“Last night 29 policemen were struck by gunfire in Grigny.”

Based on an article from todays The Washington Times the rioters have been firing some type of shootgun pellets from rifles. Thats why none of those 29 wounded police died.

The Washington Times article reports worry by
French police that rioters will deploy more sophisticated weapons.

This is tough situation, but the first task of government is to provide public saftey and the French government is not doing it.

In the spring of 1968, I lived on Woodlawn south of 60th street. The riots that spring were not very scary, they did not disrupt our routine. The French riots strike me as a different order of beast. The French Government needs to crackdown and now.

Last night 29 policemen were struck by gunfire in Grigny.

If you want no expulsion, would a stop to immigration be allright ? Even if immigration stops completely, the Arab population will keep increasing fast, and the European lifestyle and identity is already seriously affected.

“A massacre can be committed in a very short time, but the consequences would be with us for decades.”

It doesn’t matter. We are headed for trouble in the next decades anyway.

For now, I guess the french government wants to avoid the risk of even one “youth” getting shot by the police, because it could spark off more rioting. They hope it is going to blow over. Meanwhile they are not doing their job of protecting people and their property.

Itīs not really a question of equipment. If they choose to spend the money, Europe can make the most excellent weaponry. On the other hand, American forces have frequently fought with less than optimal equipment.

But this is just stuff. The question is, who will do the fighting? You need a military culture. That means people and institutions (and not just in the military) who think about tactics, strategy, fighting, killing and winning all the time, and who can incorporate all the lessons of the past and present. It also means a culture that knows about much ridiculed concepts such as honour, sacrifice and heroism. The Americans still have some of that left, but we do not. Which is why I have no illusion about how EU troops would deal with an environment like Jenin or Fallujah.

And who will back them up politically, once things get ugly? Surely not the EU. Talking of Germany, will our politicians be able to explain “why we fight” – in the face of heavy opposition – when they would not use what little credibility they had to implement urgently needed economic reforms? Not much strategic thinking here.

Bush has been ridiculed for his constant reiteration of “stay the course”, but simple tenacity is a vital ingredient. Neither Berlin nor Brussels will be able to provide that.

But the question is moot because I cannot see many people brought up in the 80s and 90s volunteering for military service, or doing well if they are conscripted. One cannot blame people for not wanting to fight to protect an ungrateful population, idle intellectuals and leaders obsessed with political correctness and eager to curtail economic and civil liberties. By the way, I read the British have bad recruiting problems.

2 = (1 + i)^t

i = interest rate as a decimal, t = number of periods

Go nuts. It’s Sunday & my brain has the day off.

(Of course, America has it’s own welfare state problem looming and no one seems to care enough to solve it.)

<snicker>

Two questions:
1. Where will the money come from? The welfare state is consuming everything the EU has, and it’s only getting worse.

2. Where will the political will come from?

Assuming both 1 and 2 somehow magically appear, it will take years, if not decades, to get the EU army up-to-speed. Even NATO troops, who are supposedly integrated, can’t keep up with the Americans. (Remember the fiasco of NATO troops blundering about in the dark without night-vision while the Americans where landing planes and deploying with no lights?)

Meanwhile, America will be on the next generation of equipment.

the resources for an invasion on the scale of the Iraq war would take that long, but building a navy that can blow any possible opposition out of the water, and bomb the vrp out of them ,and at least a somewhat limited intervention on land? We could indeed do that in five years or so, if necessary. European shipyards build great submarines, and can come up with some small and mediums size carriers that are far better than the Charles de Gaulle.

betsybounds,

I’m all for abolishing gun control laws, but that depends on greater readiness for self-reliance. A concerted, effective campaign towards that end will take some years, like it or not.

No, it won’t, because it’s not the kind of thing that can be changed quickly. Projection of power relies on capital purchases. How long would it take to build a decent blue-water navy? How long to build 10 equivalents of the USN LHD? How long to build and acquire 150 heavy military cargo jets? How long to build enough aircraft carriers to be able to provide credible air cover and support to an invasion without any friendly airfields nearby?

Answer? Decades, not years.

Oh. Right. No gun culture. What was I thinking? A firebombing culture, though–that they have, responsible use and all that goes with it.

And what are you prepared to do NOW? Oh. Right. A real plan, making sure not to arrest the “wrong” people. How about a committee to dream it up? Say, a Committee of Public Safety?

The gret majority will, if only the French will let them.

Ralf, what is that makes you think these muslims want to integrate into French culture? You say they will if only france will let them. Why? What evidence is there that they’re interested in identifying as part of French uniculturalism?

I don’t see it. And if that isn’t so, your premise fails due to lack of foundation.

Once we are forced to get our forces up to strength, all these little detaisl will fall into place.

I certainly agree that “restraint” is appropriate, in the sense that France should not send troops into the banlieus with the orders to start machine-gunning people at random. But if “restraint” means all kinds of public agonizing about “root causes” at this particular instant in time, then I think it’s harmful. The strong message from the government right now must be that the violence must stop, and perpetrators will be dealt with very severely.

I agree, but the French police needs to have a real plan on how to do that, lest they arrest all the wrong people. Right now they would end up doing just that, alienating those who would be needed to help get things back under control.

What makes one assume that the Muslims will and can integrate into French society in the first place?

The gret majority will, if only the French will let them. The rest can then be taken of by the police.

problem is. Europe hasn’t got anything you might call a ‘gun culture’ as now, so just letting everybody buy guns would be pretty problematic. A lot of people would be less than perfectly resonsible in the use of guns.