Londonistan

[Leon]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=18728

Weak Brits, Tough French
By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 12, 2005



Thanks to the war in Iraq, much of the world sees the British government as resolute and tough, the French one as appeasing and weak. But in another war, the one against terrorism and radical Islam, the reverse is true: France is the most stalwart nation in the West, even more so than the United States, while Great Britain is the very most hapless. Consider:

Counterterrorism. U.K.-based terrorists have carried out operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, Morocco, Russia, Spain, and the United States. Many governments – Jordanian, Egyptian, Moroccan, Spanish, French, and American – have protested London’s refusal to shut down its Islamist terrorist infrastructure or extradite wanted operatives. In frustration, Egyptian president Husni Mubarak publicly denounced Britain for “protecting killers.” One American security group has called for Britain to be listed as a terrorism-sponsoring state.

Counterterrorism specialists disdain the British. Roger Cressey calls London “easily the most important jihadist hub in Western Europe.” Steven Simon dismisses the British capital as “the Star Wars bar scene” of Islamic radicals. More brutally, an intelligence official said of last week’s attacks: “The terrorists have come home. It is payback time for … an irresponsible policy.”

While London hosts terrorists, Paris hosts a top-secret counterterrorism center, code-named Alliance Base, whose existence was just revealed by the Washington Post, where six major Western governments since 2002 share intelligence and run counterterrorism operations. (The latter makes it unique.)

More broadly, President Jacques Chirac instructed French intelligence agencies just days after 9/11 to share terrorism data with their U.S. counterparts “as if they were your own service.” This cooperation is working: former acting CIA director John E. McLaughlin calls this bilateral intelligence tie “one of the best in the world.” The British may have a “special relationship” with Washington in Iraq, but the French have one in the war on terror.

France accords terrorist suspects fewer rights than any other Western state, permitting interrogation without a lawyer, lengthy pre-trial incarcerations, and evidence acquired under dubious circumstances. Were he a terrorism suspect, says Evan Kohlmann, author of Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, he “would least like to be held under” the French system.

Radical Islam. The myriad French-British differences in this arena can be summarized by the example of what Muslim girls may wear to state-funded schools.

Denbigh High School in Luton, 30 miles northwest from London, has a student population about 80 percent Muslim. It years ago accommodated the sartorial needs of their faith and heritage, including a female student uniform made up of the Pakistani shalwar kameez trousers, a jerkin top, and hijab head covering. But when Shabina Begum, a teenager of Bangladeshi origins, insisted in 2004 on wearing a jilbab, which covers the entire body except for the face and hands, Denbigh administrators said no.

Their dispute ended up in litigation and the Court of Appeal ultimately decided in Begum’s favor. As a result, by law U.K. schools must now accept the jilbab. Not only that, but Cherie Booth, wife of British prime minister Tony Blair, was Begum’s lawyer at the appellate level. Booth called the court’s judgment “a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry.”

In contrast, also in 2004, the French government outlawed the hijab, the Muslim headscarf, from public educational institutions, disregarding ferocious opposition both within France and among Islamists worldwide. In Tehran, protestors shouted “Death to France!” and “Death to Chirac the Zionist!” The Palestinian Authority mufti, Ikrima Sa’id Sabri, declared that “French laws banning the hijab constitute a war against Islam as a religion.” The Saudi grand mufti, Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, called them a human rights infringement. When the “Islamic Army in Iraq” kidnapped two French journalists, it threatened their execution unless the hijab ban was revoked. Nonetheless, Paris stood firm.

What lies behind these contrary responses? The British have seemingly lost interest in their heritage while the French hold on to theirs; even as the British ban fox hunting, the French ban hijabs. The former embraced multiculturalism, the latter retain a pride in their historic culture. This contrast in matters of identity makes Great Britain the Western country most vulnerable to the ravages of radical Islam whereas France, for all its political failings, has retained a sense of self that may yet see it through.


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Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).

[Semsem]

After all seems that France is a more useful ally than Britain.

[minusthejihad]

Leon, sorry I cross posted that Pipes Article in another thread before I saw it here. My Bad.

[Mira]

It's sad and ironic that the greatest strength of a country like England would also be viewed as its greatest weakness. The UK and the United States are the two most multicultural countries in the world. Australia doesn't welcome refugees seeking political asylum the way that the UK and US do. France allowed immigrants from its former colonies, but they still haven't fully reconciled their multicultural reality with their own xenophobia. I just read today that there is a growing nationalism among the so-called indigenous people in Bolivia, causing those people who have lived there many generations, including the few remaining Jews there, to become skeptical about their own futures. Where will those Bolivian Jews go if not to either the US or Israel? Thank G-d for the US and for Israel. I hope that whatever the UK does to deal with its own internal threats, they don't lose what makes them one of the better experiments among the nations.

[Mediocrates]

The UK today goes to extreme lengths to micromanage the populace to the extent that everyone should be forced to exist in their own virtual ethnic, linguistic and cultural enclaves. The flip side of the nanny state is that while momma England knows and does best, everyone should be forced to never assimilate in any meaningful way because perish the thought that English-ness ever be imposed on the charming ethnic people of Brittain and their interesting customs and funny hats. And instead of making a large culture that 'respects' the values of others all it doed is breed contempt among everyone for everything else.

This is the great difference between the UK and the US. Here we work, for the most part to make everyone 'American' within a wide latitude of what that means to each, but none the less, American in some identifiable way. We don't generally like or support or appreciate isolationist or seperatist movements. Some would even call them here, hate groups. We allow people to cherish their hyphenation but only to a limited extent and only in personal ways. We don't have Greek holidays in school or Tibetan festivals except as voluntary affairs meant to include the outside communities.

I read that about Bolivia, groups that call themselves falangist or fascist are making noises against all 'foreigners' aka anyone who's not an indigenous native, Mayan I guess. Bolivia for the Mayans is their call and Simon Bolivar was not a patriot but a white invader no better than the Spaniards he kicked out. OK, that's a wonderful mythology.

[savvy]

Despite what the article says, It may be too late for France. France has the largest Muslim population in Europe. 1 in 3 babies born in France are Muslim. Every year 50,000 ppl convert to Islam in France. French law permits polygamy and this is widely practised by Muslims in France. France is most likely to be the first European country to be all Muslim in 10 -15 years. A western future doesn't seem to be in the cards for France, unless there r some drastic changes in the population.

[Quicken]

After all seems that France is a more useful ally than Britain.

France is useless.



French Lessons

By EURSOC Two
22 July, 2005

British newspapers have been quick to publish columns urging the government to surrender to the terrorists' demands. One European country already tried that strategy - and ended up as Europe's biggest target for Islamist terror attacks.

As Amir Taheri reports in today's Jerusalem Post, one of the earliest act's of Francois Mitterand's presidency was to release 31 terrorists from French prisons and lift a ban on the distribution of terrorist propaganda. Mitterand's identification of European socialism with blood-drenched Middle Eastern terrorists demonstrates that Britain's far-left was not the first movement to betray the progressive, liberal principles of western leftism:

"The French leader emphasized the ideological propinquity of his Socialist party with "other radical movements," meaning terrorist groups, that were also "striving for justice." At one point Mitterrand even talked of the "common roots" of the French Revolution and the Khomeinist takeover in Iran."

Mitterand had the Palestinians in mind - but soon stretched his tolerance for terror to take in Spain's ETA movement and the IRA.

"In 1984 Mitterrand's policy led him into .......


http://www.eursoc.com/news/printpage...h_Lessons.html