There is an interesting lawsuit in France by six survivors of the January attack by Islamic extremist Amedy Coulibaly at the Hyper Casher Jewish supermarket in Paris. The six people were mortified after learning that French media broadcasted their hiding location in a refrigerator while Coulibaly was looking for hostages and threatening to kill them all.
As a matter of journalistic ethics (and common sense) it was outrageous when media like the French 24-hour news channel BFMTV broadcast the location of the six people, including a three-year-old child and a one-month-old baby. I cannot imagine the level of callous and moronic judgment needed to broadcast such a fact when the gunman could have been listening.
However, there remains the question of whether there is a viable claim when in fact that six were not discovered. This lawsuit is the result of French laws allowing charges for endangering the lives of others by deliberately ignoring security protocols. It carries a maximum penalty of a year in prison and 15,000-euro ($16,300) fine.
I cannot speak to the French law but in the United States, the plaintiffs would face serious challenges. First, they were not made aware of the betrayal of their location until after the event — undermining claims of emotional distress. Moreover, the emotional injuries from the encounter were due to the actions of a murderous fanatic, not the media.
In the end, I would be highly uncomfortable with a ruling against the media even though I find the actions of these journalists to reprehensible and thoughtless. Indeed, I would support the firing of those responsible for these broadcasts. Yet, the notion of liability for reporting public facts is a dangerous rollback on press freedom, particularly in France which has led Europe in attacks on both free speech and free press.
Paul
Yet another obfuscation of the truth by our resident hitchhiker.
I was fingerprinted for my profession. Strange feeling, having it done. When one has nothing to hide, there is nothing to fear.
Canada won’t allow people into Hoserland if they have a freakin’ DUI! I’m very strong on DUI, living in an alcoholic state. But a 20 year old DUI kept a buddy of mine from being able to go up and catch some of yer walleyes yah hey, yer darn tootin. That’s big time horseshit, Isaac.
issac – I come from Montana and it is not a state that throws people out for hitchhiking. There has to be more to the story. Especially if they took your fingerprints.
isaac
Your habit of equating being outspoken with the calling for the murder of another, based merely upon one’s objections to that person’s view as per your religion and its prophet, is nonsensical. I have no proof that Mr. Stevens ever backtracked what he very clearly stated in the previous film clip, which is highly damning. Please don’t tell me about all the good that he supposedly did for the world community, as it is more than overshadowed by his assertion that another human being, who did nothing more that write a blasphemous book, is worthy of being burned alive. If you have a clip, of Mr. Stevens, retracting that statement, provide such proof. He also stated that he would contact those who wished to murder Mr. Rushdie, and supply them with his whereabouts, should he ever encounter him. He also claimed that, if ordered to, he, himself, would kill Mr. Rushdie.
Stop with your irrelevant remarks about dictators and wars. They are beyond irrelevant, but, I suppose, they provide you a chance to avoid the issues that I have presented. The woman at the table, the only one with the b#&&s to speak up, surrounded by a room full of empty suits, hit the nail on the head. This burnt out hippie should have been arrested, on the spot, for advocating for the murder of another human being.
The US government was correct in putting him on a no-fly list. He is beyond lucky that he is not in a prison cell somewhere, rotting away.
I must tell you, isaac, that your logic is astonishing. In another thread, you condemn the mischief of a couple of middle school punks, who merely published a mug shot, as worthy of punishment, yet, with Mr. Stevens, who publicly supported and called for the death of another human being, solely based upon his view of Islam, all we get from you is silence. Crickets.
bam bam
Yes, Yusuf Islam made statements regarding Salman Rushdie that were not appropriate. But, he retracted them and came out against the ‘vigilante’ work of Osama Bin Laden. He has way more often than not been a good thing for the world. Compare him to the actions of some Americans and then make a decision.
Regarding the American penchant of refusing entry into the US, google Farley Mowat, the great Canadian writer and WW2 war hero. Because he was an ardent environmentalist and freely outspoken he was refused entry when he was invited to speak at US universities. Farley Mowat in WW2 was an intelligence officer in the Canadian army in the Netherlands. The Canadian army was given the Netherlands to liberate. While they were doing so, the Germans were so well entrenched that no food could be brought in for the civilians who were dying of starvation by the thousands. Mowat, and a fellow intelligence officer, guided by the Dutch resistance, made their way to the German command and convinced the German general to cease firing on supply planes. His actions saved tens of thousands of lives. But, the US ‘homeland security’ of the time refused him entry, because he was outspoken. He pissed off the bureaucrats.
Just because homeland security refused Yusuf Islam entry does not equate to him being a terrorist. I and a friend were thrown out of Montana for hitchhiking in 1969. That my finger prints are on file with the FBI came up when I went for my green card and to be a teacher. There is absurdity in every system.
issac – Farley Mowat seems to be a fantasist. There is no mention of him being prevented from coming to the US. He seems to have been a very happy camper in Canada, lapping up Canadian writing awards.
rcocean
Depends on the attributes of the tank. The German tanks were accurate but had to stop to fire. The Somua S35 was accurate firing on the move. The main reason the French with their superior numbers of men and material lost was that the generals deployed the tanks as infantry support. De Gaulle was successful as he deployed his tanks, as mobile cavalry. His was a cavalry unit.
The German tanks had advantages and disadvantages as did the French tanks. the Somua was considered the best all round as it had a 75 mm gun and heavier armor. The French tanks used morse code to communicate which had its disadvantages as well as advantages.
I have read many accounts of what happened and take the position of most historians. There are peppered among these positions other perspectives but, ‘absolutely wrong’, I don’t think so.
Had the French considered that the Germans would come through the Ardennes and had been ready for them, the French and British would have mopped up the Germans which gambled all the way, and won. Rommel could have just as easily been surrounded by superior forces and wiped out.
Another factor in France’s defeat was the lack of foresight regarding the coordination of ground forces and the air force. The leaders, here again, saw the air force as a support for the ground troops. The French had more and better planes potentially but failed to deploy them from the colonies and the estrangement between the army and the air force resulted in a major lack of coordination. The French had decimated the Luftwaffe well into the battle but failed to seize the opportunity.
It is generally believed that the French had superior numbers, material, and the advantage of position but because the military leaders viewed battle as ground troops supported by tanks and planes instead of the air force working with the armor to create a spearhead for first mobile troops and then more ground forces, along with the blunder of the Ardennes, the potential of the French military forces was wasted and they lost in two weeks. There are other accommodating reasons but that is the accepted core of the issue.
issac – what you are missing is that the French had both infantry tanks and cavalry tanks. They were prepared for a defensive war, not an offensive war, hence the Maginot Line. Again, they were fighting the last war.
The side that makes the fewest mistakes wins the battle. In this case it was the Germans. They made mistakes and lost skirmishes, but still won. According to Gerd von Rundsted their biggest loss was 13 tanks to Chars.
You are correct that the Germans took French tanks and added them to their force. They were used in the Soviet Union after some modification. They were in operation until 1943.
“The French had what was considered the best medium tank, the Somua S35.
The French were more than a match for the Germans vis a vis men and equipment. ”
No you’re absolutely wrong. Most of the French tanks were slow 2 man tanks without radios. They were incapable of going up against the Germans on a tank by tank basis. Most of them, in fact, were built to support the infantry – not be used in amour ed divisions. The French also had nothing comparable to the German 88 which was lethal as an anti-tank gun. The french tanks were also short ranged and unreliable. the S35 was a good tank, but if it had been “the best” the Germans would have kept it in production and used it themselves after the Fall of France. They didn’t.
The Man of Peace
Interesting that the only one at that table with any b#&&s is a woman.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=cat+stevens+speaking+of+salman+rushdie&FORM=VIRE7#view=detail&mid=912CC1F3D23A0362490F912CC1F3D23A0362490F
issac
Unfortunately, a simple google search, as you put it, does not allow me to gain access to all revelations regarding the “terrorist aspect” associated with the former Mr. Stevens. I am, admittedly, simply not privy to this confidential information. I can, however, assure you, that much like the former Mr. Stevens, I also contribute to various charities which aid in the elimination of poverty and hunger worldwide. Unlike the former Mr. Stevens, the government has not deemed me to be a security risk, so much so that it felt compelled to restrict my travel on airlines. While I know that there have been mistakes over the years, in which some have been mistakenly put on a no-fly list, I am going to make a giant leap and assume that the authorities have not singled out the former Mr. Stevens based upon a whim, especially considering his celebrity status of sorts.
Deflecting the appropriateness of using him, as some sort of poster boy for world peace, by talking about other topics, like dictators and wars, is disingenuous, at best.
You want a google search? Here you go. . .from the NY Post, Mr. Peace Train:
______________________________________________________________
When it comes to the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, all is forgiven. But I haven’t forgotten.
He’s back in our faces, rested and ready. The English-born folk singer/songwriter, who rocketed to fame in the 1960s and ’70s with mellow tunes including “Moon Shadow’’ and “Morning Has Broken,’’ is playing live shows again. The man who, at the zenith of his career, converted to Islam, changed his name to Yusuf Islam and played his last concert, for charity, in Britain in 1979 has tiptoed back to his musical roots.
He’s risking disapproval from Muslim leaders, who frown on the hedonistic rock-star lifestyle, with a North American concert tour in which the man now billed as Yusuf/Cat Stevens is playing his first dates in the United States since 1976.
But do we really want him here?
This is not about being a Muslim, the vast majority of whom are people of peace. This is about a man who sings “Peace Train’’ but fails to practice what he preaches.
Now 66, Yusuf/Stevens, who lives in London and Dubai, has demonstrated that he believes in radicalism and, allegedly, has given financial support to terrorists. But after listening to him speak on American TV this past weekend, you might think he was a victim of — what else? — the media.
“Yeah, I reckon the media has played kind of a nonpositive role in creating my image,” he said in a coming-out-again interview on “CBS Sunday Morning.’’
Before the married father of five’s foray into concert halls on his tour called “Peace Train . . . Late Again,’’ Yusuf/Stevens canceled a show scheduled to be staged last week at New York City’s Beacon Theatre, he said, to protest “extortionate’’ fees charged for tickets by scalpers. He promised to return to the city in the future. Yet I wonder how he would be received in a town brutalized by radical Islamic terrorists who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
He was born Steven Georgiou to a Greek-Cypriot father and a Swedish mother in 1948. When he was known as Cat Stevens, he nearly drowned, he has claimed, while swimming in the surf off Malibu, Calif., in 1976. He said he shouted, “Oh, God! If you save me I will work for you,’’ then was carried ashore by a wave. His brother gave him a copy of the Koran. In 1977, he became a Muslim.
But he provoked outrage when, appearing on a British TV show in 1989, he seemed to support the Iranian fatwa calling for the death of British author Salman Rushdie, whose novel “The Satanic Verses’’ is considered blasphemous by some Muslims.
Asked if he’d attend a demonstration in which Rushdie was burned in effigy, he said, “I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing.’’
In 2000, Islam was booted from Israel after, officials said, the philanthropist delivered tens of thousands of dollars to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas during a visit in 1988. Then in 2004, his flight from London to Washington, DC, was diverted to Bangor, Maine, where he was questioned by US officials, then shipped back to England after it was determined he was on the government’s “no fly’’ terrorist watch list.
A US government official said Islam was believed to have made donations that wound up supporting not only Hamas but Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind Egyptian sheik convicted of seditious conspiracy for plotting to bomb New York City landmarks. (Islam said he never “knowingly’’ funded terrorists.)
Two years later, he was allowed to fly into the United States to conduct radio interviews for a new album. Earlier this year at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and performed three songs.
What changed?
_______________________________________________________________
bam bam – Obama is President. That is what changed.
Paul
The French had what was considered the best medium tank, the Somua S35.
The French were more than a match for the Germans vis a vis men and equipment. The Germans didn’t develop their Panzer and Tiger tanks until later in the war. They used several hundred captured French tanks in the East against Russia. However, as is the case more often than not, their leadership was not completely out of the WW1 style of fighting. The generals designed battle to be mainly infantry with tanks in support. The Germans sent in their armor as fast as they could with air support. De Gaulle, who wrote the book on what the Germans did, was successful with a medium tank Char D2 in coordinated attacks. De Gaulle’s book sold 700 copies in France. It sold 7,000 copies in Germany. However a few hundred tanks and one brilliant Colonel was not enough in the face of the blunders of the French military leadership.
When the British saw the situation: allied forces cut in two, French fighting the wrong way, British fighting the wrong way, nobody working together in the face of an exceptionally well coordinated German assault from two directions, they left a hundred fighter planes and moved their air force back to GB to defend their island. Given the fact that everything was simply happening too fast for them, it would have cost them the air force if they had not done so.
When it comes down to it, the Germans took France due to French arrogance and ignorance at their higher levels. This is not an unusual phenomenon among militaries of most countries, including our own.
issac – Rommel led the 7th Panzer Division into France where it became known as the Ghost Division. It moved so fast that neither the French nor the Germans knew where it actually was. He was using Panzer Is and Panzer IIs. The 7th Panzer stayed in France to help prepare for the invasion of England before it was re-assigned to Germany.
BTW, Rommel’s war diaries were required reading.
Bam bam
Research a little closer this terrorist aspect of the former Cat Stevens. In fact a simple google will help you. I think you’ll find that he supported financially many programs to end world hunger. As with almost all monies donated by people, groups, and countries, including the US, some of it gets bled off to less than philanthropic uses. Not all Islamic groups are terrorists, even though Islam is infiltrated with terrorism. There is a gray area that covers most of the issues. It might be a good idea and consider how an objective perspective would view what those idiot did in invading Iraq. You might research the history of American support to terrorist groups, dictators, and the like. Then it is always easier to be part of the world of us and them.
. . .burned to death. . .
Prairie Rose
How interesting that some on this thread will still promote this guy as someone who will PROMULGATE MODERATE ISLAM. Right. That’s what this no-fly list, terror group supporting, murder inciting, 70s has been should be considered. We are to HOPE that he has REGRETS for stating that he wished someone was actually burned turned death, not just burned in effigy. He never renounced his past statements publicly or demanded that Islam get on his PEACE TRAIN. Don’t let the bad hippie clothes and folk songs about peace fool you. It’s a front.
“And, Vichy France was an active participant in the Holocaust and rounded up its Jewish citizens, killed them or gave them over to the Germans to send them off to Buchenwald.”
France was occupied by Nazi Germany and had no choice in the matter. Further, most of these Jews were foreign nationals and some were German nationals. The French had no defense against German demands.
Cat Stevens/Yusaf Isalm said some terrible things in 1989:
” The musician known as Cat Stevens said in a British television program to be broadcast next week that rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author Salman Rushdie, ”I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing.”
…He also said that if Mr. Rushdie turned up at his doorstep looking for help, ”I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like.”
”I’d try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is,” said Mr. Islam, who watched a preview of the program today and said in an interview that he stood by his comments.”
https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-cat.html
His recent comments regarding those statements:
“”I’m a firm believer in the law,” he says. “I was never a supporter of the fatwa [against Rushdie], but people don’t want to hear that because they keep saying that I believe in the law of blasphemy. All I’m saying is, how can you deny the Third Commandment? It’s an Islamic principle that you must follow the law of the land where you reside.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/yusuf-islams-golden-years-cat-stevens-on-islam-and-his-return-to-music-20150113?page=2
It is not clear to me that he “was never a supporter of the fatwa against Rushdie”. It is a sad situation. As his perspective about playing music has changed, I hope his perspective about the fatwa has changed, too.
Thank you for your research here and thoughtful input Prairie Rose as I cannot believe someone like Cat Stevens would be intrinsically evil
happypappies – Stalin was nice to his daughter. 🙂 She couldn’t believe he was responsible for so many deaths.
In December 1977, Stevens converted to Islam[10] and adopted the name Yusuf Islam the following year. In 1979, he auctioned all his guitars for charity[11] and left his music career to devote himself to educational and philanthropic causes in the Muslim community. He was embroiled in a long-running controversy regarding comments he made in 1989 about the death fatwa on author Salman Rushdie. He has received several awards for his work in promoting peace in the world, including the 2003 World Award, the 2004 Man of Peace Award, the 2007 Mediterranean Prize for Peace, and two honorary doctorate degrees for services to education and humanitarian relief from universities in the UK.[12][13] Known professionally by the single name Yusuf, in 2006 he returned to pop music with his first album of new pop songs in 28 years, titled An Other Cup.[14][15] In 2009, he released the album Roadsinger. In 2014, he released the album Tell ‘Em I’m Gone, and began his first US tour since 1978.[16] He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.[17]
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens
**********************
Hopefully Yusuf Islam regrets his words calling for Salman Rushdie’s death. It seems he’s done a lot of good things since then.
Issac, thanks for that Cat Stevens video. I always loved that song. It’s yoo bad that now in some extremist Islamic societies music isn’t allowed. Hopefully he can help to promulgate moderate Islam.
[music]
I’m a leaving,,, on a peace train…
Don’t know when I’ll get back again.
Jocko… drives the peace train..
He lives in Vichy plain.
Peace train has lots of train cars…
Most of them are,,, filled with Gypsy stars.
Jocko ,, you be awaiting…
Some day I’ll get back again.
Big gun… I’ll be totin. Jocko will not be voting.
If there was a WordPress in France, moderating the news media, perhaps the news rant would not have gone out while the people were still in danger.
Issac: regarding the Frogs in WWII. Yes the threw in the towel rather quickly after May 10, 1940. But the more than threw in the towel. They joined the Nazi regime in Germany and the Krauts let them keep about a third to a half of the territory of France as Vichy France and headed it up with Marshal Petain. And, Vichy France was an active participant in the Holocaust and rounded up its Jewish citizens, killed them or gave them over to the Germans to send them off to Buchenwald. We ignored all of this after the end of the war and only prosecuted a few of the Frog human rights criminals. We wanted France to ally with the West against the Soviets and all was forgotten. Except not by me.
No, I have some relatives who were arrested by the Frogs, turned over to the Krauts and who were sent to some death camp.
All because they were Gypsy.
The media in France was part of that pogram. When a program contributes to a pogram then the media is the message and needs to die. Kill the ,,, (everything in moderation, including moderation. Word omitted). WordPress would do well in France or Frogland as I call it.
happypappies
Not only did he give money to terror linked groups, but he, very specifically, supported the fatwa, demanding the murder of Salaman Rushdie, because of his alleged insult to Islam. He was quoted as saying that the rally, which called for the death of Salaman Rushdie, in which the author was burned in effigy, should have, instead, done the real thing. Is he a hero of yours, isaac?
How bizarre to post a song, sung by this idiot, of all people, when this thread is about victims of Islamic terror. This creep is on a government no-fly list for a reason, and it ain’t because of his poor fashion sense.
bam bam
my problem is I don’t trust the main stream media and I am not sure he said those words. It doesn’t feel right