There’s been a lot of response to the post on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s forced removal from her apartment after her neighbors initiated court action, claiming she posed a security risk.

So far, there has been very little debate about it in the Dutch media, but that could be explained by the long Queen’s birthday holiday weekend the Dutch are enjoying. It could also be that a sense of deep embarrassment makes it hard to find the right words. Not for writer Leon de Winter who in the Elsevier (Dutch only) vents his anger over the pathetic journey that mainstream Dutch society has taken; a direction now dutifully followed by the courts. On his English-language blog he acknowledges his frustration and shame:

Now, officially she is a pariah. She cannot live anymore in a house or apartment, only on military bases. The orthodox Islamists and the progressive multiculti activists succeeded in isolating this remarkable person from society.
Shame upon my country.

Yes, same sentiments here. Let’s see how the media respond during the week that will mark the fourth anniversary of Pim Fortuyn’s death.

For some obscure reason I always find myself going through the morning of 9/11 step by step, minute by minute, hijacked plane by hijacked plane. Even now there are days when I try to relive it and bring some order into that chaotic morning. If you go and see United 93 – which I did yesterday – you will go through exactly the same, an almost real-time experience of reliving of what happened that morning. And order you need to create as the movie reveals the chaos and confusion that governed the various flight control centers, something brought home poignantly by the fact that a number of the actors are in fact the actual people that manned these centers on 9/11.

Walking out of the theater there wasn’t the feeling that there was anything new or revolutionary, no; all the facts were very clear and transparent before and after watching the film. The advance question was what director Ron Greengrass would make of it all, and it is fair to say he delivered, even in the parts where speculation was required to fill in some of the factual blanks. While everyone is hyped over the contrast between the praying hijacker and some passengers reciting the Lord’s Prayer, I was taken aback by one other peculiar confrontation. It’s the moment where one of the flight attendants hurries back to the center of the plane to help a severely injured passenger – knifed by one of the terrorists – and flashes the Red Cross emergency kit in front of a terrorist with a look on her face saying, “Please”. The hijacker relents and allows her to treat the dying man, but it was probably the one area where Greengrass’ creative license was used a little too generously.

Yet, it did a number of important things. It highlighted that the hijackers struggled with a degree of uncertainty, it pinpointed the religious aspect with the obvious Red Cross crusader connotation, but above all it allowed the viewer to distill a measure of hope that things might work out well – something that defies logic and yet you’re tempted by it. It gives you something to cling to during the final minutes: there is hope; maybe the airliner will land safely after all. That expectation is fueled by the presence of a pilot with one-engine experience among the passengers who bravely declares that with radio help from the ground he could possibly land flight 93. You’re drawn into the possibility that the passenger revolt might actually work.

So my re-piecing and re-ordering of events may after all be a subconscious attempt to find that redeeming shard of information that will somehow transform 9/11 into something more palatable, something that can neutralize the fear and uncertainty created on that day. Yet, I know better but the omnipresence of the question “Is it too soon?” over the past week indicates that many actually think that the shrill reality of that day can not be revisited again. It points to a feeling that America is still busy looking for facts that can sanitize the horrendous attacks into something that won’t be as haunting, something that won’t repeat itself.

And therein of course do we find United 93’s ultimate strength. The savage and dreadful way in which the plane falls into the hijackers' hands, the ultimate futility of the resistance and the definitive crash into that field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, throws the bare facts once more in front of America and the world at large. There are no redeeming points, there was no hope on that day and any group that is capable of hijacking and crashing four commercial airliners within a few hours is no doubt poised for more in the future. But that knowledge remains something that many would like to blot out conveniently, something which we have also witnessed in Europe following its first encounters with jihadist terror. The justifiable and positive instinct to move on has a nasty fellow traveler called the willingness to forget.

So, there can’t be enough United 93-type films. The test will be in how they evolve over time. Not only will more facts see the light of day, but our attitudes and perceptions will develop to a level where again the events of that morning are reworked and reinterpreted. As long as we keep doing that there is hope that we can face and fight that very real and lethal terrorist threat. But, if we give in to sanitizing history and creating false expectations we are lost. Greengrass' film provides a sliver of hope that we will not give in and have the ability to fight, but the story of 9/11 needs to be retold relentlessly before I can really begin to believe that.

NOTE: There is a huge round-up of blogger reviews over at Hot Air.

AFTERTHOUGHT: I did review one other Greengrass film earlier: Bloody Sunday. That by the way was not exactly a balanced and overly factual piece of work, but it proves the point that filmed entertainment has indeed an unusual capability to rewrite history.

Is one of the core topics of Pajamas Media’s second Blog Week in Review podcast, also more on United 93. Listen to the whole thing.

And you don't want to miss this one, Pamela is made for this new genre.

Earlier this week I alluded to the church vs. state aspect in the German brothel affair and Tigerhawk - who is also guestblogging over at the Belmont Club - has taken some time to analyze its broader implications. He asks:

Of course, we might be reading far too much into this incident. It might just be the unreasoned objections of the mob to identification with a house of prostitution. Do we hope that is true and ignore this incident, or do we defend the pimp in order to learn whether the implications of this small story are of political and geopolitical significance?

We defend the pimp and continue to travel the learning curve of Muslim extremism.

I've been out most of the day, but upon returning home I discovered that this site and many others that are hosted by Hosting Matters were down for a few hours. Apparently, this was a Denial-of-Service Attack the kind of which we've had before. Details of today's disruption over at Michelle's.

Just to show how far Dutch tolerance goes: Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s neighbors have sued the Dutch state in order to get her to be removed from the apartment complex in which she is living under police protection. The request was initially rejected, but following an appeal a higher court has now ordered Hirsi Ali to leave her house within four months, I translate:

The court considers in its ruling that the neighbors have been put into a situation that has contributed to them feeling less safe in their own house. That feeling is extended to the communal living spaces of the apartment complex, but also to their own apartments. The court argues that this is a severe violation of one’s private life (as per Article 8 of the European Treaty for Human Rights).

A few things. Firstly, it should be noted that Hirsi Ali is now booted out of her own house by virtue of the European Treaty for Human Rights which does indeed supersede Dutch law. Many cases are adjudicated by referring to this treaty, but given the subject matter here I would say: Euroskeptics, go knock yourselves out.

Secondly, and this is the one that really bothers me, is that somehow Hirsi Ali’s neighbors self-interest runs so deep that they are prepared to use the court system to throw someone whose life is in danger out of her own house. It goes like this: we’re tolerant, we support free speech and a critical attitude, but if it comes too close to our front porch, sorry, we are no longer interested. On the contrary, self-interest is the deciding motivator. True, Hirsi Ali’s flatmates do have a reasonable point in arguing that the Dutch State has an obligation to ensure that their security measures benefit the entire complex. If the State has dropped the ball in that respect, they should be compelled by the courts to correct this, but to put the burden on Hirsi Ali is a very disturbing precedent. Yet, the plaintiffs are quite happy with the ruling:

“We are relieved. We just didn’t feel safe any longer in our own homes. Of course, we consider it to be terrible for Hirsi Ali to have to leave her house. The case was not directed at her personally. The point was that the State should not open us to so much danger”

The State may appeal this ruling, in which case it will go to the Dutch Supreme Court. The potential of a ruling that will favor Hirsi Ali and is able to address the upset neighbors may turn out to become a costly adventure for Dutch authorities as it is not just about one outspoken member of parliament. Beyond a number of politicians there is a growing constituency of writers, artists and cartoonists who may rightfully claim government protection. And in most cases their neighbors are equally likely to take a less than charitable view of their right to exercise free speech. This is once more evidence of how Europeans fail to understand the bigger picture and are more than willing to let some short term comfort prevail over the long term survival of core values that built their societies in the first place.

So there are no winners here. The neighborhood is unmasked as a group whose shallow self interest is paramount, the State may have made a few mistakes and will have to spend yet more on security and Ayaan, well, she remains the hunted one. It seems that those responsible for threatening her will have the last laugh.

The new Israeli coalition government is taking shape with prime minister Ehud Olmert today ensuring Labor's participation in the new team. Is Israel now drifting to the left? Michael Totten is in Israel and his latest dispatch can help in understanding the situation on the ground better:

I wouldn’t say Israel has since swung hard to the left. But the Labor Party did receive one and a half times as many votes as Likud in the general election last month. Wielding a big fist no longer seems necessary whether it actually was in the first place or not. The intifada is more or less over. Brutal Israeli crackdowns in the territories are likewise more or less over. That may not be enough to feel hope, but it’s something.

Seeing Israel and Palestine for myself as they really are makes me slightly more hopeful than I was before I got there. The standard narrative of the conflict is a cartoon. Upon closer inspection, it’s a lot more complicated. And it’s a lot more interesting, too.

Read the whole fascinating report.

Here’s another sign of impending doom, the death of manners. It may be trivial at first sight, but Theodore Dalrymple is correct in arguing that the quest for egalitarianism has spawned a form of aggressive individualism:

A problem arises, however, when all such rules, arbitrary as some of them might be, are eroded to the point of total informality. The culture of any society becomes graceless in the absence of all formality, a development that is peculiarly evident in my own country, Great Britain. Here, gracelessness has become, by a peculiar ideological inversion that has occurred in my lifetime, a manifestation of political virtue.

Dalrymple discounts the upward mobility of lower classes as a reason for the death of manners and lays the blame at equality’s door. There is probably a bit of both in it and unmannered and excessive individualism was no doubt given a lot of help by the advent of popular culture and the quest for instant gratification. At least, that is what I experienced in Europe where taste and manners went hand in hand and were often narrowly defined by class. For my generation it was a test, at primary school I was ‘forced’ to address my teacher by her name (this was the early 70s) and we were led to believe that the breakdown of authority and paternal structures was a virtue that provided endless freedom. Of course it did, but only a fraction of that very same generation came to realize that such unbounded excess wasn’t exactly contributing to a stable social framework. And so some of us gravitated back to be well-mannered citizens, barely scarred by the indiscriminate power of egalitarian education.

NOTE: Found the Dalrymple piece via Ed Driscoll. If you're in the middle of raising your kids or if you're behind in the manners department, I can absolutely recommend The Manners Club. The CD has some very catchy tunes, notably the theme song Everybody Needs Good Manners!

There was little time to dive into the American Idol issues of this week, but there is a good round-up over at PJ Media. As for the result tonight, Dean Esmay is a very pleased man, and rightly so.

Michelle’ Malkin’s productivity as a writer and blogger is pretty amazing, but she has now added video blogging to her growing little media empire and you should definitely make Hot Air one of your regular stops, today disgraced Democrat Alan Mollohan is the subject of some trenchant Malkinisms. Initially, I was a bit skeptical about this venture as we are being deluged by a never ending stream of online content, but there is absolutely room for short video commentary. It competes directly with blogposts as opposed to the podcast which tends to be lengthier and more analytical.

Last week some of her critics termed Malkin to be a ‘Coulter understudy’ but I find her far more persuasive that Ann. She gets her facts right, is not afraid to criticize Bush and to take a swipe at Republicans, and she has a genuine and hilarious sense of humor.

As a European I am definitely looking forward to the upcoming soccer World Cup tournament in Germany this summer. Of course, so are German businesses and it being Europe, the sex business has gone on a creative advertising spree to attract clients during the weeks that German cities will be swamped with primarily male soccer fans. One brothel named ‘Pascha’ incorporated the flags of all 32 participating nations into its billboard ads to let it be known that it was open for business for everyone. Great idea? Not according to some:

"On Friday evening we were threatened by 11 masked men who demand that we take down the Saudi Arabian flag," Lobscheid told the Kölner Express, a local newspaper. Not wanting any trouble, the brothel obliged and removed it and the Iranian one. But that still left the flags printed on the poster.

"On Saturday night there were 20 masked men armed with knives and sticks. They threatened to get violent and even bomb the place unless we black out the Iranian and Saudia Arabian flags on the poster as well," said Lobscheid.

The men had left before the police arrived. But to spare his establishment any more trouble, Lobscheid ordered a crane to black out the two flags as well. Lobscheid is now considering filing a complaint but also wants to hold talks with the local Muslim community.

The absence of a clear separation between church and state in both Iran and Saudi Arabia combined with the highly ambivalent attitudes to sex in these nations was again sufficient to curb some free speech in the west. And no, despite my ruminations on moral decay in the free world I do believe that legalized prostitution is actually one of the west’s virtues and strengths.

UPDATE: Sploid notes that somehow the Tunisian flag - which consists of a white crescent against a red background - was exempt from the latest round of intimidation. Reason? They're moderates, of course!

It's a busy day, so there is little time to get any meaningful posts up. More later.

With another news conference Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad further upped the ante, defying the world on Iran’s insistence to increase its nuclear capabilities. It may be worthwhile to note that we’ve been here before and, no, I am not talking about the bungled attempt to desist North Korea from going nuclear. In the early 1960s a deep and definitive rift between China and the Soviet Union opened up the possibility for the US to neutralize China which was on the verge of detonating its first atomic weapon.

The National Security archives provide a trove of documents on America’s stance during the 1960-64 period, and they reveal quite clearly that John F. Kennedy did at a number of instances seriously contemplate pre-emptive action against China. It is of course impossible to establish what would have happened if Kennedy would not have been assassinated, but Lyndon Johnson, probably aware of the Cold War realities and the uncertain state of the Soviet-China relationship, moved in the other direction:

During the fall of 1963 Policy Planning Council staffer Robert Johnson established himself as the national security bureaucracy's chief analyst on the Chinese nuclear problem. Although President Kennedy and his advisers had given momentum to thinking about using force against Chinese nuclear facilities, Johnson tried to push official thinking in another direction: to consider the possibility that for a variety of reasons, a nuclear China would not be as ominous or act as recklessly as some had feared.

[ … ]

Prepared against the background of a possibly imminent Chinese nuclear test, Robert Johnson again considers both pre-emptive action and alternative responses to the PRC's nuclear weapons program. It notes "very and long-lasting political costs" associated with a pre-emptive strike. It also explores options, in the absence of pre-emptive action, for reducing the likelihood of proliferation as well as the potentially adverse political-psychological impact of a Chinese test on its neighbors.

It is hard to compare present day Iran to 1960s China, but it would seem that at every turn attempts to halt nuclear proliferation beyond the two original superpowers have failed. It was believed at the time that India for instance could be prevented from becoming a nuclear power, nations like Pakistan and North Korea weren’t even considered as ever acquiring the lethal technology.

The Soviet angle and the political impact prevented the elimination of Mao’s nuclear adventures; today other geo-political considerations have replaced the Cold War constraints. It prompts the conclusion that barring a miracle, Iran will become a nuclear force within the foreseeable future. Better start preparing for that.

China detonated its first bomb on October 16, 1964 in the Gobi Desert.

It looks like I will be on the Tammy Bruce show at 10:30 Pacific Time to talk about the latest violent installment of the Theo van Gogh affair. Listen to it here.

UPDATE: Think that went well, sorry for the late notice. Tammy's blog is here.

Ebru Umar, a Dutch writer of Turkish descent and a good friend of the late Theo van Gogh - she contributed to his website and took over one of his columns after his death - was attacked in Amsterdam on Friday, reports Arjan Dasselaar. He wryly adds that the Dutch public news service – which in terms of breaking news is usually an excellent source – has so far, two days after the attack, failed to report it.

Newspaper de Telegraaf however has a brief audio interview with Umar in Dutch who confirms that two Moroccan youths followed her and after saying “that’s her!” knocked her down just as she was about to enter her house.

Freedom of speech in Europe, under sustained attack.

Whenever I post some critical notes on George Bush, you can bet that readers will weigh in. Here is one that takes on Peggy Noonan whose reflections on Bush were part of the original post:

Ms. Noonan has fetishized the Reagan presidency as a Demosthenesean age. To criticize Bush in general terms, while generalizing the Reagan presidency as an age of ideal administration as she has done is absolutely ludicrous Nearly every presidency in the past 140 years has been very much a mixed bag; the best presidents of that time interval have become judged as among the best for a.) achieving a few big things while b.) causing the least harm in other areas. The Constitutional limitations on the President strongly bias any President's effect toward falling into this realm of limited effect in most areas, powerful effect in a few. I think it is fair to say that Reagan was effective in reducing taxes and confronting the Soviets, while, in every other major area, he left things basically in the mess he found them. And he does deserve great credit for those two achievements.

Question: Would Reagan have continued to work with Don Rumsfeld?

My sentiments entirely.

Europe’s disgruntled immigrant underclass youngsters are not, as is always assumed, exclusively Muslim fundamentalist. Nor have they fully adopted the west’s urban and secular counterculture. No, it is a toxic mix of the two according to author Lorenzo Vidino:

As a French official recently told me, many youngsters from the Muslim-majority ghettoes of France "dress like rappers, smoke marijuana and drink alcohol, yet they watch jihadi videos and have pictures of [Osama] bin Laden on the display of their expensive cell phones." Any individual that attacks mainstream society becomes a hero, be it Abu Musab Zarqawi or the late American rapper Tupac Shakur.

And as we’ve established here before, this culture is open to everyone:

Operating in the southern areas of the British capital, the gang is composed of several hundred members and is active in criminal activities ranging from robberies to drug trafficking. The members of the gang are mostly British-born black youngsters originally from the Caribbean or Africa who converted to Islam in British penitentiaries and use their newfound faith as a bonding element.

It reminds me of Faisal Devji's theory that the jihad is becoming a vehicle for a very diversified group of individuals. Although totally different from say the Taliban or the Zarqawi group, the 'Euro hood' is an increasingly assertive and growing element of the jihadist war on the West.

It’s now some seven months ago that the first real cracks in the Bush façade appeared following the Katrina mess. Flipping through the various comments after some of the White house reshuffles – and the ongoing Rumsfeld imbroglio - of recent it appears we are in the middle of peeling away another layer that somehow insulated Bush from a more definitive reckoning of his presidency. Yes, the Hewitts and Coulters remain steadfast in their support, but the ranks of critical conservatives is growing, take for instance Peggy Noonan who addresses the stubbornness and inflexibility of this presidency. One step further is former Bush-endorser Greg Djerejian who has essentially given up on this president by associating him with tragedy.

Noonan’s piece in particular brings home one of my basic peeves about this president and that is the near absence of a vision when he came to power and the lack of a core set of principles that guided him to Washington in the first place. The confrontation with terror on American soil put this administration on a certain course and in the absence of a coherent set of targets a few approximate and arbitrary markers were put in the sand. They can’t be moved, nor can there be any changes to the core team that put those markers in the sand in the first place. The reason for that is of course straightforward, although few on the right dare to make it explicit: pruning the team means pruning the Bush approach, refuting the orginal strategy. It would require a return to a point where the president is to provide the comfort that whatever the changes, his vision remains intact and the revamped new team can trust on the chief executive’s political instincts. The problem is of course that there never was a grand vision to begin with, nor can we put a lot of stock in Bush’s ability to guide, adjust and adapt.

No, this is not a move to extricate myself from my support for Bush now that the tidings have become increasingly uncertain. The Bush goals of fighting terror, and establish democracy in Iraq are just and require commitment and yes that famous term, stubbornness. But the doctrinaire approach on which it is built creates many unnecessary and often inexplicable disasters. It is the inability of the chief executive to foresee, pre-empt and address these adequately that leave many Bush-supporters with varying degrees of bitterness wondering how on earth we are going to get to that finish line in January 2009.

Austin Bay, Eric Umansky, Tammy Bruce and Glenn Reynolds discuss events of the past week in Pajama Media's first podcast: The Blog Week in Review. Lots of interesting stuff: Iran, Iraq and Scott McLellan. But also some worthwhile comments on Wenyi Wang, Hu's heckler, who herself is part of an organization that may not be all that democratic. Listen to the whole thing and do fill out the short survey once you're done.

In Moscow, next week. Of course, his documentary work is excluded, a measure taken by the production company:

The lack of documentaries is a security measure, said Viktor Fedoseyev, an organizer of Kinoteatr.doc, in a Monday interview. The companies that own the rights to the films have decided not to show them since this "could threaten the creators of the films, those people who took part in them," he said.

"Submission" was pulled from Rotterdam International Film Festival last year due to security concerns expressed by its production company, Column Productions. Hirsi Ali has received numerous death threats and now lives under 24-hour protection. The film is no longer being distributed.

The Russian organizers "reacted very calmly" to the decision not to show Gogh's documentaries, Fedoseyev said. "They can be dangerous, and particularly so in Russia."

Well, even involvement with less controversial Van Gogh productions generates threats as Sienna Miller has discovered, although I am beginning to think that some of these rumors surrounding Miller have a bit of a 'tabloid' character to them.

Michelle Malkin has the video link of the incident that played itself out on the White House South Lawn this morning and it neatly captures my core argument about China. They are a crucial partner for the West and we should work with them on a host of issues, but it doesn’t mean we should be quiet about certain things. It’s a fine balance and not an easy one to navigate, but there is simply no other option. Bush said it as follows during the ceremony with President Hu:

As the relationship between our two nations grows and matures, we can be candid about our disagreements. I'll continue to discuss with President Hu the importance of respecting human rights and freedoms of the Chinese people. China has become successful because the Chinese people are experience the freedom to buy, and to sell, and to produce -- and China can grow even more successful by allowing the Chinese people the freedom to assemble, to speak freely, and to worship.

No free markets can exist in any successful manner for long without a free flow of information and the rule of law. That truth will eventually catch up with Hu, but it will not be until China's economic engine runs out of steam that he will be forced to consider it.

Canada’s new conservative government is on a roll with Stephen Harper threatening an early election if his budget – which contains a few controversial items – is rejected by parliament. And poll numbers indicate he would do well if such a snap election were held today.

This week the debate has centered around one of the more interesting features of the upcoming budget, the proposed childcare benefit which amounts to a taxable $1200 cash benefit per year for each pre-school child. Of course, the critics are correct in pointing out that this is a pretty measly hand-out which won’t buy you an awful lot of care for your child. But that is not the point here.

With the proposed childcare benefit, Harper aims to achieve a few things. Firstly, in order to fund it he will scrap the bloated one-size-fits-all solution put in place by the previous Liberal government which will inevitably create a unionized, huge in overheads, behemoth that will benefit and take care of everyone except your child. It’s an outdated solution, based on an outdated nanny-state philosophy. Secondly, and this is the more interesting part, the new childcare benefit seeks to give parents who have made the choice to stay at home something of value which they would miss out on if the one-size-fits-all solution were to be implemented. You want to invest in your child? Great, but don’t expect to see any of your tax dollars coming your way as we need it to fund our cradle-to-grave plans for other children. So, the new plan above all gives parents the right to make their own choice and frees them from being subject to an expensive institutionalized system of almost mandatory daycare.

All sound logic you will say, but the left has reacted as if bitten by a snake. Yesterday’s Globe and Mail ran the same picture of Harper as the one you see above, but it was accompanied by the headline “Social Conservatives to sell Tory daycare plan”. The positive, well-meaning and sometimes costly choice to stay at home for the first few formative years of your child’s life is for some not a particularly progressive choice. Worse, today’s “progressives” tend to look down upon moms and dads that are willing to forego income to help raise their child.

One other thing will also take center stage here. Many opponents to Harper’s plan will argue that some do need the old statist solution to their problems because some just can’t make ends meet without it. You won’t here a response to this argument from the conservatives, too awkward politically, but I will hand it to you: If you can’t make ends meet, you shouldn’t have a baby; if you’re a single mom you haven’t exactly acted very responsibly in getting pregnant in the first place; if your marriage is rocky then maybe you shouldn’t have a baby. In short, take responsibility.

It is too early a stage to throw a value as “socially conservative” as ‘responsibility’ in front of your average citizen, but with his childcare plans Stephen Harper has at least made an earnest beginning. By the time the little kid that pinches his nose is a grown up, maybe citizens can be expected to responsibly make their own choices without the omnipresent state as the giver of last resort.

Support for the European project has always been split across party lines in Britain and I remember from my days there that the business sector was usually in favor of British integration into the EU. No longer, and some eminent businessmen have come together to find alternative ways for a more flexible and open Europe rather than pursuing the heavily institutionalized and deep integrationist approach that has been followed so far. They have set up a think tank and a very informative website to support the effort: Open Europe.

For those with a more than a casual interest in British politics – and with Tony Blair’s imminent demise we should probably all spent more time on it – do visit Iain Dale’s Diary who has great UK-based political commentary.

There’s a steady list of psychological and forensic experts arguing why Zacarias Moussaoui should not get the death penalty and arguments range from apparent schizophrenia to deep alienation:

Psychologist Paul Martin, called by lawyers trying to save Moussaoui from the death penalty, said that French Moroccans like Moussaoui generally feel alienated from western society and that his state of mind suffered even more when he left France in 1992 to study international business in London.

"He's away from his family. He's lonely. He's complained about racism. He's in a new country, and he doesn't have any support group," Martin said, describing the period in the mid-1990s that Moussaoui began his move to radical Islam.

All these accounts appear to be mere opinions rather than sound medical evidence and as such I can’t see how the jury can weigh them in determining Moussaoui’s final sentence. What should be the guiding principle here is what ultimately punishes the 20th hijacker and what, given the nature of his offences, provides the best long-term value to US security.

Putting him to death serves none of these objectives as it would accord exactly the status to Moussaoui that he has been so desperately seeking: martyrdom. A very restricted life in prison would counter that and would also allow US authorities to bank on some sort of residual asset value: Moussaoui probably knows far more than what he has disclosed so far and maybe at some point in time he will share some of it. Whenever there is more than a lone nut involved and unanswered questions linger it is better to position yourself such that you at least have a chance to find some more answers down the road. And at the same time you pre-empt the creation of a hot market in Moussaoui memorabilia that will find offtakers from Casablanca to Jakarta.

It’s not been a focus for Peaktalk at all, but given the Dutch angle I always kept one eye on the Natalee Holloway case. If you’re interested and your knowledge base is as slim as mine, then I would recommend the Bryan Burrough piece in Vanity Fair as a good primer. In it Burrough makes it clear that the Aruban police force wasn’t the most effective one to solve this crime, a situation exacerbated by the Twitty-Holloway family whose demeanor made them probably equally unsuited to find a body and above all, enough evidence to nail the likely suspect.

Well, an arrest has been made outside the circle of the initial suspects in this case. This is an amazing development if you take into account the time and effort that have gone into this investigation in combination with the size of the island of Aruba. As it was to Natalee’s mother, Beth Twitty:

VAN SUSTEREN: Beth, you scoured that island all last summer and into the fall. Ever come upon his name before or hear anything about him?

TWITTY: No. You know, there's no part of him that we have, you know, heard about or discussed or anything. So you know, it's just a totally new person that, you know, has shown up. So just don't know.

The blog of record for this affair is Riehl World Review which has been all over this case from the beginning.

It’s not the first time that I’ve touched on the Dutch immigration mess where the political pressure to take a firm stand has resulted in some warped results. The most notable one is transporting gays and Christians back to that liberal paradise of human rights, Iran. Well, not more according to the latest to which I was alerted by a loyal American reader:

Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk has bowed to pressure from parliament and agreed not to deport Iranian gay people and Christian converts for the time being.

The Minister told MPs on Wednesday afternoon she would extend a previous moratorium on the expulsions. She took the decision when it became clear a majority of MPs doubt whether the rejected asylum seekers would be safe in Iran.

The moratorium will remain in force until a new foreign ministry assessment of the situation in Iran for gays and Muslims who have converted to Christianity has been completed. This will likely take until August or September.

The pre-existing notion that gays or Christians could somehow be safe in a nation like Iran is simply too absurd to seriously entertain and Verdonk was rightly called on that by parliament.

The basic rationale for asylum seekers and refugees is to provide a haven of safety up to the point when it can be convincingly argued that they can return back home, a simple premise that is incredibly hard to implement for the Dutch immigration services. My mother-in-law used to be quite active as a volunteer working with refugees, most of whom had conveniently lost their identification papers in order to facilitate an extended stay in the lowlands. Through her I became acquainted with an endearing Afghan family who had rightly abandoned a nation ravaged by the Taliban. The father, who used to be part of the police in Kabul, didn’t fit into the new order although he was never able to convincingly make his case to Dutch authorities. Yet, he and his family were granted a permanent stay - something I do not begrudge them – but it ignored the fact that given the changed circumstances in Afghanistan there was good reason to apply the refugee-principle and let the man and his family return home to help rebuild their fatherland. All the more so as around the same time a Syrian Christian family was given its definitive marching orders after a considerably longer Dutch stay, and, a far more comprehensive case file that would have warranted a prolonged safe harbor.

Again, it appears to be hard to get this right and it would serve Verdonk – especially in light of her political ambitions – well to improve the process and make it less 'assumptions-based'.

A very enjoyable night it was, with the help of Rod Stewart who I remember as a wayward Scottish rockstar and football fan, but who now tops the charts with the Great American Songbook. My point about Katherine McPhee I think was proven beyond any doubt, she absolutely nailed "Someone to Watch Over Me". Together with Chris Daughtrey and Paris Bennett she will most likely make it to the final three and deservedly so. Loser tonight was Kellie Pickler who I think has reached the outer limits of her singing abilities. But the Albemarle blonde is not untalented, look out for her as a comedy or soap actress.

No, this was not a Peaktalk hiatus, rather an extended Easter weekend with a lot of outdoor activities despite the appalling weather. The latter turned to sunshine today and my attempts to cut a few branches to improve our views turned – as always – into an extended project where a few trees did not survive to see the end of the day. It is the biting off more than you can chew syndrome the result of which is that the view hasn’t improved that much, but there is now a few weekends worth of clearing and cutting brush ahead of me. Needless to say, my wife Irene rolled her eyes in amazement and retreated to the house to do some real work. Regular blogging will resume soon.

Hugh Hewitt interviews a coughing and sneezing Christopher Hitchens on Iran and Iraq. He's rational and far less alarmist about a nuclear Iran than some media voices this week.

An English summary of the controversial recommendations on dealing with Islam by The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy are now available online. The entire report can be found here, an English translation will not be available until July this year.

It seems that the comments to the press that accompanied this report generated most of the storm, although they were directly based on the council's findings. Judging from the summary it appears that the recommendations bank to a very high degree on the progress and success of moderate Muslim groups and parties, both in and outside Europe. That, the report acknowledges, can be a long and difficult process that is easy to disrupt for radical elements. Such a conclusion is hardly new and it would seem that the report's empirical work contributes more to the ongoing debate about Islam than some of its more contentious conclusions.

NOTE: This warning is evidence of how for instance Iran has a vested interest in derailing any attempts of rapprochement between the West and the Muslim world, underlining exactly how difficult it is for the report's ideas to be realized.

Jane Kramer from The New Yorker has for years been writing Letters from Europe and in the April edition her letter, a lengthy one, is about her visit to The Netherlands in The Dutch Model: Multiculturalism and Muslim Immigrants. Given our experiences to date, I am always a bit skeptical of American journalistic forays into my home country, but Kramer has done her homework. An excellent read. (via The Free West).

Following my earlier post on this issue - which generated a lot of interest, I wonder why - there is now an update and here is the latest from Jakarta:

A group of Muslims protesting Playboy's decision to launch an Indonesian edition of the magazine clashed with police Wednesday and stoned the company's editorial offices, witnesses said.

No one was injured in the protest involving around 150 members of the Islamic Defenders' Front, a small group with a history of attacking bars and nightclubs, as well as Western embassies.

Gateway Pundit has more, including photos.

Matt Welch alerts me to his new blog over at the LA Times which will serve as a sort of round-up of local media and blogosphere news or "The best in Southern California opinion journalism" as they modestly put it.

Michael Yon is back reporting, this time from Afghanistan. Another feature on his much improved site is Frontline Forum which will have direct dispatches from soldiers on the frontlines.

Yesterday Lu Decheng arrived in Canada following some behind-the-scenes diplomacy by its new conservative government. Lu was part of the group of three that defaced the portrait of Mao at Tiananmen Square more than sixteen years ago:

Mr. Lu was one of three boyhood friends who travelled from Hunan province to the mass student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The trio decided to make their own protest by hurling egg shells filled with coloured dye at Chairman Mao's huge portrait. But students quickly corralled the three young men and turned them over to police.

All were treated far more severely than any of the student protesters, receiving prison sentences from 16 years to life for "counter-revolutionary" activities.

A few few months ago I reported on the release of Yu Dongye whose life was destroyed after years of imprisonment and abuse.

If you're interested in the antics of the man whose revered status was stained by the paint, do take the time to read Mao : The Unknown Story, a riveting biography.

Usually and to the horror of some, I sing along with most of my favorite music, but I hardly ever sing Queen songs. Why? They’re just too hard, too difficult to sing. And that was very clear tonight on American Idol where practically none of the participants came close to meeting the requirements of the night. Chris Daughtry with ‘Innuendo’ – which is a brilliant song - Paris Bennett with ‘The Show Must Go On’ - a fitting tribute to Mercury himself - and Elliott Yamin with the perennial ‘Somebody To Love’ stood out as the best of the night. Katherine McPhee picked the song I would have picked but somehow it was too much voice, too much singing to really nail it down to the essence. And while Pickler started out very promising, she somehow failed to bring it home although it must be hard to cram ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ into one minute and twenty seconds.

Ace Young is the man to go after he royally screwed up ‘We Will Rock You’, the best version of which I believe was performed by Axl Rose at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.

UPDATE: Sheila O'Malley has a very detailed assessment of the eight performances (via PJ).