Terrorism: France Just Does Not Get It…

The American Thinker ^ | June 2, 2004 | Olivier Guitta

[quidnunc]

Even at the height of the crisis between France and the USA in March 2003, regarding the war in Iraq, the two countries were cooperating closely on terrorism issues. Today, in a somewhat warmer climate, France and the US are still sharing major intelligence information. But do we share the same definition for the word Terrorism?

Unfortunately, the answer is obviously no.

A few days ago, Jean Francois Cope, Spokesman of the French Government and Vice Interior Minister, addressed the American Jewish Committee’s Annual Conference in Washington DC. I had the opportunity to interview him, along with Jean David Levitte, French Ambassador to the US. Our exchange was revealing of the huge gap between our two countries regarding terrorism.

During his speech on Global Terrorism, Mr. Cope’s tone was forceful. But he did mention that only “legal means” should be used to eradicate terrorism. You have to remember that until recently France was fighting tooth and nail to avoid putting Hamas on the list of terrorist organizations officially recognized as such by the European Union. France had maintained that Hamas was mostly a social organization. So, I started by asking him to comment about France’s stance on Hamas, now that it is finally on the European Union’s terrorist list, and what he meant by “legal” in his speech?

Mr. Cope replied that they were monitoring the influence of Hamas in France. This struck me as a nice-sounding, but ultimately meaningless statement. To my knowledge, Hamas has no presence whatsoever in France, and operates so far mostly in Israel.

I then suggested the following hypothetical question: if Israel had kidnapped Sheikh Yassin, Hamas leader, instead of killing him, and had brought him to justice to the European Court, and then presented all the evidence of his terrorist activities, would it then have been legal? Mr. Cope emphatically replied “NO”.

Apparently, then, putting Hamas on the EU’s terrorists’ list has had no real world consequence for France, when it comes to fighting the War on Terror. Nevertheless, France still drags its heels whenever possible. The EU was also debating whether or not to add the Lebanese Shia terrorist organization Hizbullah to that same terrorist list. But, (surprise!) France vetoed it.

-snip-

[McGavin999]

I'm beginning to think that france just may well be behind the terrorist movement.

[cripplecreek]

Actually I think France "gets it" but doesn't want to admit it. I find it a bit odd that they banned protests in Paris during our presidents visit. After all theres nothing the Chirac Govt. would like to do more than embarrass Bush.

I have a feeling they're more concerned than they want to let on. Besides a highly public attack would do serious damage to Chirac's credibility among the French.

[Eternal_Bear]

Islamic voters constitute a large bloc in French poltics. Thus the politicians cannot appear to be anti-Islamic or anti-arab. Mexico gets away with murder on the border but none of our politicans will mention it since they cannot afford to look Anti-hispanic. Same principle at work here.

[feedback doctor]

France, what a joke. Let me tell you how far it goes back. France and wimping out goes back to before 1000 AD. Saw this on a show on the history channel the other night called BARBARIANS. Seems the Vikings from scandanavia started terrorizing europe before 1000 AD. They got around to sailing down the river to what is now Paris. Everyone was scared. So the leader bought them off with lots of gold and silver, on the promise that they never come back. Well guess what? This only made them the target for more attacks. Seems the french were trying to break the cycle of violence, and wound up being the only ones doing that.