France: doing what it does best

Appeasing the enemy. Having provided transportation and medical care for terrorist leader and anti-Semite Yasser Arafat, French officials are now wondering if their recent actions will help the situation of 2 French hostages being held in Iraq.

• French experts, however, are divided on whether the humanitarian gesture could benefit French efforts to free journalists Georges Malbrunot, Christian Chesnot and their Syrian driver, who marked their 73rd day in captivity Sunday.

• "We can only conjecture," said Abderrahim Lamchichi, an expert at Picardie University and author of "Political Islamism."

  "But perhaps Islamic militants will interpret this as a gesture in favor of the Palestinian cause, and that could perhaps allow the process of liberating the hostages to be accelerated," he said in a telephone interview.

Since the people responsible for the kidnappings in Iraq are "Iraqi insurgents", why would they care about Arafat or "Palestine"? I thought the NY Times told us that Iraq is a diversion from the war against terrorism and our battles there are with freedom fighters angry at the coalition for occupying their country...