Lyle
Aug 30, 2004, 09:31 AM
Apologies if this is a duplicate of an existing thread; I haven't seen it being discussed here yet.
If I'm going to be completely honest, I have mixed feelings about the two French journalists being held hostage by an Islamic group in Iraq (story here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3611494.stm)). The dispute is apparently over France's policy of banning head scarves and not the war, but this quote from Le Figaro really stood out to me:"Given its position as the leading opponent to the US-led war on Iraq, the paper says, 'France could have hoped to be spared this cruel ordeal'".A different newspaper, the Swiss Tribune de Geneve echoes this sentiment:"France's attitude in the Iraq conflict should give it powerful leverage in Baghdad."Both newspapers seem to be saying that they thought France had bought "insurance" against this kind of thing when they opposed the war against Iraq. In contrast, another Swiss newspaper, Le Temps, notes that:"... the Islamist terrorists prowling the streets of Iraq and the Middle East are not necessarily amenable to the kind of reasoning used in democratic countries".
I sincerely hope and pray that these journalists' lives are spared, but we're quickly approaching the Monday night deadline set by their captors and it doesn't look like France is going to back down on the planned ban on Islamic headscarves.
If I'm going to be completely honest, I have mixed feelings about the two French journalists being held hostage by an Islamic group in Iraq (story here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3611494.stm)). The dispute is apparently over France's policy of banning head scarves and not the war, but this quote from Le Figaro really stood out to me:"Given its position as the leading opponent to the US-led war on Iraq, the paper says, 'France could have hoped to be spared this cruel ordeal'".A different newspaper, the Swiss Tribune de Geneve echoes this sentiment:"France's attitude in the Iraq conflict should give it powerful leverage in Baghdad."Both newspapers seem to be saying that they thought France had bought "insurance" against this kind of thing when they opposed the war against Iraq. In contrast, another Swiss newspaper, Le Temps, notes that:"... the Islamist terrorists prowling the streets of Iraq and the Middle East are not necessarily amenable to the kind of reasoning used in democratic countries".
I sincerely hope and pray that these journalists' lives are spared, but we're quickly approaching the Monday night deadline set by their captors and it doesn't look like France is going to back down on the planned ban on Islamic headscarves.
