main page
"To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
|
click here for a bigger sunset
One small voice in the proud tradition of FreeBlogging*
Monday, July 21, 2003
posted by gbarto at 1:22 AM:
Here they come... It's the French news headlines!Le Monde: The FNLC Claims Responsibility for Bombings in Nice and Bastia. The original is " Le FNLC revendique les attentats de Nice et Bastia." I merely note this because it's the FLNC (Front de libération nationale de la Corse), not the FNLC. The story gets the abbreviation right. The group, incidentally, wants independance for Corsica, as the name would suggest. They also bombed a site in Nice in September of 2002. What these bombings accomplished eludes this correspondent.
Le Figaro: Le Figaro takes it up a notch, evoking the possibility the French have a war on their hands: Corsican Nationalists Take Up Arms Again. The newspaper notes an end to the "truce" of Corsican bomb setters. Unclear is whether the US, with its vow to oppose terrorists, will offer France assistance or merely snigger and suggest that claims of terrorist wars are often overblown.
Libé: Morocco: To Sources of Terrorism from Misery. A look at the mass trial of those involved in the May 16 bombings in Casablanca and an attempt to tie them to the hopelessness of life for many Moroccan natives. While I'll agree that life might get hopeless over there, the decision to die in a bomb blast destroying others doesn't just take hopelessness. It takes a belief that taking others with you - particular sets of others, in fact - will better one's own lot or those of one's survivors. That requires a movement with an ideology of hatred and scapegoating, a movement rightly on trial. The TurkeyBlog again reminds of the core conviction of the leaders of these Islamic movements: Until the Sheiks are made kings and all the Jews and Christians are gone, the only good Muslim of modest means is a dead one. No efforts to better these young men's lots, no efforts at self-improvement. Just holy war to expel from earthly existence all infidels including, as we saw in Pakistan a week ago, fellow Muslims who aren't "Muslim enough".
Ouest-France: Dr. Kelly Haunts Tony Blair. It was Dr. Kelly who suggested to the BBC that the dossier on Iraq nukes was overdone. It was also he who disavowed the story. And he who committed suicide as questions started being raised as to how much he told the BBC. As the TurkeyBlog suggests below, there are three questions about the info in dispute: Did the British intel committee "sex up" (his phrase) claims about Iraq weapons? Did Kelly "sex up" his claims of perfidy on the part of British intel? Did the BBC "sex up" what Kelly told them anonymously about questions about British intel? Of the last two, we'll never know since the a-one source is dead. The first one might be learned by another route, but even that's doubtful. An intel assessment constantly evolves according not only to the info at hand but to the angle from which it's being considered and the demands of those using it and there's no good way to recapture what was in the hearts and minds of those who put together the assessment as they did so. As I've noted earlier, for example, one considers evidence differently when studying evidence in a trial than in making a snap judgment as to whether lives are in immediate danger and deadly force warranted. In the case of Iraqi nukes, hearing they wanted them should not surprise. Hearing that someone with ties to Iraq was trying to scare up some uranium should likewise come as no surprise. Every third world dictator with pretensions to importance has probably put out feelers at one point or another with the hopes of joining Russia and Pakistan in the backward but still feared and respected among nations. But when you get the sense that those pretensions to importance might be realized, you're looking at that question of clear and present danger and the assessment must err on the side of caution. Telling the PM you think they've got the bomb so act accordingly is 99% of the time sound advice. Telling the PM they don't and then having to assess why Jerusalem just got nuked is embarrassing in the extreme. It takes the bungle of UN bureaucracy and French dithering on a joint quest for inaction to reach the surreal moment where the prudent response to the question, "Do they have nuclear weapons or are they about to acquire them?" is "Don't get excited, they might not."
* * *
French Elections, 1st round
Second round special page
Second Round Results Map
The TurkeyBlog main page contains only the 20 most recent entries.
To go further back, check the archive in the right hand bar.
