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| Africa: West |
| Ivory Coast Mob Besieges French Base |
| 2003-12-01 |
| A pro-government mob was laying siege to a French military base in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Monday, and French forces were firing tear gas and rounds to try to break up the crowd. French soldiers, in Ivory Coast to enforce a cease-fire in the former French colony, left the base in armored personnel carriers to confront the 250-strong, rock-throwing mob. Shots could be heard from the base, but it was not clear whether they were rubber bullets or live rounds. White fumes rose from tear gas fired by the French, and black smoke billowed from a roadblock of burning metal drums set afire at the base gates by the loyalist young men. Now, what was that French word for quagmire again? About 4,000 French and 1,200 West African peacekeepers are in Ivory Coast to hold cease-fire lines, keeping the peace between northern-based rebels and the southern-based government after a nine-month civil war. The war was declared over in January, but tensions have remained high. Hard-core government loyalists increasingly are insisting that the French clear a buffer zone between north and south to allow government forces to attack the rebels again. On Sunday, Ivory Coast soldiers briefly seized control of Ivory Coast’s state television headquarters, broadcasting demands that French and West African peacekeepers leave so armed forces can attack the rebels in coming days. French tried to turn the country over to the rebels, but the government forces won’t have anything to do with it. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #28 Zhang,they already are:"(Imagine illegal Mexican immigrants detaching the Southwest from the US)." |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-12-2 7:41:14 AM |
| #27 The element in the story that I find interesting is the use of tear gas by miltary troops in a country other than their own. Tear gas is considered a chemical agent and prohibited from use in combat by treaty. I think America refused to saign the treaty because tear gas was included. Supposedly once this chemical agent is used by America or any other military we will be on a slippery slope. This first use will result in a dictator like Kim using VX and claiming that chemical attacks are OK now that a Western country used tear gas. I don't buy the load of bull but it is interesting that America was not the first to use tear gas. George HW Bush refused to allow the American miltary to take tear gas into Somalia. The result was that American soldiers humanely beat Somalis with rifle butts to break up riots. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-12-1 5:34:39 PM |
| #26 US christian Evangelists are also influential in president Gbagbo's entourage. Fat lot of good that's doing him - Muslim illegal aliens from neighboring countries now own half the country. (Imagine illegal Mexican immigrants detaching the Southwest from the US). France is taking the side of the Muslims to curry favor with Muslim countries, who are undoubtedly directing significant funds towards this expansion of the House of Islam. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-12-1 5:05:19 PM |
| #25 Actually, this IS about cocoa (I don't know if diamonds are found in IC), IC is the world's largest producer, with a big US corporate involvment; US christian Evangelists are also influential in president Gbagbo's entourage. Ivoran crisis in is a tribal & religious one, but it also can be seen as a dispute between the fading french african sphere of influence, and USA's rising one. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-12-1 4:39:47 PM |
| #24 NO BLOOD FOR COCOA! Nope, not cocoa. This is all about the diamond mines. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-12-1 4:27:21 PM |
| #23 JFM: BTW, let's speak about people who indentify themselves with draft dodgers to the point of voting them for presidents. Mea culpa. Don't remind me. I had a momentary lapse of reason. Twice. Strangely enough, I voted for Gore because he did go to Vietnam. And yet I had voted for Clinton twice in spite of his non-existent war record, which was especially pathetic in comparison to GHWB's and Dole's respective experiences in WWII. Of course, this was when I was a regular subscriber to the Nation, and thought the New York Times was a right-wing newspaper. The scales have fallen from mine eyes. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-12-1 4:21:02 PM |
| #22 OP There is a great passage in "A Time for Trumpets".. Retelling a story of a battery of 155 self-propelled cannon (not howitzers) who were passing thru (leaving!) a German armored attack They were politely asked to help out and did so... using 6 inch guns in direct fire. The battery commander allowed as he'd "always wanted to try that." |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-12-1 4:00:17 PM |
| #21 Mahatma The soldiers don't deserve to be abused for the faults of their politicians and diplomats. Think in the US soldiers under Carter and Clinton. |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-12-1 3:42:55 PM |
| #20 OP: Obviously you'd have the same feelings about Dean...whose back "problem" kept him out of the draft but didn't keep him off the ski slopes... |
| Posted by: R. McLeod 2003-12-1 3:37:05 PM |
| #19 JFM, my Dad was at Bastogne. He used to tell stories of using a 155mm howitzer as an anti-tank weapon, with unfused shells. He spoke of "non-combattants" giving the Germans more than they could handle. "America" is a paradox, as much to many inside the country as it is to most outsiders. There's no telling what we will do under a given circumstance. As for electing a draft-dodger, my vote was to put a 30-30 round between his beady little eyes, but I was outvoted. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-12-1 3:16:17 PM |
| #18 Sorry, I wasn't clear -- I was trying to point out that the US did exactly what you said. We may have lost the Philippines for a while, but we fought HARD with what we had to defend them, came back HARDER to free them, and then let them go. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-12-1 2:32:22 PM |
| #17 See the Phillippines and McArthur. During the invasion of the Philippines, we had practically nothing there and definitely did not have the resources to wage war against the fully-mobilized Japanese. Only when defense spending was raised from 1% to 50% of GDP after Pearl Harbor, did we actually put together what was necessary to beat the Japanese. Note that the French were fighting a mere guerrilla army compared to what we faced - the full resources of the Imperial Japanese forces. And yes, we liberated the Philippines before we dropped the Bomb. MacArthur kept his promise. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-12-1 2:24:26 PM |
| #16 I suspect the US would have fought a little harder to keep a colony American, even if only to give the colony independence after the guerrillas had been defeated. See the Phillippines and McArthur. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-12-1 2:14:25 PM |
| #15 JFM: People fearing for the precios skins in a war who cost the US a mere 50 thousand dead (120,000 for the ill-fated 1940 French Army for a population 5 times inferior). For the US, Vietnam was more of a holding action - a diversion of Communist (Chinese and Soviet)resources from the rest of Southeast Asia into one country. France lost the Indochina War and never even published official casualty numbers. But I think that number is less than 50,000, even though France was fighting to keep Vietnam French. I suspect the US would have fought a little harder to keep a colony American, even if only to give the colony independence after the guerrillas had been defeated. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-12-1 2:06:30 PM |
| #14 Yes, that's true, they do have french officers. Much as the famed gurhkas have british officers. In the end, its results that count. Vietnam is considered a failure in the US. When asked about the British, a french general said that they would have their necks rung like a chicken. The British fell back then and held quite well despite being the only game in town (well there was the Canadians). It is perhaps for that reason that Hitler felt cocky enough to attack Stalin. I am sure that the troops were good in WWII but there dependency of strategies of WWI lead to their downfall. That a large part of your country was quite happy to collaborate with the Nazis is no great mark either. Vietnam was indeed a failure of will. It should have been fought as Iraq is being fought today and not as some limited aid to the South Vietnamese. While you brought up Vietnam, let us not remember who was there first. It was good and truly screwed becasue The US got there. Diem Bien Phu was the last phenomenal battle in that losing war. Let us remember the legacy of French Colonialism there and elsewhere. But even good troops lose battles if their officers are idiots. The only way that can be changed is if the troops weed out the officers. In WWII, there were many canadian officers (poor ones) that had more bullets in their backs than their front. I am sure the story is the same elsewhere. |
| Posted by: capt joe 2003-12-1 1:59:25 PM |
| #13 Wonderful discussion about World War II...which is completely useless when looking at the travesty of French foreign and domestic policy today. With a Vietnam-like quagmire in the Ivory Coast, a heat wave that made France's Universal Heath Care System appear positively third world, repeated failures and fraud in the European Union (specifically deficit spending by France) and a failed Middle East policy I guess I can understand French apologists wanting to focus upon World War II and the foreign legion. It must be very embarassing to be pro-French right now! |
| Posted by: Mahatma 2003-12-1 1:55:38 PM |
| #12 France is only six hundred miles deep The US had that problem once... we invented Manifest Destiny seeing the need for strategic depth. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-12-1 1:49:56 PM |
| #11 Steve White The Russians did just that: fall back for over one thousand miles. France is only six hundred miles deep. And most of its population and industrial capacity (read weapon and ammo factories) was within two hundred miles from the Belgian border |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-12-1 1:20:40 PM |
| #10 NO BLOOD FOR COCOA! |
| Posted by: Greg 2003-12-1 1:14:13 PM |
| #9 I wonsder what would have happenned if you had met it in 1940 and hadn't had an ocean between and Germany. We would have fallen back to Columbus to regroup :-) |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-12-1 12:50:42 PM |
| #8 Capt Joe The French Foreign Legion has French officers. I still have to see a force who has bad officers and behaves well. CF Napoleon's quote: "There is no such thing like bad soldiers only bad officersé |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-12-1 12:50:11 PM |
| #7 Charles and captjoe For your info the French lead the game agsinat Germany by something like ten to two. BTW when I was in the army I had the pleasure to meet a German who had been captured when my unit crossed the Rhine (at the cost of 40% casualties). The German was part of a shock unit while my regiment was a lowly engineer regiment. :-) BTW, let's speak about people who indentify themselves with draft dodgers to the point of voting them for presidents. People fearing for the precios skins in a war who cost the US a mere 50 thousand dead (120,000 for the ill-fated 1940 French Army for a population 5 times inferior). And if yoyu are still cocky consider how badly the US Army fared when it met a small outlet from the Wehrmacht despite having had two additional years to prepare for the Blitzkrieg. I wonsder what would have happenned if you had met it in 1940 and hadn't had an ocean between and Germany. |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-12-1 12:45:32 PM |
| #6 Oops, I have offended a frenchman. Don't misunderstand my admiration for the FFL. I have a tremendous respect for them in part for their ferocity and utter ruthlessness in battle. I would rather the FFL to my flank than any of the french regs. But they aren't french nationals. I just mentioned the farm animals as a sign of their ruthlessness not that I thought it was a real concern. Is it? In the case of Napolean, two things. First, you can't pretend the choice of general isn't important. With the wrong general, any troops would face a disaster. Also, why couldn't the french win with a french general if it is so unimportant. You will probably mention Pepin but remmeber Vichy. |
| Posted by: capt joe 2003-12-1 12:32:23 PM |
| #5 It's a quagmire. |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-12-1 12:14:31 PM |
| #4 Btw, "having sex with farm animals", goats especially, is one of the first clichés that come to mind when thinking about FFL, along with the desert and the white hat-apron; most french soldiers in Ivory coast would actually be marines, not legionnaires. Napoleon was corsican, but his soldiers were french. They did most of the fighting, not him. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-12-1 11:45:26 AM |
| #3 Zhang, Yes the foreign legion definitely would, then they would eat the dead, kill all their family members, have sex with their farm animals, and kill all the journalists who even thought about writing about it. But the Foreign legion isn't french. One of my friends joined it a decade ago. France recruits primarily disenfranchised non citizens and ex soldiers from other armies for the legion. So in a word, the legion is successful because it ISN'T french. So the rule holds. ;) And don't mention Napolean. He wasn't french, but corsican. |
| Posted by: capt joe 2003-12-1 10:16:56 AM |
| #2 In other news, 3,999 French soldiers surrendered to Government forces today after a soldier died from shock. If these are troops from the French Foreign Legion, this is extremely unlikely. That hypothetical headline would likely read 3,999 rioters gunned down. The French aren't opposed to violence as much as they are against American leadership and influence. They're just playing the role of spoiler. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-12-1 10:00:11 AM |
| #1 "In other news, 3,999 French soldiers surrendered to Government forces today after a soldier died from shock. Reports indicated that the shock was induced by a 'Rock with green stuff on it.' " |
| Posted by: Charles 2003-12-1 9:49:20 AM |