XPost: soc.culture.usa, soc.culture.europe   
   From: staten@lycos.com   
      
   FRENCH INTIFADA: 112 CARS BURNED EVERY DAY   
      
   By Charles Johnson   
      
   Last year when the Islamic riots were raging in France, a seemingly endless   
   parade of apologists told us over and over that the violence was due to   
   economic oppression and alienation, and had nothing to do with radical   
   Islam. Those who labeled it a "French Intifada" were mocked and derided as   
   "Islamophobes."   
      
   What will the apologists say this year when the riots repeat, as even French   
   police have stopped denying the nature of the enemy? A horrifying statistic   
   shows how bad it's gotten: Why 112 cars are burning every day.   
      
     FLAMES lick around a burning car on a tiny telephone screen. Omar, 17, a   
   veteran of France's suburban riots, replayed the sequence with pride. "It   
   was great. We did lots of them and then we went out and torched more the   
   next day."   
      
     Omar, whose parents immigrated from Mali, was savouring memories of the   
   revolt that erupted 12 months ago from his home, the Chêne Pointu estate in   
   Clichy-sous-Bois, in the eastern outskirts of Paris. "We're ready for it   
   again. In fact it hasn't stopped," he added.   
      
     Before next week's anniversary of the Clichy riots, the violence and   
   despair on the estates are again to the fore. Despite a promised   
   renaissance, little has changed, and the lid could blow at any moment.   
      
     The figures are stark. An average of 112 cars a day have been torched   
   across France so far this year and there have been 15 attacks a day on   
   police and emergency services. Nearly 3,000 police officers have been   
   injured in clashes this year. Officers have been badly injured in four   
   ambushes in the Paris outskirts since September. Some police talk of open   
   war with youths who are bent on more than vandalism.   
      
     "The thing that has changed over the past month is that they now want to   
   kill us," said Bruno Beschizza, the leader of Synergie, a union to which 40   
   per cent of officers belong. Action Police, a hardline union, said: "We are   
   in a civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists."  Saturday, October 21,   
   2006   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)