The French look to be in serious trouble in the Ivory Coast:
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Ivory Coast warplanes bombed French peacekeepers Saturday, killing eight French soldiers and an American, officials said, prompting a French counterstrike in a confrontation that threatened to escalate Ivory Coast’s renewed civil war.
After the French retaliation, pro-government mobs tried to storm a French military base near in the country’s commercial center, Abidjan, witnesses said. French troops fired in the air and lobbed tear gas at the crowd.
Jaques Chirac apparently went into the Ivory Coast with no plan, and no exit strategy. And, while there are UN idiots Peacekeepers there (hiding under their beds), looks like the French have been going it alone. Where’s the outrage? Is there oil in the Ivory Coast? Diamonds? Was this a personal vendetta by Chirac? How much more can we take?
Many in the country’s fiercely nationalistic south resent the French peacekeeping force, suspecting it of siding with the rebels, though French forces have often served to protect the government from the rebels. France has about 4,000 troops in Ivory Coast, and a separate U.N. peacekeeping force numbers around 6,000.
So the people hate the French? They aren’t rebels, they are Freedom Fighters. The people of France need to wake up and DO SOMETHING! We cannot let this quagmire continue! It is Ivorynam!
More: Now that I got my laptop back up and running (WiFi issues), Slings and Arrows has more (Byron posted 45 minutes ahead of me, and I swear I didn’t see that he had titled it Quagmire Alert. Right thinking minds think alike :) Started laughing hard when I got home and pulled up Feedreader, and saw the article when it updated.)
One town in Iraq (Fallujah) makes the entire operation a failure, but when the French are involved four towns under attack is not.
And, from Powerlineblog (sorry about the repeat links to Powerline, but they and S&A are the only ones on my list who have blogged the story)
The French are always happy to explain how things should be done, and they never lack for criticism of our progress in Iraq. I think it is worth noting, therefore, that the French are having problems of their own in Ivory Coast:
Quagmire Alert
Violence, which is the prime indicator of failure according to the Western press, is escalating against the French led U.N. effort in the Ivory Coast:Ivory Coast warplanes killed eight French soldiers and wounded 23 when they bombed a French base…