The Essence of the French and Norwegians

I had to record the old but best description of the French from The Simpsons via Wikipedia as spoken by Willie the groundskeeper.

cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys

I found it because I thought he was the one that called the Norwegians

salmon-eating, international busybodies

but apparently it was an aide to the president of Sri Lanka Chandrika Kumaratunga, a Mr. Samaraweera. See here and here.

Just as apropos.

QOTD: Pat Sajak

QOTD:Pat Sajak

The people there [in France] were so nice, I had almost forgotten a friend's advice upon my departure: "Be sure to drive on the left side in England. Do that in France, too, because you'll run over more French."

The Muslims in France

Thomas Friedman has an interesting observation in an otherwise forgettable article.

I spent Friday morning interviewing two 18-year-old French Muslim girls in the Paris immigrant district of St.-Ouen. (It is about a mile from the school where in March 2003 a French Muslim girl, who had refused the veil and rebuffed the advances of a Muslim boy, was thrown into a garbage can by three Muslim teenagers, who then tossed lighted cigarette butts into the can and closed the lid.)

Both girls I interviewed wore veils and one also wore a full Afghan-like head-to-toe covering; one was of Egyptian parents, the other of Tunisian parents, but both were born and raised in France. What did I learn from them? That they got all their news from Al Jazeera TV, because they did not believe French TV, that the person they admired most in the world was Osama bin Laden, because he was defending Islam, that suicide 'martyrdom' was justified because there was no greater glory than dying in defense of Islam, that they saw themselves as Muslims first and French citizens last, and that all their friends felt pretty much the same.

We were not in Kabul. We were standing outside their French public high school - a short ride from the Eiffel Tower.

Iran going nuclear (or... I hope Paris is now in range of the Shahab-3 and Shahab-4)

Caroline B. Glick on the scary situation with Iran going nuclear (or it might be called "I hope Paris is now in range of the Shahab-3 and Shahab-4").

The agreement that France, Germany and Britain reached with Iran this week signals that the diplomatic option of dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program no longer exists. To understand why this is the case, we must look into the agreement and understand what is motivating the various parties to accede to its conditions.

The agreement stipulates that the European-3 will provide Iran with light water reactor fuel, enhanced trade relations and more nuclear reactors. In exchange, the Iranians agree that for the duration of the negotiations toward implementing the agreement – including a European push for Iranian ascension to the World Trade Organization – it will not develop centrifuges and will not enrich uranium. At the same time, the Europeans accepted Iran's claim that it has the legal right to complete the entire nuclear fuel cycle – meaning, it has the legal right to enrich uranium. Strangely, in a separate Iranian agreement with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, the Iranians announced that they would cease enriching uranium effective Monday, November 22, rather than immediately. This apparently annoyed the Europeans, but it wasn't a deal breaker.

The Weekly Standard this week explained that light water reactor fuel of the type that the Europeans have agreed to give Iran can be used to produce bomb material within nine weeks. Since the IAEA inspectors only visit Iran every three months, it would be a simple matter to divert enough light water fuel to produce a bomb between inspections. And so, the agreement itself holds the promise of direct European assistance to Iran's nuclear weapons program.

While the Europeans were congratulating themselves for their feckless diplomacy, the Iranians were taking to the airwaves and arguing that they gave up nothing in the deal and received everything. Hamid Reza Asefi, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said the suspension of nuclear activities would last only until Iran and the Europeans reached a long-term agreement. For his part, Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani said that enriching uranium is "Iran's right, and Iran will never give up its right to enrich uranium."

Iran's interest in making the deal is clear. The IAEA governing board is set to meet next week to discuss Iran's nuclear program. By agreeing to the deal with the Europeans, Iran has effectively foreclosed the option, favored by the US, of transferring Iran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council for discussions that could lead to sanctions on Iran.

Aside from that, all along, Iran has been gaming the system. It has pushed to the limits all feasible interpretation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, of which it is a signatory, to enable it to reach the cusp of nuclear weapons development without breaking its ties or diminishing its leverage over the Europeans as well as the Russians and Chinese. In so doing, it has isolated the US and Israel – which have both gone on record that Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons – from the rest of the international community, which is ready to enable Iran to achieve nuclear weapons capabilities.

In the meantime, as Iran has negotiated the deal with the Europeans, it has moved quickly to develop its nuclear weapons delivery systems. Its recent Shihab-3 ballistic missiles tests seem to have demonstrated that Iran can now launch missiles to as far away as Europe. In addition, last week's launching of an Iranian drone, as well as this week's Katyusha rocket attacks on northern Israel, have shown that Iran has developed a panoply of delivery options for using its nuclear (as well as chemical and biological) arsenals to physically destroy Israel.

For their part, the European powers must know that this deal is a lie. The ink had not dried on their signatures when Iran announced that it wasn't obligated by the agreement to end its uranium enrichment. As well, on Wednesday, just two days after the deal was announced formally, the Iranian opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance – the political front for the People's Mujahedeen (which the deal stipulates must be treated as a terrorist organization comparable to al-Qaida) – held press conferences in Paris and Vienna where its representatives stated that Iran is continuing to enrich uranium at a Defense Ministry facility in Teheran and that it bought blueprints for nuclear bombs three years ago from Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan's nuclear bomb store. The Council of Resistance is the same organization that blew the whistle on Iran's nuclear program in 2002, when it exposed satellite imagery of Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz.

Aside from this, European leaders themselves have said that in their view there is no military option for taking out Iran's nuclear facilities. In an interview with the BBC this week, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said, "I don't see any circumstances in which military action would be justified against Iran, full stop." Straw made this statement the same week that French President Jacques Chirac made an all-out diplomatic assault against British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his alliance with US President George W. Bush. Speaking to British reporters on Monday, Chirac said, "Britain gave its support [to the US in Iraq] but I did not see much in return. I am not sure that it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favors." Chirac added that he had told Blair that his friendship with Bush could be of use if the US adopted the EU position on Israel and the Palestinians. Since Bush has refused to do so, Chirac argued, Bush has played Blair for a fool.

From these statements, two things about the European agenda become clear. First, by bringing Britain into the talks with Iran, the French have managed to ensure that the Americans, if they decide to do something about Iran's nuclear weapons programs, will be forced to act without British backing and at the expense of the British government, thus causing a serious fissure in the Anglo-American alliance. Straw's statement is breathtaking in that it shows that on the issue of Iranian nuclear weapons, the British prefer to see Iran gain nuclear weapons to having anyone act to prevent them from doing so.

Chirac's statement exposes, once again, France's main interest in international affairs today. To wit: France wishes only to box in the US to the point that the Americans will not be able to continue to fight the war against terrorism. The French do this not because they necessarily like terrorists. They do this because as Chirac has said many times, he views the central challenge of our time as developing a "multipolar" world. France's obsession with multipolarity stems from Chirac's perception that his country's primary aim is not to free the world from Islamic terror, but to weaken the US.

Given this state of affairs, it is clear that the newest deal with the mullahs has removed diplomacy from the box of tools that can be used against Iran. In the unlikely event that the issue is ever turned over to the Security Council, France will veto sanctions even if Russia and China could be bought off to abstain. As the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal has shown, even if sanctions were to be levied, there is no credible way to enforce them.

So where does this leave the Jews who, in the event that Iran goes nuclear, will face the threat of annihilation? Crunch time has arrived. It is time for Israel's leaders to go to Washington and ask the Americans point blank if they plan to defend Europe as Europe defends Iran's ability to attain the wherewithal to destroy the Jewish state. It must be made very clear to the White House that the hour of diplomacy faded away with the European Trio's latest ridiculous agreement with the mullahs. There is no UN option. Europe has cast its lot with the enemy of civilization itself.

The prevailing wisdom in Washington these days seems to be that the US is waiting for an Israeli attack on Iran. There is some logic to such a policy. No doubt, the Arabs and the Iranians will all blame America anyway, but they are not America's chief concern here. Britain and Germany are.

What the US needs is plausible deniability regarding an Israeli strike vis- -vis Britain and Germany, in order to get itself out of the trap that Paris has set for it. An Israeli strike against the Iranian nuclear program will leave Germany in an uncomfortable public position. Berlin cannot condemn the Jews for doing what we can to prevent another Holocaust without losing whatever crumbs of moral credibility it has built up over the past 50 years.

As for Britain, if Israel were to conduct the attack on its own, the British would be hard-pressed to abandon the Americans; thus, the danger that British involvement with the Paris-based multipolarists on Iran will breach the Anglo-American alliance could be somewhat mitigated.

On the other hand, if the Bush administration does not accept Israeli reasoning, the fact will still remain: Israel cannot accept a nuclear Iran.

Weasel Watch

Best of the Web quotes The Jerusalem Post. But their comment on the situation is the funniest...

Several French municipalities governed by communist and left-wing majorities are considering naming a street or a square after Yasser Arafat," the Jerusalem Post reports. In fairness, we should note that the French are far from unanimous:

The French police intelligence service, Renseignements Generaux, reportedly warned the Ministry of Interior that such initiatives might trigger heated polemics and tensions between Jews and Muslims, especially neighborhoods ridden by ethnic violence.

Somehow this reminds us of that joke about how Germans like to march in the shade.

How the French say NO

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109873983580655070,00.html?mod=opinion

The Economist recently asked the French foreign minister, Michel Barnier, whether French troops might go to Iraq if Mr. Kerry were president. "Never," he said flatly.

QOTD: Joe Biden on the French

What Would Kerry Do in Iraq?

As for our other cherished European allies, Mr. [Senator Joe] Biden had this to say: "In the 30 years I've been a senator, there is very seldom an initiative that is generated from the European community to take action on almost anything."

Why al-Qaeda Will Dominate the European Union

Why al-Qaeda Will Dominate the European Union

By Pavel Kohout
http://www.techcentralstation.com/100704G.html

In a few decades, radical Islam will ultimately dominate the European Union,
and perhaps most of the world. It has already become a dominant force in the
UN, which is reflected in the results of voting against Israel's anti-terrorist
barrier. In this respect, we should note that the widespread usage of the word
"wall" is itself a small victory of anti-Israeli propaganda, since 93 percent
of the barrier consists of a fence that can be quickly removed once the
Palestinian authorities manage to restrain the terrorists' activity.

The first reason extreme Islam will prevail is the intellectual advantage that
al-Qaeda leaders have over western European politicians. The latter want to
believe that there is no clash of civilizations; that terrorism is just a
product of misery and lack of education; that the solution lies in a
multicultural, tolerant society; and that the stubbornness of the Americans and
Israelis is to blame for all the problems.

What naïveté. An editorial in the March issue of Mu'askar al-Battar (an
al-Qaeda newsletter) sets these fantasies right: "The war of cultures had begun
long before the 9/11 attacks, before Huntington and Fukuyama. This war has been
going on since there first were the faithful and the unfaithful." We might cite
dozens of similar statements. The European leaders who still doubt the validity
of Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory are kidding themselves. The
leaders of Islamic radicals are fanatics, but they are intelligent fanatics.

The second reason is the unification of foreign policy in the EU. In the UN,
all member states of the European Union dutifully voted against Israel as a
flock of sheep under the leadership of France. France is home to millions of
Muslims, who are a decisive factor in its domestic politics. Their opinions,
strongly influenced by radical Islamic propaganda, shape the French, and
consequently also European foreign policy. The growth in the Muslim population
makes French policy visibly more and more pro-Arab, pro-Islam, and anti-Israel.
Also weighing heavily in European (not just French) politics is oil. The
corrupt relationships between governments and oil companies are a well-known
fact. Take the story of Elf Aquitaine, for instance. This is why European
leaders literally lick the boots of Arab dictators. Just remember Romano Prodi
kowtowing before Muammar Quadafi. But only the common foreign policy together
with the adoption of the European Constitution will allow radical Islamists to
pull the strings of all European foreign ministers at once.

France is capable of arranging a new 1938 Munich Agreement not just for Israel
but also for itself. Its policy is a combination of servility towards the
strong and ruthlessness towards the weak. France is capable of leading a brave
attack against schoolgirls wearing headscarves, but never against Hamas or the
Islamic Jihad. The Palais d'Elysée probably judges that it is better to be on
friendly terms with those movements. But a perverse tolerance of terrorists can
be traced elsewhere. Belgium, for instance, offered a generous asylum to Khalil
al-Nawawreh, the murderer of several Israelis who was a member of the gang
occupying the Nativity Church in the spring 2002. The terrorist received a
monthly payment of Â?4,000, free housing and a complete liberty. He paid Belgium
back by robbing a post office using an explosive.

The third reason is an advantage of the Islamic society in terms of evolution:
a high birthrate. This is typical for all Islamic territories from Albania to
Zanzibar. The Darwinian advantage lies in the absence of feminism and respect
for family values. One of the incontestable Islamic virtues is the duty to take
care of the old and sick in the family. Muslims hold the Europeans -- who send
their elderly to institutions -- in contempt.

The welfare state in the EU nourishes the illusion in people that the state
will take care of them when they retire. Thus, people do not try to have
children to look after them in the old age. The European welfare state is
immensely expensive. Europeans are now obliged to pay higher taxes than they
have ever had in the past 1,500 years or so. And where does the collected money
go? In some European countries, the amount of farming subsidies per calf
exceeds the amount of social benefits distributed per child. What are the
chances of survival of a civilization which values calves more than children?

This particular clash of two civilizations -- the West and radical Islam --
cannot be resolved the "European" way: through negotiations, efforts to reach
consensus, and tolerance. The only consensus acceptable for radical Islam is
its dominance in Europe. The word "Islam" means "surrender", literally
translated. Any tolerance towards terrorism actually means surrender. The best
option for a peaceful co-existence of civilizations is mutual respect. But if
the respect cannot be mutual, is it respect or surrender?

The author is an associate of the Center for Economics and Politics (CEP), Prague.

Ahh, the French...

Claudia Rosett on corruption in the UN Oil for Food Program

...in the modern world, the notion that Russia and China in no way qualify as banana republics might be news to the state-muffled media of both countries. It might also surprise readers of the Berlin-based Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks 133 countries by levels of corruption, from best to worst. On that list, China ranks about halfway down, worse than Colombia or Peru and tied for 66th place with Panama, Sri Lanka and Syria. Russia does worse yet, ranked between Romania and Algeria, and tied for 86th place with Mozambique.

France does much better. Though it ranks as more corrupt than the U.S., Israel or Japan, it ties with Spain for a still respectable 23rd place. That makes France one of the most corrupt countries not in the entire world, but merely in Western Europe.

Even the French

Nonie Darwish on France and the Islamists

Even after 9/11, many in the West and the UN are still finding excuses for terrorism. Even the Arab's best friends, the French, thought they will get special treatment from terrorists by selling out the U.S. and supporting Saddam Hussein. But in the eyes of the terrorists the French were always just temporary friends until the right time came to strike, one enemy at a time.

Is France on the way to becoming an Islamic state?

Is France on the way to becoming an Islamic state?
By Barbara Amiel

France is facing the problem that dare not speak its name. Though French law prohibits the census from any reference to ethnic background or religion, many demographers estimate that as much as 20-30 per cent of the population under 25 is now Muslim. The streets, the traditional haunt of younger people, now belong to Muslim youths. In France, the phrase "les jeunes" is a politically correct way of referring to young Muslims.

Given current birth rates, it is not impossible that in 25 years France will have a Muslim majority. The consequences are dynamic: is it possible that secular France might become an Islamic state?

The situation is not dissimilar elsewhere in the EU. Europeans may at some young point in the 21st century have to decide whether they wish to retain the diluted but traditional Judaeo-Christian culture of their minority or have it replaced by the Islamic culture of the majority.

In theory, the cultural and legal assimilation of Europe's Muslims would be the ideal. This was supposed to be the notion behind the vision of the French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, of a "French church of Islam" with homegrown imams.

But knowledgeable observers say his "moderate" Council of Muslims has made radical Islam the government-sanctioned norm for all Muslims.

For Islamists, assimilation is contamination since, in Professor Bernard Lewis's words, "Muslims must not sojourn in the land of the infidel". Intermarriage should be another route to assimilation, though in France this usually involves an Islamic male and often the wife converts to Islam.

Meanwhile, the state of Christendom in France is perilous. Catholics may not have reached the secular nirvana of the Church of England's working party that declared the Sunday Sabbath redundant, but French Catholicism, except for little pools of the faithful, is taken with the notion that their Church will be borne forward only if the next Pope is ready to "dialogue" with Islam - a code word that augurs dilution of the faith.

Currently, Islamists are only a fraction of France's Muslim population. In last week's demonstrations against the headscarf law, only 20,000 people turned out. But as in all radical movements, the young are the driving force. As their numbers increase, the militancy of Islam is likely to increase as well.

Europe's chickens are coming home to roost. ...

European countries are not organically immigrant societies. The groups that went to America in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries did so specifically to become Americans. They wanted to shed their past and, within a generation, they did. America's emphasis today on faith and God is just an echo of the founding Pilgrims for whom Christianity was central.

Their beliefs were reinforced by many Christian groups, from Baptists to Mennonites, all in search of religious freedom. These founding fathers decreed separation of church and state, not to make sure the nation was secular, as in France, but to make sure no state religion could interfere with religious freedom.

European countries have none of this melting-pot principle. You cannot become German or Italian with the same ease with which you become American. Also, into this very different European environment came a very different sort of immigrant - people who had no interest in assimilation at all.

They came as settlers, wanting to establish their own communities; at best they favoured a merger - at worst, a takeover. Their approach was nurtured by notions of multiculturalism, a creed appealing to intellectuals, administrators and enforcers, but having almost zero appeal to the home population.

The cultural abrasions that developed, especially between the rapidly growing Muslim community and the French, became the problem that could not be talked about. All respectable political parties, journalists and academics felt it too volatile and far too politically incorrect. The field was abandoned to extreme Right-wingers and nativists who, by default, established the unpleasant tone of the debate and became exclusive owners of a subject affecting the whole nation.

In the absence of openness, the government's response was a cover-up - or, rather, an uncovering: to outlaw Muslim headscarves, shave beards worn for reasons of faith, or ban crucifixes if too large. In Britain, some school Nativity plays were forbidden.

There seemed to be a genuine belief among governments that they could solve this problem by violating Western traditions of religious freedom and by outlawing their own cultural traditions. Far from alleviating the situation, this only aggravated it. Worse, it gave fodder to the extreme Right.

Tribal friction has only two solutions: groups will either unite in the manner of Normans and Saxons, melding into a society that may have different religious practices but subscribes to the same laws and values - in which case headscarves, beards and demographics don't matter a fig. Or they will follow the pattern of warring tribes throughout history.

Let's Hear It for the Czechs

The Czech's understand the present situation in the Middle East better than anyone in Europe. Why?

Exactly two thirds of a century ago the British and French governments forced Czechoslovakia to give up territory that Germany considered to be "occupied." A few months later, Germany wiped Czechoslovakia entirely off the map.

British and French leaders thought appeasement would protect them from Germany's wrath, saving them from having to fight a terrorist state. Once he got this Czech territory, German leader Adolf Hitler explained, he would have no more demands and would get along just fine with the British and French. They believed him. They were wrong.

But they also justified their behavior in terms of human rights and charity to the weaker side. After all, the land Czechoslovakia was forced to yield was inhabited by ethnic Germans. Berlin's demand to rule those citizens could be portrayed as reasonable. Also, Germany had been humiliated a few years before, in World War I, so it was only trying to regain national pride and reacting against its mistreatment by the victors.

Obviously, the analogy with the current situation can be easily overdone and I certainly don't believe the outcome will be the same. Still, it might be useful if people thought through this comparison. Certainly, the Czechs have done so.

That is why the Czech Republic can be considered Europe's most pro-Israel state. After a half-century experience of Nazi and communist rule, Czechs don't evince romanticism toward radical ideologies, respect dictators, tolerate propaganda, or suffer from illusions about rationalizing terrorism.

They can tell the difference between a fence to stop terrorists and the Iron Curtain wall that not long ago crossed their own country where those trying to flee were shot down. They also know the consequences of inciting against Jews, no matter how such accusations are falsely glorified as progressive or dishonestly rationalized as deserved.

Their own capital, Prague, is more crowded than any in Europe with Jewish ghosts in its old, little-changed Jewish Quarter. They know, too, their country's best-known writer, Franz Kafka, was a remarkable voice for that people's unique situation. If you talk to a Czech about ignorant, craven leaders trading off the rights of a far-off land of which they know little, he recognizes this as a paraphrase of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain's remark about their country when he was selling it out.

With Allies Like These Who Needs Enemies?

These are still allies? WP via Stone.

Aziz has told interrogators that French and Russian intermediaries repeatedly assured Hussein during late 2002 and early this year that they would block a U.S.-led war through delays and vetoes at the U.N. Security Council. Later, according to Aziz, Hussein concluded after private talks with French and Russian contacts that the United States would probably wage a long air war first, as it had done in previous conflicts. By hunkering down and putting up a stiff defense, he might buy enough time to win a cease-fire brokered by Paris and Moscow. [Emphasis mine]

Europeans are worse than cockroaches

Mark Steyn levels the guns and fires with all guns blazing!

There is a Cold War between the US and the EU, says Mark Steyn, and it will
end with the collapse of Old Europe
by Mark Steyn

Here’s a round-up of recent items from the world’s press you may have
missed: Item 1: In the last two weeks, two Toronto-bound El Al flights had to be
diverted to other airports after credible terrorist threats were made about using
surface-to-air missiles against them. The Canadian transport minister, David
Collenette, responded by suggesting that the Israeli airline’s service to
Pearson International Airport might be ended.

Item 2: The Baghdad hotel in which Paul Wolfowitz was staying was blown up.
Several people were killed, though the US deputy defence secretary emerged
unscathed. Much of the death and destruction was caused by French 68mm missiles
‘in pristine condition’, according to one US officer who inspected the rocket
tubes and assembly. In other words, they’re not rusty leftovers Saddam had lying
around from the 1980s. The Baathist dictatorship had acquired these missiles
from the French rather more recently.

Item 3: According to Le Nouvel Observateur, ‘D’après un questionnaire de la
Commission Européenne, 59% des Européens pensent qu’Israël est le pays le plus
menaçant pour la paix dans le monde.’

Item 4: In the Guardian, Tariq Ali ended this week’s column on the mounting
American (and NGO) death toll in Iraq thus: ‘Iraqis have one thing of which
they can be proud and of which British and US citizens should be envious: an
opposition’.

On 11 September 2001, I wrote that one of the casualties of the day’s events
would be the Western alliance: ‘The US taxpayer’s willingness to pay for the
defence of Canada and Europe has contributed to the decay of America’s
so-called “allies”, freeing them to disband their armed forces, flirt with dictators
and gangster states, and essentially convert themselves to semi-non-aligned.’
‘The West’ was an obsolete concept, because, as I put it later that month,
for everyone but America ‘the free world is mostly a free ride’. [Emphasis mine!]

Two years on, most governments, at least officially, and most commentators,
at least in the mainstream press, still don’t believe the relationship between
America and its ‘allies’ is in a terminal state. But the above quartet of
stories — and you can find equivalent items any week — illustrates why it can’t
be put back together.

One: Mr Collenette’s response to terrorists is to take it out on their
targets. Terrorists are threatening to use SAMs against El Al? No problem, we’ll get
rid of El Al. That’s a great message to send. How soon before similar threats
are phoned in to similarly jelly-spined jurisdictions in Europe? Pretty soon
El Al won’t be flying anywhere. But no matter: Air Canada and Air France and
Lufthansa will still be flying to Tel Aviv — at least until a couple of
anonymous phone calls are made hinting at fresh targets.

The threats against El Al came via phone calls from the Toronto area from
terrorists claiming to have heat-seeking missiles. Police subsequently found a
cache of weapons including a German-made shoulder rocket launcher that was
smuggled into Canada through the ingenious method of dropping it in the mail and
letting the Post Office deliver it. So there are two approaches to this problem:
you can crack down on Toronto-based terrorist cells and try to get government
agencies not to deliver their rocket launchers; or you can ban El Al. Mr
Collenette inclines to the latter. This is a man, by the way, who marked the first
anniversary of 11 September by publicly regretting the fall of the Soviet
Union because now there is nobody to check America’s ‘bullying’.

Lesson: In the war on terror, the United States believes in pre-emption;
Canada, like many other ‘allies’, believes in pre-emptive surrender. These two
strategies are incompatible.

Two: Just suppose that one of those French rockets had killed Paul Wolfowitz.
One of the greatest fictions of the interminable debate on Euro-American
differences over Iraq is that it’s an argument about the means, not the end. If
only Bush had been a little less Texan, less arrogant, less bullying, if only
he’d been less impatient and willing to put in the hours, he could have brought
the French and Germans round. After all, everyone agrees Saddam Hussein is a
very bad man.

Not the French and Germans. There’s too much evidence suggesting the main
reason they were unable to join the Bush side in this war is that they’d already
signed on to the other team and they’d decided, in the sort of ghastly
vernacular the cretinous Yanks would use, to dance with them what brung you. They’re
being admirably consistent about this: at the recent Madrid conference France
and Germany both refused to pony up one single euro to Iraqi reconstruction.
It was never about the means, only the end.

Lesson: America and ‘Old Europe’ have different objectives in Iraq, and
those objectives are incompatible.

Three: 59 per cent of Europeans think Israel is the biggest threat to world
peace. Only 59 per cent? What’s wrong with the rest of you? But, hey, don’t
worry. In Britain, it’s 60 per cent; Germany, 65 per cent; Austria, 69 per cent;
the Netherlands, 74 per cent. The good news is that Israel won’t be a threat
to world peace much longer, at least not if Iran’s nuclear programme carries
on running rings around the International Atomic Energy Agency and the
ayatollahs fulfil their pledge to solve the problem of the Zionist Entity once and for
all.

Let us leave for another day the question of whether Israel is actually a
bigger global menace than North Korea, which has hung a big shingle on the street
saying ‘Nukes? We Got ’Em! And You Won’t Believe Our Prices!’ The fact is
that 11 September bound America to Israel in ways that oblige Washington to
regard European distaste for Jews as more than a mere social faux pas. Given the
rate of Islamic immigration to Europe, those anti-Israeli numbers are heading
in only one direction. At present demographic rates, by 2020 the majority of
children in Holland — i.e., the population under 18 — will be Muslim. What do
you figure that 74 per cent will be up to by then? Eighty-five per cent?
Ninety-six per cent? If Americans think it’s difficult getting the Continentals on
side now, wait another decade. In that sense, the Israelis are the canaries in
the coalmine.

Lesson: America’s and Europe’s world views have diverged significantly, and
those world views are now incompatible.

Four: Tariq Ali may not be the most representative political commentator, but
it’s still quite something to find the house journal of the United Kingdom’s
leftie establishment printing the assertion that Americans and Britons can
only envy the vigour of the Iraqi ‘opposition’. So that’s what Iain Duncan
Smith was doing wrong! He should have been loading up ambulances with rockets and
firing them into hospitals. That’s the way to draw attention to the problems
of the NHS.

The other day I accidentally referred to Tariq Ali as Tariq Aziz and within
minutes had a little flurry of emails from correspondents sneering that
evidently all these guys sound alike to me. Well, I wouldn’t say that. But Tariq Ali
and Tariq Aziz are sounding very much alike. In fact, T. Ali sounds more
Baathist than T. Aziz these days. When I was in the Sunni Triangle, I met many
Iraqis who were grateful to the Americans; some who wanted a more visible US
presence on the ground, a few who resented the infidel occupier — but not one who
was as gung-ho for the Saddamite holdouts and Syrian and Iranian opportunists
as Tariq Ali. For him, and for Mr Collenette, and for Goran Persson and Nelson
Mandela and many many others, even on 11 September, the issue was never
terrorism; the issue was always America.

Lesson: Washington and Europe do not agree on the problem, so they’re hardly
likely to agree on the solution.

Tariq and co. are right to this extent: in the scheme of things, it’s not
about Islamic terrorism. The Islamist goal is a planet on which their enemies are
either dead or Muslim converts. That’s not going to happen. But Islamism is
sufficiently disruptive to rupture permanently the old ‘Western alliance’. A
lot of things have been said on both sides, but what’s impressive about the
Europeans is the palpable desire for America to fail, and Bush to fall.

I can’t see that happening. On election day next November, the Democrats have
no chance of taking back the House of Representatives and they’re all but
certain to lose seats in the Senate. Bush is likely to be re-elected: with that
7.2 per cent growth in GDP, it’s hard even for the BBC to keep pretending
America’s in the middle of some sort of recession; and whatever happens in Iraq
it’s difficult to see the Democrats, running on a foreign policy of Cut & Run,
being the beneficiaries. But the trouble with a war on terror is that the
victories go unreported — the plotters who get foiled, the bombers who don’t make
it through. All you hear about are the defeats. Let’s say there’s a terrorist
attack in the US in the next 12 months and it kills several hundred people.
On the one hand, you could argue that this shows the soundness of Bush’s
judgment in making terrorism the priority of his administration. On the other, you
could argue that this proves he never learnt the lessons of the failures of 11
September. Knowing the American media, I’d bet on the latter line being the
one they settle on.

But other than that, the arguments over the next few years are going to be
between conservatives — between those who think it is worth pushing on with an
ambitious programme to bring the Middle East within the non-deranged world, and
those who figure that’s doomed to fail and we should settle for something
less. This project is in the national interest of the United States but, in the
end, the fate of the world’s hyperpower does not hinge on it.

Now let’s turn back to Europe. The Telegraph’s Adam Nicolson got irritated
the other day because Denis Boyles of America’s National Review had dismissed
the Europeans as ‘cockroaches’. Boyles is wrong. The Europeans are not
cockroaches. The cockroach is the one creature you can rely on to come crawling out
of the rubble of the nuclear holocaust. Whereas the one thing that can be said
with absolute confidence is that the Europeans will not emerge from under
their own rubble.

Europe is dying. As I’ve pointed out here before, it can’t square rising
welfare costs, a collapsed birthrate and a manpower dependent on the world’s
least skilled, least assimilable immigrants. In 20 years’ time, as those Dutch
Muslim teenagers are entering the voting booths, European countries, unlike parts
of Nigeria, will not be living under Sharia, but they will be reaching their
accommodations with their radicalised Islamic compatriots, who like many
intolerant types are expert at exploiting the ‘tolerance’ of pluralist societies.

How happy what’s left of the ethnic Dutch or French or Danes will be about
this remains to be seen. But the idea of a childless Europe rivalling America
militarily or economically is laughable. Sometime this century there will be 500
million Americans, and what’s left in Europe will either be very old or very
Muslim. That’s the Europe that Britain will be binding its fate to. Japan
faces the same problem: in 2006, its population will begin an absolute decline, a
death spiral it will be unlikely ever to climb out of. Will Japan be an
economic powerhouse if it’s populated by Koreans and Filipinos? Possibly. Will
Germany if it’s populated by Algerians? That’s a trickier proposition.

Last Sunday, recalling the US–Soviet summits that helped ‘ease the tensions
of the Cold War’, the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman proposed we hold
regular US-Franco-German summits. Implicit in that analysis is the assumption that
France and perhaps other Continental countries now exist in a quasi-Cold War
with America. If that’s so, the trick is to manage the relationship until the
Europeans, like the Soviets, collapse. Europe is dying, and it’s only a
question of whether it goes peacefully or through convulsions of violence. On that
point, I bet on form.

The Significance of Death

NYT article carries this great quote.

Hilary had just completed a college semester in Paris where she sampled nihilism served up with espresso at doily-size tables, and was moved to generalize about the difference between the French national mood she had experienced and the Israeli one. In France nothing matters because we will all die anyway, she said. In Israel everything matters for the same reason.

The Tutsi Genocide

An astounding article on the Hutu massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda, covering the genocide, the racial hatred and incitement, the dehumanization of the Tutsis by the Hutus, the planned depravity, and the Hutu indifference to the genocide. It is estimated today that at least 1.1 million people were killed in the 13 weeks starting April 7, 1994 in Rwanda. These were primarily Tutsis along with a few "uncooperative" Hutus. The French and the Belgians abandoned them and withdrew their troops. Kofi Anan, today's UN Secretary General, was warned that the Hutus were planning genocide, did nothing about it, and tried to cover up the evidence that he knew about it. The fax sent to him even stated evidence that one Hutu militia group of 40 men could kill 1000 Tutsis in 20 minutes.

A fascinating sidenote is that the Tutsis strongly identify with the Jews and Israel, knowing what happened in the Holocaust. They are waiting for their own Schindler's List and their own Spielberg. One Tutsi said (in a rough translation from the French), "I have a dream; it is of going to Israel, because it is the only country where people knew the same history as me and, like me also, they are surrounded by enemies."

French Breakdown

USS Clueless has a letter from France describing the current union strike over a mild change in the pension laws. He includes an even more worrisome letter.

The institutional problem is that France is no longer a democracy, or at least a normally functioning democracy. There is an unofficial fourth branch of government – the labor unions – who in effect legislate by paralyzing the country with strikes in key areas of public service (education, transportation, etc.) until the government gives in to their demands.

...The balance of power has shifted away from representative government to the street, with a resulting gross inequality of treatment among different labor groups in the public and private sector, based solely on their nuisance ability.

...Whereas Americans have a natural suspicion towards state control and power, the French exalt it. They all rely on the State for everything and demand everything of the State.

...French social and political choices are also driven, I believe, by the fact that it is a "low-trust" society, to use Fukuyama's terminology. The entire social organization is based on lack of ability to rely on others coupled with little sense of individual obligation to the "other"; hence, the necessity to have "rights" guaranteed in the form of State enforced legislation.

...I think this point also goes a long way towards explaining the recent misunderstanding between France and the U.S. regarding Security Council Resolution 1441 on Iraqi compliance with inspection requirements. The French routinely disregard international treaties. For example, they have the worst record in the European Union on implementation of EU Directives. Their signature on the Kyoto Accords or on the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court is basically meaningless – ie, "for show" only – since they know that if one of their own gets into a bind, they will simply ignore the treaty.

Thus, the French may be genuinely surprised that the Americans might feel betrayed by their double cross on the UNSC resolution regarding Iraq. They may simply not have felt that, in the absence of any real requirement of compliance with their prior "word", they had entered into any serious obligation to be consistent. The same applies to their refusal to allow NATO to provide advance protection to Turkey: again, they do not share the same sense of obligation.

Well worth reading.

French Shari'a Watch

Thanks to LGF for the title and this article.

* Students, who are no longer content with simple headscarves, are showing up at classes and exams with veils [and burqas]. They refuse to show their faces to men for identity checks and demand that women carry out this task.

* Some female students refuse to speak in language classes, even at the request of the professor, under the pretext that the Koran considers the act of using their voices to be immodest for women.

* A professor of Near Eastern contemporary history was told by some students that she did not have the right to quote or interpret the Koran during her classes. Their argument was that she is not a Muslim and therefore cannot talk about the holy book.

* The rising number of such events shows an intensification of Islamist acts that go beyond proselytization and veiled or open threats to students. They indicate a religiously oriented opposition to the contents of university courses, which are constitutionally protected in France.

* A 25-year-old Muslim student who arrived from an Arab country last year is flabbergasted by the problems encountered in France. "I've traveled 1,700 km so I don't have to see these people. And now I find them in Paris. It's crazy." he says.