"Those shots could have killed somebody, but clearly there's not a mass, armed movement going on here."
Stop this.
There was nothing disingenuous.
Cleary there is not a mass ARMED movement going on THERE.
I am not playing semantic games.
France is not experiencing a jihad.
She is experiencing a social explosion of disaffected French youth.
Arson is bad, and so is throwing stones at police.
But go and look at the coverage of farmer's protests that occur from time to time, when they close the borders and turn over and burn Spanish trucks filled with tomatoes or block the roads. Severe labor unrest is usually accompanied by property damage to vehicles and storefronts.
Nobody pretends that this is GOOD.
It is very, very bad.
What it is not is a civil war, or a Muslim jihad.
This is a French protest, unrolling in the pattern of violent French protests of the past.
Example of the difference:
In Israel, the terrorists blow themselves up and the bus.
In France, the hotheads stop the bus, make the driver get off, then they light it on fire.
These are not the same thing, at all.
Both are bad behavior, but the first behavior is much worse.
What is being watched in France most closely is to see the degree of violence. Blows and beatings and things burnt or some people cut: this fits the pattern of historical French riots and violent manifestations.
If armed battles begin to occur on the streets, if people begin to be murdered, if sniper fire begins to be taken up, things will be radicalizing and things will have turned Islamist.
But that has not happened yet. And the reason that the police do not simply massacre the rioters in the streets is so that it won't.
And this means it's okay? Nothing to worry about? Like the "violent manifestations" of the past? Nice way to spin a history rich in horrible mass murder. Gives me zero comfort.
But that has not happened yet. And the reason that the police do not simply massacre the rioters in the streets is so that it won't.
Would a normal French riot last for so long, cause so much destruction of property, and spread across the countryside? What about the 61 year old man who died, or the handicapped woman who was burned, or the 13 month old child who was injured?
If this is normal for them, that's truly frightening!
And handicapped female passengers. They lit her up too, remember?
Does the Iranian President make a habit of encouraging violence from striking French farmers?
I think the non-Muslim French are becoming increasingly frightened of this.
I think that the longer it goes on, the more willing they will be to accept any measures the government chooses to take to put an end to it.
And, unfortunately, it may take steps that would make Rwanda look like a Chucky Cheese birthday party
How can there be any "disaffected French youth" when you have been telling us on these threads for months now that France was doing a great job of integrating Muslim immigrants into French society? And you dismissed any one who suggested that riots were coming in the near future.