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France's policies were never quite as intolerable as depicted. Chirac is a crook, DdeV a preener, a poseur, and a poetaster. Nicholas Sarkozy, the unbeatable future president, has his embarrassments with a wayward wife, but when it comes to Islam, he is somewhat less foolable that the others. He left Tariq Ramadan exposed and humiliated on television, every taqiyya-fiber shredded. But Sarkozy also still believes that "integration" of Muslims is the key -- failing to comprehend, or not allowing himself to comprehend, that "integration" is not the key (above all, not the kind of "integration" that will make Muslims better able to manipulate the minds of Infidels, which the kind of knowledge of language and moeurs can do, akin to what was taught in those KGB spy villages).
Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the head of anti-terrorism efforts within France, does not tolerate -- nor need he -- the kind of things that the British have permitted. The French, though they have the disadvantage of idiotically allowing in so many Muslims, nonetheless have a few advantages when it comes to listening in and monitoring. Not everyone who fled North Africa was an Arab or a Muslim. There are among the pieds noirs some who knew some Arabic. Arabic-speaking Jews, and Berbers of a secular bent, hardly wishing to have Arabs and Islam imposed on France, the country in which they now live, are all pools of talent from which to draw.
Compare the level of the intelligence of our intelligence agents with what the French possess. Think, for example, of that simpleton Michael Scheuer, who was actually put in charge of something called the "Bin Laden" desk, and who knows nothing, absolutely nothing, about Islam. What's more, he appears to be touched by the same pathological view of "Jewish power" which, by now, we all recognize not as something merely unpleasant, or deplorable, but nowadays, as in the 1930s, given the nature of the enemy, renders Scheuer and others like him positive security risks. The French media's coverage of the Middle East is intolerable, but that does not mean that among those casting a beady eye on domestic Muslims there is any illusion that this is merely a matter of "Palestine," or that once they throw Israel to the wolves (i.e., give the Arabs and Muslims what they want in their Lesser Jihad) that the Greater Jihad against all Infidels will cease, or that those Muslims will do anything in response to the sacrifice of Israel but display increased triumphalism and determination.
But the French still think that the intervention in Iraq was "pire qu'un crime" -- worse than a crime, it was a mistake, in the phrase of Talleyrand (the same Talleyrand who was booed in New York, incidentally, by American supporters of the Revolution -- see the "Travels of Moreau de St.-Remy"). As to the original intervention, one can still maintain that that was rational and was worth it. But as to the rest of it, the sticking around for what no one could describe as even a reasonable facsimile of "democracy" but rather ethnic and sectarian power-seizing at its most obvious, there the French, it is clear, have a point. We should put down the silly Infidel Man's Burden, cease to watch America Being Held Hostage In Iraq, and get on with the thousand things that could be done, that make sense to have done, to contain Islam and to diminish the power of Muslims and the presence of Muslims behind enemy lines. (And no, that is not too strong a way to describe the Lands of the Infidels, for those who take just a moment out of their busy Washington schedules, photo-ops, reading of 2-page summaries of the world every morning, to read Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, even in abridged form).
Of course the American government has learned a lesson that it will not admit to having learned. It knows it must never again try to refashion a Muslim country by sending large numbers of troops, for by now 425,000 Americans in the regular military, in the Reserves, and in the National Guard have served in the Iraq theatre. Not all of them are mindless. A good many can compare the Iraqi reality with what the Administration and some -- but not all -- of the dutiful generals insist, in hallucinatory fashion, is that reality.
And that is a lesson that France, possibly for all the wrong motives, understands. The way to deal with Islam is to recognize what Islam is all about, recognize the immutability of the doctrines, recognize that the only "moderate" Muslims one can really rely on not to relapse into "immoderate" Islam, or to be true "moderates" in any useful sense, are those who are not really Muslims at all, but rather what I continue to call "Muslims-for-identification-purposes-only." In other words, these are the ones who essentially do not believe in Islam at all, but are too afraid, or too wary of offending family members, or even who hold to Islam as a career move: one can do well as a "good Muslim" but outright apostates tend not to be given the hearing, the respect, and the financial support that "good Muslims" busily "reforming" Islam find so available.
The islamization of Europe, and not who wins or loses in Iraq is the real issue before us. In Iraq, in any case, the war is not between the "freedom-loving Iraqis" (good god) and the "terrorists" but, in the main, between the Sunnis and Shi'a. It is a fight for power, for who rules over whom, for what Lenin called Kto Kogo: "Who -- (does it to) -- Whom?"
Europeans are now coming out of a deep dream of peace. There is no peace. They have done something tremendously stupid, and more than stupid, by allowing in people who bear in their mental luggage something inimical to Western ways, who are hostile to Western political and social understandings, and who -- save for a few who will leave Islam altogether -- cannot be integrated. These people, now close to 20 million, also reproduce at rates three to four times higher than the indigenous Infidels. The mathematics of this, and the misery of this, and the menace of this, is clear.
Let Iraq be Iraq. That is, let "Iraq" the pseudo-nation devolve into, dissolve into, the three vilayets put together by Sir Percy Cox back in 1920. The last 80 years of the "nation" of Iraq under Sunni rule did nothing to diminish, and everything to increase, the Shi'a resentment and hatred of Sunnis, and the Kurdish resentment and hatred of Arabs.
Yet instead of taking advantage of this, our President continues to prate about "democracy" and "freedom-loving" people in Iraq, while avoiding carefully the subject of Islam which he still sees as through a glass darkly. For his claque he can do no wrong. He must be right, if for no other reason -- and there now is no other reason -- that Cindy Sheehan is a sinister simpleton, and so are all those who are like her. But so what? Stalin was sinister, and no simpleton, and we worked to defeat Hitler with him, and it might have appeared to the Man from Mars that we were on the same side. But we weren't.
The E.U. bureaucracy is as hopelessly philo-islamic, anti-American, and anti-Israel as the U.N., and should simply be ignored. But the days of Javier Solana, Chris Patten, and so on are numbered. The E.U. has been permanently weakened as an institution, and Muslim attacks within Europe have made its bureaucrats even more distasteful to European publics, more unrepresentative, than they were before -- for they are the complete Eurabians.
We need to remove ourselves from Iraq, and cease to claim that "democracy" will bring a better outcome for Infidels. We can see already that if the Americans remain to keep Iraq together, and to keep an Iraqi state together, it will perforce be much more Muslim than it was before. Is this what the Administration wants? Well, if it thinks that the problem is not Islam, if it continues to pretend otherwise, because it lacks the wit to discuss the problem in terms that could be plausibly presented (the words "Jihad" and "Anti-Jihad" scream out for use; so do such phrases as "we are not against Islam, but only against those who apparently believe in the Jihad to force their own beliefs on the rest of the world, which of course the vast and overwhelming majority of law-abiding Muslims do not" (this is nonsense, and false, but useful nonsense, useful falsity).
A little reconciliation with Europe needs to take place. But the Administration, for all of its tough-guy rhetoric, is timid about Islam, afraid of offending Muslims, afraid to recognize that a belief-system is a permanent menace, and therefore keeps clutching at the straw of "democracy" in Iraq. In the process of herding those Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurdish cats, it shows us, and shows the Europeans, that some in this Administration, despite their boots and spurs and swaggering walk, are All Hat, and No Cattle.
[The above article was originally posted on August 29, 2005. No changes have been necessary to bring it up-to-date.]
Posted by Hugh at May 18, 2007 1:20 PM
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Reading the paragraph about French employment of Berbers as translators in intelligence work, I was wondering if the US government has maintained its ridiculous and disciminatory ban on hiring Arabic Jews to decipher terrorist communications here?
Posted by: Cornelius![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 18, 2007 1:40 PM
Great essay Hugh. It just gets better with age, much like a good Sauvignon blanc. Cheers!
Posted by: William The Crusader at May 18, 2007 2:12 PM
"He left Tariq Ramadan exposed and humiliated on television, every taqiyya-fiber shredded."
I knew I liked Sarkozy.
As for "integration" as a solution, it only will work with those Muslims who wish to integrate -- and they do exist -- but that portion of the population isn't the problem. Unfortuantely, there are more than enough Muslims who are committed to imposing Sharia on Dar Al-Harb to render this approach inadequate.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at May 18, 2007 2:24 PM
As much as I would like to think that, in Hugh's words, "The E.U. has been permanently weakened as an institution", I don't believe that the E.U. has been permanently weakened. Bureaucracies can be similar to their cockroach brethren - they just don't die quickly, even if one cuts of their head. They will even survive nuclear or civil wars.
Bureaucracies are "self-perpetuating" and the EUrocrats, having invested so much of their time and strength to building an institution where they are well paid, have power, and accountable to none except the party line, will not relinquish their authority and all its trappings without a fight.
I would consider the E.U. Permanently weakened once a member state decides to opt out of the asylum. Once one nation does, and the economic repercussions aren't horrible (I am sure Brussels will use both hook and crook to prevent this), others may follow suit.
Posted by: npabga at May 18, 2007 2:45 PM
WaterDragon52 wrote, "Unfortuantely, there are more than enough Muslims who are committed to imposing Sharia on Dar Al-Harb to render this approach inadequate."
Not only on Dar Al-Harb, but on their fellow muslims.....with a vengeance! If they have to suffer (and who must suffer in this life more than a muslim?) to be holy, by golly, so does everyone else around them.
Posted by: Stand fast in the liberty at May 18, 2007 3:03 PM
Reconciling wirh France will be easy for the - News -- IRanian Queer Organization - IRQO
Another Gay Iranian Torture Victim Tells His Horrifying Story
12 Jan 2006
By DOUG IRELAND
As the Islamic Republic of Iran’s lethal anti-gay pogrom—the government’s
intense persecutions of its own citizens for homosexuality—continues, the
victims of this oppression, despite great obstacles, continue to try to
flee from the largest religious prison in the world to tell the story of
the inhuman treatment they have suffered
The latest escapee to testify to this anti-gay reign of terror is a
28-year-old man caught up in the government‘s extensive Internet
entrapment campaign targeting gay men. We’ll call him Sam, and we cannot
identify his hometown to protect his real identity.
Sam is the son of a very religious family, most of whom do not know he’s
gay. He lived in a smaller town in which—like so many in Iran—most of the
people are also intensely religious, consider homosexuality the ultimate
sin, and agree with the Islamic Republic’s law mandating the death penalty
for any person caught in a homosexual act. Isolated and unable to frequent
his few gay friends, constantly living in fear of being arrested and
tortured, perhaps executed, Sam became increasingly depressed, and even
attempted suicide.
Because there is nowhere in Iran where gay people may legally
assemble—private gay parties are frequently raided by the police, and the
government has an extensive network of gay informers whose cooperation has
been obtained by torture, blackmail, and intimidation with threats of
prison or death—like many gay Iranians, particularly those outside the
largest cities, Sam’s only way of meeting other gay people was through the
Internet. Here, translated from Persian, is his story.
Last Spring, Sam related, “I was in a gay Internet chat room for Iranians.
A boy in the chat room was sending repeated messages saying that he was
looking for a sex partner and was up for anything. He said he was 23 and
very handsome. I finally got up the courage to arrange a rendezvous with
him somewhere in tow—he said that after meeting we could then go to his
house, as there was no question of his coming to mine.
“We met at 3:00 in the afternoon, and, as the young man was very
good-looking, I agreed to go with him by taxi to his home. A taxi rapidly
arrived—there was a person sitting in the front next to the driver, and
another in back. We got into the taxi, and my new friend suggested that I
should be the one to sit in the middle in the rear, with him sitting next
to me.
“As we drove away, it didn’t take long for them to shove my head down
between the rear and front seats and begin beating me. They put a
blindfold around my eyes, calling me all sorts of names and threatening me
with the worst as the blows continued to rain on me.”
It turned out that both the young man Sam had met in the chat-room, and
the others in the taxi, were basiji. The basiji are an unofficial
religious parapolice composed of thugs under the control of the
Intelligence Ministry and operating with the authorization of the
religious authorities. They are recruited from the criminal and
under-classes, and are employed by the Islamic government to do its
strong-arm dirty work. For example, when the government repressed student
demonstrations in universities last year, it was the basiji who were
assigned to beat the student demonstrators and throw them out of the
windows, so that the government could deny responsibility for these
violent repressions, in which a number of students were killed. The basiji
are a potent weapon frequently used in the government’s anti-gay
crackdown, and it is from their ranks that the human bait used in its
Internet entrapment campaign is recruited. Many of the basiji are young.
“After about 15 minutes,” Sam continued, “we arrived at a location—as I
was blindfolded, I had no idea where I was. I was in a state of shock—I
could not believe this was happening to me. The eventually took off my
blindfold, and then began the worst event in my life. I was surrounded by
men in civilian clothes, all of them wearing pagers, and some of them were
armed. They all had beards, and some of them were quite young, in their
late teens. Their boss was almost bald, and had a big stomach—if he’d had
a turban around his head he would have looked like a mullah, perhaps he
was a mullah in civilian clothes, I don’t know. I quickly concluded I was
in some sort of basiji headquarters. It was an old building; part of it
was a school.
“After several hours of torture, they asked me to write a statement in
which I would promise not to ever use a gay chat room again—if I did, they
told me, even heavier punishment would be waiting for me. They told me
that if they had caught me having sex they would have hanged me.
“I refused to sign their statement, so they began beating me with a heavy
metal cable. God knows how barbarous it was—they beat me at least 30
times, while kicking me with their shoes. I couldn’t bear the pain any
more, and I begged them to stop. I knew they would not stop until they had
the signed statement in their hands, and that is why I agreed to sign it.
“But even when I got up from the floor to sign their statement, I asked
why—this made their boss very mad, and he ordered his men to resume
beating me with the heavy cable, which they did while yelling more threats
and insults. The screaming intimidation felt like a hammer on my brain, it
was worse than the cable and the beatings. One of them hollered, ‘We’ll
round up all you fags until there aren’t any left to make a chat room and
play your fag games.’
“The beatings, verbal abuse, and intimidation continued until 8:00 p.m.
the next day. I was finally thrown into a storage room—the room was filthy
and full of rubbish and had a very bad smell. They kept me locked up in
that stinking little room for seven or eight days.
“One day they finally let me out, once again blindfolded me, and shoved me
into a car. We drove around for about 30 minutes—but it seemed like 100
years because they were beating me all the time. They dropped me off
somewhere and told me not to take off my blindfold until they’d left. When
I could no longer hear the sound of their car, I took off the blindfold
and saw I was on a deserted dirt road somewhere outside town. I finally
flagged down a truck and persuaded the driver to drop me off in town.”
When he got home, Sam said, he faced intensive questioning from his
family, who wanted to know where he’d been.
“But they do not know I’m gay, so I had to lie to them. But I could not
give them a plausible answer. I finally called a friend and asked him to
take pictures of my wounds and bruises from the beatings so I’d have some
evidence—but my friend doesn’t know I’m gay either, so I had to lie to him
too. I was afraid if I old him the truth the situation would go from bad
to worse, so I said the basiji had caught me when I was drunk and beat me.
When I got back home, the only member of my family to whom I could tell
the truth of what had happed was my brother, who left Iran four years ago,
and who is also gay—so I sent him an e-mail.
“I had never considered leaving my country before this horrible episode,”
Sam said, “but after it I could sense the shadow of death and torture on
my back, so I decided to escape to save my life.”
It took Sam six months after his kidnapping by the basiji before he could
arrange to escape from Iran. Four months ago, Sam made his way to
Pakistan. There, he filed a request for asylum with the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees, and eventually got in touch with the Persian
Gay and Lesbian Organization, the largest Iranian gay organization, which
has secretariats in several countries. The PGLO, which has helped me in my
previous reportages on the gay tragedy in Iran, asked me to help Sam tell
his story to the world. For as Sam said, “Iranian homosexuals have had all
their rights taken away from them, and face a bitter destiny.”
Sam today is in Pakistan, still waiting for the UNHCR to recognize as
legitimate his demand for asylum in a gay-friendly country.
There are many other gay refugees from Iranian terror like Sam, almost all
of them in dire financial straights and living a precarious existence,
constantly fearful that the countries they’ve managed to flee to will
deport them back to Iran, where a dire fate awaits them. The PGLO
desperately needs our financial and moral support, and help in obtaining
asylum for these gay refugees. To find out how to help, please contact the
PGLO through the English-language page of its website, at
http://www.pglo.net/
at May 18, 2007 3:07 PM
No European ruler will say that the goal is to eliminate Moslems from the nation, even if they know that where things will end up. All have to espouse integration. Some, doubtless in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Belgium, might even believe it. I don't think the Germans or the French do, but it would be political suicide to mention this. So, by going the integration route, at the end of the day, they can say, "look, we did everything we could for them, but it wasn't enough." And then, expulsion will be seen as the only possible choice.
As for the Americans, I think it is a no brainer that Iraq was a bad idea, falsely presented and poorly executed. It was never a good idea. I don't think we learned any lesson from it, however. We are still trying to make Afghanistan into Indiana when all we should have done is go in, be as brutal as necessary, kill all the Taliban and their supporters and leave.
Posted by: Seymour Paine at May 18, 2007 3:28 PM
From the above article:
[The above article was originally posted on August 29, 2005. No changes have been necessary to bring it up-to-date.]Hugh
Gotcha. Your third sentence above is what you should have updated, since Sarkozy has by now been sworn in - he's no longer even the President-elect:
Nicholas Sarkozy, the unbeatable future president, has his embarrassments with a wayward wife, but when it comes to Islam, he is somewhat less foolable that the others.Sorry, couldn't resist busting that bit of clairvoyance ;-)
at May 18, 2007 4:30 PM
Muslim demographics is the big threat. What is he going to do about that?
Posted by: Celsius at May 18, 2007 5:45 PM
I never hear doctors wanting to "integrate" a cancer into a healthy body.
Or "assimilate" the Eboloa virus.
Some things do not integrate or assimilate.
They destroy.
The host.
Then themselves.
Islam, in its central dogmas, is an anti-intellectual prion.
Like BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow's Disease).
Leaving the brain swiss-cheesed.
Best to keep it out in the first place.
Posted by: profitsbeard at May 18, 2007 11:02 PM
I predict that one thing France will give the West is a datapoint on how to recover from a pure democracy under demographic threat. A little birdie has told me that a major world power will not quietly concede its power to a foreign invader, fueled by welfare babies, at the ballot box.
** Amateur Historian Alert ** ** Amateur Historian Alert **
History of France:
1. Western Roman Empire falls and Germanic people take over.
2. Charlemagne consolidates things in 771 and cycles of Kings and feudal struggles continue through the Middle Ages.
3. France becomes an absolute Monarchy around 1500 and stays that way until 1789 when the masses take over and things get messy.
4. Napoleon emerges as Emperor in 1804 and decides to fight in wintertime Russia in 1814.
5. A King takes over from Napoleon.
6. In 1852 an election is held and the victor proclaims himself ‘President for Life’.
7. French Third Republic (1870-1940): dissolved parliaments, appointment of a mentally-ill President. A wide rift evolved between left and right and the government collapsed in the face of Nazi aggression.
8. French Fourth Republic (1946-1958): Weak executive branch. DeGaulle takes over in military coup.
9. French Fifth Republic (1958-): DeGaulle takes over and capitulates to Muslim rebels in Algeria, granting independence. Things are looking choppy in 2007 as the government is out of money, taxes on the productive can exceed 90%, and there are nightly riots.
For the last two hundred years, France has averaged a military takeover once every 40 years. They are a decade overdue.
at May 18, 2007 11:03 PM
Hugh wrote:
The islamization of Europe, and not who wins or loses in Iraq is the real issue before us.
I wonder whether this issue still ranks #1 since the rise of Ahdminejad and the progress of Iran's nuclear program since August 29, 2005?
at May 18, 2007 11:26 PM
Celsius, instead of waiting for Sarkozy to do something about Muslim demographics, do something about your own.
Posted by: SerbInfidel at May 19, 2007 12:21 AM
Making common cause with France may be an unavoidable necessity thrust upon us by the mohammedans.
But even if Sarkozy is as pro-American as he is accused of being, we need to remain wary -- in a "trust but verify" kind of way.
History teaches that France has been more of an antagonist to the US than an ally, for the last two centuries.
But a jihaddi takeover in France would mean a mohammedan nuke facing NY and DC from across the Atlantic and London(stan?) from across the channel.
That would of course confront us with some truly grave historical choices. As I am sure the mohammedans already appreciate, with anticipatory glee.
As a tactical measure, reconciliation may prove appropriate, assuming Sarkozy is a reliable good guy, but it would be unwise to bank on France as a strategic partner.
If Sarkozy is truly ready to resist the jihad, then we may be able to make common cause with him, at least on a tactical and operational basis, in that arena. But this assumes that he will be able, in a meaningful way, to swim against the arabism deeply ingrained in the power machine of Paris since the days of Napoleon. (Remember "Une Puissance Musulmane" ?)
There's absolutely no reason to expect France to become another Australia, simply because they may have an America-friendly president.
Posted by: joeblough at May 19, 2007 4:23 AM
Powerful article by Hugh.
I had a little trouble with this part:
"we are not against Islam, but only against those who apparently believe in the Jihad to force their own beliefs on the rest of the world, which of course the vast and overwhelming majority of law-abiding Muslims do not" (this is nonsense, and false, but useful nonsense, useful falsity).I suppose the use of such expressions would constitute progress and can be justified on that basis. But it makes me uncomfortable to promote the idea that the "vast and overwhelming majority of law-abiding Muslims do not" believe in the use of Jihad to force their own beliefs on the rest of the world -- because even though the statement is true, it can easily leave the impression that the vast majority of Muslims are no problem for the West, when in reality the plurality -- if not the majority -- of Muslims do apparently desire Islamic law, even if they want it implemented by demographic domination rather than by violent forms of jihad. Put that plurality together with a substantial minority (5 to 10 percent) that supports violent jihad, and a smaller but not insubstantial minority (one percent?) that desires actually to participate in violent jihad, and you get a huge threat to non-Muslim societies. I realize Hugh knows all this more precisely than I do, but I have trouble with the concession Hugh makes, to what he himself calls "nonsense." Admittedly, nonsense is sometimes strategically unavoidable. Posted by: traeh
at May 19, 2007 4:49 AM
Yet instead of taking advantage of this, our President continues to prate about "democracy" and "freedom-loving" people in Iraq, while avoiding carefully the subject of Islam which he still sees as through a glass darkly. For his claque he can do no wrong. He must be right, if for no other reason -- and there now is no other reason -- that Cindy Sheehan is a sinister simpleton, and so are all those who are like her.
So true. Folks who continue to support this war in Iraq are often reacting to the America-haters and other nitwits who want to see us "defeated" in Iraq for their own personal satisfaction.
Unlike Vietnam, where it was at least possible to articulate a plausible, desirable goal, the proponents of continued war in Iraq by America cannot. They are necessarily incoherent, not having the desire or ability to see the reality there.
But like the political situation during Vietnam, the hatred of America and the irrationality of the left infects and distorts the thinking of folks who should know better.
Posted by: Moonzoo at May 19, 2007 11:33 AM
Appropriately filed under the Dhimmiwatch side of this site, "Why we need reconciliation with France" is pure piffle.
"The E.U. bureaucracy is as hopelessly philo-islamic, anti-American, and anti-Israel as the U.N., and should simply be ignored." And why is that? One word: FRANCE.
France embodies everything that is wrong with Europe, with the EU. The EU is France. France is the EU.
And France is a major reason why Europe finds itself in the precarious position of today. This is true vis-a-vis Islam and the tsunami of Muslim immigration, but also for Europe's rank anti-Americanism which France spearheads and leads. France is congenitally anti-Semitic and loathes Israel nearly as much as the Muslims do. She exhibits an incapacity to self correct and self reflect similar to Islam and to Muslims. In this, her projections of failure onto America are also akin to Islam and the Muslims.
And who can forget her countless and breathless surrenders? In the last century alone France has eagerly surrendered to Nazism, to communism. to socialism, to multicuturalism, and to Islam. All the fashionable fascims of the day become France quite well and easily, and France becomes them too. Her coffee and croissants may be good, but nearly all else is rotten about France. Rotten to the core.
So to present France, French methods, or her infamous history as some acceptable template for dealing with Muslims and Islam is absurd on its face. To propose that a significant benefit can be derived for America by "reconciliation with France" is highly dubious.
Looking back at recent history, France's third rate colonialism has left devastation in its wake, especially when compared to the colonialism of Britain, which left functioning systems, and staggering benefits. I'd argue that this global mismanagement too has contributed largely to the global inflammation of Islamic Jihad, and done much to encourage Muslims to wage Jihad against the West, and to imagine that we will succumb. Whether we're talking about horrors like Cambodia and Viet Nam, failed Islamic sewers like Algeria, Djoubouti, Syria, Lebanon, or nightmares like Congo, Ivory Coast, Quebec and New Orleans, France's colonial bunglings, crimes, and legendary abuses are beyond count, beyond expiation. And don't forget that after arming the Israelis with nukes, France and Chirac set about arming the Arabs under their Frankenstein Saddam with nukes. What was Talleyrand up to? Something very cynical, self serving, pocket lining, and sinister, no doubt.
After a brief flirtation fawning over Benjamin Franklin's beaver hat, the French have proven themselves to be history's losers, history's Basil Fawlty -- always conniving, always bungling, always playing out of their league, motivated by craven selfish duplicity and impotent frustration, rageful, vengeful, absurd. And France, just like Fawlty, is always screwed in the end of every episode.
But unlike Mr. Fawlty, France's mistakes are no joke. France has caused staggering loss of Western prestige, solidarity, wealth, and blood. France's treacheries cyclically embolden all fascisms, starting with "the Reign of Terror" and Napoleon's rape of the world, and more recently the Nazis, the communists, the Arabs, and Islam.
Rather than thinking up crazy reasons "Why we need reconciliation with France" perhaps we should be thinking of ways to destroy her. How to make sure we don't foot the bill to save her once again from her cowardice and backstabbing. Let's think of ways to make France the epicenter for the Islamic Jihad collision against the West -- make sure the blows falls most and hardest there, that the battle lines be primarily drawn there, that the blood is mostly shed there. They have not joined us in projecting Western power into the Muslim world -- they have done everything in their power to subvert our American power. They are not allies. They have never been our allies. Rather than helping us, and in the process helping themselves, France has lured the Muslim rapist into the house of the West. She has encouraged him with whorish enticements, pretended to be his friend, hoping in the end to play him for a fool. Well -- I say France is the fool. France is the latter day Whore of Babylon, and should collapse into the earth.
Let Fitzgerald's vaunted France exhaust herself against the Muslim rapist. Let the Muslim rapist exhaust himself against the whore. We can, in the best tradition of Talleyrand, make sure our enemies are both weakened and our position enhanced with every thrust of sword or whatnot.
I say: Let France fester and rot.
Posted by: jsla at May 19, 2007 4:39 PM
"If Sarkozy is truly ready to resist the jihad, then we may be able to make common cause with him, at least on a tactical and operational basis"
Yes, you can tell that, after all when France thought going into a ill thought out, badly prepared war in Iraq was a bad idea, the American government and people were just soooooo understanding. Such tactical and operational foresight by the Americans must fill France with delight at the thought of a common cause.
Freedom fries anyone?
On a more serious note, the guy's testimony about the way he was treated in Iran, for being gay, must be treated with supreme suspicion. If such things did happen, the streets of the uk would be full of Left Wing radical types, with posters and banners, throwing petrol bombs and overturning cars, upholding the rights of gay's and blacks and everybody else to do whatever they want, in the name of freedom, and against oppression.
Oh no, my mistake, that only happens when America does something.
Still the radical lefts silence is puzzling, they'd never make common cause with radical Islam would they?
Pigs to man, and man to pigs, etc etc etc
at May 19, 2007 5:00 PM
A country whose cinema can treat children with the delicacy and tenderness of "Etre et Avoir," "Ponette," and "Papillon" is not a country I think should be consigned to the outer darkness.
What consigning is to be done, however, has been done quite enough in the three parts of "Cahiers du Cinema" which can be found at www.newenglishreview.org.
Posted by: Hugh at May 19, 2007 8:23 PM
"Cahiers du Cinema, or, Pardon the French" is something I posted a few months ago at www.newenglishreview.org (click on "Author Archives," and go from there).
The epigraph to that piece is as follows:
"L'homme d'Amérique, d'aplomb sur le sol, cheveux au vent, n'est pas le prisonnier d'une solitude océanique. Il sent l'Europe avec force, la France avec la ferveur d'une antique amitié. Nul n'est plus fidèle aux grands principes de la moralité humaine, nul n'est plus révolté par l'injustice, forme absolue du désordre."
-- Henri Focillon, "Les Etats-Unis et l'Allemagne"
May 1940, published in Témoignage pour la France
(New York, 1945)
Even without having my hair blow heathcliffishly in the wind, I don't feel cut off by the ocean (that "oceanic solitude") from Europe. I feel Europe with force, France with the fervor of an ancient friendship. And continued admiration for its two greatest achievements: the dictee, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Today, by the way, despite a downpour, American war veterans in New England, who in the past had been honored by the French government, gathered for a ceremony organized by members of the French consulate, as part of an observance of the birthday of Lafayette. No doubt some hummed under their breath
Il pleut, il pleut, bergère,
rentre tes blancs moutons.
During the pluviose (climatologically, not calendrically, pluviose) --ceremony, however -- of this I have been assured -- the ghost of Henri Focillon hovered nearby, right at the pond where the swanboats are tethered. It is pleasant to think so.
Posted by: Hugh at May 19, 2007 10:09 PM
Let us not write France off. She has produced some formidable people in the past century.
Jacques Ellul (d. 1994) - Righteous Gentile, scholar and gadfly, friend and mentor of Bat Ye'or, defender of Israel at a time (the 1980s) and place - FRANCE, when defending Israel was not an act that would win you friends or influence people.
Olivier Messiaen - see his Quartet for the End of Time, composed - and first performed - in a Nazi concentration camp.
Brother Roger of Taize, founder of the Taize Community which has introduced thousands upon thousands of young people from Europe to the sheer ravishing beauty that is possible in Christian word and worship and Christian community. Those seeds sown have yet to burst into life. But they will - they will.
I am sure there are and will be others.
That said: right now France needs somebody like St Joan of Arc. Pray that God will deliver!
at May 19, 2007 10:33 PM
Sarkozy will do for now; Philippe de Villiers for later. Let's hope that Bernard Kouchner has changed his mind about Iraq, and that the impulse in France and other Western countries to regard them as NGOs is put paid to, permanently. Countries are not NGOs. Good is not what they are in the business of doing. They are supposed to inistruct and to protect us, and to recognize what is best in their own traditions and heritages, and to transmit that legacy (that transmission is what education, if it is to be more than mere vocational training, is all about), and also to make clear, in the Western case, why we are not merely different from, but superior to, everything in the lands ruled by Muslims, and for the sake of Islam. For not a single one of those who contributed to enlarging that cultural legacy of the Western world could, for one minute, have been produced by, or been tolerated by, Islam.
Posted by: Hugh at May 19, 2007 11:51 PM
Couldn't put it as elegantly as you,Hugh.
Remember fellow Infidels-UNITED WE STAND : DIVIDED WE FALL. More Allies we have,the better for this is a Global War.
Doesn't matter if we have to kiss Frenchies on both cheeks[as long as there's no 'mooning' involved],drink wine instead of beer or listen to an entire Maurice Chevalier repetoire to promote the Entente Cordiale...We need France,France needs us & lets hope this dynamic little fella Sarkozy is best combination of Charles Martel,Napoleon, with dash of Vlad the Impaler to frighten off the Turks...
at May 20, 2007 3:51 AM
jsla,
Division among non-Muslims has been a significant factor leading to their domination by Muslims. See, for example, Bat Ye'or's Islam and Dhimmitude. To vociferously reject all of France and everything French, as you do in your last post, may be a gratifyingly vituperative outlet for the emotions, but is it sound strategy? Venting anger through a high pressure firehose of rhetoric that on its surface is very intelligent yet blasts everything without intelligent distinction -- is there sense in doing that? Why throw out the good with the bad? You jettison too many potential allies among the French. Do you recall Jean Francois Revel? Weren't his books pretty good sellers in France and didn't those books pile heaps of criticism on French anti-Americanism? (Though the concern here is not exactly with anti-Americanism but with defense of the West in general against Jihad.) Why throw out French persons like Revel, or others of France who could be even stronger allies now or some day against Islamic supremacism? Your approach in the post above helps the enemy by fomenting division among non-Muslims who could be allies. Further, you will forgive the understatement in affirming that France has made, oh, one or two valuable contributions to Western culture, i.e., to who we are. That cultural power, whatever its weaknesses, should not be burned in bonfires of indiscriminate fury -- such as the rhetorical conflagration with which you envelop it. But the main point is, non-Muslims must hang together, or we'll all hang you-know-how. Criticism of the French is one thing, but what you were doing in the above post was much more than criticism. It was destructive of your own cause and I think of the cause of this website.
at May 20, 2007 4:50 AM
jsla forgets in his tirade, that America's ability to project its much vaunted strength has been such a sterling success.
Prolonging WW2 by a least a year, so Eisenhower could play at being a military commander and get himself voted President at the cost of god knows how many American lives.
Believing everything Stalin said, ensuring that half of Europe ended up Communist.
Failing to secure Korea.
Learning from the above and failing to secure Vietnam.
Learning from the above twice, and failing to secure Iraq.
I'm sure France is dying to become involved with these brilliantly successful military thinkers.
at May 20, 2007 6:38 AM
A country whose cinema can treat children with the delicacy and tenderness of "Etre et Avoir," "Ponette," and "Papillon" is not a country I think should be consigned to the outer darkness.
I think of Renoir and Monet toward the end of the 1860s, painting together at a dock in the earliest days of Impressionism, and how they captured, as no one had before, light playing on the water. Their brushstrokes not only achieved a revolutionary new standard of faithfulness to the fleeting, mobile character of visual perception; their strokes were imbued with the inner life of the artists, and transformed objects and landscapes into a delicate living script on the canvas, a speech or color dance more fluent than the things perceived, and unique to the artist. The Impressionists loaned their souls to the things, so that the things, through paint, could become movement and speech, could begin to speak, through expressive mobility, their secrets.
I remember Renoir's Boating Party and his Moulin de la Galette. And Monet's several paintings of Rouen Cathedral: example 1, example 2, or his sometimes impossibly beautiful haystacks:example 1, example 2, example 3, or his sunflowers.
at May 20, 2007 7:05 AM
France needs to reconcile with us. Not the other way around. France screwed us every which way they could from the start of all this. Frances hands are deeply stained by the Manure they played with.
If France ends it Appeasement policies towards the enemy, then we can say things have changed for the better. If not, then nothing has changed and never will.
France could take a more aggressive, pro Israeli posture in UNIFL. If your going to linger in the Kill Zone, it would be nice to know what side your going to die for.
France could preform an act of contrition for its involvement in the Iraqi Oil for Food program. Simply by restricting it's trade with Iran. Something like a no Food for Nukes Program would go a long way towards redemption.
Showing their "Youts" that Car Burning is no longer tolerated a Weekend Sport.
Posted by: flowerknife_us at May 20, 2007 7:12 AM
"You jettison too many potential allies among the French. " -traeh above.
Thank you, and perhaps the rhetoric was a tad overbroad or overboard, but no more so than the nauseating Francophilic flailings by many posters above.
Mr. Fitzgerald said:
"The E.U. bureaucracy is as hopelessly philo-islamic, anti-American, and anti-Israel as the U.N., and should simply be ignored."
And I responded:
"And why is that? One word: FRANCE.
France embodies everything that is wrong with Europe, with the EU. The EU is France. France is the EU.
France should not be reconciled with. To do so would simply perpetuate and welcome more of the same 'philo-Islamism', rank anti-Jew anti-Zionist anti-Americanism and bad French behavior we have consistently seen for more than a century. They are a nation and culture in its dotage, and they should not be indulged in their infantilisms.
Do a tiny minority of French men and women deplore the degeneration of their once mighty nation? I suspect so.
Would they join us in the fights we wage? Would they like to see France join rather than hamper every effort of the U.S. to prevail over darkness for the last Century? I suspect so.
But they, like the elusive "moderate" Muslim, are as whisps of clouds swept before a storm... Reconciling with them will be as effective as reconciling with the unicorns of "moderate Islam" -- nothing will ever come of it, and precious time will be squandered.
Reconciliation with France is all wet -- as bad a boondoggle as many other proposals made here by Mr. Fitzgerald from time to time. Taxing gas to the sky, as the Europeans do, supposedly to wean us off of Middle Eastern oil -- pluvious indeed.
The French have never come to terms with their utterly bungled revolution. Rather than facing the horrors which they unleashed, and coming to terms with the societal DNA which caused it, they have lurched for nearly 220 years from one catastrophe to the next. They industrialized warfare under their heinous proto-Hitler Napoleon -- (who they still worship) and set in motion many of the horrors which unfolded in the 20th Century.
As for their absolutely hollow "Declaration of the Rights of Man" -- they have never practiced or understood it.
As for their silly "dictee" -- dress it up however you may, caress it cringingly, adore it exponentially, it remains a cultural preservative I'd liken to formaldahyde -- it destroys and paralyzes all natural organic processes -- it preserves the form only, Form without function is meaningless -- the pathway to deadness. In this the French are modern masters.
at May 20, 2007 1:24 PM
Through my own laziness probably, I have not yet seen any coverage of the election that coherently explains what, if anything, the French public was thinking.
Are they actually reconsidering their attitude toward the US? The mohammedans? The jihaddis? The welfare state? Were they just put off by the idea of a woman running the country?
Really.
Anybody have any recommendations for reading material?
France has spent most of the last 60 years getting closer to the mohammedans and further from the US.
Is there some reason to believe that that might be changing in some way?
It's not impossible, but I wouldn't want to bet the farm.
Posted by: joeblough at May 20, 2007 10:09 PM
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