The phrasing of that last sentence is insufficient and distorts the issue.



The problem is not---and shouldn't be---that France opposes the war.



That should be a legitimate (if in my view, wholly misguided) policy.



The problem is *the way* that France has chosen to obstruct the US campaign to eliminate the (present and especially future) threat posed by Saddam and his allies to the US, and by extension (though this be mocked by those opposed) to other countries.



The more venal reasons for France's opposition have already come to light, and will likely flood the media (except perhaps the French media) over the next while.



In the meantime, by cloaking their obstruction (and fears) in obstreperously holier-(and more sophisticated)-than-thou terms, the French are rapidly losing whatever iota of goodwill that remains among the more perceptive sections of America and Europe.



It may well be, however, that the issue has reached such hysterical proportions in French (their honor having been debased (though by whom, exactly?)) that they no longer

care.



These latest desecrations do not help.

That's it.



Time to break out the Enola Gay.

A couple of news srories this A.M.

-Iraqi troops firing on U.S. Marines from the Ali mosque in Najar.

Iraq claims coalition targeting holy places.

U.S. troops not returning fire_

-Iraqi information minister claims coalition dropping booby trapped pens and pencils, hoping children will pick up-

-PLO spokesman claiming Iraqi conflict is a war on all Islam-



If these reports are true, one can only come to the conclusion that radical Islam is truly being used as a means to an end for the maintainence of power by tyrants in the middle east.



By leveraging the ignorance and isolation of the populace of these countries through this kind of misinformation is barbaric.



The naivete of the French and the left in misunderstanding the challenge being laid down to western civilization by radical Islam is disturbing. The radical Islamists are showing themselves to be real enemies of humanity who will stop at nothing if they believe that it is somehow advantageous to their cause. They seem not to care about the nature of their "leaders" as long as they call themselves muslim. They are creating their own enemies and leaving them no alternative but to resist. How does one negotiate with regimes like this?



Multiculturalism, imperial guilt and the moral relativism spawned in much of the west through it's 20th century fling with socialism has left the French and Germans, in particular, spiritually and intellectually disarmed in their attempt to deal with this new menace.

Tom:



I don't think that the French, et al., misunderstand the challenge made by radical Islam. I think they understand it all too well and are trying to negotiate a seperate peace. If the radicals give them the next hundred years to fade away gracefully, the French will not try to impede the coming Islamic future.

David,



Do the French understand the nature of the radical Islamists as well as they understood the National Socialists? Robespierre? Marat? The Bolsheviks? A seperate peace with whom? An ideology which openly desires the eradication of their culture and traditions? If the values of the west have become so meaningless to the sophisticates of France or elsewhere, as they may have, then why bother? Let's start burning the books now.



I don't want to overgeneralize here. Not all Europeans are oblivious to the challenge just as not all French were seduced by the revolutionary screwballs of the last three hundred years but their

intellectual class was quite visible and quite oblivious. I suppose that's the problem though, isn't it ironic?

France has considered it has a special relationship with Islam (Arab and Turk) since at least the 17th century.



This is a bizarre belief, or its survival after the Algerian wars is, but there are bizarre beliefs all around the Mediterranean.

Tom;



Perhaps the French have realized, as OJ posts frequently on, that they are disappearing demographically anyway so as long as they get a century or two it doesn't matter. Apres moi, le delugé.