In the rush to say something, anything damning, about democratic Iraq, French metaphor runs wild.

JUDGE WARNS OF IRAQ 'BLACK HOLE'

LONDON October 20, 2005 (BBC) - "[Iraq is] quite a black hole sucking up all the [terrorist] elements located in Europe, and pushing them to leave Europe and go to Iraq," [France's top anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere] said.

With sympathies to the Iraqis, better to have the terrorists concentrated in one place where they can be killed more easily. But, alas, M. Bruguiere's black hole is not a black hole at all.

"Some of them come back to Europe with the need and the intention of committing jihad... in their home country in England, France, Spain, other country in Europe.

"Some of them have training for non-conventional weapons such as chemical and biological weapons and that were quite new in 2002, 2003."

Broadly speaking, a black hole is a mass so concentrated that nothing within its compass can escape its gravitational pull. If democratic Iraq is a terrorist black hole then once a terrorist passes its event horizon, say Syria, he will stay put in Iraq, unable to return to Europe.

We suggest that the judge has used the term "black hole" because it sounds ominous, scary, not because of any metaphoric correspondence. Why? Because the subtext to any French pronouncement on democratic Iraq is that liberating Iraq has agitated the world's terrorist Islamites. Yes, America is to blame, you see. Oh, for those halcyon days when Islamite terrorists stayed put in the black holes of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, the PNA, Iran, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Indonesia, Philippines, and...the Sarcelles. Instead now they pack off to Iraq to be thrashed and killed by Iraqi and coalition defense forces. We hazard fewer return than arrive.

We hope M. Bruguiere is a better jurist than he is a theoretical physicist.

His heavy-handed "Bruguiere method" is much criticised by human rights advocates, though to the "overwhelming majority of French people and politicians, Mr Bruguiere is a hero."

And in this post-11 September world, they feel that an erosion of civil liberties is a small price to pay for the sense of increased security that comes with having a powerful "sheriff" around.

We wish the judge success in his official commission and curbing his hyperbole.

PFFT (What is this?): Overwrought metaphoring 3 | Rayonnement français 0

Well of course "Black Hole" is just an unproven theory. Sorta like "evolution" But according to Hawking's apology some things can escape from a "Black Hole" and pop up elsewhere, like in sci-fi wormholes.

Mr. Ryan,

Aware of Mr. Hawking's further conjectures on black holes, we took pains to characterize our comment as "broadly speaking".

Though Mr. Hawking is a recognized authority in theoretical astrophysics, he is not the final word. Our description of black holes remains the consensus opinion. We highly doubt M. Bruguiere was advancing Mr. Hawking's recent thinking when he used the trope. To do so would confound the point of using the cliché at all.

DGB