JR8 wrote:I did choose my words carefully. There are situations where you might hold a strong personal belief, but exercising it, especially vs a state, and even more so against one who seemingly writes their own international remit such as the French, puts you directly in the firing line. Consider the X-over with Julian Assange, Edward Snowden etc. And if you do such actions, then you have to accept the potential consequences.MikeJones wrote:Perhaps you need to choose your words more carefully then? Comeuppance: a punishment or fate that someone deserves.
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And once again, to be entirely clear, I am not condoning the bombing of the RW, it's simply that I'm not in the slightest surprised that the French did it. I hope that is clear. And lastly I think it's fair to say that the French don't give a damn about what anyone thinks of their state's actions...
Hmm probably the context is lost due to it being a forum post rather than a face to face conversation, but to me when you say "comeuppance" it implies a moral position that you think they deserved what happened, rather than you don't think it should have happened but are not surprised that it did. And I completely take your point about not bringing a knife to a gunfight so to speak, I expect the GreenPeace activists were prepared to be arrested and beaten up by the French, after all they'd done this to the RW captain not that long before the bombing, but were surprised at the escalation to bombings. Personally while I agree with the sentiments of the GP protests, I'm not so sure about the methods and in any case you wouldn't have caught me joining in as I'm far too much of a wuss
As for the French themselves, in the late nineties I had dinner with a very nice French guy I worked with at a waterfront restaurant in Auckland within walking distance of the bombing site and he was completely and utterly unapologetic, he was ex military so that might have had a bearing, but I am therefore also not surprised and understand that the French could give a gallic shrug
As for the Falklands, your timing is a little off, the French sold the exocets before the war broke out and at a time when no-one (including the British) expected things to go that far. The French did in fact embargo further arms sales to Argentina and blocked a sale of exocets to Peru during the conflict in case they got passed on. Though it appears that this position was not popular with the French military and a technical support team remained in Argentina throughout http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17256975. Fairly typical French trying to have their macaroon and eat it to
Mike