Remember the French soldiers in Python's Holy Grail?
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
Posted on 02/04/2005 11:24:56 AM PST by areafiftyone
PARIS (Reuters) - France said Friday U.S. forces were holding three Frenchmen captured fighting with insurgents in Iraq (news - web sites) last November, handing Paris a diplomatic headache on the eve of a visit by the new U.S. secretary of state.
Paris is in touch with Baghdad about the fate of its three nationals, who were detained by a U.S. patrol during fighting in the city of Falluja 30 miles west of Baghdad, Foreign Ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous said.
"I can confirm that we are aware of the existence of these three people of French nationality who are being held in Iraq," Ladsous told a regular news briefing.
Details concerning the three were still sketchy but France would "exercise our rights in terms of consular protection for French nationals," Ladsous added.
That could signal an attempt by France to have the men face justice in France, but an Iraqi minister appeared to rule that out in an interview with France's Europe 1 radio station.
"Two of them have admitted they came to make Jihad (Islamic holy war or struggle) against the Americans ... They will be tried in Iraq," said Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq's human rights minister. "They are criminals and we are here to see justice is done."
He said there were up to a dozen French citizens fighting alongside the insurgents in Iraq.
U.S. military sources in Iraq said three French nationals were being held at Camp Bucca, a U.S. detention facility in southern Iraq. They said two had been detained during fighting in Falluja last November, but did not say when or where the third had been detained.
Le Figaro newspaper, which first reported the detentions, said the three were understood to have been recruited to fight in Iraq by a Paris-based Islamic network.
A police source late last month said a series of raids by the DST domestic intelligence agency had smashed the ring.
According to Le Figaro, Chekhou Diakhabi, Peter Cherif and a man who has not been formally identified, were part of a group that left Paris for Iraq last year.
NEW TEST FOR TRANSATLANTIC TIES
The report of the detentions coincides with efforts by Paris and Washington to improve relations after France's opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The Iraq war caused anger on both sides of the Atlantic but French President Jacques Chirac and President Bush (news - web sites) will seek to smooth over differences when they meet this month in Brussels. Chirac is also due to visit Washington soon.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), who meets Chirac in Paris Tuesday, can expect to face questions from French officials about the three men held in Iraq.
Paris is also seeking the release of three French nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay U.S. military prison. Four others were freed last year from the prison in Cuba, but were detained on arrival back in France under a domestic terrorism probe.
The French nationals enlisted to fight in Iraq could be linked to a mosque in the 19th arrondissement in northern Paris, the focus of a DST operation last month.
The DST established last year that at least three French nationals had been killed in Iraq.
Anti-terrorism judges last week charged three suspects with criminal association related to a terrorist enterprise. The trio was remanded in custody pending further investigation.
Exactly what I was thinking
I suppose the French are already in the process of crying to the UN for their release.
Here's the deal. I don't want to re-approach with the Frenchies. As far as I'm concerned I feel the same way about the French as I do snakes. A snake is certainly welcome to do its own thing but please do it far away from me.
My apologies to snakes everywhere for comparing them to the French.
I love that line, not to mention it smells like B.O. too.
We don't know that for sure, though. The french newspaper gave the names of 2, without revealing the third name. The article also says, he's being kept in a different undisclosed place from the other 2. He could have a very french sounding name.
Maybe the President can have them in chains behind his Limo when he comes to visit?
So9
What a lovely sentiment!
Semper Fi brother.
Well that's a good point. Although didn't the article indicate all were recruited at the same mosque? I'd be shocked if a euro Frenchie ventured near a mosque, much less volunteered for duty in a war zone.
Remember the French soldiers in Python's Holy Grail?
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
When are we going to threaten to behead them?
"Maybe the President can have them in chains behind his Limo when he comes to visit?" Why do I see the scene in National Lampoon's Vacation where the police officer pulled Chevy Chase over and started crying over the dog's death. "He kept up for the first mile". Boy would it be nice if they did that to these guys. Oh I know kind of sick but nice.
Then we'd retaliate by renaming "West Lafayette Indiana" to "West Freedom Fry Indiana."
This is a truly excellent idea. Another would be to tell the French to finally pay up their war debts to us. Some of those date back to World War I.
During WW I the Marines fought a battle at a place called Belleau Wood that saved Paris from being overrun by the Germans. After the battle the French deeded the patch of woods to the Marines and renamed it "the Marine Woods" in their honor. There is now a petition among the Marine Corps League to return the woods to the Frogs.
As the grandson of one of those Marines I signed it.
Are they "real" Frenchmen, native Euro Frenchmen who happily eat pied d'cochon, drink wine and eat alot of cheese, not non wine drinking, backward, primitive, women hating, ignorant African, Arab, Islamofascist terroist thug scum Frenchmen?
This is exactly the same position in which Jordan found itself last year, due to the large numbers of Jordanians who were fighting on behalf of the "insurgency" in Iraq. Mosab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian national, has already been tried in absentia in Jordan and convicted of a number of major crimes in Jordan itself. This was a move the Jordanian government took to make sure everyone understood that he is acting on his own in Iraq, and with no aid or assistance from Jordan in any official capacity.
To be honest with you, I wish the U.S. would start treating illegal aliens the same way when they commit crimes here in the U.S. Don't treat them as criminals, treat them as foreign invaders -- and let the government of their country of origin bend over backwards to placate the U.S. and pay restitution on their behalf, or risk having some kind of sanctions brought against them by the United States.
Bet it did not take them too long to surrender. They'll have to remove the panties from their heads before someone thinks we put them on them.
Maybe these guys can be chefs at Gitmo.
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