I (we), many people saw this one coming. Usama is mad that France’s new secularism law is a “headscarf ban.”
TERRORISM CLUB
Will France perceive this threat? It’s Maginot Line time. Add an active component to that approach and you’d be in business.
Fuck Osama.
I think we should make all muslims dress in clown costumes 24/7 just to piss him off.
Just because something pisses him off doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good idea, people. Let’s not be hasty here.
That being said, I bet legalization of gay marriage would REALLY make him mad. Apoplectic, even. I think we should try it and see what happens. Just out of patriotism. 
Anyway, exactly what are we looking to debate here? It seems kind of vague. Is the question whether this should affect France’s headscarf thing? Whether this means that France will become a target of terrorist attacks by al Qaeda or similar? Tell! Explain! Elucidate!
France is already the target of Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists.
The Algerian GIA is responsible for the hijacking of an Air France flight to Algiers in December 1994. The group may also have been behind attack on a French subway train, as well as several other bombings in France in 1995.
What’s noo?
http://www.trackingthethreat.com/db/ENT1873.htm
France have been a target for a long time and have been hit several times.
What’s the point of this thread? What are you trying to say? I know you’re not exactly a fan of France and Europe in general. France have been on the US’s side for most things just not a bullshit war of agression based on lies and poor intelligence.
“An active component”. That would spark an interesting debate. Perhaps if France were to “perceive” Saudi Arabia as a threat, and invade it in order to depose an oppressive regime. Where would the U.S. stand?
In the context of religious fundamentalism, is it not a good thing to make schools more secular? The fact that this guy disagrees should come as no surprise, and should be a ringing endorsement, no?
Cheers.
I’m sorry to bring the bad news to you, but for millions of Muslims and non-Muslims on this globe Western people show a stubborn tendency to dress themselves in clown costumes 24/24 since day 1 of their lives.
Salaam. A
If you are using a person’s political persuasions to determine whether a particular policy is good or not, you’ll find 0 support for this law among the Anerican lefties of this board, 0 support among libertarian types and and certrists, and a few (very few) on the far right who endorse it. And that would be true of US population as a whole. So, align yourself with whom you choose. 
To the OP: France has dug itself too far into this hole to get out. As much as I think this law is odious, it should live or die on its own merits, not on what ObL says.
Well, I guess the French media could start by noting that the US has a duty as an “occupying power” to rebuild Iraq. They are anti-war even when it involves building schools or distributing chocolate, which the Europeans that hate us would be much tastier at than we are.
You want oil contracts enforced that you signed with Saddam? Well then help clean up the mess you created. The Europeans proliferated nuclear weapons to the Third World.
Europe has given us Fascism, Communism, WWI, WWII, Holocaust, Iron Curtain, gulags, etc… Oh, and “France Is Not An Anti-Semitic Nation” – LLN
Publicly-funded European intellectuals need to get off their lazy brains, excluding Dantec and Jean-Francois Revel.
BTW, if the Holy Grail of collectivism ever does take hold – I hope all of you have nice trim waistlines. If you don’t understand that comment, you’d better learn quick. Living in a nation of immigrants that love the United States is one of the only things that logically convinces me the United States is a great place. If I believed the news I read, I’d have a fucked up view. BBC World has taught me more about Democratic campaign rhetoric packaged as news than I’d ever hoped to learn.
OH, and the FMA would be an ass pustule on the Constitution of the US.
oh oy! Beagle you’re making a fanatical pro-US Eurotrash like myself have second thoughts. Oh behave!
So why don’t you go to the pit and shovel your shit there Beagle
What is this GD about?
secular schools are odious? I don’t understand, does anyone actually agree with this law, or are you all in agreement with Osama that it’s out of order?
I’m not sure if this is where the debate was supposed to be going…
Cheers.
Collectivism is a death trap.
Why The Hell Would A STUPID “ANTI-EUROPEAN” AMERICAN post arguments that don’t kiss the ass of our “allies” in the French government like Chirac and Villepinhead.
Paris is very beautiful. The Nazis were nice enough to not destroy it on the way in, or on the way out. Al Qaeda won’t be so polite.
This “imperial hyperpower” got this way by having to destroy enemies of the French, Chinese, Koreans, and the rest of Europe for that matter. We know a little about Europe, contrary to popular belief. I’m sure we have old military maps for when France succumbs to total anarchy.
Being anti-war now is anti-reconstruction. Nobody that obsesses over the past is dealing with this reality.
BUT, MOST IMPORTANTLY – “Y’s” Vietnam This guy comes to my house to do some repairs. Like most Americans in this part of the world, he’s a first, second, or third generation immigrant. Mostly first right around here.
Well, he’s still afraid of the Communist government in Vietnam as of one year ago. He, eh, “had a seizure” for lack of a better term when we got on the subject of Communism. He’s still fucked in the head. I gave him my number before he left, and cried after he did. So, anyway, I’ve heard enough Leftist crap defending Communism, collectivism, Socialism, or Progressive bureaucracy to last one lifetime. “Y” was like a “message from God, to get the band back together” – for a Libertarian.
Now, shoe’s on the other foot. Defend the mass murder and torture. Saddam even started as a Socialist and patterned his “look” on Stalin.
All I know about this wonderful European collectivist streak that paints the US as an enemy to all that is good, well, it brings lots of qualified workers to the US. “Y” even hated California.
As for me, I disagree with the law, but not for the same reasons Ibn Laden does. I come from the point of individual freedom; if that is their religon, they are free to wear the religous trappings. Forbidding them to wear the stuff is just as wrong (and for the same reasons) as it would be to force everyone to wear it (as Ibn Laden would apparently like). But them Im also against the whole school uniform bit here in the US.
If you have an issue with Communism and Socialism, then, while you’ll find a few European individuals who are of that shade (as you would in the US), I think you’ll find most Europeans agreeing with you.
However, you appear to have a somewhat stereotypical view of this continent.
Yeah, we’ve had some ghastly ideological and territorial struggles in the past couple of hundred years. But the EU is now a loose coalition of allied nations. Though we may have a few more ‘socialistic’ policies than the US - though not many, and they’re getting fewer all the time - European countries are capitalist economies.
If this is about France endangering itself, well can you see how the US endangered itself with the Iraq invasion in terms of increasing Islamic fundamentalist terrorist anger and recruitment? If this is about France opposing the war in Iraq, well, I guess you’ll have to add me as a target for your diatribe too. And a lot of your fellow countrymen.
Beagle, you clearly have some issues, and you appear very angry. Whatever you’re trying to say is being clouded by what appears to be frothing-at-the-mouth anti European sentiment.
Beagle, you feeling okay? I think I speak for most posters here when I say that I can’t for the life of me figure out what you’re trying to debate. As far as I can tell, it seems to be more or less one of the following issues:
Whether France should outlaw religious articles of dress in schools.
Whether Osama bin Laden’s condemnation of the proposed French ban on religious articles of dress in schools should affect French policy in some way.
Whether France should support the continued US occupation of Iraq and/or contribute to the funding for reconstruction.
Whether European chocolate is tastier than US chocolate.
Whether European socialism is bad.
Whether Vietnamese Communism is bad.
Whether mainstream news is bad.
Whether the FMA is bad. (“FMA”? I’m getting a TLA blackout here.)
I honor the dauntless posters like John Mace and Voodoochile who have slogged through this ranting mishmash and attempted to sustain an actual debate on topics 1 and 2, but if you actually had a clear idea about what you were trying to start a discussion about, now’s the time to mention it.
Bit of a false dichotomy there. ObL’s views are irrelevant. That’s like saying to all Christians: Can’t you deny God’s existence, or are you in agreement with ObL on the subject?
Secular schools do not require the banning of religious dress. They only requires the banning of religious teaching.
France has a different tradition in this regard than the US, so it’s hard for us “USers” to understand what’s going on. And yet Jews have been wearing yarmulkes to schools for decades and it is only with the appearance of Muslim headscarves that the ban was contemplated. This looks like a specific attack against Muslims, rather than a real need to keep schools secular.
I don’t know if I agree with the exact law in every detail. I do know that France is bound by its constitution to maintain a secular school system. I also know that the media really hosed France in their coverage of the controversy.
The United States faces similar fights at the state level all the time. The difference would be in the code system in France and the national control of the school system, eh, right?
I’m actually DEFENDING the poor French. I am concerned for the SURVIVAL of the French nation as a secular republic that is pretty darn close to our own in terms of so-called principles. Maybe that’s why we find it necessary to cast each other as bad, we are too much alike.
The European media depicts Iraq as another Vietnam Perhaps we might have done better by SE Asia? Once again, France and the United States might have done better by SE Asia. I know its not a coincidence that the US and France are always tied up in every issue in the world, for the good, bad, or indifferent.
I have some feeling a vast amount of the French don’t share that idea of yours.
I also have some feeling that you have no clue about France at all, especially since you have some fantasy that its secularity is “in danger”. In danger of what?
CITES ??? And I mean: EU-media cites. No translations, the originals = In plural, yes. Thank you.
Just couldn’t resist this…
Salaam. A