FRANCE WON'T FIGHT 'WAR OF CIVILISATIONS'

VIENNA September 6, 2006 (AFP) - Late Tuesday US President George W. Bush stepped up his war of words against Tehran, lashing out at Iran's leaders, dubbing them tyrants, and comparing them to the Al-Qaeda terror network. ... Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hit back saying Bush was "nothing" compared to God's will. But French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy* on Wednesday urged the two sides to keep talking.

"We cannot accept a war of civilisations" between a western bloc and a Muslim bloc," he told Radio Monte-Carlo commenting on Bush's remarks. "Good and evil are not decreed by the West in this country or that continent," he said.

We suppose it does not need repeating that M. Douste-Blazy is not very bright.

M. le Ministre has a small reservoir of approved French pieties that he strings together variously and presents as a sort of French foreign policy philosophy. Here, we learn France is opposed to the West waging a "war of civilizations". When we consider how lost M. le Ministre is in his post, our surprise lessens. Perhaps M. Douste-Blazy is too busy running Jack's errands to read the newspapers. We provide below a few clues where good and evil is being decreed and the civilization that is ready to slice France up a treat.

Under such circumstances, to push the enemy -- the greatest Kufr -- out of the country is a prime duty. No other duty after Belief is more important than the duty of had [sic]. Utmost effort should be made to prepare and instigate the Ummah against the enemy, the American-Israeli alliance -- occupying the country of the two Holy Places and the route of the Apostle (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) to the Furthest Mosque (Al-Aqsa Mosque).

... The time will come -- by the Permission of Allah -- when you'll perform your decisive role so that the word of Allah will be supreme and the word of the infidels (Kaferoon) will be the inferior. You will hit with iron fist against the aggressors.

Declaration of War against the Americans
Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places
Fatwa of Osama bin Laden
August 1996 (Al-Quds al-'Arabi)

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."

We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

Fatwa signed by Sheikh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin; Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of the Jihad Group in Egypt; Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, a leader of the Islamic Group; Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan; and Fazlul Rahman, leader of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh
February 23, 1998 (Al-Quds al-'Arabi)

BIN LADEN: This battle is not between al Qaeda and the U.S. This is a battle of Muslims against the global crusaders. ... Not all terrorism is cursed... America and Israel exercise the condemned terrorism. We practice the good terrorism which stops them from killing our children in Palestine and elsewhere.

Q: What do you think of the so-called "war of civilizations"? You always keep repeating "crusaders" and words like that all the time. Does that mean you support the war of civilizations?

BIN LADEN: No doubt about that: The book mentions this clearly. The Jews and the Americans made up this call for peace in the world. The peace they're calling for is a big fairy tale. They're just drugging the Muslims as they lead them to slaughter. And the slaughter is still going on. If we defend ourselves, they call us terrorists. The prophet has said, "The end won't come before the Muslims and the Jews fight each other till the Jew hides between a tree and a stone. Then the tree and stone say, "Oh, you Muslim, this is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him." He who claims there will be a lasting peace between us and the Jews is an infidel. He'll be denouncing the book and what's in it. ... In this fighting between Islam and the crusaders, we will continue our jihad. We will incite the nation for Jihad until we meet God and get his blessing. Any country that supports the Jews can only blame itself.

Osama bin Laden,
interview with Tayseer Alouni of Al-Jazeera television
October 2001/February 5, 2002 (Al-Jazeera/CNN)

The "war of civilizations" is not a Western construct, it is the declared position of Islamites and Islamic terrorists. They have declared such a war and are fighting it as they have declared it. France believes that when war is waged against the state, the appropriate response is not defensive war, but "a determined struggle", suggesting some sort of high-toned distinction without the bother of providing the distinction.

* The dimmest bulb in the dark Chirac marquee™.

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