January 3: From the New York Sun, novelist Nidra Poller interviews George Malbrunot, one of two French journalists captured by Iraqi Salafists on August 20 and released on December 22.
Poller: Would you call the people who were holding you insurgents or résistants?
Malbrunot: For us it is clear: People who combat an illegal occupation that results from an illegal war are résistants. Resistance is a sacred right, whether you are Islamist or nationalist, you are résistants. However, when you capture people from a country that has nothing to do with the situation, then your methods have nothing to do with the resistance...Taking hostages is a method of terrorism.
In other words, as long as paramilitary death-squads murder innocent Iraqis, they are "resistance fighters." But should they make the la grande erreur and kidnap a Frenchman, they become...terrorists.
Later in the interview, Malbrunot inveighs against France's ban on the head scarves, claiming that it will--sacre Dieu!--stir up anti-French sentiment among the Salafists..
When you're dealing with people like Al Qaeda, you mustn't give them angles of attack. They feed on the shock of cultures...
When we told [our] jihadist [captor] that we are against that law, we think it should have been handled by dialogue, he said, "What dialogue, the head scarf is an obligation for Muslims, there can't be any dialogue." So you can see there are limits to dialogue...but all the more reason not to give them an opportunity to take action.
Can we say the word "appeasement"?
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