Comments by "peabase" (@peabase) on "China deploys military: A new phase in Hong Kong protests? | DW News" video.

  1. The PLA is now officially involved in dealing with the Hong Kong protests. A line was crossed. I'm sure Beijing instead could've sent professional street-sweepers from the mainland, too.
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  2.  @danielzhong4224  The PLA isn't unique in this respect. As a conscript, I was deployed to scour the woods for a missing woman. At another occasion we were deployed to fight a forest fire.
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  3.  @danielzhong4224  We sometimes wore track suits and overalls. All very uniform in appearance. I suppose you refuse to call British bobbies policemen, because they don't routinely carry firearms.
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  4.  @danielzhong4224  You always think China is wildly dissimilar from anything else, anywhere. Not so.
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  5.  @danielzhong4224  That would be *dissimilarity. You think you're so special, but you're not.
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  6. I guess you're wholly unfamiliar with the military. Name me one that doesn't wield brooms and shovels.
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  7.  @realcontent  Nothing is unclear to me. To all but neophytes -- or those in denial -- it's glaringly obvious that we're dealing with a show of force here.
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  8.  @realcontent  The pioneers of the French Foreign Legion march with aprons and axes. They look more like butchers than soldiers. It must be a thrill to be young. Everything is new and exciting.
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  9. Don't be so naive. If this was not a military operation (as in involving military personnel), the troops should've worn civvies.
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  10.  @colinyu6002  We've got plenty of US warships visiting Singapore. Although they're not wearing their uniforms, you can tell them apart. Would you say they've been deployed to a pub to chase girls and get drunk? I realise you're not familiar with military conduct or parlance, but I would rather say they're on shore leave.
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  11.  @danielzhong4224  I do, but you don't. They're still military deployments, since they involve military personnel who're operating as a cohesive unit.
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  12.  @danielzhong4224  So calling someone not special is character assassination? Your self-esteem is very fragile.
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  13.  @changding3754  Yes. If it involves the military, and they're acting as a unit, it's a military deployment all right. I remember digging trenches and carrying sandbags wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Your view of the military is too romantic.
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  14.  @dennissantos2528  So the Hong Kong police force is made up of old men and women?
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  15.  @matejebach5487  Now you're just petulantly lashing out against anybody and everybody. As to our police, they act with extreme restraint. It's unheard of that anyone dies in a street protest. Hard violence? When a HK policeman shoots a protester, that constitutes hard violence, no matter whether it's justified or not.
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  16.  @chopper1239  Again, violence is violence, no matter whether it's justified or not. So the fact stands: the HK police have resorted to the hardest form of violence that they can inflict with the weapons at their disposal. How much harder do you want it?
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  17.  @chopper1239  Your logic baffles me. Didn't I just suggest that violence is sometimes justified -- and not once but twice? I haven't even started about riot gear. Actually, I was in charge of UN military policemen in Kosovo on more than one occasion. You don't have a clue. Tell me, are you able to hold a conversation in general, or is it always so that your audience walks away mid-sentence, shaking their heads?
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  18.  @chopper1239  Your logic continues to baffle. I wrote -- in response to another commenter -- that it's a fact that the HK police used hard violence by shooting the protester. After all, resorting to firearms is hard as violence gets in law enforcement circles. It's not like the HK police have main battle tanks with which to run over protestors, like the PLA did when they massacred protesters on Tiananmen Square. "The HK police constitutes hard violence" is not even proper English. Could it be that because of your poor command of English, you don't realise that "violence" simply means "the intentional use of physical force"? As societies we restrict the legitimate use of violence to very specific circumstances. Law enforcement deals with those circumstances, but even they don't have carte blanche. Maybe you should get your English textbooks out once more...
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  19.  @shuoh.4742  And what are you, chopper's sock puppet? I'm curious, because you're afflicted with the same inability to grasp the essence. It's painfully clear that the sole purpose of deploying these "volunteers" is to send a message that the PLA is there, ready to take action. It's a carefully orchestrated move by Beijing, with enough plausible deniability to equip you fanboys. Also, are you really so naive as to take the soldiers at their word? If they had been ordered to impersonate chickens when confronted by reporters, they had all clucked and flapped their elbows. In real life, soldiers obey orders. You can demonize the protesters as much as you want, but the fact still stands that the police resorted to extreme measures. If "hard violence" is too distressing for you, try euphemisms like "pre-emptive action" or "commensurate response" for size. But it's still violence.
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  20. They sure looked uniformed to me. Marched there, too.
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