The Price of War: Paris and Iraq
For the last half-decade liberals have been lecturing us that we need to be more like the French. To avoid war and seek peace with our enemies. To oppose Israel, shrug of terrorism and go about life with that Gallic casualness. As proof of the alternative they point at the casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the thousands of US soldiers killed and wounded in battle, the disruption to our society, the constant fear of attack.
But of course the thing about war is that when the enemy is determined to kill you, you don't get to choose between war and peace, you only get to choose the terrain of battle. You can either take the initiative and go to them or wait for them to come to you. After they came to us in New York, we went to them in Afghanistan and Iraq. The French were determined to keep sitting where they were believing they could sit the storm out by fearsomely working to counter the US.
Did it work?
While American troops are fighting in Iraq, French police are fighting in Paris. The head of the police union has described it as an 'Infitada.' French police enter Muslim areas of Paris protected by armored cars and in full armor. And the casualties? At the current rate 14 French Police officers are injured each day. 3842 police officers were injured in 2004. By the end of 2006 they believe that number will reach 5000 injured officers or %15 of the police force. A casualty rate that competes with the number of US troops wounded in Iraq.
Bad? Pretty bad indeed.
The US went abroad to fight Islam and instead began playing police and that is where the casualties come from. The French stayed home with 5 million Muslims pretending Islam was great and got a civil war instead. It's not just France either. Staunchly anti-war countries like Sweden and Belgium are facing the same uptick in Muslim violence. While allied nations like Britain worry about bombs in buses, the European countries that have already surrendered to Islam are facing a civil war instead as its Muslim settlers are determined to complete the conquest.
French police are discovering that Muslim parts of France are foreign territory to them.
'Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the Action Police trade union warned of an "intifada" demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas.
"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails. You no longer see two or three youths confronting police, you see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their 'comrades' free when they are arrested."
Recently the liberal's cause celebre was armor for US vehicles in Iraq. France didn't go Iraq. Iraq came to them. Now they're the ones who need armored vehicles in their own cities. And it's a very familiar scene indeed. Rock throwing youths, Molotov cocktails, tear gas, fires. Did the French really think they could encourage Israel's Arab minority to rise up and demand their own state and that they own Arabs and Muslims wouldn't do likewise? Did they think being French was some sort of immunity?
France tried to dodge the war but the war can't be dodged. Those countries that don't ride out to meet the hordes of Islam will have to fight them at home instead. The riots, the murders, the bombings, the gang rapes, the streets of torched vehicles and looted shops are familiar enough. They're what comes with living in a war zone and sooner or later every Muslim populated territory becomes a war zone.
There's no dodging the war or the casualties. For now at the very beginning the Paristinians are still limiting themselves to rocks and Molotov cocktails and clubs and fists. And even so thousands of officers are down. What happens when they upgraded to Kalashnikov's and RPG's?
The war is coming home.
