Maybe we don't need to worry that Barack Obama has no interest in fighting Islamic terrorism. The new War on Terror will be led by . . . France? And Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld have found their worthy successor in the person of . . . French Prime Minister Manuel Valls?
There's nothing like a bloody massacre on your own soil to bring some clarity to a situation, but some of us haven't forgotten it was a mere 11 years ago that Jacques Chirac was doing everything in his power to save Saddam Hussein's skin. And it wasn't long after this that the French went ahead and elected a socialist president, Francois Hollande, who is after all still president. Have the French not only seen the light but resolved to fight for real? Words are cheap, but it sure sounds like it:
France is in a “war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islamism, against everything that is intended to break fraternity, liberty, solidarity,” Valls told an audience in Evry, a town south of Paris.
The three days of attacks were the most lethal terrorist assault in France since Algerian insurgents bombed a string of locations in this country during the former French colony’s fight for independence in the 1950s. Law enforcement officials pledged Saturday to hunt down Boumeddiene, a French native whom they believe had trained alongside her partner.
“We will do everything in our power to find her,” said Christophe Crepin, a senior police official. He vowed that she would not escape French law enforcement even if she were in Syria. “We are at war, and we will take the necessary measures,” he said.
Many French leaders emphasized the scale of the fight ahead of them, even as profound questions were raised about the future of France’s status as a tolerant, multicultural nation. Muslims have long had a vibrant presence here, a legacy of France’s colonial involvement in Africa and the Middle East, but a far-right, anti-immigrant party was topping some polls even before the attacks.
Now you have to realize that in many ways, the French did this to themselves. Not only did they encourage Islamists to come on in and promise plenty of accommodation, they also encouraged whole neighborhoods to become dominated by people who quickly became notorious for yelling at non-Muslims for walking down the street not wearing headscarves.
These Islamic ghettos have become frightening places for regular Parisians, and while it's laudable that French leaders now understand they've got a real fight on their hands, you have to wonder if they understand how much trouble they brought upon themselves by engaging in so much cultural appeasement.
There is also the question of just how much "war" French law will permit the government to undertake. What are your options in dealing with radical Islamists who are living in your midst but as of yet have not committed any crimes? You can increase surveillance, and maybe France isn't afflicted with as many libertarians as we are wretchedly stuck with here in America, but you still can't just go in and start gunning them down indiscriminately.
Granted, that's what they do. But it's always the burden of the good guys to have to fight more by the rules than the bad guys, now isn't it? Maybe they could ask Dick Cheney for some tips. Given their current rhetoric, I'd say the French are a lot more likely to listen to him than the people currently running the United States.
