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Bin Laden demands France’s withdrawal from Afghanistan
Osama bin Laden demanded that France withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in exchange for the release of French hostages being held by al-Qaeda affiliates, according to an audio message broadcast on Al-Jazeera Friday.
Extremist groups associated with al-Qaeda are holding at least seven French hostages, including five in the Sahara Desert and two in Afghanistan.
France has about 3,850 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO mission fighting the Taliban. French forces are deployed mainly in the Kapisa and Surobi districts north and east of Kabul, the Afghan capital.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said his nation remains undaunted in its role to help stabilize Afghanistan.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Bin Laden’s message was still being authenticated.
Bin Laden reminded the French people of Sarkozy’s refusal in November to withdraw French troops from Afghanistan and to negotiate with al-Qaeda over the hostages. “Your president’s rejection is a result of being a hireling to America and is a green light to kill the hostages. . . . His stand will cost you a high price on different aspects inside or outside France,” he said.
The al-Qaeda leader questioned why the French would consider the resistance against Nazi German troops occupying their nation in World War II to be heroic while the fight against French and other foreign troops in Afghanistan is labeled terrorism.
Bin Laden also challenged whether the state of France’s economy would allow it to wage a successful fight against al-Qaeda.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
back to top4 Comments to “Bin Laden demands France’s withdrawal from Afghanistan”
Has he forgotten that the French were collaborators?
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Has he forgotten that the mighty French army has had its buttocks kicked by [insert long list of dirt poor 3rd world countries here]?
Most of the Euorpean “coalition members” in Afghanistan are doing things like school crossing guard work. Nothing which might require their troops to go on missions before 7am or after 9pm. The fighting and dying is being mainly done by Americans.
But that’s hardly news I spoze
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#3 “The al-Qaeda leader questioned why the French would consider the resistance against Nazi German troops occupying their nation in World War II to be heroic while the fight against French and other foreign troops in Afghanistan is labeled terrorism.”
The answer is simple, but the fascinating thing here is that this vicarious Muhammad continues to engage the West on a deeper philosophical level, but Westerners are too ignorant to pick up on it.
A war of words is far less deadly than using weapons, but the West stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that there is any ideological battle here. “Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” (RW Emerson). Emerson used that quote in regard to politicians who stuck to their guns even in the face of changing circumstances.
The West clings helplessly to a faux tolerance where they repeat the endless lie that the people who want to kill you come in peace. And so, the West prefers to sacrifice its own children in actual battle, rather than engage the enemy about the truth of their ideas. Having no other outlet for airing those grievances, people turn to violence.
I am not sure which is the best way to engage in a battle of ideas with barbarians. The Catholic Church probably came the closest by hold great public councils where all the ideas would be put on the table and would be debated in a deep philosophical sense. But the church offered nothing to the would-be-heretic other than his own life if he recanted. This is too one-sided.
Political negotiations provide a forum for both sides to air their grievances, but it never rises about brute compromise without engaging in the deeper philosophical issues.
I suppose what I am asking for is a serious of international trials which would put all of the issues on the table with real stakes such as transfer of rights and land to the winner. The key would be that all parties would have to acknowledge the legitimacy of the trials. That is the hard part.
This is the kind of thing the UN has done in the past, but the UN has lost legitimacy by allowing political correctness to take over making it an anti-American organization which legitimizes and supports terror. Obama more than anyone has the power to challenge Bin Ladin and others, but he prefers to praise and preach their ideology of violence.
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Doesn’t truth come out of the strangest places? As outraged as people were about Wikileaks, at least it was truth. I’m not in favor of revealing state secrets, but our governments are far too secretive. Most of what came out was misclassified as secret.
And here we have Bin Laden, a barbarian, challenging the mighty French intellectuals and they are stupefied. These are interesting times.
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