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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 4-Oct-04
After a month, the French hostage crisis is becoming a major humiliation.

Web Log - October, 2004

After a month, the French hostage crisis is becoming a major humiliation.

If you enjoy schadenfreude, then you'll like this French farce, where French mediators tried to blame American forces for hostages' captivity.

The French, who have never missed an occasion to gloat over American difficulties in Iraq, are now learning a little more about the real world.

When the two French journalists were taken hostage in Iraq in early September, it appeared that France would turn this painful incident into an international diplomatic coup.

French Muslims immediately united overwhelmingly behind a new law restricting obvious religious symbols, including Muslim headscarves, in public schools. The terrorists had initially demanded repeal of the law as a condition for release of the hostages.

International Muslim leaders condemned the terrorist act and demanded the release of the French hostages.

Today, the incident is even more painful, since the hostages' lives are still at stake, and because a month of failed diplomacy has been capped by a farcical scandal.

Last week, a private negotiating team led by a French MP went to Iraq to free the hostages. (It sounds like something that Jesse Jackson or Jimmy Carter would do here in America.) On Friday, they called and said that they were "with the hostages," that they were negotiating, and that release was imminent.

Then Europe was stunned when the MP called a press conference in Damascus and said that the negotiations had collapsed because a convoy carrying the hostages to freedom in Syria had come under attack from American armed forces. The only problem was that both French and US authorities said that there was no evidence to support the MP's claims. It was evidently a lie.

This is big news in France because it smells of a cover-up. President Jacques Chirac is distancing himself from the entire affair, claiming he didn't even know it was going on, even though the MP is in Chirac's own party. However, the lead story in Monday's Le Monde provides a detailed timeline of the entire effort, and purports to show that Chirac knew about the whole effort all along.

As is well-known, France has been the leading opponent to America's involvement in Iraq, and has opposed every American initiative to gain help and cooperation from the United Nations or the European Union to provide security and help rebuilding in Iraq. The French evidently believed that by opposing America they would be immune to attacks by Islamic terrorists.

Thus, this weekend's fiasco is a humiliation to the French not only because it highlights France's own exposure to Islamic terrorism, but also because of the heavy-handed attempt to blame America with the phony story.

But it's even worse than that for the French.

Last week, two Italian aid workers were freed after they had been captured in Iraq and held as hostages for three weeks. Italy, of course, is cooperating with America in Iraq, and so the freeing of the Italian hostages while the French hostages are still in captivity is a direct slap in the face to the French.

What the French don't understand -- and indeed, what Americans and most other people don't understand -- is that hostage-taking has nothing to do with support for Iraq in most cases. Islamic terrorist groups are determined to use hostage-taking and other terrorist acts to spark a new "clash of civilizations" world war, and those attempts will continue until they succeed. (4-Oct-04) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 4-Oct-04 After a month, the French hostage crisis is becoming a major humiliation.

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 4-Oct-04
After a month, the French hostage crisis is becoming a major humiliation.