Rendition at the Dakar Rally

I'm very disappointed and sad. Cancelling an event like the Dakar rally for a non-sporting reason sets a very worrying precedent for sport in general. You prepare for this rally for a whole year and now a year of hopes and illusions have been dashed.

Carlos Sainz (Twice World Rally Champion), Reuters

The cancellation of the most important rally-raid of the world, the Lisbon-Dakar Rally, is not only bad news for the sports world, it is also another sign of France's current policy of unconditional rendition to the terrorist islamic groups.

The director of the Dakar Rally, Etienne Lavigne, claims that there was no choice but to cancel the rally given the threats by Al-Qaeda, and that there is no regret after taking this decision (message on 09/01/2008). The organiser of this sporting event, the French company ASO, was advised of this course of action by the French government.

They might not have regrets now, but they will in the future, as soon as in one year's time, when Al-Qaeda repeat the threat and ASO realise (too late) that the Dakar Rally does not belong to them any more. Or are they going to change their minds and go ahead then?

This decision shows that the Western World attributes a lot of power to Al-Qaeda, assumption that might lead to thousand of strategic errors. Totalitarian regimes (as Al-Qaeda or the Sovietic Union) know that they can only survive by showing no weakness. However, sooner or later (usually later) this fake appearance will be blown away by the unbearable power of reality; for example, the Sovietic Union collapsed when it seemed as powerful as ever.

Meanwhile, thanks to the freedom of press the population of the Western World gets acquanted with any event (favourable or not) happening in the freedom's side, whereas it is misinformed by the mainstream media about the true facts happening at the other side (since the totalitarian leaders will hide any negative information). At the same time, the totalitarian leaders will amplify any victory (no matter how small or simbolic) to show the success of their performance and encourage their fighters.

Islamic terrorists are in permanent war with the rest of the world. They fight jews in Israel, Christians wherever they can, Hindi in India, Russians in Afganistan, and they try to unstable every country in Africa. Their purpose is to restore the Islamic Caliphate and expand it worldwide.

The cancellation of the Dakar Rally tells those countries where the islamic terrorists are on the verge to impose their power that the Western World will abandon them and leave them in the islamofascists' hands. Similar to the Munich Agreement in 1938, when Britain and France betrayed the Czechs and Slovaks and gave the Sudetenland to Germany in a naive attempt to appease Hitler.

Every western withdrawal is a jihadist move forwards. Will the West give up their interests and the freedom values if other events (sporting or not) are threatened by the islamic terrorists? This Dakar Rally cancellation will instille doubts in the Western citizens and will encourage the terrorists.

There is, however, room for hope: Heroes Legend is another rally in Africa that has also been threatened by Al-Qaeda, but whose organiser, Hubert Auriol, has not given in to the islamofascists.

Love and freedom.