Wednesday, September 28, 2005
EU's terror list "wouldn't make the slightest difference"
The French Ambassador is trying to convince us that we shouldn't ask them to put Hizbullah on a list of terror groups:
Is "feel-good diplomacy" a bad thing? Should we prefer diplomacy that makes us miserable? This must be a French innovation.
I guess I'm not surprised the French Ambassador feels putting an entity on the EU list of terrorist organizations "wouldn't make the slightest difference." While the Ambassador intends this to draw us away from such a useless notion, it inclines me instead to recommend the EU turn its terrorist list into something more than a Bad Boys Fun Club membership list. Cutting off assets, travel, freedom of entry and media access to groups on the list might at least make a teensy bit of difference.
If you really, really liked this -- or even really, really hated it -- there's lots more:
This is just so silly in so many ways:
French Ambassador to Israel Gerard Araud belittled efforts to have Hizbullah placed on the EU's list of terrorist organizations as 'feel-good diplomacy' that 'wouldn't make the slightest difference.'
Is "feel-good diplomacy" a bad thing? Should we prefer diplomacy that makes us miserable? This must be a French innovation.
I guess I'm not surprised the French Ambassador feels putting an entity on the EU list of terrorist organizations "wouldn't make the slightest difference." While the Ambassador intends this to draw us away from such a useless notion, it inclines me instead to recommend the EU turn its terrorist list into something more than a Bad Boys Fun Club membership list. Cutting off assets, travel, freedom of entry and media access to groups on the list might at least make a teensy bit of difference.
Israel has long urged the EU to put Hizbullah on its list of terror organizations, but Araud questioned the benefit when asked by a member of the audience why France doesn't do so.
"What would be the consequence?" he asked. "Nothing."
