Inside al Qaeda

Sept. 3 -- This book review of Inside al Qaeda The man who got inside al-Qa'eda hammers home a point that is too often overlooked by the liberal intellegentsia and media: the largest numbers of those who suffer terrorist attacks are not Westerners but Muslims. Who, after all, is hurt when bombs go off in Algerian or Phillipine marketplaces? Muslims comprised the greatest number of fatalities in the recent Jakarta and Najaf bombings.

Algerian journalist Mohamed Sifaoui, who has had friends and family who died in terrorist attacks, posed as a terrorist sympathizer to gain insight and information as a way to write this book and protest against the too-often indulgent and romanticized view of terrorists.

Sifaoui's book has sold 60,000 copies in France. It is to be hoped that its readers include President Chirac and his Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, and that the book will have had an educative effect on French thinking, though I wouldn't bet on it. The French book L'Effoyable Imposture (The Dreadful Fraud), which claimed that the 11 September attack was the work of the Jews and the CIA, sold over 100,000.

Sifaoui reminds us that the terrorist attack on the Paris Metro in 1995 was seen by many in France as a plot by the Algerian military government to discredit Islamic exiles. (The "brothers" - the terrorists - resented this attempt to exculpate them, since it detracted from their glory in the operation.) Given the French neurosis about America, one can well imagine where the finger would point should fundamentalists succeed in a new outrage in France. Unless the French authorities take a tougher line with the aiders and abetters of terrorism than they appear to do in this book, sadly - as in Britain - such an atrocity seems only a matter of time.

The author, however, states that Britain is the biggest safe haven for the hard-core fundamentalists. Good review -- and there's a link to Amazon if you want to buy the book.

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De Villepin's adventure

Aug. 4 - Paul has some posts on the ill-fated French excursion into Brazil with It's funny when it happens to them and Von Villepin Watch although I prefer the sub-title "Bungle in the jungle".)

Watcher of Weasels also has some comments and a link to the French apology in the post "Past the Point of Rescue."

Oddly, Merde in France and Dissident Frogman haven't commented on this yet. I wonder just how much play this is getting in the French press.

May 31, 2005: I've updated some of the links as Paul moved since the cited posts were written.

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