Free Republic

Video Interviewer: "Do you agree that both the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt worked without foreign intervention?" Bernard-Henri Lévy: "Absolutely, but Mubarak was not Qadhafi. It was not the same. It was not the same sort of dictatorship. It was not the same sort of brutality. If somebody today looks like Qadhafi, it is Bashar Al-Assad, who is really a butcher of his own people. Mubarak and Ben Ali were bad guys – corrupted, thieves, tyrants, of course – but they were not of the same sort." [...] Interviewer: "Do you think President Hollande will be as active in Syria...

[ed note: Found! Under a hors d'oeuvres tray at a Tina Brown cocktail party, the first draft of Bernard Henri-Levy's Daily Beast cri de coeur on behalf of his ami Dominique Strauss-Kahn]Continued

For the debut of his latest weighty title, “On War in Philosophy,” the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy made the glossy spreads of French magazines with his trademark panache: crisp, unbuttoned white Charvet shirts, golden tan and a windswept silvery mane of hair. But this glamorous literary campaign was suddenly marred by an absolute philosophical truth: Mr. Lévy backed up the book’s theories by citing the thought of a fake philosopher. In fact, the sham philosopher has never been a secret, and even has his own Wikipedia entry. In the uproar that followed over the rigors of his research, Mr. Lévy...

Middle Eastern hatreds poison left-wing political life 18.11.2003By CATHERINE FIELD Herald correspondent PARIS - Once they squabbled over who was pro-Soviet and who was not. Now, French leftwingers are split just as deeply by a new wedge: Islam. One of the biggest leftwing conferences in years, the European Social Forum (ESF), gathering tens of thousands of people, ended in bitter discord at the weekend over a speaking invitation to a leading Muslim intellectual accused by Jewish groups of anti-Semitism. Several political parties boycotted his appearance, which was loudly applauded by an audience of a thousand. Some political leaders attended reluctantly;...

Sarkozy speechwriter 'racist'09/10/2007 17:26  - (SA)    Paris - A star French philosopher attacked President Nicolas Sarkozy's speechwriter as a "racist" on Tuesday over an address suggesting Africans were to blame for their continent's problems. Speaking on France Inter radio, Bernard-Henri Levy attacked presidential advisor Henri Guiano over the contents of a speech delivered by Sarkozy in the Senegalese capital Dakar in July, which sparked an uproar on the continent. "Guaino, he's a racist.... He's the one who wrote this vile speech... saying that if Africa wasn't developed it was because Africans were not part of history," Henri-Levy charged. The writer stressed...

Translated from the original French by Charlotte Mandell. Nothing made a more lasting impression during my journey through America than the semi-comatose state in which I found the American left. I know, of course, that the term "left" does not have the same meaning and ramifications here that it does in France. And I cannot count how many times I was told there has never been an authentic "left" in the United States, in the European sense. But at the end of the day, my progressive friends, you may coin ideas in whichever way you like. The fact is: You...

...it is hard not to see that insidious forces have brought these drawings to the attention of the Muslim masses... this calculated offense (calculated, mind you, by the organizers of the distribution of the cartoons), it is hard not to link this blasphemy to a new planetary configuration, itself determined by three recent and major events. The diversionary tactic of a Syria which we never saw so concerned over religious matters... 'snip' The hardening of Iran's Islamic Republic, ready to make all kinds of theological concessions (including a grand historic alliance of Shiites and Sunnis, which experts have been telling...

Inside the Islamic Mafia Bernard-Henri Lévy exposes Daniel Pearl's killers. By Christopher Hitchens Posted Thursday, September 25, 2003, at 10:18 AM PT I remember laughing out loud, in what was admittedly a mirthless fashion, when Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, one of Osama Bin Laden's most heavy-duty deputies, was arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Straining to think of an apt comparison, I fail badly. But what if, say, the Unabomber had been found hiding out in the environs of West Point or Fort Bragg? Rawalpindi is to the Pakistani military elite what Sandhurst is to the British, or St Cyr used to be...

In Danny Pearl Book, Lévy Says Next 9/11 Brewing in Pakistanby Ron Rosenbaum "I had the feeling," Bernard-Henri Lévy says, "that the 21st century really began with the collapse of the Twin Towers and the murder of this single man, Daniel Pearl." Both are deeply symbolic killings. What’s more, he contends, the same forces behind both crimes are now planning something far worse."It will make 9/11 look prehistoric," Mr. Lévy says. What he learned in investigating the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl, he contends, brought him face to face with the specter of the next 9/11. From the...

A renowned French thinker and writer has challenged Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's claims of being in total control of his country's nuclear arsenal and says there is a real risk that such weapons may find their way to terrorist organisations like al-Qaeda. Bernard Henri Levy, also known by his initials BHL, says the terrorists could lay their hands on the nuclear weapons in Pakistan since Pakistan's secret service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is continuing its collaboration with the al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic terrorist groups. In his latest book, Levy - who has also served as a special envoy to President...

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was murdered last year because he knew too much of Pakistan's nuclear secrets and links with the Al Qaeda, leading French philosopher and President Jacques Chirac's special envoy to Afghanistan, Bernard-Henri Levy, told the British Broadcasting Corporation.Levy, who returned recently from investigating the murder in Pakistan, said Pearl was abducted for one reason and killed for another.According to the Frenchman, Pearl was abducted because he was Jewish and American in a part of the world where it is 'not an identity, it is a sin -- it is a crime'.His captors realised in the...