so using their small air force, rather effectively, to hit the rebel military headquarters in the north. The second day of these raids, the French peacekeepers were at the site. 8 or 9 were killed in an airstrike. It remains disputed whether the French were intentionally targeted by the south, were hit by the pilots, or were shielding rebel targets, etc.
The French responded to the air strike by destroying essentially the entire Ivory Coast air force, which was a couple of jet fighters and a half a dozen helicopter gunships. When they did so, the people in the south rioted, attacking French property throughout the south, and threatening French civilians (though there are no reports of French civilian deaths in the rioting. Assaults, definite widespread loss of property, a few reported rapes, no deaths).
The crowds call for all French to leave the country. They want to support the government's decision to resume military operations against the Muslim rebels, for failing to keep their side of the imposed peace deal. They view the French actions, diplomatically and now militarily, as protecting the Muslims and as letting them cheat, while holding the government to its side.
The French have thousands of peacekeepers in the country, along with smaller forces under UN flag from other west African countries (Nigeria etc). They were called out to stop the riots, and fired into the crowds to do so. There was legitimate concern for the safety of French civilians in the country, but they have by now largely been evacuated, or gathered into compounds under military protection.
The government has denounced the French attack on its air force - says they should have lodged a complaint but not taken military action. It has denounced the French use of force during the riots as excessive. They claim that government forces were sent to restore order and some of them were fired on by the French as well. The French dispute this, alleging said forces weren't restraining the crowds. The government has called on the French to withdraw from the country, saying its peacekeeping mission is no longer friendly or welcome. The French have refused, and put forth UN proposals to put economic sanctions on the government, called for an arms embargo, and sent small numbers of additional troops.
So far, the US is supporting the French, saying it understands the immediate concerns they have over safety of civilians. The US has not taken any position on the wider issues in the war or the French intervention, longer term. I am not supporting this position, I think in the medium term it is unsustainable and that it is naive, but that is the present state of things on the US policy side. We are treating it as within a French sphere of influence and basically letting them call the shots.
As for why the French are doing it, they are trying to maintain the vestiges of their former colonial empire in Africa, as a matter of la gloire. Their to my mind completely misguided principles in the negotiations and such, have been pacifistic talk shop ones, essentially based on the premise that the war will go away if everyone talks long enough instead, that it is all about flaring tempers and all everyone needs to do is sit still. They are unrealistic about the northern rebels, their ruthlessness and lack of principle. As usual, they view anyone on the more civilized side who actually wants to defeat the less civilized side, instead of just talking and appeasing and buying them off, as the great monsters to be fought (just like Bush, Sharon, etc).
I hope this helps explain what is going on.
LOL! I get a real kick out of debunker's on this forum who knee jerk into defense mode when every others may get a bit emotional.
This video is verified by numerous AP/CBS etc, news wires that point the finger at the Frogs and say the incident is under investigation.
Now I have not worked my way through the entire thread from last night, so if you changed your mind somewhere after you made this comment, I apologize for pointing out the obvious.
But there are four videos and 9 jpgs. If you would see all those, you would reach different conclusions.
> Why not an automatic weapon from the sniper?> > He was up on like the tenth floor. The automatic fire was coming from the area of the tank by the bushes.
The rooms were on the 6th floor. There was more than one room shown and more than one sniper identified.
I was not able to see any fire from the bushes, nor from the grassy knoll.
JasonC......Bingo, an excellent overview and summary, thanks.
Warning, don't let kids see this Freepers. And don't see it if you have just had breakfast.
Imagine if the Africans were Iraqis and the French were US Marines, how this would be played in the world press.
The double standard is almost satanic. Will the UN and Amnesty International cry out against THIS?
Look at the first video at about 3:10-3:20. Watch it over and over again and you can see the smoke poof out of the barrel. I would grab a screenshot but you really need an animation to really see it. You might have a dark monitor and boosting your gamma might help. Maybe grab infranview and play it in slowmo if you can't still see it.
If you pause it on 3:15-3:16, you can see one person they are shooting at. If you play that over and over, you can particles come out where the bullets are being shot.
Yes, but not a Viking kitten!
Shameful. A majority of our casualties in Iraq were due to the fact a soldier did not have a "clear shot" and took fire rather than shoot an innocent.
French FAMAS military rifle:
The second picture shows the first 'FAMAS F1' generation, but the troops in the video are carrying the updated 'FAMAS F2' version.
Where do you think those gunshot wounds came from, Destro?
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