Thursday, January 19, 2006

Startling Escalation

Via Reuters, France threatens nuclear weapons against 'terrorist' states

We are hardly terror apologists given that we reject terrorists' evil methods and their tortured "root cause" analyses.

Still, we are startled and quite alarmed by French President Chirac's significant escalation of the war on terror rhetoric. This is almost more worrying than the new purported Osama tape.

"The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider using in one way or another weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part," Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear submarine base in northwestern France.

"This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind."

2 comments:

libertarian said...

PR: wonder who's attention he's trying to get. Is it Morocco and Algeria, or Iran - or somone else? He put "strategic supplies" (oil) under the nuclear-response umbrella and also took a potshot at Iran.

Either way - coming from the French, and given how drastic the statement is, the threat doesn't have much credibility. Also Chirac has little to lose - last term and all.

Anonymous said...

Interesting response.
So many examples of good counter-terror responses and our governments always want to repeat their own sad mistakes.

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