Paris Is Threatened

France has been one of the more docile and mostly benign world powers with a tradition of appeasement that stretches back to the Second World War. Now however, France seems to have made herself a target for world jihad with a small troop contingent serving alongside the much larger American and other allied forces in Afghanistan and a decision to ban the burka made for domestic political considerations. The hostility France's activism provoked seems to have animated an active threat by al-Qaeda. Evidently landmarks as famous as the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame are now under threat along with other places of renown where tourists gather. Emerging concurrent with the France warning is a report that the leader of al-Qaeda himself Osama bin Laden has been hidden in relative comfort in the homes of members of Pakistan's version of the Central Intelligence Agency- the ISI. Whether there is any truth to that or not, is it not amazing over ten years since bin Laden took credit for the bombing of the USS Cole and almost a decade since the September 11, 2001 terror atrocity that mere mention of his name kindles such fear (and the massive and costly security precautions such alarm engenders)? If bin Laden had not ever existed, it would have made a good turn for the jihadists to invent him, to simply make up a bogeyman to frighten the West at every suggestion that some new terror attack is on the horizon. The sad fact now exists that if bin Laden were captured tomorrow, we would still be locked in a clash of civilizations for generations.