radio france

Cartesian ethics

On December 22, in an evening sleet storm at Villacoublay air base west of Paris, two French journalists, Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro and Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale, were finally reunited with their families after spending 124 days as kidnapped hostages of an Iraqi jihadist group. Chesnot seemed especially shaken by the experience, during which at least three other people held hostage with him were beheaded. Chesnot said very little to the army of attending reporters, and he's had very little to say in public ever since.

Georges Malbrunot, on the other hand, has proved himself quite the chatterbox.

On the Villacoublay tarmac, for example, Malbrunot explained how the two men had sustained themselves through four straight months of mortal fear by remaining "humble." And "Cartesian." And ostentatiously French. During their very first interrogation, Malbrunot remembered, he and Chesnot "immediately played the 'French journalist card,' while insisting on the fact that France is against the war." Then, "we told them that we'd understood them to be a 'resistance' from the moment there was an illegal occupation" of Iraq. Or, put another way, "we gave them pledges to demonstrate that we weren't pro-American." It was only privately, "to myself," that Malbrunot found himself fondly day-dreaming about the United States Marines: "If only an American patrol would come through, take out this lovely bunch, and set us free."

Not French enough for you? Okay, then have a look at the following passage from an exclusive interview Malbrunot has now granted Nidra Poller in the January 3 edition of the New York Sun:

POLLER: Would you call the people who were holding you insurgents, or resistants?

MALBRUNOT: For us it is clear: People who combat an illegal occupation that results from an illegal war are resistants. Resistance is a sacred right, whether you are Islamist or nationalist, you are resistants. However, when you capture people from a country that has nothing to do with the situation, then your methods have nothing to do with the resistance. Those methods are--uh--different.

POLLER: When they take hostages from countries who have troops in Iraq, would that be resistance? Nick Berg?

MALBRUNOT: Would that be resistance? [Long silence.] That--that--they can capture them--negotiate--but not kill them. [Pause.] Taking hostages is a measure--it's--it's a method of terrorists.

POLLER: Whether or not? Occupation or no occupation?

MALBRUNOT: Still it's all the more reprehensible when it hits people who have nothing to do with the war.

Here's an idea: How's about you come over here and explain that theory to Nick Berg's mom and dad, Frog boy?

COPYRIGHT 2005 News America Incorporated
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group