Chirac: We Must Pay Off The Rioters To Ensure This Does Not Happen Again

Well, he didn't use those exact words. But here is the complete Reuters article by Jon Boyle. And here are the words he did use:

PARIS (Reuters) - France must draw the consequences of two weeks of riots and respond quickly to the problems raised by the rioters, President Jacques Chirac said on Thursday as a police chief warned of possible unrest in the heart of Paris.

Well, what do you think?

Sounds like an apologist to me. Sounds like French people need to look inward and blame themselves for having it better than others. At least that's what Chirac is implying. Don't put the responsibility on the people that burned up cars and trashed buildings, but make damned sure the average citizen of France feels guilty for it.

I can only wonder just why Chirac and his equally inept partner Villepin, took so long to act. Even after the crackdown has produced a significant reduction, there seems to be some second guessing, but not the way you'd expect. You would expect them to be asking themselves, why did we wait so long? We could have done this sooner and had saved a lot of money, grief, and embarassment. But that isn't the way it's playing out.

Let's read on:

A poll showed that 73 percent of French people welcomed the measures, which are available to authorities in 38 cities and suburban areas including Paris.

However, some critics say Villepin overreacted by reviving a measure dating from Algeria's war of independence against its colonial master France.

"Most elected officials on the ground appear to have been more embarrassed than relieved," the left-leaning newspaper Liberation said in an editorial. "They fear this measure will further stir things up, or believe it to be either an overreaction or totally useless."

Almost three quarters of the people polled were happy with the measures, when they finally got around to it. At some point something had to be done. But the thing that amazes me is that there are still idiots, that actually believe Villepin overreacted, even after waiting 11 days to do anything, besides put out the fires. Villepin finally does something right, late as hell; but it was right, nevertheless. And the leftist critics (that are so near and dear to him)criticize him, for it.

So, how does he react?

Seeking to end the unrest, Villepin pledged on Monday to restore some 100 million euros in funding for grass roots associations working in tough neighbourhoods, and improve prospects in education, the labor market and housing.

This is why Chirac and Villepin will not be in power after the 2007 election. Let them get their ya-yas out now. Let them buy their way out now, because the pendulum swings back hard. Remember, fascism is a natural response to the overkill of socialism. The quickest way to get a fascist response is to run this kind of crap down the people's throats, for so long that they get sick of it enough to get mad, and overcompensate for it. (SEE: Mussolini, then Le Pen)

If the French people don't wake up and see that the route they are taking today, with these bumbling idiots, will most certainly lead to the ruin of the Republic of France, they can just kiss it goodbye now.

Happy Birthday USMC

I wish to extend my wishes to all Marines for their dedication, committment, service, and sacrifice on this, the birthday your beloved Corps. Happy Birthday to the men and women that earned the distinction of being called, by that title. You are all the modern-day equivalents of a knight. You earned that blue dress uniform that clearly looks sharper and better than any other branch.

I was not a Marine. I didn't want to run three miles a day, when the Army was only running two. But Mustang at Social Sense did.

Today, he honors his fellow Marines, both alive and dead, at his site. I would highly recommend that you click on the link I just provided you and go read what he has written and leave him a well-wish, on this special day.

Well. What are you waiting for? DO IT NOW!!!!!!!

Don't wait for God to click the mouse for you, MOVE IT!!!!!!!!!


UPDATE - G at The Road To Middle America served in the Marines, I have been waiting patiently for him to put his tribute up so I can link to it. But since he has left active duty, I think he has a tendency to sleep in. But it is now up at his site and here is the link to it.

UPDATE II - Heidi at Euphoric Reality has a tribute with some facts, you may find interesting. Check it out. NOW!!

Le Pen Weighs In On Muslim Riots

Read the complete AP article.

French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen claimed Wednesday his National Front party has been "submerged" with prospective members and supportive e-mail since rioting erupted in heavily immigrant communities near Paris.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Le Pen described the recent violence as "just the start" of conflicts caused by "massive immigration from countries of the Third World that is threatening not just France but the whole continent."

Le Pen said people with immigrant backgrounds who commit crimes should be stripped of their French nationality and sent "back to their country of origin."

Mr. Le Pen doesn't play around. The question becomes will the French people be ready for someone like Le Pen, by the time the 2007 election comes around? But he is not a potential panacea, by any means. With Le Pen, it's a double-edged sword. He is anti-semitic, but will not fool around with Jihadists either.

Happy Blogaversary

I would like to invite all of my readers to visit GM and his blog partner Woody at GM's Corner, on their first anniversary. Leave them a well wisher or just check the site out.

And if they ask you how you found out about it? Tell them you heard about it here, first, on Roller Derby.

What Every Democrat Will Want Us To Know

From the AP comes this story.

Yes, the Dems won the governor's races in both New Jersey and Virginia. They also will want you to know that they beat back the Governator's ballot initiatives in California. But what can we read into this?

Here's what the Dems are saying:

Democrats said the results were the first steps toward bigger victories next year - when control of Congress and 36 governors seats are at stake - and for the 2008 presidential race.

"I believe national Republican politics ... really had an effect in Virginia and California," said Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean. Voters "don't like the abuse of power, they don't like the culture of corruption. They want the nation to go in a different way."

But is that a swing in trend? Note the GOP response:

Republicans warned against reading too much into two governorships that started the day in Democratic hands and ended that way. Virginia Gov. Mark Warner was barred by law from seeking a second term, and New Jersey acting Gov. Richard J. Codey opted not to run.

"It's not some type of trend," said GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, noting that both seats were won by Democrats in 2001 when Bush's popularity was high. Still, he acknowledged the defeats - and said they could help rally the GOP base next year. "I don't think anybody will be complacent now."

The one trend we can all agree on is this:

Both governors' races were marked by record-breaking spending and vicious personal attacks.

Both sides are guilty of the personal attacks, both spend enormous amounts of money. But I caution the Dems against reading too much into this. This may or may not be indicative of the mid-terms in 2006.

But one thing can be accurately predicted from all of this. Both sides will be sharing their spin, the rest of the week and on all slow news days, for the next month.

Update - Here is another site that has a take on the elections:

All I Can Stand (whom I will refer to as Popeye from now on, because I don't want to type it out everytime I refer to him) at The Logic Lifeline gives his and some links here and here. Visit the links and check his site out, I am going to blogroll him, when I get time.

Update II - For extensive coverage of the results and analysis go to Q and O Online Magazine.

French Crisis Well Covered By Blogosphere

The events in France the past two weeks have been pretty much the big story. Maybe the MSM doesn't think so, but it is.

We all understand that there are a lot important things going on right now that deserve coverage, like the handful of off-year elections; and there are some things that aren't really so important in the larger scope of things, like Plamegate. But honestly, this story has to be at the forefront, due to its potential far-reaching effects.

The past few years we have heard about how France is this and France is that, they have gotten a lot free (with most of it favorable) exposure from the left, since Bush has been President. They have had a real lovefest. But now, when the Grand Dame of Old Europe is in crisis, the coverage is not as in depth, as you'd think it would be.

But the blogosphere has exploded, with lots of news and commentary on the situation, and some of it is pretty darned good.
Here are a few I have come across in my readings:

Gandalf at Up Pompeii talks about the French Intafada and who the boss in France is.

Always On Watch has some thoughts and some good links to follow.

EU Rota has some quotes from the French left, as well as several other pieces on this. Click into the main page and start scrolling, you will find them.

Do that at Gindy's too. He has a lot of links.

Jason at Liberty and Culture even defends France.

G at The Road To Middle America weigh in with some comments and quotes. Check his site out if you want to argue with leftists, he has a few that leave comments from time to time.

Kender, a contributor at The Wide Awakes has a great article, check his site out also, Kender's Musings.

McQ at Q and O Online Magazine does what he does best and opens a can of worms with his post.

These are a few of the sites that I visit that have something interesting but one major liberal site for some reason does not have one single post on the French crisis, that I can find. The Daily Kos. Very interesting, wouldn't you say?

France To Permit Curfews

From the International Herald Tribune

Read it for yourself. Here are some excerpts and my two-cents worth:

PARIS - Rioting in France claimed its first fatality on Monday, and the French government, facing growing criticism for its inability to stop the unrest, said it would send additional police officers to troubled communities and permit local authorities to impose mandatory curfews.

Herein lies the fundamental problem with the way France is handling this Muslim uprising. As the title suggests, the French government has finally decided to permit local authorities to do what should have been done days ago. This begs several questions, one of which is, why do local authorities have to wait for the national government to "give permission", to protect their communities?

The state will be firm and just," Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said in a televised address. "Communities can, under authority of the Interior Ministry, invoke curfews if they believe it will restore calm and protect residents."

While Villepin said the government planned to address root causes of the violence by increasing opportunities for young people, he repeatedly emphasized the importance of restoring order.

Where the hell did they get this guy? I know who he is, I know he was instrumental in making France's flawed case for NOT invading Iraq as France's ambassador to the United Nations. But what I want to know is, what damned rock did this inept bastard crawl out of? Francois the corner butcher has more sense, than he does.

Villepin ruled out army intervention in an interview with France's TF1 television, saying "We are not at that point." But he said 1,500 police officers would join 8,000 already deployed in the troubled areas.

Unbelievable.

Treating a Muslim insurgency that threatens the peace, stability, and the well-being of every French citizen as a law enforcement issue, has got to be one of the most assinine policies that any nation could possibly undertake. Napoleon and DeGaulle (for all of their faults) must be rolling over in their graves. Hell, even Mitterand wouldn't have put up with this.

It wouldn't be so bad, if they were making some headway. But the movement is growing, spreading, and becoming more and more organized, daily. French authorities have no more of a handle on this than in the beginning, and they have had 12 days to get their acts together and figure it out.

President Jacques Chirac, in private comments that were more conciliatory than his warnings Sunday that rioters would be caught and punished, acknowledged French failings with integration, President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia said after meeting Monday with the French leader.

She said Chirac deplored the "ghettoization of youths of African or North African origin" and recognized "the incapacity of French society to fully accept them," according to reports by news agencies.

France "has not done everything possible for these youths, supported them so they feel understood, heard and respected," Chirac said, adding that unemployment runs as high as 40 percent in some suburbs, four times the national rate, according to Vike-Freiberga.

Now comes the excuses, the apologies, and the rationalizations that have led to them to this mess, to start with. Good job, Jacques. Let's just validate what these thugs are doing. Whatever you do, do not hold the seditious elements that are behind this, accountable in any way, shape, or form.

If you really want to blame yourself, put the blame on the socialist dream you sell to the world that causes people to want to come to your country, only to fail them once they get there (just like it does the average French citizen).

Should the violence continue, the image of France will suffer along with economy, the leader of the French employers' federation warned on Monday.

Damn the image problem.

How about we say that should the violence continue, France as we know it, will soon cease to exist? I know they are arrogant socialists that brought most of this on themselves, but they are my favorite arrogant socialists and the average French citizen deserves better than what their leadership is providing, right now.

Speaking on the Europe 1 radio station, Laurence Parisot emphasized the importance of regaining control of the situation as soon as possible.

"Make no mistake on the order of priorities, on what is the top priority, it is the restoration of public order," Parisot said, adding that companies were ready to work at giving opportunities to youths within immigrant communities.

How about they say, "STOP or we will SHOOT!"? And actually be prepared to do it, if they don't?

Just asking.

UPDATE - The AP is reporting that Jacques Chirac has just declared that France is in a state of emergency.

What's your hurry, Jacques?
___________

UPDATE II - Here is an excerpt from the above linked AP article about the reaction of Chirac's leftist critics:

The resort to curfews drew immediate criticism from Chirac's political opponents. Former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius said the emergency measures must be "controlled very, very closely."

Communist Party leader Marie-George Buffet said the decree could enflame rioters. "It could be taken anew as a sort of challenge to carry out more violence," she said.

Do I need to say anything, at all? Or is this self-explanatory, enough?

The Warnings Unheeded

A while back I posted a letter to Europe. It was a bit harsh, but it was indicative of my true inner feelings, something that the left wants us all to get in touch with. I was angry that France, Germany, and other continentals had taken such an arrogant, high-minded approach to our plight and deluded themselves into thinking that they didn't need the US, but rather the opposite. This, they did, while ignoring the signs, the warnings, and the evident truths that cannot be denied.

Shortly after that, this article was published by Reuters. It warns of the end of what was then considered to be a truce, between Al Qaeda and Europe.

July 2, 2004

DUBAI - An al-Qaida-linked group vowed to renew attacks on Europe and urged Muslims to flee once Osama bin Laden's three-month truce ends on July 15, two Arabic-language newspapers reported on Friday.

"To the European people ... you only have a few more days to accept bin Laden's truce or you will only have yourselves to blame," said the statement purported to be from the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades which claimed responsibility for the March 11 train bombings in Spain.

And they were right, on July 7, 2005, Brits were on the receiving end of that threat. It may have taken a year to carry it out, but it was carried out, nonetheless. They kept their promise.

I, and many like me, believed them. Many of you believed them, but both you and I were not in the position to do anything about it. The leadership of the EU and the member nations' were in a position, but virtually did nothing. What little was done, was mostly cosmetic and only designed to reassure an already skeptical electorate. Note-A bandaid does nothing to stop an arterial bleed.

Many Europeans have bought into the mindset that if Bush had not invaded Iraq, Spain would not have been hit last year and Britain would not have been hit, this year. So in essence, the attitude of "that won't happen here" has crept into the bulk of the Europeans' thought processes so deeply that they allowed themselves to be rocked to sleep, at a time when it called for vigilance.

France has taken that stance, since the beginning. They watched Spain get hit, then fold up their tent, and come home with their tails tucked between their legs. No doubt many French spoke privately (and maybe some not so privately) that it served them right for getting involved in Bush's "evil war for oil". When London was attacked, many probably said the very same thing.

But France (oh glorious, France), allowed themselves to fall into a lethargic slumber, based mostly on the fact that France had not supported the removal of Saddam. Add to that France's years of coddling Iran (remember, they gave Khomeini asylum before the shah was deposed) and the Palestinian cause for terror against Israel, and you get the false sense of security that has prevailed in French society, over the last decade or so . They have adopted the old "be nice to the lion and the lion will eat you last" policy.

Today, France has been proven wrong once again. The social experiment is failing and as they have discovered in the last week, they are not immuned from Muslim violence. It may not be the violence of the mass casualty kind, no large bombs exploded, and no buildings were brought down. But this violence is escalating, spreading, and will become a bigger threat if not dealt with soon.

Maybe by the time they get done with their meetings, conferences, and symposiums on the problem, they might get a clue that they have failed to recognize the problem at its roots. The problem begins with an arrogance that they are France, and France knows diplomacy so well that war is not necessary. By coddling hostile nations and other political groups, they (in their heart of hearts) believe that if they bend, bow, and break, the adversary will lose interest and leave them alone.

I do find it admirable that after sinking the world into two world wars and countless conflicts, due to their greedy imperialistic dreams, Europe wants to expend all diplomatic channels, before entering any military action. Given the amount of despots from Europe that have tried to conquer the known world, this is nothing short of a miracle.

But to not heed warnings that Islam is trying to wage war with the western world, to convince yourself that it is just an American, British, and Israeli problem, and to ignore the problem like it doesn't exist and hope it all goes away, is just plain foolish and dangerous. To do so, will mean more denial and more vulnerability, in the long term.

Most of you that agree with me, see it. The big question is, when will those that have the power to change it, see it?

But just in case they haven't gotten the memos yet, Steyn gives them one more opportunity to get with the program.

(For extensive continuing coverage of this developing story, visit Gindy.Blogspot.Com. He has followed this story from the beginning, so you may have to do some scrolling)

Cross posted at The Wide Awakes

Iraq Battle Stress Worse Than WWII, Says Times

The Times has an article on this very subject, I recommend reading it. The left won't get it, but maybe those that sit on the fence will get a better feel of just what kind of pressure, these men and women are under in this war.

MICHAEL SMITH

SENIOR army doctors have warned that troops in Iraq are suffering levels of battle stress not experienced since the second world war because of fears that if they shoot an insurgent, they will end up in court.

The two senior Royal Army Medical Corps officers, one of whom is a psychologist, have recently returned from Basra, where they said they counselled young soldiers who feared a military police investigation as much as they did the insurgents.

Now, I ask you. Is this the way to send men and women to fight? Everytime they are faced with a dangerous life/death situation, they must remember the Pantano case and they must agonize (in a span of seconds) over what to do, in any and every given situation. The fear of the embedded media reporter (with a leftist agenda) getting a hold of a justified miltary action that involved the death of an insurgent (and twisting it into something it is not), is not a fair thing to impose onto them, in addition what they must already endure.

Leftists that drive this hysteria, with their slanted media coverage and their stunts like Cindy Sheehan's, are not only emboldening the enemy; they are are tying the hands of our troops, thus weakening them, so that very enemy gains an advantage that would not have otherwise been there.

They did it in Vietnam, they are doing it now. They cannot cannot reason in their minds that they are a tool of the enemy. They cannot (or should I say, will not) allow themselves to believe this. They only want to go after a sitting President, it matters not to them that it gets people killed.

The blood was their hands then. And, it is on their hands, today.

Four Charged In Plot To Sell China More Secrets

The AP is reporting four people have been charged in a plan to sell China more secrets, on top of what was sent to them during the Clinton Adminstration. (Which saved them 10 years of research)

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An engineer and Chinese television director are among four people indicted on charges of stealing secret documents on Navy warships and trying to smuggle them to China, prosecutors said Friday.

Chi Mak, a naturalized U.S. citizen from China who lives in Los Angeles County, was arrested Oct. 28. He allegedly took computer disks from Anaheim defense contractor Power Paragon, where he was lead engineer on a research project involving warship propulsion systems, according to an FBI affidavit.

While we are preoccupied with North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and other more immediate concerns, China slowly and subtlely slips in under the radar. And, they are content to do so. They make their noise when they feel they must, but are quite good at smoke screens and sneakiness.

Make no mistake, China is quite content to sit on the sidelines, watch the USA and Europe become more and more weakened by the war with Islamofascism, and then be around to assume the role of superpower, when that happens.