November 09, 2004

Ivory Coast

Looks like the French are having problems with the Ivory Coastians.

"MUCH more" than 500 people have been wounded in clashes in Ivory Coast's largest city, and loyalist mobs are blocking efforts to tend to the injured, a Red Cross official said today.

"God knows" how many other people have been killed, Red Cross official Kim Gordon-Bates said.

Red Cross workers were trying to set up an emergency clinic in one neighbourhood today but were being prevented by Ivory Coast loyalists massed in the third day of anti-French clashes.

All of this follows the destruction of the entire Ivorian Air Force which was apparently giving the French problems.

Clashes broke out on Saturday, after French troops destroyed the air force of its former colony in retaliation for an Ivory Coast airstrike in the rebel-held north that killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker.

Yes...destroying that pesky Ivory Coast Air Force was a huge win for the French...all two jets and three helicopters of them.

Comments:

Please Note! Failure to abide by the following may result in your comments being edited or deleted: Remain on topic. Foul language and/or personal attacks are not permitted. Excessive links (more than three per thread) must be approved first. If you do include a link in your comment, make sure it is a short link (go to tinyurl.com if it is too long). Try to keep comments to 125 words or less. Thank you.

it's this kind of shortsightedness that lead to the "pesky" threat of passenger jets being used as weapons in this country. i know it's funny to ridicule them because they're french, but it's this form of apathy that makes the rest of the world hate us (or maybe just you - i think the rest of the world probably thinks i'm cool) ...

Posted by: jakec at November 9, 2004 12:28 PM

that made absolutely no sense jakec

Posted by: Ripper at November 9, 2004 12:57 PM

i think the problem lies directly between your right and left ears ...

Posted by: jakec at November 9, 2004 01:43 PM

His mind working is not a problem jakec. The issue is that France is using force in a way they would scream if we did. Their knee-jerk "anti-Americanism" is as bad at TTL's knee-jerk "anti-anything left of stalin".

If they showed balance in their views and actions then they would be respected.

Posted by: gunner at November 9, 2004 08:03 PM

see - given the initial attack on the french "peace keepers", i would equate this more to a post Sept. 11 retalitory strike against Afghanistan (ie taliban), which the French govt. and public were behind (Special note: i am not saying the 2 are on equal footing by any means just making a point). which, in my mind, doesn't make them hypocritical in this situation. they seem pretty consistent with attacking if provoked and they were attacked first in this case. i think it's the pre-emptive situation they have a problem with.

anyway - what happened to the IC? it was a civil, model, and fairly prosperous west african nation before 2002 - there's too much instability on that continent.

Posted by: jakec at November 10, 2004 07:34 AM

i think TTLs knee jerks reactions would actually be misguided towards anything "right of ghandi", since they would need to move from left to right - but i get your point regardless.

Posted by: jakec at November 10, 2004 07:36 AM