11/19/2004 Entry: ""
Posted by Maynard @ 04:49 PM MST
Frogs in Iraq
Much ado is being made about the BBC article about 3, possibly 4 French nationals dying in Iraq - on the bad guys side. This is, historically, nothing new. American citizens volunteered for Allied Forces in both World Wars before the US joined formally. The questions relevant to today are: how closely tied to the mainstream of French society are these guys? How much tacit support from their government do they get? As for Mister Chirac, its time to start getting tough with him anyway, regardless of what his countries citizens are doing.
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(3)
Nice use of eqivocation.
3-4 Arabs with French citizenship are hardly wine-swilling-beret-and-striped-shit-wearing "frogs".
It is not suprising given France's immigration policies that a few of them might return to fight for their religion or people or whatever.
Posted by Mike @ 11/21/2004 12:53 PM MST
Mike,
Arabs with French citizenship are still French, in the same way that an African-American is still American. That they chose to become French citizens indicates that they find some common identity or cause with the French. They are representatives of their adopted country, and need to act accordingly.
Of course, that assumes they are immigrant Frenchmen, not native-born ones.
As for the number, 3-4 of them is the known lower limit. There could be more, and as you note, the immigration policies allow for others.
I did not equivocate. I just stated that their actions are not a precedent and raised questions about their actions, questions not addressed in the article. I did not commend their actions, I just stated that foreigners aiding a country not their own in wartime is not new. They are not on the same moral level as the RAF Eagles, nor are they fighting righteously.
The French pride drips from the European headlines. It is time someone get a cloth and wipe up the mess.
Posted by Maynard @ 11/22/2004 07:11 AM MST
Matt,
Well, I think it's equivocation to refer to Arabs with French citizenship as "French" like how it would be to refer to a White person with Japanese citizenship as "Japanese" or to a Black with Irish citizenship as "Irish"
since those nationalities, like French, have connotations of ethnicity that "American" lacks.
"That they chose to become French citizens indicates that they find some common identity or cause with the French."
But that they are fighting for Iraq/Arabia/Islam or whatever indicates where their primary loyalty actually lies. They and the Muslims in Europe in general, probably emmigrated for economic reasons or to escape some other hardship and have no real loyalty or identification with their host country, probably considering themselves Muslim above all. Its the same thing the Jews have been accused of for centuries, having no real loyalty to their host country with their primarly loyalty being to their own group/religion and/or homeland.
Remember that Muslim who threw a grenade in a tent at the beginning of Georgie's War becasue "You guys are coming into our countries and you're going to rape our women and kill our children." That's a good illustration of this concept.
And it does look like there are more, the BBC article having a captionmentioning a dozen.
Yes, fighting for other countries has lots of precedents in the Foreign Legions, International Brigades, etc.
And would also like to know how much support they have in Europe, is it just sympathy for the insurgents casue, but they do not want American soldiers to die, just to leave as soon as possible, or is it "Death to the Yankee imperialist pigs!"?
And well yes, if the insurgents are fighting an un-just war,then whoever joins them is not fighting a just war.
But Georgie's War is an un-just invasion and so a resistance movement would be just and so whoever joins them is fighting a just war, at least in terms of the cause of getting the foreign invader/occupier to leave, but not if they are trying to expel the foreign regime so they can set up their own regime, which is the case with the Iraq insurgency whether it is primarilty a local resistance, foreign Jihadists or Old Regime holdouts.
fighting to set up a State is not anymore just then an un-just invasion by a State, so you are right they are not fighting righteously, although probably for a different reason then you would give.
"The French pride drips from the European headlines. It is time someone get a cloth and wipe up the mess."
where are these headlines? I can only find the BBC story. And it is bad if France is proud some of its citizens are fighting to set up an Islamic State.
Posted by Mike @ 11/22/2004 02:47 PM MST
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