8 French peacekeepers killed in the Ivory Coast - UN threatens "serious consequences"

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

I think it reads "Plus de France. On veut USA", which means "No more France, we want USA".

France has lost all right to complain about Iraq now

Tsk. France plays Empire in its tiny backyard. And you, you upstart American cowboy, you want to deprive us from the last thing we have*?


*the "last thing we have" being the opportunity to whine endlessly at the fact you have a bigger backyard than ours

[Kuciwalker]

That's us. Always trying to take from the less fortunate

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Spiffor

I think it reads "Plus de France. On veut USA", which means "No more France, we want USA".

Is not that acknowledging where the rebels money was coming from?

[Kuciwalker]

How?

[Fake Boris]

This is the way former French Africa works, one side is backed by America and the other by France.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
Is not that acknowledging where the rebels money was coming from?

Not quite, since this demonstration was a loyalist demo.

[GePap]

Dumb demonstrators- don't the demostrators know the US would only come in to remove their beloved president?

[Pekka]

Oh yeah FFL is definitely in there. I don't know if they have reinforced or just keep the remainings in there from the last mission back in 2003 (or 2002?). This is a new picture from the area, and the soldier in that pic is 2REP.

So, I expect fully if there is any kind of established rebellion, there will be high casualties. On rebel side. Like last time, it was after few days what? 100 dead rebels, 2 injured legionnaires? Something like that, but the ratio will be similar. So for the rebel sake, I hope they keep in their pants.

[Guardian]

Originally posted by Pekka
Oh yeah FFL is definitely in there. I don't know if they have reinforced or just keep the remainings in there from the last mission back in 2003 (or 2002?). This is a new picture from the area, and the soldier in that pic is 2REP.

So, I expect fully if there is any kind of established rebellion, there will be high casualties. On rebel side. Like last time, it was after few days what? 100 dead rebels, 2 injured legionnaires? Something like that, but the ratio will be similar. So for the rebel sake, I hope they keep in their pants.

Sounds like a good idea for the rebels...

The FFL guys are among the people you don't want to piss off too much...

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Spiffor

@ Sikander: I don't see the removal of Gbagbo as the proper thing to do. It is very unlikely to find a leader that won't do the same mistakes (i.e a systematic favoritism of his ethnical group), and who'll have a better sense of compromise and consensus. African politicians rarely have these qualities. Besides, the new regime will invariably be seen as a stooge of the French, and it will be doomed to be fought by guerillas. If the guerillas come from the south, there will be a real and terrible chaos as soon as France will loosen protection toward its stooge.

Perhaps you are right, my personal knowledge of the situation is nil and doubtlessly you get much better coverage of it in France than we do in the U.S. Still the northern rebels seem to be multi-ethnic and I haven't heard of them breaking the cease fire. But they might be religious bigots instead, I don't know.

[Pekka]

Guardian, yes very murch so..

The thing that makes them effective and dangerous is that though France controls them, the legionnaires do not pledge alliance for France but to the Legion. They could care less about any country, they are from all nationalities, they have one thing in common, they pledge alliance to Legion and screw the rest. So, that makes them highly efficient, as they are loyal to Legion, and Legion is their home. It's more concrete than a country.. just a small unit, about 8000 men in the whole FFL, so it's easy to consider it a home and fight for it, because it is so immidiate. Plus of course they are mangled into legionnaires that alone brings loyality to man's heart. After years, you just won't break it. So they're very tight unit, who might not think very much for other countries or people, as they consider themselves the elite, as they perfect their skills every single day. The daily routine etc are so rigorous throughout their service, that I wouldn't start arguing with that one. Plus they have shown their skills in teh battle as well. And recently as well.

[Pekka]

I mean, their spirit is impossible to describe. I can't do it, and I can't even imagine it myself. They pride themselves for being soldiers, not of any flag but Legion. They pride that they have long and great traditions which they care for, like the battle of Camerone, where they faced enemy that was too big, and at the end, like 8 men decided to put on their bayonettes and charge, after they ran out of bullets and everyone else was already killed. They didn't surrender, they didn't try anything, but they stuck to their honourary pledge to the Legion that says you are not allowed to be captured alive, ever, or abandon your mates. So they put on bayonettes, the few of them and charged through open field. That was a suicide naturally, but that describes what they're about.

Another famous battle that is more modern is the battle of dien bien phu(spelling?), the war in Indochina before it became Vietnam war. France was trying out new tactics, were you set up perimeters here and there with the help of air lifts, and keep the perimeters and strongholds on supply with air drops. This was new thing back then and they succesfully executed it. FFL guys were dropped to one point, they could see the enemy troops gathering in the hills. They were supposed to build a stronghold in there, to an open field in the jungle, surrounded by hills. They had many times too little material, and the planes were not able to drop enough supplies on time. Some high commander found it through intelligence, that they are going to attack this stronghold, because of visible group formations. This bastard didn't even bother to call them and let them know attack was imminent! He thought they'd just kick the enemy butt with ease, because that's what had happened in all previous combat situations.

So what happened was, they were undermanned, with almost no supplies for themselves OR the stronghold they were supposed to build. So the enemy came with artillery and MASSES of men. They started attacking, and the FFL guys went into their positions to defend. The high commander earlier DENIED that they'd have emergency type of drops so the defensive lines could be built, because 'we're going forward, not backwards'. So the whole thing just was half assed, and they got pretty much ambushed by a whole bunch of enemies who had artillery. ANd they pounded their positions from the hills, and their artillery was unable to match it, with poor range and accuracy. So that was like a free killing time.

They would not abandon their bufferized defending zone. The enemy launched human wave attacks, and the FFL guys would stay in their positions and combat these SOBs right there right then, nto going backwards towards the stronghold. No one left their first defensive lines. They blocked the first attempts, inflicting huge casualties to the enemy, but they were just too many. Bullets could not stop them, they were too many for them and what happened was, that the fire control would call to the defensive lines to order them to fall back to secondary defensive lines, because the first ones were overrun by the enemy and it was a mixed bag already, total chaos. But they wouldn't fall back, everyone held their position, until they were killed by the enemy, they just tried to kill as many as they could while going down. Then when no one answered the calls, fire control would just unleash artillery attacks to their own positions, because now the range and accuracy was enough.

SO that's how every single position went, they tried to call them, but they would fight as long as someone was alive to fight. Needless to say, they lost the battle at the end. But it was due poor commanding from the higher levels. They were denied support and everything. They were slaughtered at the end, but in sheer numbers they won the battle 1000000-0.

SO maybe that kind of explains how they are. They take very much pride from these things and the traditions are still alive. Don't expect to see legionnaires backing down from combat if it's not some super high commander ordering to do so.