Where to?
When are the Paris riots going to end? Reuters reports that things may be dying down or just getting started.
Rioting erupted again late on Thursday despite hopes that festivities ending the fasting month of Ramadan would calm rioters, many of them Muslims of North African origin protesting against race bias they say keeps them in a second-class status. ...
Police said there were fewer confrontations than previous nights when police and fire crews were fired upon by some rioters. They said 150 vehicles had been destroyed overnight. ...
For the first time disturbances spread outside the Paris region, youths torching cars in Dijon, Rouen and the Bouches-du-Rhone area dominated by Marseille, though the extent of the unrest was not immediately clear.
An AP-sourced story quotes Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy as imputing a strategic plan to the disturbances; in which case the riots have gone beyond their original roots and are now a vehicle to advance a broader political or ideological agenda, though who is providing encouragement is not yet clear.
Mr. de Villepin's major political rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday that the riots in several Paris suburbs over the previous night were "not spontaneous" but rather "well organized," Agence France-Presse reported.
"What we saw in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis overnight was not spontaneous, it was perfectly organized. We are looking into by whom and how," Mr. Sarkozy told French news channel I-Tele.
Commentary
I originally thought the clashes would peter out from a combination of exhaustion and the colder weather. But maybe there's more fuel on the ground than just the local grievances in some housing estates. The disturbances are no longer about two teenagers electrocuted while fleeing the police. They are now about French presidential politics, race, jobs, immigration, multiculturalism -- with perhaps a touch of Islamic ideology thrown in. As such the riots have become national, Europe-wide and maybe even global events.
The riots have already reached 20 suburbs of Paris. The Reuters story suggests they may now be spreading to other cities. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is hinting darkly of conspiracies. Should one conclude even more serious developments are in the offing? I don't know. I think that neither Sarkozy nor the conspirators he refers to understand the exact potential of this thing, which is behaving like a chaotic system whose trajectory is difficult to predict except in the very short term.
Ideally, Sarkozy would be looking to simplify the situation by fixing some variables so that the remainder of the system will behave in a more linear manner; gradually damping it down until it can be controlled. But splits within the French cabinet have done the opposite: they have added more variables to the mix and now it's shake, rattle and roll.
In these situations, as most rabble-rousers know, there is typically a race on the ground to see who can 'harness' the energies unleashed to best advantage. My own guess, without any special knowledge, is that 'community moderates', ideological radicals and even gangsters are in a derby to see who can control events. The French government by contrast, seems tied up in knots and is casting around for leverage, a way to get a handle on the events of the past week. Things could stop tomorrow or zoom off in some unexpected direction. Nothing to do but watch and wait.
posted by wretchardthecat at 11/04/2005 01:28:00 AM
54 Comments:
If the French government blinks now they are setting a very bad precedent for the future. And as Mark Steyn noted, if the French government follows Chirac's appeal, Le Pen or somesuch will gain more than 20 % in the next presidential election. There can be only one force-wielder within the same geographical area. All else is anarchy or civil war.
"I originally thought the clashes would peter out from a combination of exhaustion and the colder weather."
The weather has been unseasonably be warm here over the past two days, with highs in the 60's and 70's and lows in the high 50's. With temperatures like that, it's easy to stay out all night long.
sorry... past two weeks I meant to say.
Even if the weather was cold, a simple wool coat can allow one to easily function all the way down to freezing temperatures and below. Particularly when the body's inner core is teeming with adrenaline and the excitement of the moment. Lots of burning cars and buildings tend to warm things up as well.
I was trying to get a grasp of the cost of this. Tonight, 150 cars were burned. Let's say in the past 8 days an average of 75 cars were burned. 600 cars. Let's say that they were each worth a minimum of $5,000. That's $3 million. The number of cars and their value could be considerably higher. Then there is the damage to the road surfaces beneath them. And surrounding buildings. And we've not even got into the cost of destroyed schools, shops, increased police and fire services, disability pay for injured public servants, and so forth.
Then there is the human damage. The subtle and dramatic shifts in attitudes of public servants and the general public who have either been directly harmed by this or know someone who has.
Reuters insists that the rioters are "frustrated at their failure to get jobs or recognition in French society."
The monetary cost of this event certainly won't help to stimulate the job market. And the human cost is unlikely to promote the kind of recognition that the rioters are apparently hoping for.
If Reuters is right (and it should be noted that Reuters provided no evidence at all for its assertions of the rioters motives) then one would be hard pressed to understand how these riots will improve the situation.
Wretchard left out an important point though, and I'm disappointed because the MSM has also left out this point: these areas are primarily muslim.
"Since then riots have swelled into a broader challenge against the French state and its security forces. The violence has exposed deep discontent in neighborhoods where African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children are trapped by poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, crime, poor education and housing"
This is like the Who's Who of the Muslim culture. Everywhere they go the people all complain - always poor, unemployed, discriminated against, stupid, and homeless.
France is facing a collapse of its economy, at least in the way it is being run.
Its population is aging and retiring.
The new immigrants may provide an influx of young people, but what they need are EDUCATED, ENERGETIC and SKILLED young people. What they got instead are illiterate and sullen young thugs who collect welfare and riot if they feel disrespected.
There will come a point, probably soon, where the middle-class is no longer generating enough tax revenue to support the welfare state. Expect much more dramatic rioting then.
Also expect the rise of somebody who will promise to solve the "Muslim question" for the French. He might even have a fondness for wearing a little mustache
I must redact my comment about Wretchard's leaving out the muslim factor - I failed to scroll down to see other new posts.
Might as well go ahead and indict me. Clearly, I KNEW I could scroll, but I failed to do so.
Great analysis, Wretchard.
I keep reading/hearing contradictory lines: 1) Europe needs its Muslims (for low wage jobs) and 2) Muslim unemployment is high, they are idle frustrated youth, etc. What's the deal?
I wanted muchly to say something snarky about chickens, roosts, and homecomings...
But I'll settle for asserting that, like a diseased fever, this will have to run its course AND it will get worse before it gets better.
French? Taste ye what your hands have wrought!
Geeze, imagine what they'd do if someone flushed a Koran down the toilet...?
Everywhere they go the people all complain - always poor, unemployed, discriminated against, stupid, and homeless.
You forgot lazy. And dishonest. And woman-haters.
This reminds me of the first Palestinian intifada, a lot of energy, organization on the street level. The Palestinians were coopted by Arafat then, lets see what happens here.
What is desperately needed at this time is some grand statement from the French government. Something along the lines of:
"Let them eat cake"
will do. And then the heads can roll in earnest.
regarding das, I'm inclined to agree with Cedarford. If Europe needs immigrants, there's a pool of 5 billion of them out there. Only one billion are 'of African descent' in the inscrutable media prose, so you can just bar immigration from those hovels.
Of course the real failure is that Europe needs immigration, much as European identity and society cannot support itself across any sphere of endeavor, but that's a nail well-hammered by now.
There is probably a fierce debate going on within the French governing class — they are very much a class — about the correct response. Once faction, fed up with the insurrection, will favor armed suppression, something like temporary martial law.
Another faction will advocate the ameliorative social engineering that is the standard response of the modern rationalist state functionary: programs for jobs, education, "outreach" and all that.
Unfortunately, the government will almost surely make the worst possible choice: both.
The hardliners will temporarily put a lid on the disturbances, enough so intellectuals and media can convince themselves that it was a one-off that can safely be forgotten. Like the Russian revolution of 1905, successfully suppressed … until '17.
The concessions will teach the young thugs that violence works, that French society will back down when intimidated and bribe Muslim vandals for peace.
No matter what, I suspect France is in for tough times.
Some good may come out of this: countries that still have time to re-think their immigration policies are watching. The United States, Australia, even a few European countries possibly have time to learn the lesson that France has paid so dearly for.
Riots are the essence of a chaotic system. Mass hysteria makes for strange events. What turns and ordinary citizen into a thieving looter, but the pure adrenaline of a raucous crowd and the promise of near anonymity or at least a group culpability that can be shirked off with the notion that victims have the right to lash out. The notion of victimhood is the child of the original malaise and only gains legitimacy after the left embraces the ‘new’ cause as a political foil against those they’d destroy.
The only thing to wait for now is to see who first draws the most eloquent perpetrators to their bosom and wrap their green flag around their loins.
Evidently the native born citizens of France and other formerly independant European countries have become so dispirited, so cowed, that they can no longer defend claims to their own lands, or even breed competitively. They wring their hands, watch in confusion, and wait in vain for someone else to DO something to protect their rights and freedoms. Been nice to know you Europe. When you're run out of your homes, don't come here. We've got our own problems.
Rick Darby:
Trenchant analysis regarding the French elites. the radical also nails the key point:
There can be only one force-wielder within the same geographical area. All else is anarchy or civil war.
There is one thing that continues to puzzle me however. If Europe need the immigrants then; and if there are not enough jobs to go around now; why do they need them still? I wonder how long it will be until a spectrum of options ranging from self repatriation to more draconian measures become a policy for France and the rest of Europe?
Clearly the immigration policy is a failure and solutions are critical to the continued existence of an entities called "France" or "Sweden".
A answer might be found in post Plague, agricultural England. So many people had died that agricultural labor wages rose. At least this is the conventional wisdom (CW) and it has been so until just the last few years with new historical analysis. The CW goes that to reduce the labor pool is to increase wages.
I wonder what country, if any will first grab the nettle of just saying, "Hail and farewell. Terrible mistake." Removing the tumor will not kill the patient.
#1 These are not riots. Riots don't have a start time or an end time, this is an Intifada and read their websites available at No Pasaran.
#2 These Muslims are driven by a religious ferver, while the French see it as part of a Marxist class war.
#3 We in LA have seen real riots; looting and burning at night, and when daylight comes and they can see targets, lots of guns. Riots go on and on and don't stop til the Army shows up.
I have a post on the mistaken Marxist interpretation of these "disturbances" if you want to read it.
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howard,
I thought maybe the intifada comparison was ill-informed or premature, but the breadth of these riots (that they occured in numerous countries) and that they follow the same playbook as the palestinians in the first Intifada (its civil disobedience or class frustration not wanton vandalism, destruction etc).
Might Iran have "activated" such riots to dissuade certain fence-sitting EU countries to not enter any US vs Iran foray in the future?
What seems most important to me about these riots is the memetic impact, the strategic advance of certain ideas:
-Muslims suffer unless they are governed by muslims
-Not even these "supine" westerners can produce an equitable society for muslims (this feeds the flames of the invigorated Left to further ensnare the policy options of the decrepit west)
-this rage is rational and deserves to be discussed
We no doubt kick baffling amounts of ass when it comes to military power. However, not to harp on the "hearts and minds" cliche, if there are any islamofascist string pullers behind any of this, they likely benefit from not only some dramatic slight of hand (look France is burning! forget the centrifuges...), but also some further fortifying the "justification-of-terrorism" memes, insofar as these rioters are received as unemployed men, women and children at the end of their poor wittle immigrant ropes.
As far as dealing with rioters on this side of the Atlantic...
Thank god for the PHaSR, hehe:
PhaSR
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
The French had better come down on these clowns HARD. They cannot afford to be seen as weak and indecisive. The mere appearance of weakness is what got us 9/11.
If the French are to make one mistake, it should be the mistake of excessive force. If they do not, I predict bombs in the Metro by Christmas.
i burn my city at both ends
it will not last the night
but allah my friends and allah my foes
it makes a fearsome fright
This is the result of a policy of seperate and "lets just ignore them"
Again you guys all see the trees. Only a few, the forest.
Of course it is part of the War. The Europeans have appaulded the Intafada, now they can be part of the play.
As to Iran, this could well be their handiwork. Or at least viewed happily from the vantage in Tehran. Paris, it is where the first Imam I'd heard of lived, in exile, before returning to Iran and taking over. Bet he had quite a network there, in France. Bet his boys still do.
A foretaste of the blow back from a military strike on Iran?.
A taste of Syrian dissatisfaction with that UN investigation?
No hard reports, no firm decisions.
Conjecture, it abounds.
Criminal looters or the next generation of terrorists, that can be decided.
An enforced curfew with military assistance is about five days overdue at this point. The announcement of a shoot-on-sight policy for looters and arsonists is about three days overdue.
Betting on how long until Le Pen is President of the Sixth Republic shall now commence.
We're looking at the Muslim Brotherhood whose aim is as bad as its propaganda.
The participants in last night's riots in Seine-Saint Denis are likely to have been so-called casseurs gangs like the ones that beat up demonstrators in Paris in March earlier this year. The reasons were pure thuggery and racism.
In both instances the perpetrators were small, highly mobile groups bent on destruction and chaos.
Here's a link to the Frontpage article describing the event.
Here's a description of the rioters from yesterday.
And here's a translated Le Monde article linking the casseurs to the Seine-Saint-Denise area.
from radicals link
"...A national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, said there appeared to be no coordination among gangs. But he said youths were communicating by cell phone text messages or e-mails _ arranging meetings and warning each other about police operations ..."
High tech commo, but no coordination, who you tryin' to kid. Until they show up in uniform the Police will continue to speak in tongues.
Once France decides to act, they will have much less problems due to being "PC" than we do here. Their police have much more power than ours do, and (once they decide to go forward) they won't hesitate to use violence for political means. Just ask Greenpeace. So it will be very interesting to see what happens if the rioters don't stop very soon.
Interesting to consider the simularities between the French and Argentine rioters.
Ignorant people complaining that a higher power exists while simulataneously calling for some higher power to to make things their way.
I think that it more closely resembles the wife who calls the cops to her noncompliant husband and then complains when they take him away than it does organized movements with a message.
Or perhaps it is more like teenagers who knock down mailboxes for fun.
By the way, Desert Rat, I just found out there is a B-17 with that same name being restored in Illinois.
The trouble with the french is the same problem we have.
We try to talk a problem to death.
Well, soon the "problem" will be our death.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
Oh, in case you don't understand my cryptic post.
Victor Davis Hanson will explain it to you.
Papa Ray
Oh, just found this.
You guys are going to love it.
Papa Ray
"I originally thought the clashes would peter out from a combination of exhaustion and the colder weather. But maybe there's more fuel on the ground than just the local grievances in some housing estates...".
[and]
"...One argument for derogating the Islamic factor has been the absence, so far, of any direct link to terrorist masterminds." -Wretchard
That argument may not stand. There could be a link. This rioting seems to be mostly happening at night and in asymmetrical in nature. On the surface the MSM paint the riot as a garden variety riot based on "economic conditions" but the French may have struck a nerve in the terror game. This may explain it's length and intensity (The French may have captured some real bad apples and the "Irreconcilable Wing of Islam" is striking back - and hard). Lets take a look at a few facts:
[Anti-terror operation in France]
Annoy Mouse notes:
US and French intelligence has set up a counter part to al Qaeda, called Alliance Base.
"…a top secret center in Paris, code-named Alliance Base, that was set up by the CIA and French intelligence services in 2002, according to U.S. and European intelligence sources. Its existence has not been previously disclosed."…"Such joint intelligence work has been responsible for identifying, tracking and capturing or killing the vast majority of committed jihadists who have been targeted outside Iraq and Afghanistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to terrorism experts."..."To play down the U.S. role, the center's working language is French, sources said...
See: Annoy Mouse 10:05 AM, 75% down thread
[Russian SA-18 Grouse missiles in France]
...Islamic terror cell has smuggled two surface-to-air missiles into Europe in a plot to shoot down planes at one of France's main airports, it was claimed yesterday... French and Algerian extremists with links to al-Qa'eda bought the Russian SA-18 Grouse missiles from Chechens in 2002 and smuggled them via Georgia and Turkey, according to French anti-terror sources quoted in Le Figaro.
See: Terror cell 'smuggled missiles into Europe'
[Terror organization targets France]
...An Algerian Islamist organisation, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), has issued a call for action against France which it describes as "enemy number one", intelligence officials said Tuesday.
"The only way to teach France to behave is jihad and the Islamic martyr," the group's leader Abu Mossab Abdelwadoud, also own as Abdelmalek Dourkdal, was quoted as saying in an Internet message earlier this month. "France is our enemy number one, the enemy of our religion, the enemy of our community," he was quoted as saying. France was mentioned 15 times in the text... the officials said.
See: France Enemy #1
[Acts of violence far more grave than burning cars]
...A handicapped woman was doused with petrol and set on fire by youths during another night of rioting in Paris... Witnesses said a youth poured petrol over the woman and then threw a Molotov cocktail on to the bus she was travelling on in the suburb of Sevran.... Other passengers were able to flee but she was unable to escape because of her disabilities.
See: Women set on fire
[VDH take on the overall problem]
...It's past time that we quit worrying whether a killer who blows himself up on the West Bank, or a terrorist who shouts the accustomed jihadist gibberish as he crashes a jumbo jet into the World Trade Center, or a driver who rams his explosives-laden car into an Iraqi polling station, or a Chechnyan rebel who blows the heads off schoolchildren, is in daily e-mail contact with Osama bin Laden. Our present lax attitude toward jihadism is akin to deeming local outbreaks of avian flu as regional maladies without much connection to a new strain of a deadly — and global — virus...
The plague of Islamism keeps on spreading
Ledger: As VDH also likes to say, even as John Kerry and his ilk complain bitterly that we have alienated the French, Germans, and Spanish all three of the countries just keep busting Al Queda cells and locking up terrorists.
As for the report on the attack on the handicapted woman in France, I recall reading an account where before the invasion our troops watched as an Iraqi Army solidier did the same thing to a Kurdish woman who had crossed out of the protected zone to sell fuel so she could buy food for her children. I am afraid if I had been the officer in charge there the invasion of Iraq would have started a few days earlier than planned.
Curious how the people we are fighting use the same tactics everywhere, isn't it?
The muslims want to be left to their own devices. The riots are all about staking out their own little defacto "country" within a country. They keep saying as much not only in France but elsewhere in Europe.
It is the first step to the Islamification of Europe.
That is to say first secure power locally. Nationally will come at a time down the road.
The riots will indeed propably secure them some new "right" and they will have succeeded.
A year or so ago I found a paper written about the history of the French "sans" (immigrant) people (http://www.noborder.org/without/france.html). After reading, I thought that a problem-solving jihadi or two would find France the perfect location to quietly and subtly stir trouble and fear. What is happening in France may have roots in social policy with branches being forced into the light by Islamic manipulation. A few months ago I commented here that the outcome of this war will depend on how capable and ready, to a man, we are to fight. In the U.S. the war will be waged zoning commission meetings, school board meetings and on employee policy statements. It is all the same war and it is against a shrewd enemy.
One thing I've wondered is why the rioters have not attempted to head in towards the center of the city. I guess for one thing it would be moving off of their own home ground and onto terrain that would probably be much more hostile. On the other hand you have a chance to seize some of western europe's cultural treasures. I assume they probably think the French would fight tooth and nail for the city center, but the shock at having your capital city under seige? I mean when is the last time a major European capital was under the threat of complete loss of control by the central government? Its insane, and only seems to herald much more tribulation.
I do NOT appreciate gutter language, but I didn't write this, I just let you know that fuckfrance.com is awash with snarky, insightful and first-hand observations of the most-recent defeat of the Fwench.
Schadenfreude may not be the most positive of emotions nor helpful in combating the Islamist menace that threatens not only Europe, but ourselves.
But, after the smug remarks of the French following the 92 LA Riots and the recovery from Hurricane Katrina, one can't help but feel a little mischievous pleasure at seeing how France's attempts to play to the "Arab street" have exploded in her face.
Here's an idea from someone just as annoyed by France in the last few years as most of you: Let's put overwhelming support behind the French government and work with them to put an end to this violence. Macroexplanations such as aging population and immigration arent going to do that. Decent anti-riot methods taken by the French police will. Seems to me the LAPD, Seattle PD and others can help them with some lessons learned. France might be annoying, but that's all it is - it is not a threat to our very existence. This is the point where that whole "friends can bicker, but when push come to shove they are still friends" thing comes in.
Let's give them our every support to put an end to this violence, assert damage control so Le Pen doesn't take advantage of this to boost his numbers, and then strongly urge France and our other European friends to overhaul their immigration policies both so they know who is coming in and so they can more easily assimilate into French society in the ways that are important (of which wearing a headscarf in school is not one.)
But any desire to point and say "I told you so" or any attempt to get the last laugh would be to place ourselves more in the Islamofascists' camp then we should ever consider being.
If it takes a Sarkozy to get the job done without resorting to Le Pen excesses, then so be it. Chirac should put aside politics for now and give de Villepin the boot and install Sarkozy as PM.
What occurred to me are the comments made by France and Germany et. al when we had that big power failure in N.Y. in 2003. They said this was proof of the final and utter breakdown of American society.
In reality everyone just went outside and walked home. And that was about it. No riots. No burning buildings.
And even the L.A. riots did not spread outside of a very localized part of L.A. By the way a Korean USAF officer I know told me that he went down to the Korean district at that time and joined an armed group protecting the stores and neighborhoods. They put out stacks of bags of rice as revetments and returned fire at any drive-by-shooters that came by.
There, the problem ended before it started. And that was in flaming liberal L.A....
xwraith,
the most likely reason they have not left the ghetto is lack of numbers. They are not, most likely, that organized, yet. Nor perhaps ready. The Mohammedans do seem to be incrementalists, both by paln and action. If the can achieve, as dan posts, a defacto Princeapality just outside of Paris, well, that would be enough, this month.
f.t.b.
The French Police methods are far beyond those allowed here in US. Exampled by the French legal system being inverted, guilty till proven innocent. If the French Police cannot put down the rioters, LAPD's finest would be ill equipped to handle it.
In American Riots of similar scale, the Military (NG)is often summonned to restore order.
There are handbooks to Revolution, anarchists cookbooks that detail tried and true methods of mayhem.
Repeat after me
Economics are the root causes of riots.
Mohammedism is a Religion of Peace and Love.
Say that 100 times each day and soon the World's problems will seem more distant and eventually will just "go away"
I strongly disagree with helping France in any way whatsoever, even advice, unless they publicly abase themselves and beg us in the most humble terms. I don't see how simply sitting back with folded arms and permitting the French to deal with the disaster that is their own making puts us any more in the Islamofascist camp, especially considering that the French have long ago pitched their tent on the outskirts of said camp.
The idea that "friends can bicker and still be friends" is correct, but that simply does not apply to France. Without going into long-winded details, France's status as an American "ally & friend" is purely theoretical. In fact, she is an enemy and seeing her humiliated is not a sight that I find displeasing in the least.
This entire incident, or at least the fact that it has gotten so out of control, is a result of her foolish policies. Helping her avoid the consequences she has brought upon herself is not going to encourage France to change them, but only to maintain them.
I'll stop short of advocating a "Ten Euro for the Resistance" fund for the French Intifada as the European left is supporting for the Iraqi insurgents against us. Nor will I go so far as to advocate cynically selling arms to both sides...yet.
As for the value of the mythical French "friendship": if they can't stop rioting in the outskirts of their own capital, just how worthwhile are they as allies anyway? I suggest we send in some Marines just before the flames reach the Louvre. Otherwise, make some popcorn and sit back and enjoy the show.
After reading the stories on the French riots of "youths", I regret nothing that has been done in the name of the War on Terror here in the USA. In fact, I regret that not enough has been done. France is the warning of what will happen if the problems with Illegal Immigration, cultural & national Assimilation, and Citizenship are not properly addressed soon.
Oh yes, if the French want our help now after pooh-poohing the War on Terror and the struggle for Afghanistan & Iraq, we should tell them we don't want to spread our Capitalist Imperialist Unilateral agenda to their shores. Just like they wanted. If they still want our help, they can beg. They begged us on their knees in 1917, they begged uson their knees in 1940, we can wait until they are willing to beg upon their knees again, with their nation in flames and under assault by a foreign power.
Only this time, we might say no. We have come to prefer working with people who are grateful for our assistance and support. Sunshine soldiers & fair-weather friends need not apply.
VOX America:
Is France less of a friend of ours than, say, al Qaeda? Yes, France is extremely annoying a lot of the time, but let me ask you this. Would you rather Islamofascism be contained and beaten back in the Middle East, or would you prefer it spread to France? Even if you don't care about France, how long after it gains a base there before it spreads to Germany, to Denmark, to Belgium, to the Netherlands, to ENGLAND? We allowed Nazism to gain a foothold in Europe, and then allowed it to spread, as such had a much more difficult time fighting it in WWII than if we had done something in 1933. Make no mistake - that is the same exact threat, if not worse, that we are facing here. France might be annoying, might stab is in the back and might not even be our historical ally at all! But our way of life is compatible with theirs. We may not be best of friends, but we're not going to fight each other. This is no time to be smug - we can continue bitching about the French when the Islamists are put down. I'd rather have Chirac in power than al Qaeda.
Freedom_For_Belarus, it isn't that I don't see your point, or the reason behind it, nor the fact that it is reasonable enough, all things being equal. Your argument itself is entirely reasonable...just so long as the premises on which it is based are.
Regretably, it is not the case. The problem is that France is not now our ally, nor has she ever been EXCEPT WHEN IT WAS FRANCE'S INTERESTS. I'll give the French credit for being clever enough to normally lick the appropriate boots. The French, when trying ot curry our favor, make much of their fairly limited contribution to our own revolution (which, unlike their own, was not an orgy of bloodletting of our own people). However, excepting the occasional individual, it was strictly a matter of calculated self-interest, a desire to get back at the UK on the cheap in revenge for a century of defeats at their hands. However, not only are they, as they like to say, "our oldest ally", they are also our oldest enemy. Shortly following the establishment of the Republic, they are busy harrassing our shipping, seizing our ships, and killing our sailors. After the Quasi-War, we don't hear from them again until they take advantage of our Civil War by violating the Monroe Doctrine and attempting to make Mexico a puppet of France. Confronted by our own force and their characteristic inability to defeat a determined opponent, they withdraw from Mexico, after which we don't hear from them again until 1917 when they begin screaming for our assistance against " the Hun". After Versaillies, we don't hear from them yet again until June 1940, when they beg us to send "clouds of planes" to defeat the Nazi invasion that they could have nipped in the bud in 1938, had they not been too cowardly to stop it when they could have done so with remarkable ease. After a half-decade of collaboration, including cheerfully sending 75,000+ of their own Jews to Nazi extermination camps, other than when they arrogantly demanded occupation zones in a Germany that WE, not THEY, had defeated, we didn't hear again from them until 1966 when they demanded our troops withdraw from France and withdrew from NATO, knowing they could safely do so because we'd never let the USSR get to France, since West Germany was in its path. The next time French foreign policy intersected ours in a major way was when they worked against our action in Iraq. Let's get this straight: they didn't just exercise their sovereign right to "disagree". They worked overtime to enlist other nations against us. They OPENLY wished and worked for a "counter" to us. What kind of a genuine ally works hard wishing and searching for someone to be a "counterweight" to their ally?
It is long past the time any rationally thinking person can consider France to be an "ally". The contribution of 4000 troops in an army of 16000 in 1781 and a fortuitous wind at the "Battle of the Capes" doesn't entitle them to an eternity of undue consideration. France is our enemy, every bit as much as Iran, perhaps more so...because in the case of France, the "nips are in the wire" already. And France is a far more vile and despicable enemy, because they haven't the testicular fortitude to declare themselves as such...they just hope and pray that someone else does, and defeats us.
As for our cultural kinship...how are we any more related to the French than any other European state? Voltaire wrote some nice prose and Moliere some great plays. The fact that they, like dozens of other nations, happen to speak an Indo-European language, doesn't rate them any special consideration. It doesn't absolve France from her perfidy. I have no problem whatsoever seeing France fall to the Islamofacists. It is their policies which have caused it to happen, and I see nothing that they have done to prevent us from enjoying the spectacle of them meeting the fate they deserve, which has been administered from their own hand. And should the unlikely occur, that the Islamists gain control of France, we know the geographical coordinates to aim our ICBMs.\
Sorry if it is a crude sentiment, but I look forward with joy at the spectacle of the "Arc de Triomphe" bulldozed down by the Islamists.
Freedom_For_Belarus, it isn't that I don't see your point, or the reason behind it, nor the fact that it is reasonable enough, all things being equal. Your argument itself is entirely reasonable...just so long as the premises on which it is based are.
Regretably, it is not the case. The problem is that France is not now our ally, nor has she ever been EXCEPT WHEN IT WAS FRANCE'S INTERESTS. I'll give the French credit for being clever enough to normally lick the appropriate boots. The French, when trying ot curry our favor, make much of their fairly limited contribution to our own revolution (which, unlike their own, was not an orgy of bloodletting of our own people). However, excepting the occasional individual, it was strictly a matter of calculated self-interest, a desire to get back at the UK on the cheap in revenge for a century of defeats at their hands. However, not only are they, as they like to say, "our oldest ally", they are also our oldest enemy. Shortly following the establishment of the Republic, they are busy harrassing our shipping, seizing our ships, and killing our sailors. After the Quasi-War, we don't hear from them again until they take advantage of our Civil War by violating the Monroe Doctrine and attempting to make Mexico a puppet of France. Confronted by our own force and their characteristic inability to defeat a determined opponent, they withdraw from Mexico, after which we don't hear from them again until 1917 when they begin screaming for our assistance against " the Hun". After Versaillies, we don't hear from them yet again until June 1940, when they beg us to send "clouds of planes" to defeat the Nazi invasion that they could have nipped in the bud in 1938, had they not been too cowardly to stop it when they could have done so with remarkable ease. After a half-decade of collaboration, including cheerfully sending 75,000+ of their own Jews to Nazi extermination camps, other than when they arrogantly demanded occupation zones in a Germany that WE, not THEY, had defeated, we didn't hear again from them until 1966 when they demanded our troops withdraw from France and withdrew from NATO, knowing they could safely do so because we'd never let the USSR get to France, since West Germany was in its path. The next time French foreign policy intersected ours in a major way was when they worked against our action in Iraq. Let's get this straight: they didn't just exercise their sovereign right to "disagree". They worked overtime to enlist other nations against us. They OPENLY wished and worked for a "counter" to us. What kind of a genuine ally works hard wishing and searching for someone to be a "counterweight" to their ally?
It is long past the time any rationally thinking person can consider France to be an "ally". The contribution of 4000 troops in an army of 16000 in 1781 and a fortuitous wind at the "Battle of the Capes" doesn't entitle them to an eternity of undue consideration. France is our enemy, every bit as much as Iran, perhaps more so...because in the case of France, the "nips are in the wire" already. And France is a far more vile and despicable enemy, because they haven't the testicular fortitude to declare themselves as such...they just hope and pray that someone else does, and defeats us.
As for our cultural kinship...how are we any more related to the French than any other European state? Voltaire wrote some nice prose and Moliere some great plays. The fact that they, like dozens of other nations, happen to speak an Indo-European language, doesn't rate them any special consideration. It doesn't absolve France from her perfidy. I have no problem whatsoever seeing France fall to the Islamofacists. It is their policies which have caused it to happen, and I see nothing that they have done to prevent us from enjoying the spectacle of them meeting the fate they deserve, which has been administered from their own hand. And should the unlikely occur, that the Islamists gain control of France, we know the geographical coordinates to aim our ICBMs.\
Sorry if it is a crude sentiment, but I look forward with joy at the spectacle of the "Arc de Triomphe" bulldozed down by the Islamists.
France had better act-- fast-- or much more trouble is in store for them. I doubt Al Queda had much interest in France prior to a fortnight ago, but now that they have revealed themselves to be so incompetent, all bets are off. Islamofacists have much more intense grievances against Russia, America, Israel, England, but at the same time they know the kind of pain those nations are willing deal out. France's dithering and intellectual posturing is projecting an image of weakness-- very stupid and dangerous.
Right now I suspect that Al Queda is sending every loose jihadist it can find to gay Paree.
VOX,
You don't need to tell me about our history with France. Believe me, I know. I'm not advocating helping France out of any benevolence to the country. Rather, it is merely strategic. And sitting back until we send in ICBMs is, frankly, not a solution. If France were an island in the middle of the ocean, I'd sit back with a bag of popcorn and watch the show. But the truth is, as annoying and even subversive of American interests as they are, remind me when we have ever fought the French (Vichy doesn't count). They're pains in the ass, but they don't espouse an ideology that is a direct threat to American interests coming from the western seaboard of Europe and situated right next to our real allies. Do you think Roosevelt had any love lost for France when we started sending OSS in during WWII? Of course not - neither he nor Churchill could stand de Gaulle. But that's not the point. If it will chap your ass a little less, root for Sarkozy to come out of this mess on top. That's about the best we can hope for. But as much as it pains, if Chirac or Dominique come out on top, that's light years better than Islamists coming out on top. France may like to make life difficult for us, but they are largely irrelevant. They can pretend their nation is so great and how dedicated they are to Republican values, but in the end, they don't really matter. They're primary power is that of the veto in the UN, but when have we let that stop us? The facts we have to face is that an annoying irrelevance is far better than a hostile Islamist regime looking to continue spreading throughout Europe. Saying that we'll know where to send the ICBMs is not going to solve anything.
freedom to belarus: as annoying and even subversive of American interests as they are, remind me when we have ever fought the French
Oh, not so long ago.
The Fr*nch were selling knock-offs of our Stinger missiles to Iraq... mere *weeks* before the invasion, (mais... sacre blue! That was in violation of le U.N!)
Were those missiles used to down U.S. copters? Yes. There is American blood on Fr*nch hands.
Sorry, enough is enough.
The rebutal "Fr*nce acts only in its best interests" doesn't quite get the point-- every nation acts in its best interest, at least most of the time, (US a possible exception). The difference is, if the U.S. acted as *ruthlessly*, with no regard to morality or integrity as the Fr*nch did, we would control half the planet by now.
Sorry again; enough is enough.
F*ck the Fr*nch, (and pardon my Fr*nch). After years of praising the intifada, have fun with your own, pauvre cons.
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