An update on this story. "Suspected extremists charged in France," from Agence France-Presse, December 21:
Three people detained in and around Paris on suspicion of links to Islamic extremist groups that send fighters to Iraq were charged on Saturday, a judicial source said.
The three, who were charged with "association with criminals with terrorist aims," were among seven people arrested on Tuesday. The other four have been released.
French intelligence officers and anti-terrorist police first arrested a young Frenchman who had converted to Islam and then hauled in six of his associates.
The arrests were not connected to an incident on Tuesday in which police found dynamite in a Paris department store after an unknown group threatened attacks unless France pulled its troops out of Afghanistan.
too late to be nice, get tough France! deport
Jesus, where are those prison barges on Hudson Bay when you need them? Maybe they could work a deal with Canada to reinstate that. Dry Tortugas, anyone?
FRom the article:"French intelligence officers and anti-terrorist police first arrested a young Frenchman who had converted to Islam and then hauled in six of his associates."
Did we all see that line? - 'A young Frenchman who had converted to Islam'.
What a lot of people who convert to Islam - in Australia [David Hicks], in the USA [Adam Gadahn], in France [this idiot; and there have been others], in the UK [the shoe-bomber, and that deluded fool who tried to blow himself up in a restaurant toilet], in Germany, in Canada - seem to be almost instantly overwhelmed with a desire to kill people. I recall particularly the young Hindu in Canada who converted to Islam and took part in the plot to blow up parliament and kidnap and behead the Prime Minister. Most distressing - especially for his distraught Hindu parents.
There are so many of these cases, that I have a special clippings file for them, labelled 'the dangerous convert'.
Now, let's think about what happens when a Hindu, Buddhist or Jew decides to get into their ancestral faith. Do they rush off and start gathering weapons and explosives and making plots to kill large numbers of their fellow citizens?
No: the Hindu and the Buddhist strip themselves of worldly possessions, put on the saffron robe, and embark upon a life of asceticism, study and contemplation.
The Jew disappears into a yeshiva and devotes himself to Talmud and Torah; years later another fat volume is added to the vast stock of Jewish religious literature. Or, perhaps, he joins the Chabadniks and devotes himself to a life of generous hospitality and peaceful religious observances, involving such things as lighting candles and reciting Psalms. Or he might, if of a more secular inclination, engage in acts of tikkun olam, involving the heroic saving and sanctifying of life.
Someone converts to Christianity: if Catholic or Orthodox, they may even follow a vocation into the monastery, as did Thomas Merton, or the convent, or a call to the priesthood; if Protestant, they may become a missionary (again, no weaponry involved); usually, such things as drugs, excessive alcohol and illegal weaponry (if they are, for example, a converted gang member or ex-con) are joyfully renounced.
A significant number of converts to Islam, on the other hand, behave just like people who've joined an army - or an ultra-violent criminal street gang. The level of violence in their lives goes up, straight away, and exponentially.
There is only one conclusion to be drawn: as Jacques Ellul put it, Islam is "fundamentally warlike".