But we are your friends!

According to an article in today's LAT, the French are upset that their appeasement of the Arab world does not seem to be working.   Evidently, they had hoped that France's stalwart defence of Saddam Hussein and hostility towards Israel would have protected French citizens from the threat of being taken hostage by cranky extremists.

The hostage ordeal [two French journalists have been kidnapped in Iraq and threatened with execution unless France lifts its ban on Muslim head scarves in schools] has hit France hard. It is a gloomy rebuttal of the theory held by some-though not by most French government officials or those knowledgeable about Islam-that France's anti-war, pro-Arab policies had inoculated the country against such aggressions.

Reality can be such a bummer.