Attack France by Ann Coulter

AS PUNDITS MULL whether America's next target in the war on terrorism should be Iraq or a smaller quarry first - such as the Sudan or Somalia - it's time to consider another petri dish of ferocious anti-American hatred and terrorist activity. The Bush doctrine is: We are at war not only with the terrorists, but also with those who harbor them.

We've got to attack France.

Having exhausted itself in a spirited fight with the Nazis in the last war, France cannot work up the energy to oppose terrorism. For decades now, France has nurtured, coddled and funded Islamic terrorists. (Moreover, the Great Satan is getting a little sick of our McDonald's franchises being attacked on behalf of notoriously inefficient French dairy farmers.)

At the 1972 Olympics, Muslim terrorists assassinated 11 Israeli athletes and one German policeman. Five years later, acting on intelligence from Israeli secret police, French counterespionage agents arrested the reputed mastermind of the massacre, Abu Daoud. Both Israel and West Germany sought the extradition of Daoud. Afraid of upsetting Muslim terrorists, France refused on technical grounds and set him free.

In 1986, Libyan agents of Moammar Gadhafi planted a bomb in a West Berlin discotheque, killing an American serviceman and a Turkish woman. Hundreds more were injured. President Reagan retaliated with air strikes against Libyan military targets - including Gadhafi's living quarters.

Quaking in the face of this show of manly force, France denied America the use of its airspace. As a consequence, American pilots were required to begin their missions from airbases in Britain. When the pilots finally made it to Tripoli, tired from the long flights and showing a puckish sense of humor, they bombed the French embassy by mistake. POW! So sorry, our mistake.

France has repeatedly decried economic sanctions against Iraq and has accused the United Nations of manufacturing evidence against Saddam Hussein. The U.N., not even the Great Satan. The French U.N. ambassador dismissed aerial photographs of Iraqi military trucks fleeing inspection sites just before U.N. weapons inspectors arrived as - quote - "perhaps a truckers' picnic."

Along with the rest of the European Union, France sends millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority every year. Sucking up to the P.A. has really paid dividends to the craven butterbellies. While visiting Arafat in Gaza last year to announce several million more dollars in aid, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was attacked by angry, stone-throwing Palestinian students.

Earlier this year, France connived with human-rights champions China and Cuba to toss the United States off the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Sudan took America's place, and, if its diplomats are not too bogged down with human torture and slave trading, they are very much looking forward to attending the meetings.

This summer, Paris made Mumia Abu-Jamal an honorary citizen of Paris. In America's cowboy, bloodlust, rush-to-judgment approach to the death penalty, this convicted Philadelphia cop-killer has been sitting on death row - and giving radio interviews and college commencement addresses - for 20 years. Since "Mumia" sounds like a Muslim terrorist, Parisians can use the same bumper stickers for the war.

Two weeks into America's war on terrorism, Le Figaro began calling for "American restraint." In polls, 47 percent of the French said they believed the U.S. military action was failing. Seventeen percent thought it was working (which was - admittedly - 17 percent more than on the New York Times editorial page). Flaunting France's well-established reputation as a fearsome fighting machine, the French foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, immediately advised the United States to stop bombing Afghanistan.

The first indictment to come out of the Sept. 11 attacks was of a French national, Zacarias Moussaoui. He is believed to be the intended 20th hijacker on Bloody Tuesday. France quickly moved to extend consular protection for Moussaoui. Intriguingly, French Justice Minister Marylise Lebranchu has demanded that Moussaoui not be executed.

Mlle. Lebranchu seems to have forgotten, but WE ARE THE GREAT SATAN! We also have Moussaoui. It's annoying enough when these celebrated Nazi slayers refuse to extradite terrorists on the grounds that America does not observe the pristine judicial formalities of their pals, China, Cuba and the Sudan. But under what zany theory of international law does France think it can tell us what to do with a terrorist we caught right here on U.S. soil?

The Great Satan is wearying of this reverse hegemony, in which little pipsqueak nations try to impose their pipsqueak values on us. Aren't we the ones who should be arrogantly oppressing countries that unaccountably do not have the death penalty?

And now, as America goes about building support for an attack on Iraq - guess who's complaining? The turtlenecked chickens are terrified of offending fanatical Muslims and inviting a terrorist attack, but Arab leaders are supposed to face down the vastly larger populations of crazies living in their own countries. While France whines, Turkey - a predominantly Muslim country, I note - is preparing its airstrips for a possible U.S. attack on Iraq.

If this is a war against terrorism and not a Eurocentric war against Islam, the conclusion is ineluctable: We must attack France. What are they going to do? Fight us?