French Muslim Unrest Only the Beginning

After more than a week of violent riots in the outskirts of Paris, the mainstream media is finally beginning to pay attention. Last night, over 1300 cars were torched, not only in the outskirts, but towards the tourist areas of Paris, as well as other cities throughout the country. Unfortunately, the media, CNN in particular, has sanitized the story in political correctness.

France has a population of approximately 60 million people. Its "immigrant" population of makes up 6.3% of its population. Included in that "immigrant" population are over 5 million Muslims, making it the largest enclave of Muslims in Western Europe. It is the young, Muslim, population that is rioting in the streets.

After its initial reporting, CNN has ceased using the word "Muslim" in describing the rioters, and has begun to use the word "immigrant". It is so pronounced and obvious, it is clear that the CNN politically correct censors have decided that using the term Muslim might, God forbid, be offensive.

There is no doubt the issues facing the French are more complicated than can be addressed here. Issues of minority treatment throughout Europe, including Britain and Germany, are the dirty little secret of those over there who want to wag their finger at those over here in the United States. We, at least, attempt to bring the minority populations into the mainstream, albeit with varying degrees of success. The Europeans, on the other hand, have kept them in "ethnic enclaves", translate ghettos. Two to three generations later, little movement has been made by the "immigrants" out of the "ethnic enclaves". In Germany, white supremacy lurks just under the surface. It bubbled to the top in the former Yugoslavia, and is still simmering.

Notwithstanding the whys or the wherefores, this bodes badly for the United States, and the world as a whole. The French and the Germans, in typical appeasement fashion, attempted to buy the support of the Muslims by opposing the United States' war in Iraq. It didn't work, and won't work. Worldwide there is an entire generation of young Muslims who are disenfranchised and filled with an ideology of hate and violence. There is no appeasing it. Meanwhile, the media says "amen' to the appeasement by refusing to say what this problem truly is. Problems cannot be addressed in any rational way or at any level of the political process unless the truth of it can be unequivocally stated, regardless of political correctness or who may be offended.

If anyone wants to know why we are in Iraq, look at a map. The Bush administration has marched 150,000 American troops right into the heart of the Islamic fundamentalist/anti-Israel movement: Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. It has been my contention from the beginning of the war that Saddam Hussein was the excuse, not the reason, for American military action in Iraq. The Islamofascist movement is a force to be reckoned with whether it takes the form of flying planes into the trade towers, terrorist activity in Britain and Spain, or civil unrest in France. When the President of Iran states that it is his avowed goal to "wipe Israel off the face of the map," take him at his word. Iran has the second largest oil reserves in the world and needs nuclear power like Alaska needs snow.

Our troops are going to be in Iraq a long, long time. The blame America first crowd better brush away the fairy dust and take a hard and realistic view of what is going on. Unless the moderate Moslems become more vocal and active in quelling the rising tide of extremism, I am afraid we are only just now seeing the beginning of a long and bloody struggle.