Spengler: why the French will do nothing
I had notes for a piece that would explore France’s options in fighting the terrorists within. I saw two possible models: their own campaign against Algerian terrorists in the 50s (which I had mentioned in one of my first posts in response to the Paris attack), which was marked by torture and brutality; and the Israeli reaction to the Second Intifada. The first was quite successful but used abominable methods. The second, although distorted and libeled by the press, was painstaking in its care to avoid such excesses, and relatively successful.
I didn’t think France was going to do either; I don’t think they have the will or the ability.
But now I don’t have to write that post, because that is the basic premise of this excellent article by Spengler. An excerpt:
An Algerian War against France’s homebred Muslim radicals isn’t an option. France can no longer find monsters like Generals Raoul Salan and Maurice Challe, the commanders in Algeria during the 1950s who earlier had served the puppet regime of Marshall Petain during the Second World War. There is no-one left to clip on the electrodes. At the same time, France considers Israel’s occupation of Judea and Samaria so abhorrent that it has sponsored a resolution at the UN Security Council to impose a mandatory two-year deadline for the creation of a Palestinian State and Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank. That leaves France in a pickle. If it can’t use the old French counter-terrorism model and abhors the Israeli counter-terrorism model, what can France do? The answer is: nothing. And that is just what France will do in response to last Friday’s attacks.
Please read the whole thing.
It is a terrible irony that France was instrumental (as Spengler notes) in the propaganda war to convince the world that Israel was at fault both in its methods and in its goals. Now France faces its own problem, long ignored and allowed to grow and flourish.
Oops. Didn’t realize you had already referred to Algeria.
By the way, you are no doubt familiar with the methods used by the Algerians against the Pied-Noir …
First thing I thought this time around.
Some of the comments are depressing. I was just thinking the other day how every time, going back 30+ years, I’ve had a conversation with an Arab (people I like), without fail their opinions are based on blame of this or that people or country. I can’t think of a single discussion where that wasn’t the case. And in the comments section…there it is.
“it is clear that a very large proportion of French Muslims support the most extreme expression of radical Islam, offering the terrorists the opportunity to blend into a friendly milieu. The problem has gotten too big to be cured without a great deal of mess and pain. In the Gallic hedonistic calculus, a massacre or two per year is preferable to a breach of the tenuous social peace. And that is why France will do nothing. France simply doesn’t have the stomach for it.” Spengler
But of course France’s future holds far more than simply “a massacre or two per year”…
Slaughter followed by dhimmitude is now France’s destiny. And, they will accommodate and even embrace it. It increasingly appears that the Nazis exposed French society’s true character (individual exceptions aside) and Islam is confirming it.
“The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.” Alexis de Tocqueville
The poll results that Spengler cites give the lie to the usual claim that radical Islam is only supported by a small minority of Muslims.
Most French Muslims may not have the courage to act on their convictions, but nor will they willing to help the authorities identify those who are preparing to wage jihad. President Obama is trying to create a similar situation in the US. His administration has already increased muslim immigration to unprecedented numbers. According to Breibart
Hollande is of the Left… and can then, obviously, do no wrong.
So, I expect that the French MSM will flip narratives on a dime.
Heck, Napoleon got the Imperial Guard troops sent to capture him to flip on a dime… and march on the Bourbon monarch. (1815)
One must understand that “True Believers” flip from one extreme to the other they don’t become moderates.
Unlike Algeria AND Israel — modern France is of the smart phone.
That makes ALL the difference in the world.
Digital records – walking back the cat — will implode jihadist networks at a tempo that you simply can’t believe.
Sixty-years ago, it took thumb screws and electrodes.
Now, the authorities merely need to download your history… from your phone.
Oral ‘interviews’ are so — yesterday.
The fella that invented this (ok is credited with this ) is Stanley McCrystal — JSOC was his baby.
Networking backward –digitally — he found Zarqawi — and his JSOC found OBL.
JSOC, per se, was not named in “Zero Dark Thirty” but the trigger pullers were a part of JSOC.
JSOC is so secret they keep changing its name.
It took Nixon to go to Red China.
It will take the Trudeaus, the Hollandes of this era to flip the script for their True Believers.
Such is the way of the world, of man, of hate, of the narrative.
You’re forgetting the left’s infinite capacity for hypocrisy. They won’t be held to a principle if they find it inconvenient. They will turn around, adopt the spitting image of Israel’s tactics, then claim they held them all along.
Spengler was the guy that thought Hussein would not win the 2012 elections because of his record. Spengler has few if any clue, about what’s going on in the US.
If he’s wrong about France too, that’ll be some record there.
Ymarsakar:
I very much hope Spengler is wrong about France.