Good line, purportedly from Jon Stewart:

Obama is not upset about the cartoon that calls him a Muslim extremist. Who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists.

via Steve Garfield.

See “New Yorker Obama Terrorist Cover” for background and commentary on the story.

UPDATE:  Amusingly, I see via Memeorandum, the hubbub goes on.  Obama is continuing to beat this dead horse:

Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday that the New Yorker magazine’s satirical cover depicting him and his wife as flag-burning, fist-bumping radicals doesn’t bother him but that it was an insult to Muslim Americans.

“You know, there are wonderful Muslim Americans all across the country who are doing wonderful things,” the presidential candidate told CNN’s Larry King. “And for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate. And it’s not what America’s all about.”

Obama blamed himself for not being forceful enough in challenging some of the rumors about him, including that he is Muslim. Obama is Christian.

This is bizarre on so many levels.  First, Obama clearly knows that the cover was a satire and one which is helping him.  Second, he seems to be implying — while touting all the fine things Muslims do — that “Muslim” is some sort of slur.

Meanwhile, even those on the Left are defending the New Yorker.  Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and others at The Nation :

[A]s comedian Bill Maher observed, “If you can’t do irony on the cover of The New Yorker, where can you?” I tend to agree.

[...]

It’s interesting how through time, especially in these last years, images seem more powerful, troubling, provocative and threatening than words. Why is that? Hard to fully fathom. Perhaps the speed with which images, unmoored from their original home and context, zip around the 36/7 Internet? Whatever the full range of reasons, it seems to me that one fact is that a caricature is almost by definition provocative, often offensive. It’s a misrepresentation, an exaggeration for effect, a parody.

While I understand why many object to this cartoon–and to images which they believe reinforce stereotypes (and there are many at The Nation who found the New Yorker cartoon offensive), I believe satire–even if it flops or offends –has a place in our culture and politics.

She then has some of the magazine’s cartoonists weigh in. Steve Brodner’s take is especially keen:

So basically we have the Wolf Blitzers pretending not to get this to rev up ratings which rely, largely, on the “outrage of the day.” However, in that process a dialogue is forced, satire is discussed, the truth about Obama is put on the table. And so, even if it’s taking the long way to get there, Barry Blitt’s strong image does what we need it to do: put these issues up for discussion and in a very real way, educate America.

Christopher Hitchens has a withering piece for The Mirror. Some excerpts:

Satire, according to Jonathan Swift, is “a mirror wherein every man will commonly discern every face but his own”.

[...]

Ludicrous as it might seem to have John McCain enlisted as an art critic, and obvious as it should be that the New Yorker would never do anything deliberately to hurt the Democratic nominee, it remains the case that a Newsweek poll has just found 12 per cent of voters believing that Obama is a practicing Muslim and another 12 per cent (possibly the same 12 per cent) convinced that he used a Koran for his swearing-in ceremony at the United States Senate. These are of course exactly the sort of people who do not read the New Yorker, or go in very much for the ironic and the satirical, so that as usual the aesthetic effort is somewhat lost on what ought to be its target audience.

[...]

If reassurance is what was wanted, it would have been nice to hear Barack Obama agreeing with the New Yorker’s people that the cover was (a) a joke and (b) a pro-Obama joke and then adding (c) that he and his wife “got” the said joke. No such luck. A statement of extreme lugubriousness from Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton announced that “most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive – and we agree”. So in other words, the Obama team disagrees strongly with those readers who don’t see it as tasteless and inoffensive, as well as those who interpret it as an attempt to draw the sting from a whispering campaign against Obama. Take that, you broad-minded and humorous rabble! Satire can do no more.

Finally, Salon’s Gary Kamiya makes the unkindest cut of all:

It’s official: The Bush era has made liberals so terrified of right-wing smears it has caused them to completely lose their sense of humor. Much as I hate to repeat one of Rush Limbaugh’s flat, stale and unprofitable applause lines, that’s the only conclusion I can draw after witnessing the left-wing blogosphere’s bizarre reaction to the New Yorker cover. . ..

[...]

I don’t know what lugubrious planet these people are on, but I definitely don’t want any of them writing material for Jon Stewart.

[...]

If you satirically depict Obama as an Islamist terrorist, in this view, you are only reinforcing and giving broader currency to right-wing smears. Since the essence of satire is exaggerating negative stereotypes, this means that satire itself is off limits. Or, at least, all satire except that which the cowering — but oh so semiotically sophisticated — left-wing commentariat deems to be sufficiently broad-brush and polemical to pass its funny test.

If nothing else, this controversy has apparently revived the word “lugubrious.”

“French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed Wednesday that rioters who shot at police during a flare-up of Paris suburban unrest would be severely punished,” AFP reports.

Strikes me as a good idea.

Via OTB News.

Over at The Glittering Eye, Dave Schuler extends the argument he’s made in the comments of my tongue-in-cheek post on the fact that the media continues to ignore the ethnic-religious component of the rioting in France.

He argues that the problem goes beyond religion and is ultimately about assimilation and “giving the descendants of immigrants a stake in the country that’s the only one they’ve ever known.”

He’s right. Indeed, I allude to that even in my glib observation that, “Clearly, not much has been done over the past two years, since the last set of youth riots, to integrate the youths into French society.”

How to go about that, though, is the question. The politics of race and ethnicity is especially difficult in an era where we’re supposed to simultaneously pretend that cultural differences are immaterial and yet revel in the wonderful diversity that different cultures add.

Despite a history that includes slavery, racial apartheid (Jim Crow), and ethnic cleansing (the Indian wars), the United States has done relatively well in assimilating those from alien cultures into our own. Since the passage of the 14th Amendment, all who are born on American soil are automatically endowed with all the rights of citizenship and people are considered “Americans” by their fellows regardless of racial, religious, or ethnic background so long as they speak the language and obey the rules. That’s not the case in much of Western Europe where even a third generation German-born Turk is still a Turk, not a German.

Still, removing legal barriers to citizenship clearly isn’t enough. While not on the scale of the Muslim riots that are now in their second go-round in Paris or those that happened across Europe a couple years ago owing to some cartoons in a Danish paper, we’ve had our share of race riots in the United States even in the post-Civil Rights Act era. The riots following the Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles are the most noteworthy, but there have been several lesser ones involving outraged blacks and Hispanics over perceived police brutality; those in Miami (1980), Crown Heights (1991), St. Petersburg (1996), and Benton Harbor, Michigan (2003) are the most notable.

To be sure, these are rare events. That those old enough to have lived through them remember them vividly is a testament to how unusual they are. Still, they happen.

The idea that we should deal with the “root causes” is all well and good but it’s not clear exactly how one goes about doing that. Nor should the fact that there are legitimate grievances be considered justification for mayhem.

Photo credit: The Age/Reuters

The rioting youths in France have injured 86 police officers, several seriously, with some youths vowing to continue until there are deaths.

The number of police officers injured during clashes by French youths in a suburb north of Paris rose to 86 after a second bout of violence overnight in which 60 officers were hurt, including six who are in serious condition, police officials said.

Of the six in serious condition, four were hurt as a result of gunfire, said Francis Debuire, a representative of the General Union of Police Officers in the district where the fighting took place. One of the four lost an eye and another officer’s shoulder was shattered by a bullet after some of the youths used hunting shotguns as well as more conventional guns, firebombs and rocks.

Police union officials expressed concern that the violence was more severe than the fighting that had occurred in the Paris suburbs over three weeks of rioting in 2005. “The violence over the last days has been worse than two years ago in terms of its intensity,” Mr. Debuire said.

[...]

Among the marchers, a young man who identified himself as Cem, 18, but who refused to give his full name, said: “This is war. There is no mercy. We want at least two policemen dead.”

Clearly, not much has been done over the past two years, since the last set of youth riots, to integrate the youths into French society. Certainly, youths will be youths, but this is getting out of hand.

Photo: Thibault Camus/Associated Press

Rioting has been ongoing in the Paris suburbs for hours after the deaths of two teenagers in what appears to be an accidental crash with a police vehicle.

Details are a bit sketchy in the early reports.

“Riot grips Paris suburb after youths killed in police crash,” AFP

French police were on alert Monday for a new flare-up of violence in the Paris suburbs, after the death of two teenagers in a crash with a police car sparked six hours of rioting by angry youths.

Gangs torched cars and looted shops and buildings in the north Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, injuring 25 police officers, following the death of the youths aged 15 and 16, whose cross-country motorbike collided with a police car at around 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) on Sunday. Some 100 angry youths quickly thronged the crash site, in a flashpoint high-rise housing estate, demanding the “truth” about the accident, as rioting spread across the town.

In 2005, the accidental death of two youths allegedly fleeing police in another north Paris suburb sparked three weeks of riots in suburban estates across France, the country’s worst social unrest in decades.

Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of Sunday’s victims, accused police of ramming the motorbike and of failing to assist the injured teens. “This is a failure to assist a person in danger… it is 100-percent a (police) blunder. They know it, and that’s why they did not stay at the scene,” he told France Info radio. “I know they will say they left because they were afraid of clashes or of being assaulted… but up until now we have had no apology from the police chief.”

Police said the bike smashed into the side of their car during a routine patrol of the neighbourhood. Neither youth was wearing a helmet, according to witnesses. An internal police investigation has been opened.

Officials reported at least seven arrests in Villiers-le-Bel as rioters torched two garages, a petrol pump and two shops, pillaged the railway station in neighbouring Arnouville and set fire to more than 20 cars. Twenty-five police were injured in the violence, two seriously, as well as one firefighter, officials said Monday. A police station Villiers-le-Bel was set on fire and another in Arnouville was wrecked. Police said there were reports of “small groups attacking shops, passers-by and car drivers” to rob them. One suspect was arrested carrying jewelry from a looted store, they said.

Sehhouli told AFP the rioting “was not violence but an expression of rage,” saying he wanted the police officers “responsible” for the accident to be brought to justice.

“Boys’ moped deaths ignite riot in Paris suburb,” London Telegraph.

French police were on alert Monday for a new flare-up of violence in the Paris suburbs, after the death of two teenagers in a crash with a police car sparked six hours of rioting by angry youths.

Gangs torched cars and looted shops and buildings in the north Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, injuring 25 police officers, following the death of the youths aged 15 and 16, whose cross-country motorbike collided with a police car at around 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) on Sunday. Some 100 angry youths quickly thronged the crash site, in a flashpoint high-rise housing estate, demanding the “truth” about the accident, as rioting spread across the town.

In 2005, the accidental death of two youths allegedly fleeing police in another north Paris suburb sparked three weeks of riots in suburban estates across France, the country’s worst social unrest in decades.

Interestingly, those without background knowledge of the 2005 riots would have no idea from reading these stories that the “youths” killed, those perpetrating the riots, and the suburbs in question were predominantly Muslim and that ethnic unrest was the tinder sparked by the incidents. Indeed, there’s no clue in either story other than the name of the brother, Omar Sehhouli, who is quoted in both pieces and this, in the 17th paragraph of the AFP report:

Police and politicians warn many French suburbs remain a “tinderbox” two years after riots which exposed France’s failure to fully integrate the French-born descendants of African and Arab immigrants.

Rather important information, no? One can’t imagine rioting and the throwing of Molotov cocktails at police in most Western suburbs as a result of an accident. Surely, some explanation is warranted.

Photo credit: BBC

German and U.S. authorities have thwarted what a massive Islamist terrorist plot against about to be launched against American targets in Germany.

FT’s Hugh Williamson:

German security forces have prevented a terror attack in Germany that could have been more deadly than the Madrid and London bombings, top security officials said on Wednesday.

Police on Tuesday arrested three men who had planned simultaneous car bomb attacks against US military and civil targets, such as pubs and discos, Monika Harms, federal chief prosecutor, said at a press conference in Karlsruhe. The men – two Germans who had converted to Islam and a Turkish national – are alleged members of ‘Islamic Jihad Union’, a little known terror group linked to Al Qaeda that has its roots in Uzbekistan, Ms Harms said.

The group had obtained 12 barrels of liquid weighing 730kg to be used in preparing explosives. This could have resulted in the equivalent of 550kg of TNT, Ms Harms added. “This was one of the most serious terror attacks ever planned in Germany” she said. “There could have been a very big death toll” as the amount of explosives exceeded those used in the Madrid subway bombing and the London transport bombing in 2005, she said.

The men – who in 2006 had trained in terror camps in north Pakistan – were driven by “a hatred of US citizens”, according to Jörg Ziercke, president of the BKA federal crime agency. US authorities were involved in investigations that led to the arrests, he said.

The alleged terror cell had been under surveillance since December 2006, when one member was seen spying on a US military base in Hanau near Frankfurt. The group started gathering the explosive liquid in February and in August rented a holiday apartment – reportedly in Oberschledorn, western Germany – to build the explosives. The group had gathered incendiary devices, cables and other equipment, Ms Harms said.

[...]

Security officials in Berlin said the arrests may be linked to raids and arrests in Denmark on Tuesday, when, according to Danish police, eight people with alleged links to Al Qaeda were detained in order to prevent an attack.

Germany’s interior ministry and BND foreign intelligence agency have been warning for several months of an increased danger of Islamic terror attacks in Germany, possibly linked to Berlin’s military involvement in Afghanistan.

Noah Barkin and Sabine Siebold of Reuters report, “Harms could not confirm reports the accused had been targeting Frankfurt international airport and a major U.S. military base in Ramstein. But she said they had been seen scouting out U.S. installations such as discos, pubs and airports.”

AFP adds:

The minister said one of the men arreseted had links to the Islamist scene in Neu-Ulm in southern Germany. German investigators have suspected for several years that a mosque in Neu-Ulm is used as a base for extremists planning attacks.

A leading member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union, Wolfgang Bosbach, said the men had probably been planning attacks to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Der Spiegel has the most detailed description of who the suspects are:

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE, the three men were Daniel S. from the state of Saarland and Fritz G. from Neu-Ulm in Bavaria, both of whom are German converts to Islam, as well as Adem Y., who is believed to be from Turkey.

WaPo has a very long report from AP’s David McHugh that contains more quotes and details about the investigation. Particularly noteworthy, though, is the political reaction:

Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview released Wednesday that German troops would remain in Afghanistan for several more years, despite recent setbacks in the region. “To walk away would send the wrong signal,” Merkel told N-24 television.

[...]

The European Union’s top justice official said Wednesday that the threat of a terror attack remained high in the 27-nation bloc. EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini said the EU executive would push ahead with plans to set up an EU-wide airline passenger data recording system despite privacy concerns. “The threat of new terror attacks continues to be high,” Frattini said, citing Spain, Italy, Belgium, Britain and Germany as countries where the risk has been the highest.

While many of these massive plots, particularly those uncovered in the UK, have turned out to be Keystone Kops amateur efforts, this one appears quite serious:

“These weren’t just sort of half-professional terrorists — these were very dangerous, highly professional men,” Schaeuble said.

Schaeuble said he had “no knowledge of any link” with the Danish arrests of eight suspected Islamic militants accused of storing explosives in a populated area of Copenhagen with the intent of carrying out a terror attack. But the German interior minister added there was “a strong parallel” between the two investigations and subsequent arrests.

A U.S. government official who did not want to be named called the German terror plot “the real deal,” adding that U.S. authorities “have been working this case real hard.”

Thankfully, some highly professional intelligence and law enforcement people were on the case. And, whatever tensions might exist over Iraq, the level of US-German cooperation here was what one would expect of longtime allies:

“We have met repeatedly with our German counterparts on a variety of security measures and consider them to be among our most important allies,” the DHS spokesman said.

German authorities had alerted the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart of a possible terrorist threat to American installations, but not specifically Ramstein, Capt. Jeff Gradec said. Neither EUCOM nor Ramstein is taking any extra security measures, the U.S. military said.

[...]

CNN’s International Security Correspondent Paula Newton said intelligence officials have been calling for more cooperation to combat terror plots in Europe, in particular the faster transfer of information between different countries. Europe is at high risk, officials say, due not only to the Iraq war, but also the NATO mission in Afghanistan, to which many European countries contribute, she said, adding that the Muslim population in Europe is beginning to feel more alienated than it has done in previous decades. “This brings Europe to the battleground,” Newton said.

Like America on September 11, 2001, Europe has been part of the battleground for several years. Indeed, there have been numerous attacks on European soil already, including the Madrid and London bombings and the French Muslim riots and the widespread mayhem over the Danish Muslim cartoons. One wouldn’t think a wake-up call necessary at this point.

Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister Ijaz-ul-Haq declared that terrorism was “justified” in response to Salman Rushdie being awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth.

Pakistan demanded on Monday that Britain withdraw a knighthood awarded to author Salman Rushdie, as a government minister said the honour gave a justification for suicide attacks by Muslims.

Angry protesters in several cities torched British flags and beat them with their shoes in protest at the accolade for the Indian-born writer of “The Satanic Verses” and chanted “Death to Britain, death to Rushdie.”

Rushdie, 59, was forced to go into hiding for a decade after Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 issued a death sentence over his book “The Satanic Verses,” claiming it insulted Islam. Iran has already accused British leaders of “Islamophobia” after Rushdie — now Sir Salman — was awarded the knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II on Saturday to mark her 81st birthday.

“If somebody has to attack by strapping bombs to his body to protect the honour of the Prophet, then it is justified,” Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister Ijaz-ul-Haq told the national assembly. The minister, the son of military dictator Zia-ul-Haq who died in a plane crash in 1988, later retracted his statement in parliament and said he meant to say that knighting Rushdie could spark terrorism. “I was explaining that if the British government awards a knighthood to Salman Rushdie — whose only credibility is that he wrote a blasphemous book — then such action with encourage extremism,” he told AFP. “If someone blows himself up he will consider himself justified. How can we fight terrorism when those who commit blasphemy are rewarded by the West?” he said.

He said Pakistan should sever diplomatic ties with Britain if it did not withdraw the award, adding: “We demand an apology by the British government. Their action has hurt the sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims.

I’m not sure what Rushdie has done to merit a knighthood and it’s hardly surprising that Muslim fanatics have been sparked to riot over this; after all, we saw weeks of rioting and several deaths over some newspaper cartoons. Still, it goes without saying that the Brits have every right to decide which of their artists to honor in this way.

This is further evidence, if any were needed, that Pakistan is a poor ally, indeed, in the battle against Islamist extremists. We’ll see if Pervez Musharraf expels ul-Haq from his cabinet and disavows these remarks. My guess is that he won’t.

Foreign Policy has published the latest edition of The Failed States Index 2007. It is not a cause for celebration:

Few encouraging signs emerged in 2006 to suggest the world is on a path to greater peace and stability. The year began with violent protests that erupted from Indonesia to Nigeria over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. February brought the destruction of Samarra’s golden-domed mosque, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines, unleashing a convulsion of violence across Iraq that continues unabated. After Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers last July, southern Lebanon was bombarded for a month by air strikes, sending hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing into neighboring states. And in October, the repressive North Korean regime stormed its way into the world’s nuclear club.

What makes these alarming headlines all the more troubling is that their origins lie in weak and failing states. World leaders and the heads of multilateral institutions routinely take to lecterns to reiterate their commitment to pulling vulnerable states back from the brink, but it can be difficult to translate damage control into viable, long-term solutions that correct state weaknesses. Aid is often misspent. Reforms are too many or too few. Security needs overwhelm international peacekeepers, or chaos reigns in their absence.

The complex phenomenon of state failure may be much discussed, but it remains little understood. The problems that plague failing states are generally all too similar: rampant corruption, predatory elites who have long monopolized power, an absence of the rule of law, and severe ethnic or religious divisions. But that does not mean that the responses to their problems should be cut from the same cloth. Failing states are a diverse lot. Burma and Haiti are two of the most corrupt countries in the world, according to Transparency International, and yet Burma’s repressive junta persecutes ethnic minorities and subjects its population to forced resettlement, while Haiti is wracked by extreme poverty, lawlessness, and urban violence. For a decade, Equatorial Guinea has posted some of the highest economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa, yet its riches have padded the bank accounts of an elite few. And in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the inability of the government to police its borders effectively or manage its vast mineral wealth has left the country dependent on foreign aid.

The most hopeful signs are largely a statistical artifact:

The year wasn’t all bad news, though. Two vulnerable giants, China and Russia, improved their scores sufficiently to move out of the 60 worst states. That is in part due to the fact that 31 additional countries were assessed this year. But some credit must be paid to the countries themselves. China’s economic engine continues to propel the country forward at a breakneck pace, but the growing divide between urban and rural, as well as continued protests in the countryside, reveals pockets of frailty that the central government is only just beginning to address. Russia’s growing economy and a lull in the violence in Chechnya have had stabilizing effects, despite fresh concerns about the country’s democratic future.

This isn’t merely a shame for the inhabitants of these countries most of whom, frankly, are the usual suspects. As the editors note, “The world’s weakest states aren’t just a danger to themselves. They can threaten the progress and stability of countries half a world away.”

Still, there’s precious little that can be done about these things from afar. Indeed, despite financial backing by The Fund for Peace, the authors do not seem to blame the Bush Administration for any of this, aside from a tangential aside:

That is not to say that all failing states suffer from international neglect. Iraq and Afghanistan, the two main fronts in the global war on terror, both suffered over the past year. Their experiences show that billions of dollars in development and security aid may be futile unless accompanied by a functioning government, trustworthy leaders, and realistic plans to keep the peace and develop the economy. Just as there are many paths to success, there are many paths to failure for states on the edge.

The poor, it seems, are always with us.

Segolene Royal is trailing badly in the polls going into today’s run-off for France’s presidency. So she warned that violence would break out if Nicolas Sarkozy wins.

Socialist opponent Segolene Royal said on Friday that France risks violence and brutality if her opponent right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy wins Sunday’s presidential election. On the last day of official campaigning, opinion polls showed Sarkozy enjoyed a commanding lead over Royal, who accused the former interior minister of lying and polarizing France. “Choosing Nicolas Sarkozy would be a dangerous choice,” Royal told RTL radio. “It is my responsibility today to alert people to the risk of (his) candidature with regards to the violence and brutality that would be unleashed in the country (if he won),” she said.

Pressed on whether there would be actual violence, Royal said: “I think so, I think so,” referring specifically to France’s volatile suburbs hit by widespread rioting in 2005.

Royal went on the offensive during a fiery television debate between the two on Wednesday night when Sarkozy, portrayed as ruthlessly ambitious by his opponents, questioned whether she was cool enough to become France’s first woman president.

Royal’s desperate charges rather proves his point. France has the most volatile Muslim population in the West and needs to figure out how to handle that problem, pronto. Stoking those fears in an attempt to delegitimate the candidate supported by the majority of the populace, however, is a move in the wrong direction.

Sarkozy’s performance buttressed his lead in the polls and a TNS Sofres survey published on Friday showed him at 54.5 percent, compared to 45.5 percent for the Socialist. An IPSOS poll put him on 54 percent against 46 percent for Royal. “It is hard to imagine the trend being reversed,” TNS Sofres deputy head Brice Teinturier told a news conference.

Especially after these comments.

Analysts say a fresh defeat for the Socialists, who have not held the presidency since Francois Mitterrand retired in 1995, could spark a crisis in the party which has not undergone the painful reforms of other European leftist parties.

Truly a shame.

A relaxed Sarkozy laughed off her comments. “She’s not in a good mood this morning. It must be the opinion polls,” he told Europe 1 radio.

Quite likely.

Al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahri has joined the Islamist war against France.

Al-Qaida has for the first time announced a union with an Algerian insurgent group that has designated France as an enemy, saying they will act together against French and American interests.

Current and former French officials specializing in terrorism said Thursday that an al-Qaida alliance with the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC, was cause for concern. “We take these threats very seriously,” Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said, adding in an interview on France-2 television that the threat to France was “high” and “permanent,” and that “absolute vigilance” was required.

Al-Qaida’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, announced the “blessed union” in a video posted this week on the Internet to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

France’s leader have repeatedly warned that the decision not to join the U.S.-led war in
Iraq would not shield the country from Islamic terrorism. French participation in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon could give extremists another reason to strike.

This just goes to show, as Andy Rooney sagely counseled, France should figure out why the world hates them so.

Does this prove that France was wrong not to join the U.S. in its effort to topple Saddam Hussein and establish a democratic bulwark against Islamists in Iraq? No. But it does seem to indicate that there’s not much a Western state can do to appease the terrorists.

Like the United States and the UK, France obviously has a history of entanglement in the Middle East. Iindeed, the latter two have a much longer history than the U.S. and, because of policy decisions made decades ago, now have substantial Muslim populations at home. One hopes events like this will provide additional incentives to work together against our common enemy.

Nick Cohen writes in today’s Observer about the increasing fear in Western Europe of free expression.

Next week, the Council of Europe is holding hearings on whether freedom of expression should include the right to offend religions. It is already clear that the tide is with the supporters of suppression. Meanwhile, Franco Frattini, the EU’s Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, has already banned the use of the phrase ‘Islamic terrorism’ to describe Islamic terrorism. ‘You cannot use the term “Islamic terrorism”,’ he insisted. ‘People who commit suicide attacks or criminal activities on behalf of religion, Islamic religion or other religion, they abuse the name of this religion.’

I was brought up as a democratic socialist and abhorred the crimes committed in the name of the left. But I would always agree that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were inspired by a version of socialism, just as the most liberal American Christian would accept that fundamentalists who bomb abortion clinics are inspired by a version of Christianity. Yet the EU wishes to deny that political Islam inspires terrorists to blow up everything from mosques in Baghdad to tube trains in London, even when Islamist terrorists say explicitly that it does. You should always pay your enemies the compliment of taking them seriously. The EU can’t understand what its enemies are saying, because it won’t call them by their right name.

[...]

[W]e should worry about how illiberal ‘liberal’ Europe is becoming. It’s not only Islam that is provoking censorship. Bans on Holocaust denial have spread across the Continent. In France, it is an offence to question any genocide, including the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, while in Belgium, the country’s highest court denied Vlaams Blok, a Flemish nationalist party, state funding and forced it to disband after finding it guilty of racism.

The point here is not to argue in favour of Holocaust deniers or Flemish rightists, any more than it is to argue in favour of incitement of religious hatred, except when the religious are hateful. What matters is that the supposedly liberal states of Europe are showing an indecent eagerness to reach for their lawyers. Their contempt for plain speaking, as much as the refusal of the European Commission to accept the ‘no’ votes in the French and Dutch referendums on the European Constitution, shows their waning faith in liberal democracy. A backlash from Europeans who believe they have the right to speak their minds and have their votes respected strikes me as inevitable.

Of course, the United States is not far behind in this enterprise, with political correctness running rampant on our campuses and much of our media. Not to mention our politics. We have newspapers who refuse to print the name of the Washington Redskins football franchise for fear of offending American Indians and a television network that will gladly show Jesus defacating on the American flag but won’t show Mohammad for fear of offending Muslims.

The Houston Chronicle’s Gregory Katz has a disturbing report from Belgrade that the combination of loose borders and powerful organized crime syndicates have made the Balkans “a paradise for al-Qaeda.”

A hidden alliance between terror networks and organized crime gangs that control heavily used smuggling routes in the Balkans is making it easier for terrorists to infiltrate Western Europe, according to law enforcement officials and intelligence experts. In addition, prosecutors in Serbia believe that in some cases the money earned by people traffickers is used to support terrorist activities in Europe, which has been hit by several major terrorist attacks in the last two years, with many others prevented by police raids.

A key problem is lax border controls throughout the region. Many borders, such as the one between Romania and Serbia, are wide open to gangs that smuggle people, heroin and goods. Europe’s battle to contain the spread of international terrorism has been hobbled by such porous borders, which each year allow tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants to enter. So many people are sneaking into Europe that authorities admit they do not know exactly who resides in their countries, complicating the effort to prevent more terrorist attacks. “This is a paradise for al-Qaida,” said Marko Nicovic, former police chief in the Serbian capital Belgrade and a director of the International Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association. “For Europe, it can be a disaster at any time because the authorities don’t know who is there and they don’t know who is who. The attacks in Madrid and London showed that.”

Once illegal migrants reach Serbia overland from Eastern Europe, police say they can easily cross into Bosnia and then Slovenia, thus entering the European Union. At that point, they can take advantage of weak or nonexistent border controls to travel freely to France, Spain, Germany and other countries on the continent.

Police officials believe that most of the migrants are law-abiding people looking for work, but they caution that the migration gives terrorist gangs a way to move sleeper cells into the West while also fueling tensions between Western Europe’s Muslims, the fastest growing minority on the continent, and the rest of society. These tensions surface in a number of ways: the deadly attacks on transit systems in Madrid and London, intense rioting in France, death threats against secular politicians in the Netherlands, and legal battles over the right to wear Muslim scarves and headgear to public schools.

While smuggling gangs are using Serbia as a transit point, some Muslim militants seems to have established a base in neighboring Bosnia. Officials warn that several hundred militants who came to Bosnia to fight on behalf of Muslims there during the war in the 1990s have remained in the country to attack the West.

In October, police in Bosnia uncovered an apparent plot to blow up the British Embassy and found a large cache of weapons and explosives along with propaganda vowing to retaliate for the U.S.-and-British-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. A Swede and a Dane were also arrested in that raid, and there were follow-up arrests in Sweden that suggested the Bosnian extremists had operational ties to Western Europe, investigators said.

Magnus Ranstorp, a specialist at the Swedish National Defense College who testified before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, said the presence of Islamic militants inside Bosnia makes it an attractive gateway into Europe for terrorists. “They came in ten years ago, that was the first warning signal, it was the embryo of what became al-Qaida in Europe,” he said. “The Iranians are supporting activity there, and the Balkans have become the crossroads where we see the merger of Islamic extremist groups who reach out to organized crime groups.”

[...]

A large number of immigrants formally apply for political asylum in their new countries, giving them the right to a legal review that can take years. Others destroy their identity documents, making it difficult for authorities to determine their nationality. Many come from predominantly Muslim countries like Morocco, Pakistan and Afghanistan where jihadis committed to waging holy war against the West are active. This sentiment has grown in ferocity since the United States and Britain invaded Iraq two years ago, according to analysts and enforcement agents.

“There is clear, unmistakable evidence that the level of terrorist activity that has killed and injured people has soared to unprecedented levels since we invaded Iraq,” said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and State Department counter-terrorism specialist now working in the private sector. “Iraq is creating a new generation of jihadis looking for places to live in Europe,” Johnson said, “and they have this festering resentment that is usually at the core of terrorism. They will take up residence with existing communities or form new ones in Europe. “It doesn’t augur for a great future.”

Scary stuff. We’ve already seen some of the fruits of this, with the bombings in London and Madrid. As the piece makes clear, European leaders are finally awakening to the problem. It may, however, to be too late to undo the damage.

Related:

“Please Appease Me,” TCS, July 8, 2005.

Previously at OTB:

Europe’s Restrictive New Data Law
14 Terror Suspects Detained In Belgium
EU May Suspend Nations With Secret Prisons
Series: French Muslim Riots
Paris: The Beirut of Europe?
Prince Charles to Argue Islam’s Merits in U.S.
U.K. to Deport Islamist Radicals, Possibly Even Citizens
Lost in [London] Bombings, Diverse and Promising Lives
Three Blasts Rock Kosovo Capital, Hit U.N. Headquarters
Terrorists Hit London Transportation System
Grenade Blasts at British Embassy in New York
Remembering Madrid
Watching Europe Implode
Coming Civil Wars in Europe?
Seven Bombs Explode in Spanish Cities
UK Terror Attack Thwarted
Van Gogh Killing Reveals Dutch Anger at Muslims
NATO Chief: Europe Must Adapt to U.S. View on Terror
Muslim School Bombed in Netherlands
Europe: 90-Pound Weakling
Europe Slow to Grasp Terrorism
European Wake-Up Call
Europe Fears Islamic Converts

Buried on page A19 of the Washington Post we find

Belgian police raided homes in four cities Wednesday and detained 14 people suspected of involvement in a terrorist network that sent fighters to Iraq, including a Belgian woman reported to have carried out a suicide bombing in Baghdad…. More than 200 police officers took part in raids at dawn in Brussels and three other cities following media reports that a Belgian woman had blown herself up in a Nov. 9 attack in Baghdad. The woman reportedly carried out a car bombing against an American patrol. U.S. officials said she was the only person killed.

Good to see the Belgian Police taking some action here, as they have been scandal ridden in the past. Belgium has Moslem integration problems similar to France, with huge unemployment among the Moslem youth. When I was last in Antwerp(en) a few years ago, I saw flyers in the cafes and beer bars from the Flemish so-called nationalist parties bemoaning the unemployment in their projects/slums (I can half-way read Flemish, but close to zero French capability, so no idea if the Walloons had a similar sentiment).

And a week ago, the WaPo had a related article
How a Town Became a Terror Hub; Belgian Haven Seen At Heart of Network

The phones at city hall began ringing nonstop one morning last year when several masked figures were spotted walking through the cobbled streets of this pastoral town. A small panic erupted when one of the figures, covered head to ankle in black fabric, appeared at a school and scared children to tears.
It turned out the people were not hooded criminals, but six female residents of Maaseik who were displaying their Muslim piety by wearing burqas , garments that veiled their faces, including their eyes. After calm was restored, a displeased Mayor Jan Creemers summoned the women to his office.
“I said, ‘Ladies, you can be dressed all in Armani black for all I care, but please do not cover your faces,’ ” Creemers recalled. “I tried to talk to them about it, but it was impossible. They said, ‘We are the only true believers of the Koran.’ ”

What the city elders did not know at the time was that the women came from households in which several men had embraced radical Islam and joined a terrorist network that was setting up sleeper cells across Europe, according to Belgian federal prosecutors and court documents from Italy, Spain and France.
Over the next nine months, Belgian federal police arrested five men in Maaseik, a town of 24,000 people tucked in the northeast corner of Belgium. Each was charged with membership in a terrorist organization, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a fast-growing network known by its French initials, GICM….Belgian police responded with several raids and made 15 arrests in what they called Operation Asparagus 2. “We don’t know yet if they are active members of the GICM, of al Qaeda or of another terrorist group,” Glen Audenaert, head of the federal police, said at a news conference at the time. “But that they were preparing an attack is beyond dispute.”
All but one of those suspects was later released, however, and it is unclear what, if anything, they were planning.

So, based on history, most will be released. Or not, if history is broken. What is clear is that France and the Low Countries have a significant problem with no easy solution. The riots were a week ago, but they have slipped below our 24/7 news cycle – but the problems remain.

The Washington Times today reprints a piece from yesterday’s London Sunday Telegraph noting that the French riots, now more in progress for more than two weeks among Muslim and other immigrants, have dramatically increased the popularity of National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Riots drive recruits into arms of Le Pen

Nationalist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen claims that the riots sweeping France have led to thousands of new recruits to his anti-immigration Front National (FN) party. Mr. Le Pen is one of the few political winners to emerge from the violence and vandalism, now well into its third week, that has prompted President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency. Several of the hard-line measures Mr. Le Pen had called for, including widespread curfews, were adopted by the conservative government last week.

Mr. Le Pen’s popularity jumped five points in an opinion poll for Paris Match, and he claims that the FN has been “submerged” by messages of support since the riots began. Fears that the unrest would boost France’s right wing were aired on Web logs — since shut down — in response to messages calling for more violence. “Carry on like this, guys, and in 2007 Le Pen will be president of the republic,” wrote one youngster in opposition to the violence. The rioters are primarily first- and second-generation immigrants from north and west Africa and mostly Muslims.

Mr. Le Pen, who is typically labeled “far right” or “extreme right” by mainstream European newspapers, shocked French politics three years ago when he was voted into the second round of presidential elections against Mr. Chirac. A television news executive admitted last week to censoring coverage of the riots for fear of encouraging politicians such as Mr. Le Pen. Jean-Claude Dassier, the head of the television news service LCI, told a conference in Amsterdam: “Politics in France is heading to the right, and I don’t want right-wing politicians back in second or even first place because we showed burning cars.”

With a 24-hour ban on rallies in Paris due to be lifted today, Mr. Le Pen, 77, has summoned “legitimately worried and fed-up French people” to assemble in Palais Royal square in the city center tomorrow evening. Marine Le Pen, his 37-year-old youngest daughter and political heir, told the London Sunday Telegraph that her father, one of France’s longest-serving politicians, had been vindicated. “The Front National predicted and warned this violence would happen 20 years ago. It has been political madness for 30 years since we allowed immigrants to come here as cheap labor at the behest of French bosses,” said Miss Le Pen, a mother of three, lawyer and member of the European Parliament. “Five percent of those here legally have an employment contract, which means 95 percent are living at cost to the public purse. It is ruining our health system, our social security system and aggravating unemployment and social problems,” she said.

The evidence here is anecdotal and contradicts some other reporting. Still, the prospect of the radical fringe increasing its hold in French politics is problematic. More troublesome, though, is the notion that the press would stifle honest discussion of the underlying issues here for fear of bolstering Le Pen.

via OTB roving correspondent Richard Gardner

Victor Davis Hanson is an excellent historian and an interesting commentator on world events. His background on discussing European affairs is superb. Still, I had to get a chuckle from this segment on the Hugh Hewitt radio program:

HH: I’m now joined by Victor Davis Hanson, military historian extraordinaire, and you can read him every Friday at National Review Online. Victor, good to have you back on the program.

VDH: Glad to be here, Hugh.

HH: You passed through Paris recently. When?

VDH: Yesterday.

HH: And did you get a sense of crisis as you walked around De gaulle Airport?

VDH: I did. I’ve never been through more security. It was…I think I had to show my passport on five different occasions.

HH: Did you go into the city at all, or was this just a change of planes?

VDH: No. I was on the way from Lisbon, so we flew over it in the morning, and then we landed. And I stayed two or three hours at the airport.

HH: What is your assessment of the significance of what is underway, the Francefada, or the intifada in France as we speak?

The man spent three hours in De gaulle Airport, so he’s got some especially prescient insights to share with us? WTF?

Now, I haven’t been to France in nearly 14 years and feel free to comment on the situation. Hanson is probably more qualified to comment than I am based on our respective academic expertise. But his three hours in an airport did not move the balance any further in his direction unless he spent them watching CNN, reading news reports, or interviewing leaders on the scene.