The War on France

We'll probably do a longer post on this but for now we just want to collect a few links from what is clearly a sustained campaign by the American Right to package the riots in the Paris suburbs as confirmation of their longstanding claims about a Muslim 5th column waiting to destroy Europe:

Andrew Sullivan: DAY SIX: France's Islamist underground riots have now continued for almost a week, and are spreading.

National Review Online: BARBARIANS AT THE GATES OF PARIS [Jonah Goldberg] ...

RE: FRANCE [Andy McCarthy]
The dirty little secret of Europe, and France especially, is not just the failure of assimilation addressed by Francis Fukuyama (my piece on it from yesterday is here), but the corollary of that failure. The French have gradually been ceding sovereignty over swaths of their country. Scores of the Muslim ghettoes have been no-go areas where the authorities have basically abandoned the responsibilities of government, creating little emirates where the Islamic leaders hold sway ...

They [mainstream media, example Times of London] presents a narrative. In this one, the guys responsible for the dangerous state of affairs in France (Chirac, de Villipan (sic), etc.) are painted as the enlightened heroes, while the guys doing the real-world grunt work needed to restore order (Sarkozy, etc.) are the Yankee cowboys.

[Rod Dreher] I just watched a three-minute report on CNN about the Paris riots that never once mentioned the words "Islam" or "Muslims." It referred to the rioters merely as "ethnic immigrants." You cannot tell me this isn't on purpose.

And, an addition:

SEND IN THE MUJAHEDEEN? [Jonah Goldberg]
I certainly hope this doesn't happen, but if you were al Qaeda or some similar outfit, wouldn't you want to foment these riots as much as conceivably possible? The Jihadis subscribe to the Lenninist (sic) doctrine of the worse, the better. Fomenting violence and alienation in the heart of Europe sounds like the ideal means of doing that. Can we expect to see foreign fighters in France?

"the worse, the better" -- Sounds like the White House spin on Iraq.

More: Sullivan goes for the brace: a Bell Curve/Islamist two-for-the-price-of-one:

PARIS IS BURNING: We are entering Day Eight of the underclass, mainly Muslim, unrest.

And [6 NOV] trust Powerline to get right to the point:

Civil War In Eurabia, followed by Steyn -- Early skirmish in the Eurabian civil war.

FINAL UPDATE AUGUST 21 2007: An interesting article from the Financial Times noting that there's little evidence that the riots had an Islamist component.