The question that needs to be asked is – do we want to be vassals of the United States, do we want to be a 51st state?

Gilles Savary,
French MEP And Royal Spokesman
And Vigilant Anti-American Anti-feudalist
EUROPA November 21, 2006 (Telegraph)

Drat! The French are on to us! John Rosenthal of the Transatlantic Intelligencer reports on Le Figaro keeping France ever alert to the imminent threats to her people and interests.

TWO HEADLINES, ONE DANGER
Le Figaro Frontpage November 21, 2006

THE GREATER THREAT
(Le Figaro On American Capital And Islamist Terror)

November 21, 2006 (Trans-Int) - Note the large headline in the middle of the page. It reads: "The Americans attack the European Stock Exchanges". Referring to the planned fusion between the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the European exchange, Euronext -- here interpreted as a "seizure of control" [mainmise] of the latter by the former -- the final paragraph of the accompanying text reads:

This American seizure of control is worrying. In an interview with Le Figaro, Henri Lachmann, who is writing a report on the subject for major French corporations, demands that the process of rapprochement between Euronext and the NYSE be stopped.

And note the much smaller headline just underneath the graph. It reads as follows: "Algerian Islamist Threat Against France".

PFFT (What is this?): Better dhimmitude than prosperity 3 | Rayonnement français 0

Your choice:
Vassal of the USA or vassal of Arabia?

And note the much smaller headline just underneath the graph

Hmmm... let me think: could be because it's not really news ( 1995 metro bombing and a failed attempt to crash an Air France Airbus in Paris in 1996)? You couldn't care less then, but times have changed, funny how professional French-bashers never seem to catch these news.

Vassal of the USA or vassal of Arabia?

No Dave, there is no (or never was) any intention to be vassals to "Arabia".

Ah, smug M. Zmx, placidly asleep at the wheel again. Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat, huh? Never heard of them.

We would point out it is not Pave that has cooked up a headline and accompanying story on a contemporary Algerian Islamic threat, it is the French newspaper Le Figaro.

But M. Zmx is satisfied that this story ground to a halt in 1996.

Tout va bien, tout va très bien.

DGB

Oh, and one thing that hasn't changed according to your linked story -- America continues to pick up France's tab.

Who cares if Damian Bennett has never heard of them, we don't want to take any chances, do we boss?

As you may know, there are hundreds of obscure radical islamic goups out there, some fictitious some genuine, a fact the CIA took a while to figure out. AlQuaeda anyone?

But M. Zmx is satisfied that this story ground to a halt in 1996.

No I'm not Sherlock, and you're apparently utterly clueless of what goes on daily in matters of counter-terrorism.

America continues to pick up France's tab.

"Continues"? Your arrogance makes the French look like monks. There was no "tab" before you dismissed pre-9/11 foreign intelligence and realized that terrorism was knocking at your door. Geez, maybe it's your interest to work with France and others after all?

It's not because Washington and Paris' cooperation in intelligence and counter-terrorism is excellent (and always was) that you should be irrationally stupid.

M. Zmx again posts before thinking, resists thinking after posting, and returns to repeat his performance. Let's review:

1. Le Figaro reports on a contemporary Algerian Islamic threat to France on its frontpage with an above-the-fold headline in its 11.21.06 edition. M. Zmx dismisses Figaro's report ("it's not really news") citing foiled Algerian Islamic threats in 1995 and 1996. When we challenge his soritical stretch, he pronounces himself unconvinced by its own conclusion.

2. M. Zmx then makes an oblique claim about the fictive nature of the reported threat. Yet to help poor uninformed M. Zmx out we had given him a link to where he could read all about the recent real threat by a real Algerian Islamist terrorist group. A group so real that France's ministre de l'Intérieur and M. Zmx's vaunted DGSE believe in it and the threat it poses. Luckily for France, M. Zmx is not in the business of counter-terrorism -- though he thinks himself informed enough to pass for Jean-Louis Bruguiere.

3. M. Zmx then introduces a non sequitur with a link to a report that states, inter alia, "a top secret center in Paris, code-named Alliance Base, that was set up by the CIA and French intelligence services in 2002... Funded largely by the CIA's Counterterrorist Center...". On that basis we remark that America continues to pick up France's tab. M. Zmx responds there was no tab before 09.11, WWI, WWII, NATO, and the Marshall Plan tabs, et al., having slipped the pebble-smooth cortex of his pebble mind.

4. M. Zmx, too muddle-headed to compose a coherent argument (what exactly is his complaint with this post?), spices this mush with his limited repetoire of less-than-mordant insults.

M. Zmx is a performing donkey. Pave obliges him a stage. M. Zmx performs. It's all very entertaining.

DGB

No I wasn't dismissing Le Figaro as you know, only your insipid inuendo followed by Dave's pensées. Nor was I dimissing the Algerian group as "fictive", as you also know but rather, I misunderstood the sarcastic nature of your "never heard of them" comment. I congratulate you at your attempt at humour, outside your cheesy Photoshop skills.

No, unlike you I'm not an expert in counter-terrorism but I happen to know (very well) someone who was until recently (ex-Légion Etrangère, secret services under Giscard and Mitterand, African affairs, etc, etc... not to mention a friend of Bruguiere). Who knows Damian, at the risk of being utterly insolent, I may know a few juicy details beyond your capabilities of aknowlegment...

Finally, our exchange on "picking up the tab" never implied, as you know, WW2, NATO (before 1967) and the Marshall Plan, unless the topic of the Washington Post link escaped you completely. But such are your tactics: never ever aknowledge and when in doubt, throw in a few tangents that have utterly nothing to do with the discussion. Or just call your opponent a "liar".

Very entertaining indeed.

M. Zmx attributes many of his own defects to us.

The post is about the undoctored headlines of the 11.21.06 edition of Figaro and their comparative importance in styling and position.

"As I know" is as we've written, plain enough --not as M. Zmx lamely dictates by way of excuse for his failed posts. We are content to stand by what we have written as we have written without recourse to wading into the shoals of M. Zmx's mind to fish up what he knows "as he knows".

But we leave it to sober readers to review the discursus as it developed to determine who has been clear and who has been muddled, who has introduced off-topic points, and who has resorted to mind reading.

DGB