By coincidence, I am currently reading Popkin’s ‘A New World Begins - A History of the French Revolution’. This press release feels like something from out of that, or maybe 1848. Fall of the republic sort of stuff. The communique is inherently self-contradicting, a police release challenging the civil authority is working against the rule of law
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I take it the French Police will be doing even less now, to stop the boats coming over from Calais. If doing less is actually possible.
I understand why some started to riot due to abuse of power, discrimination and lack of value of human lives and more. I understand the social cleavages in France more than many (I am far from an expert though, not saying I am), but like in all such social upheavals, when when the snowball rolls, some idiots feel entitled to do absolutely anything and think they are entitled to destroy and wreck just because they are pissed off at various injusticies (so they create more, worse injustices as a mob).
At current, they should have vented their anger and I have limited sympathy after all this time. This isn’t a revolution, there is no ideological goal. Just anger. This does not serve the interests of minorities in France, it serve no intersts at all but chaos. Right now, it doesn’t matter what the French government does (and they imediately condemned the murder of the teen and announced investigations and more, not that it helped), the riot lives its own life, looting is excessive in many cities.
So for me, this is a bit karmic of a video clip since there is NO POSSIBLE REASON in the world to saw down and destroy a fucking street lamp, which is there to help all the public :
https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1674708193371357185
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Utter fucking morons … especially the guy doing the cutting … who then walked directly into the path of the falling lampost ! 
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Giving those fuckwits so much political power was one of the problems. No community policing, no respect for the law, who are the lawless in france?
Then Macron, Borne and Darmanin les catastrophics. How can Darmanin still be there?
Anyway I have no inkling of what’s going down at the moment. What I do know is that anger has been simmering across many social classes for a long time and if it’s not one it’ll be another at some point.
Btw the police nationale are a disgrace and have been for longer than I can remember. Their insistence that they are just there to ‘investigate’ crime i.e be a reaction. Yet any attempt to create any form of ‘separate’ community policing is shot down by them systematically.
Much of this should be taken as a warning to other countries that are going down the same political road, UK inparticular that many years ago had a strong proud community policing culture.
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@cynicaloldgit at his local pub annual gurning contest?
Rage is not rational.
The only people laughing are the fascists.
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In the category of “Perhaps Brexit is not going completely swimmingly”.
Just in case someone wonders, I obviously don’t think there is even a 0.01 chance for this to actually happen, for many and varied reasons (one of which includes Norway being not interested, at all, with a super sensitive conflict with the UK).
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Bring back Maggie.
She’d deploy a fleet to take back the Orkneys.
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Nobody with real power is going to care, but the fascist dicatorship (Azerbadjan are arguably, apart from the economy aspect, a true fascist state) is going to invade Armenia again.
https://twitter.com/TatevikHayrape1/status/1675417002175873024
https://twitter.com/TatevikHayrape1/status/1675557133343965184
They have blockaded the small Armenian enclave for many weeks now and the UN has reported that there is serious risk of starvation there as , it is an old fashioned siege.
https://twitter.com/NeilPHauer/status/1675572156015562752
https://twitter.com/GabrielCSGavin/status/1675440338289164289
Personally, I absolutely hate the Azeri regime and brain washed zombie massed with a passion, but it’s not as if there is anything I can do about it. Armenians always gets massacred, tortured and displaced, that is just how history is. And nothing has changed.
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‘Israel launches biggest operation in years’ … or at least since the last one two weeks ago ; The Middle East Thread - #17 by peterroberts
The new extremist government of Israel is making it perfectly clear that it has no qualms about bombing civilian populations in the occupied territories. Their plan is to force an exodus and (some of them at least) are not shy about admitting that either.
I was reading an article from Haaretz jn which they said the IDF were now not just turning a blind eye to settler violence but pretty much enabling it.
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Is that news?
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It is a fairly small operation using commandos, but it is the biggest operation in the West Bank in years. Some misread the headline I think.
The reasons are many and varied, but it is all mostly Israel’s fault as the occupier. What triggered this from the Israeli side, is that they have found Iran to have armed Islamic Jihad there in the West Bank and Islamic Jihad is admitting it in speeches. This is a so called Israeli red line for various reasons (they are afraid that the more extreme wing in the territories will gain certain military capabilities and so on), so for them it is time to mow the lawn as they say in Israel.
This has been simmering for years of course apart from Iranian weapons coming in, is always inevitable when the Israelis hold such an iron grip on the population and favours their own settlers to a mildly stating, alarming degree.
I think nothing will change until the United States change their approach to Israel. But iron-clad support for Israel is cemented in the American populace for…reasons.
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Just in case someone is interested. (note the pro-israeli sources, they are obviously skewed yet gives a picture):
https://twitter.com/JoeTruzman/status/1675637874639912960
https://twitter.com/JoeTruzman/status/1675639938069716992
https://twitter.com/JoeTruzman/status/1675643085299286018
https://twitter.com/JoeTruzman/status/1675643812218130433
https://twitter.com/JoeTruzman/status/1675649990025449472
https://twitter.com/JoeTruzman/status/1675651616689766401
Sevel pictures of small air strikes and minor explosions, but I can’t be bothered to post everything I read.
I think this particular video clip is very telling about Israel. You see how this car is dstroyed in an operation ? That’s not wrong in itself, what IS wrong is that the Iraelis NEVER pay compensation for anything they destroy in these operation and then they some how arrogantly think that this will not create more hate. Civilised armies would be offer compensation for destroyed property, IDF seldom ever does.
https://twitter.com/JoeTruzman/status/1675653685647650816
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1675641205705637894
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1675644241714741248
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1675653160767979521
https://twitter.com/AuroraIntel/status/1675801810680922113
https://twitter.com/AuroraIntel/status/1675749842524438529
At least all the dead are Palestinian combatants/jihadists. The operations seems fairly focused as such, with very minor munitions used compared to what I am used to watching.
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Just some Pro Islamic Jihad stuff for balance
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675494062017634305
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675641621914714113
There are a couple of pictures of dead fighters, but due to propaganda, the sources doesn’t inform you that they are fighters. I don’t see the point in posting them since it is just faces with dead eyes and doesn’t really show anything but a dead person.
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675644004556210176
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675648601542782976
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675650075719094272
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675651108792934402
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675657224302084103
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675659517135036417
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675658309888507909
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675667428833886208
The reason they use armoured bulldozers is of course that they want to remove barricades and etc., and it is used pretty much as a tank, where infantry advances behind it (in the previous video you can see jihadists shoot at one)
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675806593940594688
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675808211239153668
Might include civilians, I have no idea. often it does, often it does not. But if this continues for long, it sure will.
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1675811565621190657
Anyway, I think nothing much but many destroyed lives and liveliihood will happen unless Hamas joins in (which I doubt, since it is such a short time since israel cracked down upon them, so their military capabilities haven’t regenerated to a manner where I think they can actually threaten israel much).
Nothing much will happen I think. IDF goes in, destroys and liquidates a lot of militants as well as ammo depots, then eventually withdraws. Militants fight back, are defeated and there is as always a negotiated cease fire, usually with Egypt or Jordan. Obviously civilian infrastructure will also be destroyed and some civilians are likely to die, many will get wounded.
Rinse and repeat in a few years. Nothing will change, unless America changes.
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It totally obscures the fact that those combatants/jihadists were fighting the invaders/occupiers! Why is being focused or minor munitions even be justified?
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Did I come across as if I supported this ?
Mentioning that they use minor munitions is interested because using major would cause significant civilian collateral. Mentioning that as far as I know, the dead so far admitted by hospitals, (but I may be mistaken as some more are definately dead but not yet written down) are fighters is not exactly wrong.