The spin is amazing.

Violence in Paris suburbs sparks copy-cat unrest

EPINAY-SUR-SEINE, France (Reuters) - Violence erupted again in poor suburbs of Paris where youths torched buildings and dozens of cars and sporadic unrest spread in the early hours of Saturday to at least three other French cities.

In a potentially worrying development for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's beleaguered government, police said more cars were set alight outside the greater Paris area than in the capital's suburbs, the epicenter of riots for more than a week.

Violence erupted again? Should that not be violence continues to spread? Is theis the 10th or 11th day fo the French Intifada?


France shaken as riots spread

Arson attacks, running battles with police, random gunfire and looting over 10 nights have spread from the dingy Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois to dozens of other predominantly Muslim slums, where religious fundamentalism competes with drug pushers for the attention of alienated youths.

In an alarming turn early yesterday, police said the unrest had even reached the centre of the French capital, where more than a dozen vehicles were torched.

A growing number of rioters seemed to have found a political demand: the resignation of the Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy. But Mr Sarkozy, who is accused of having inflamed the riots by calling the youths that began them "louts" and "scum", is refusing to moderate his tough stand, telling yesterday's Le Monde that the Government's strategy of firmness was correct

Oh wow they go on a rampage and Sarkozy if at fauilt because he HURT THEIR feelings by calling them names.

PS an appropriated English translation of the word he used would be rascals.

It is true that the French Government has much to be held to blame for, the segregation, and ghettoizing of the Muslims Immigrants was a very bad idea and the French People's inability to assimilate foreigners is a problem too, BUT when you compare the squalor of the Muslim enclaves in France with the squalor and the destitution these people would have endured if they had never come to France?

I mean if you are living in subsidized housing, means given you by the State and the crowding is so oppressive, MAYBE having 10 or 11 children adds to the problem?

The truth is they should pray to Allah with gratitude that they face now a French Government rather than a Muslim one.

If the later they would be facing Hama Rules.

n February 1982 the secular Syrian government of President Hafez al-Assad faced a mortal threat from Islamic extremists, who sought to topple the Assad regime. How did it respond? President Assad identified the rebellion as emanating from Syria's fourth-largest city ? Hama ? and he literally leveled it, pounding the fundamentalist neighborhoods with artillery for days. Once the guns fell silent, he plowed up the rubble and bulldozed it flat, into vast parking lots. Amnesty International estimated that10 , 000to25 , 000Syrians, mostly civilians, were killed in the merciless crackdown. Syria has not had a Muslim extremist problem since.

I visited Hama a few months after it was leveled. The regime actually wanted Syrians to go see it, to contemplate Hama's silence and to reflect on its meaning. I wrote afterward, "The whole town looked as though a tornado had swept back and forth over it for a week ? but this was not the work of mother nature."

This was "Hama Rules" ? the real rules of Middle East politics ? and Hama Rules are no rules at all. I tell this story not to suggest this should be America's approach. We can't go around leveling cities. We need to be much more focused, selective and smart in uprooting the terrorists.

I say that NOT to advocate this tactic as a solution to the present problems, but to indicate there is a degree in quality and quantity of oppression between the West and the East.

We are not Saints. but I very seriously doubt Hama Rules will be invoked in France, under a Muslim regime?

In a heartbeat.

Captain's Quarters has an eery, but with a ring of truth read on these events.

The Islamists, however, understand that they have the momentum and the political will that the French and their government lack. They will not give that up easily, and not without significant concessions. One cannot help but be reminded of the first barbarian sack of Rome at the hands of Alaric, who decreed that the Romans would keep their lives only as long as they refrained from interfering in the pillaging of Alaric's forces until they finished. I wonder what the Islamists will demand from the French for their survival.


UPDATE: This is a MUST READ from !No Pasaran!
A perfect example of how Idealogical editing of the News spreads lies and engenders chaos.
It appears that Nicolas Sarkozy was deliberately demonized in the TV reports of him using his strong language earlier in the week. In fact, there was footage available showing Sarkozy using the word ?racaille? (riff-raff) while speaking to an inhabitant of Clichy-sous-Bois who herself had just used the word while expressing how fed up she was with local crime.

Sarko answered her using her own words. In politics, that?s a way of communicating empathy. Her words were edited out and never shown in the ensuing days. His weren?t. ?Arret sur Images? showed the whole exchange today.

Mr. Sarkozy was filmed quietly and calmly speaking to youths from Clichy who were apparently very deferential toward him (calling him Monsieur), eager to talk to him and seemed impressed that he was willing to leave himself unprotected by bodyguards in order to spend some time with them. In a what amounts to a ghetto that?s a sincere display of trust.

That footage didn?t make the news programs simply because the Provisional wing of the CGT got in the way of honest journalism. It didn?t suit their political agenda, and through its? heavy ideological editing fanned the flames you might see in your nearest car park or bus depot. Never mind the possible tensions that the press can inflame by reporting too much, worry about what harm is caused by consciously reporting too little.

|