John Chappell of the Iberian Notes blog has written a very worthwhile primer for the Madrid commuter train bombing trial which has started today. Note how the terrorist attacks of March 11, 2004 have caused deep rifts in the Spanish political landscape and how they remain unhealed to this day.

It's been five years. Watch The Journalist and the Jihadi tonight at 8 PM at CNN.

Canada has reached a settlement with Maher Arar for some $10.5 million, about 9 million in US funds. Good news for Arar who will no doubt use this as ammunition to go after US authorities in order to get compensation from them and to be removed from a US security watch list.

This is the fall-out of deporting terror suspects to nations that torture and it is very instructive in how not to fight the war on Islamist terror. I've discussed this case in detail a while ago in a lengthy post about the Arar case.

Five years after coining the famous 'axis' phrase, David Frum reflects on its shortcomings in an interview with Der Spiegel:

If you are looking for states that sponsor terrorism, I think there is no state in the world that has a worse record than Pakistan. And if you are concerned about the spread of extremist ideology, there is no state in the world that has a worse record than Saudi Arabia.

And, tellingly:

I would say that the story of the Bush Administration is the story of an administration caught halfway across the bridge; they did not want to face up to the magnitude of the problems. Its policies are premised on the assumption that we have a firm alliance with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. If it had been possible in 2001 to address the problem of Saudi Arabia, maybe there never would have been an Iraq war.

So, from today's point of view, the Bush-record is hardly 'neo-conservative, argues Frum:

The story of the Bush Administration is a story of absorbing certain doctrines that are called "neo-conservative," but entrusting them to be executed by people who did not believe in those doctrines. And by always limiting the applications of those doctrines, so as not to touch on the really deep American commitments to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. If Bush were a neo-conservative, as everybody said, then his response to 9/11 would have been that this originated in an extremism that the government of Saudi Arabia has whipped up in order to protect itself from the consequences of its own corruption.

It's a fascinating interview and it reveals the gap between some foreign policy idealists and the pragmatists in the executive branch. As I have mentioned time and again, Bush never was a real visionary and the events of 9/11 forced him to assume the role of someone who could by the force of ideology materially change the Middle East. It was however never all that, and as Frum says, "he tried".

So Bush's lack of conviction - something manifest in Tony Blair when he compelled his skeptical Labour Party to go into Iraq - combined with the reluctance to lean more heavily on such players as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have created a questionable record. The net of that is, whatever the outcome of the Baghdad surge, the next occupant of the White House will have to somehow deal with an enlarged 'axis of evil'. And in that, even a Democrat would have to borrow far more from neo-conservative thought than Bush ever did.

It is probably a little too difficult to assess al-Qaeda's current operational strengths from listening to Ayman al-Zawahiri's video missives, the latest one of which emerged yesterday. So, it is better to let Peter Bergen put everything into perspective and his latest piece reveals that the group has recovered from the many setbacks it endured right after 9/11 and is now well positioned for more terror attacks in the West. All of that has been facilitated by favorable conditions on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan:

The tribal areas of Pakistan have proved to be a comfortable home for Al Qaeda--and that isn't going to change. The Pakistani government has already concluded peace agreements with local militants (but not, obviously, Al Qaeda) in two of the seven federally administered tribal areas along the Afghan border, and it is likely to reach additional peace deals this year. That means the Pakistani army will gradually pull out of these areas, which can only help Al Qaeda.

Meanwhile, on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Taliban has staged a comeback while virtually merging with Al Qaeda. The Taliban were a provincial bunch when they held power in Afghanistan, but, in the past couple of years, they have increasingly identified as part of the global jihadist movement, their rhetoric full of references to Iraq and Palestine in a manner that mirrors bin Laden's public statements.

This adds to the general sense of doom that is enveloping the poorly resourced NATO mission in Afghanistan. Any assessment of that effort by the British, Canadian and Dutch governments needs to take account of what Bergen is saying here, but I doubt it will.

NOTE: The Economist has a similar piece this week, Al-Qaeda, on the march.

AND: Carlotta Gall of the NYT has more on the duplicitous role of Pakistan's intelligence community (via Oxblog).

In the past I have pointed to the futility of deporting radical imams as a way of curbing the terror threat, although the latest from the UK underlines the clear need to do so. The real infrastructure underpinning the Euro-jihad remains the internet and it is growing according to a recent Dutch government report:

The Dutch National Anti-Terrorism Co-ordinator Tjibbe Joustra says the Internet is acting more and more like a virtual training camp for terrorists. He finds it worrying that an increasing number of films giving detailed instructions on how to make bombs or explosive belts are appearing on the web. At the moment, the video clips are in Arabic, but he says it is only a matter of time before they appear in Dutch.

Mr Joustra says there are between 100 and 200 Dutch-language radical Islamic websites.

The obvious tension here is that in order to protect freedom it may be tempting for some governments to start blocking certain websites, or apply 'content-filters'. Needless to say, that is a little too drastic for our taste here. Just like handing in your bottled water at airports, there is a limit to what we should be giving up in return for some safety.

Still, to have a few hundred websites explain in Dutch how to strap on your suicide belt and step on the next commuter bus into Amsterdam is more than a little disconcerting.

Somehow I had missed the news that George Galloway had visited Canada earlier this week. It was not lost on Terry Glavin who wrote a must-read piece for The Tyee about how the anti-war left has become a convenient partner for radical Islamists:

But if you regard the United States as a greater enemy of the left than even Islamism, "what you end up with," says Hashmi, "is 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.'" And that brings us back to the degeneracy of the "anti-war" activism represented by Galloway and his followers in Britain and in Canada, in their alliance with Islamists.

I would be remiss in not offering you one of Galloway's pearls of wisdom during his tour of the north:

Galloway also weighed in on Canada's Liberal leadership contest, saying that "Anyone but Ignatieff" is a common slogan in British politics.

Of course.

In the wake of last week's alert from MI5, here are more warnings from the UK about an impending al-Qaeda attack:

British intelligence officials believe that al-Qaida is determined to attack the UK with a nuclear weapon, it emerged yesterday. The announcement, from an officially organised Foreign Office counter-terrorism briefing for the media, was the latest in a series of bleak assessments by senior officials and ministers about the terrorist threat facing Britain.

There can be little doubt that the frequency of missives like this will increase over time as European government struggle with stemming the tide of radicalization among its Muslims communities. The Counterterrorism Blog argues that these warnings can be interpreted as a tacit admission – in Britain at least – that the Blair government’s attempts to engage the Muslim community in a dialogue are not yielding the desired results.

Well, maybe. It seems to me that the net result of a ‘dialogue’ is always quite hard to measure and that it is simply impossible to rely on these engagement techniques to counter a severe threat of terror. Talks are always part of a larger effort and the repeated warnings from the UK this week at least gives rise to the conclusion that it is not only this engagement strategy that is failing, but that law enforcement and security may no longer be able to thwart a devastating attack on an urban center. We already knew that of course, but it is highly revealing to see the British security apparatus serving up these repeated reminders.

UPDATE: The Telegraph reports how Iran is increasingly affiliated with al-Qaeda:

Iran is seeking to take control of Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terror network by encouraging it to promote officials known to be friendly to Teheran, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

According to recent reports received by Western intelligence agencies, the Iranians are training senior al-Qa'eda operatives in Teheran to take over the organisation when bin Laden is no longer leader.

Highly revealing.

The threat of terror:

MI5 knows of 30 terror plots threatening the UK and is keeping 1,600 individuals under surveillance, the security service's head has said.

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller warned the threat was "serious" and "growing".

She said future attacks could be chemical or nuclear and that many of the plots were linked to al-Qaeda.

It is remarkable that the once so secretive MI5 has now become a very visible public agent. But then the threat has altered in nature too. Nuclear and chemical devices are no longer the domain of powerful foreign entities, they may well be assembled in a kitchen in a Manchester suburb. Or one in Amsterdam. Or one in Los Angeles. The threat is still there.

UPDATE: Manningham-Buller's comments to the press are unusual indeed:

Agencies and academics in Canada were taken aback by the tone and the candour of the spymaster's comments.

“The director-general rarely, capital R-A-R-E-L-Y, speaks publicly,” said Martin Rudner, a counterterrorism expert at Carleton University in Ottawa. “The fact that she spoke and spoke to empirical data, is to be taken very, very seriously. This is not chit-chat.”

Not at all.

Posted by Pieter Dorsman at 09:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Dean Barnett writes on Hugh Hewitt's blog today:

The biggest disappointment of the past six years has been the White House’s ongoing inability to express the rationale for the so-called war on terror. For most of you reading this site, the rationale is obvious and well known: There exists an enormous segment of the Muslim world that seeks our destruction. Either we transform our malefactors, or the world’s fate will be unimaginably horrific.

This is a long war, and yet leading Republicans including the one in the White House have yet to articulate why it’s necessary.

He is right and it is a point often put forward here. The Bush approach to terror has always been reactive rather than proactive, laying out a vision and try and rally the nation behind it has never been an easy task for someone essentially lacking that vision. And yes, the notion of 'sacrifice' is totally absent: America got a tax cut during a time of war. But what is also part of the White House's inept messaging is the far more difficult acknowledgement that jihadism is religious and not political in nature. The danger of 'crusader' rhetoric and other politcally correct sentiments ensured that more than five years after 9/11 large segments of the western world are still oblivious of the real threat.

And I use 'western world' with very good reason, as in Europe this is an equally hard nut to crack. The Times today ran a passionate editorial following the sentencing of al-Qaeda operative Dhiren Barot. It is another textbook case of conversion, radicalization and sophistication. But above all one of serious warning:

The Barot case underlines the character of terrorism, its international tentacles, chameleon adaptability and ability to exploit Western fads and weaknesses. It should, and will, make more urgent the need to penetrate and disarm the mindset that kills in the name of a deity. It is a threat that no democratic society can ignore.

The time has come for Republicans and Democrats, Americans and Europeans to find common ground, recognize this lethal enemy and fight it relentlessly. If not, terrorists like Barot will succeed in executing their sickening plans on both sides of the ocean:

His expertise and professionalism in surveying the nine London hotels, three stations, synagogues, banks and Underground lines targeted for destruction is matched only by his sadism in contemplating how he could increase the panic and human suffering caused by exploding gas cylinders, napalm, nails and a radiation bomb.

Fascinating piece in Der Spiegel about sex in the Islamic world. Since fundamentalism is a very effective way to neutralize ambivalent feelings about sex, it goes a very long way to explaining why so many young male Muslims in Europe turn to it. And radical and pure beliefs are no longer just a vehicle for immigrants, many westerners too convert to Islam in order to reject the perceived loose morality that surrounds them. Therein lies one of the keys to understanding the global attraction of Muslim fundamentalism which, as a result, is not attracting the most stable characters. And that in turn explains why seemingly regular guys that appear to have integrated quite well in their new environment all of a sudden blow themselves up on a commuter bus.

Contrary to expectations, the French courts have ruled against Philippe Karsenty. More details from Richard Landes and PJM.

UPDATE: Richard Landes fisks commentary form French weekly L'Express about the ruling. Key excerpt:

Note that L’Express didn’t cover this trial in September, hasn’t whispered a word of the issues in previous issues, but now shows it’s fully aware of the press coverage. Karsenty said to me that if he loses it will be all over the papers; if he wins it will be a paragraph on page 18.

Richard Landes is preparing himself for another trip to Paris where he will testify at one of the Al Durah trials. He has written a very useful primer for TNR about how French TV fudged Al Durah's death. It is a must-read as it not only summarizes the entire affair, it more importantly spells out how such media manipluation is hardly innocent and can have deadly consequences. And yes, the stage is Europe:

Three court trials, then--in which France2 seeks to bury any serious assessment of their coverage--are also trials of France's ability to defend her republican values against an Islamist onslaught that it seems ill-equipped to resist. And, as France goes, so goes Europe. (Would France have it any other way?)

Of course, I will link to the various updates that Richard will no doubt provide in the weeks ahead.

RELATED: A Reuters cameraman was arrested in Israel for inciting rock attacks.

Martin 'Sol' Solomon of Solomonia runs an excellent weblog and often finds stuff that somehow gets missed by the well frequented blogs. For instance, you owe it to yourself to take a look at the No Excuses For Terror documentary (which I found via Sol), made by a British left-wing documentary maker who considers how the anti-Israel views of the far-left and far-right have influenced mainstream media reporting.

… Maher Arar, a Canadian national of Syrian descent, changing flights in the US in September 2002, detained and deported to Syria by US authorities where he was held captive and tortured before being released. He is now back in Canada and making frequent media appearances to discuss his case. This has been front page news in Canada for months now and I find it somewhat surprising that only now it is getting traction in the blogosphere, the reason probably being that Maher Arar was a suspected terrorist, making it difficult for some to advocate the man's rights.

An excerpt form a post I wrote more than two years ago and yes, bloggers continue to be relatively mum about this issue apart from a select group of American left-of-center blogs keen to acquire some ammunition in the ongoing torture debate. This however is not strictly a torture case, but it warrants some critical examination in a way that should be of interest to both the left and the right.

As most of you know, Maher Arar was fully exonerated earlier this week by an independent Canadian commission of inquiry which ruled that Arar has been the victim of inaccurate RCMP intelligence reports and deliberate smears by Canadian officials. Note that these reports were provided to US officials who wasted no time to deport Arar to Syria (he holds dual Syrian-Canadian citizenship) and that the smear emerged following Arar’s return to Canada after a less than pleasant stay in one of Boy Assad’s prison facilities.

There is just too much here to capture in a brief narrative – and you have to make a distinction between the Canadian and American angle here - but let me summarize what is significant:

1. The deliberate smears did their work to the extent that many commentators – and that includes me – while being aware of the problematic behavior of both Canadian and US officials either neglected to defend Mr. Arar or at least presume his innocence. There always was a whiff of jihadist guilt associated with the man, so why bother? Looking away was the better option, an attitude that continues to this very day. Yet, for the sake of honoring independent judicial inquiries we now have to accept that Arar is not guilty of any crime and that he did not deserve the abuse meted out to him by the Canadian, US and Syrian governments.

2. As Majikthise points out, the damage to counter-terrorism operations is phenomenal. There can be little doubt that RCMP heads are going to roll over this affair and even if they don’t, Canada’s venerable police operation will think twice before sharing information with US counterparts. No prizes for guessing what this will do to the already challenged cross-border security situation on the 49th parallel.

3. Like the Hirsi Ali case (where Dutch neocon minister Verdonk ditched Hirsi Ali out of political expediency) it turns out that those who we believed to have staked a certain position in the debate over Islam, terrorism and all that comes with it, would not necessarily remain pure in adhering to that position. The same is true here, but the reverse. Canada’s left-of-center Liberal government (defeated in early 2006) was responsible for this fiasco by adopting an almost Rumsfeldian recklessness in handling this terror suspect. At the same time it wasted no opportunity to distance itself from the Bush administration in order to placate a testy and not overly pro-American electorate. Odd and duplicitous behaviour.

4. In a way this affair also echoes the themes I touched on earlier this week. We can’t under any circumstance allow jihadist terror to put us in a position where the lives of Muslims in general are deemed to be of lesser value. We may not realize it, but the very necessary break with politically correct multiculturalism has gone to an extreme where exactly that is happening. Muslim minorities in western societies need to be assisted and compelled to become the Jews of 17th century Amsterdam, not the Jews of 20th century Warzaw.

5. And torture? Not sure here. There is a good argument to be made that the US simply deported Arar based on immigration law and that there was no arrangement to let its ‘friends’ in Damascus extract some information from the Syrian-Canadian suspect. Seriously, since when have we partnered with Damascus in fighting terror?

So there you have it. My gut feel tells me that we will never learn the real truth here, but the Arar affair provides us with a microcosm of things that can go wrong when pursuing terror suspects. Obfuscating the truth, imperiling future security operations, dishonesty, political expediency, nascent racism and a dose of physical abuse. Incredible failure, highlighting a level of moral ineptitude that will cost us dearly in fighting jihadism.

While everyone is pre-occupied today with the forced conversion of the two released Fox journalists, it may be worthwhile to point to the increasing rate of voluntary conversions. From Time Magazine there is this absolutely must-read piece about westerners converting to Islam. It’s a topic I have touched on before and the phenomenon may not be as mind-boggling as it initially sounds. Affluent western societies have created a class of people looking for answers that somehow can not be found in freedom and individuality and, as it happens, there is a creed that does provide some of these answers:

But one common refrain is that in an increasingly secular world in which society's rules get looser by the day, Islam provides a detailed moral map covering everything from friendships to protecting the environment. And for Western youths, taking up Islam can also serve as an outlet for rebellion. A majority of converts, especially in Western Europe, are in their late teens or 20s. "Islam is a kind of refuge for those who are downtrodden and disenfranchised because it has become the religion of the oppressed," says Farhad Khosrokhavar, a Paris professor and the author of several books on Muslim extremism. "Previously--say, 20 years ago--they may have chosen communism or gone to leftist ideologies. Now Islam is the religion of those who fight against imperialism, who are treated unjustly by the arrogant Western societies and so on."

While I am open to jokes about this, the “moral map” argument is one that can not be dismissed that easily, especially in Europe which is far more secular and disoriented than the US and Canada. The outcome of a conflict between two competing ideological strains is often determined by the strength and coherence of each and I suspect that a religion that has submerged the individual in favor of a powerful group dogma will stand a good chance of having the upper hand when confronted with loosely organized self-serving individuals.

Sorry to resume blogging on such a pessimistic note. Communism could be defeated by demonstrating the benefits of wealth and freedom, but the grassroots of our new enemy isn’t particularly interested in either.

Well, I am not the only one who has figured out that business air travel is slated for some major disruption in the form of open source air travel or by simply staying at home and conduct meetings from a safe and convenient distance. Paul Kedrosky and Seth Godin argue that air travel has indeed reached a tipping point.

Related Entries
Open Source Air Travel (2)
Open Source Air Travel

Interesting Q&A with al-Qaeda expert Peter Bergen on CNN, with a focus on Osama bin Laden and his likely whereabouts. Bergen explains where that could be and why - given that knowledge - he is still able to elude those that want to capture him.

David Frum is not very happy either and labels the increased security measures around airports as perverse, as indeed they are. Of course, he has considered a solution:

Another approach: Perhaps if you fly often from New York to London, you might be willing to volunteer a whole mass of information to British Airways in return for a "trusted traveller" card that will allow you to walk on the plane with minimal fuss. Your name might be Omar Abdullah, but if they know that you are 57 years old, director of the Middle East collection at the Metropolitan Museum, own an apartment in Manhattan and a brokerage account at Merrill Lynch, carry a Visa card with a $50,000 limit, fly to London six times a year with tickets paid for by the museum, and so on and so on ... well, they can pretty confidently let you on the plane with minimal formalities.

Nice idea, but it only addresses a part of the problem and I can already picture the abuse and the rapid proliferation of forged “trusted traveler” cards. In the meantime, innovation in the airline industry proceeds swiftly, here is an example of one that has venture finance backing and this one in particular appears to be addressing the affordability aspect:

The Eclipse 500™ is the revolutionary twin-engine jet that's making private jet ownership a reality for more people than ever before. Through innovative technology, modern manufacturing techniques, and pricing models aligned with the high-tech industry, the Eclipse 500 is the lowest price very light jet (VLJ) available, yet features more performance, lower operating costs and the most advanced avionics and electrical system in its class. If owning a jet has been your dream, wake up and smell the jet fuel.

For a mere $1.5 million it's yours, no kidding.

Well, the increased security measures are starting to border on the ridiculous, the notion of having to check in your laptop and even the thought of going transcontinental without a book is just absurd. As I mentioned yesterday we adapt and improve, and we will, but it may well be that in the age of open source there is now a good chance of a fundamental restructure of business travel where the use of small jets or shared leases by a group of companies has good potential to replace the ubiquitous struggle to get on a big ticket commercial airliner.

Business travel has always been somewhat over the top in my opinion, I recall a Hong Kong to Washington, DC, flight where I had to attend a morning meeting that could well have been conducted by way of a conference call. The trip had entertainment value as I got to spent an extra day taking in the DC sights, but the cost-benefit ratio was totally off the charts. And that was in 1999, now with even better, faster and cheaper communication tools at hand there is a compelling argument to improve the bottom line by reducing corporate trips. And post-jihad travel will probably add another signifcant cost by adding longer waiting times at check-in and reducing efficiency if you can no longer use your laptop in the cabin. Not to mention that other cost-benefit analysis where the upside of closing a new deal will have to be weighed against the probability of being blown to smithereens by the jihadist sitting next to you in 5C.

In all seriousness, in an age where we move to smaller, independent and often non-corporate solutions – there’s a guy who wrote a book about that - we may well enter an age where small private jets will no longer be the provenance of the rich and famous. Creative financiers and risk takers will no doubt find a model whereby business travel can increasingly be channeled through small operators that operate light jets and who can offer their clients tailored flight plans. Too bad that Airbus failed to figure that out:

NOTE: Innovation is not something we're going to get out of large airline companies. But rather than confiscating books, cellphones and bottled water they may want to give it a try and consider alternative approaches:

Rafi Ron, former head of security at Tel Aviv, Israel's Ben Gurion Airport, said screeners should focus more on finding suspicious people than on hunting for potential terrorist tools.

"It is extremely difficult for people to disguise the fact they are under tremendous amount of stress, that they are going to kill themselves and a lot of people around them in a short amount of time, and all the other factors that effect their behavior," Ron said.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

An excerpt from yesterday's editorial in the Dutch NRC Handelsblad:

There are limits to the extent an open and democratic society can implement anti-terror measures. The Brits themselves have delivered proof of that with draft legislation that was either rejected or amended. But the call for a tougher approach and more legal powers will increase rather than decrease in the face of sustained terrorist activity. New legislation is in such cases superfluous. If it is the United Kingdom or The Netherlands, precise and successful intelligence activities do not need another layer of legislation that will ultimately obstruct the freedom of innocent citizens.

Or: to what extent are we prepared to protect the lives of those innocents when they step on a plane? Throughout the post 9/11 period I have always approved the ways in which certain security measures were expanded, but there are limits and I believe the NRC Handelsblad is onto something. Watching the extreme security measures on the various international airports today brought home the realization that our open societies are facing a level of turbulence that will now start to affect our day to day lives. And our economies too, oil prices were down yesterday in anticipation of reduced fuel consumption by airline carriers. Social and economic patterns will change considerably in years to come; there can be no doubt about it.

Sure, having to hand over your mineral water before boarding a plane is not a major disruption and our societies are so flexible and open in nature that they can easily absorb terror induced shocks and adapt. Yet the danger exists that indiscriminate security blankets will peel away a layer of freedom and flexibility that will not only take the fun out of activities such as travel, but that turn free citizens into less resilient and ultimately subservient subjects. You won’t hear me recycling the pathetic cliché that in that scenario the “terrorists have won”. Their victory will be marked by turning our magnificent cities into wastelands or by taking us on a religious express carrier back to the Middle Ages. We’re a long way from that and in the meantime we should just not tinker with the core engine of our success: freedom.

Those that are familiar with my thinking on jihadist terror will not be taken aback by my initial reaction this morning which essentially was, are we in any way surprised? Digesting the details – there is lots of information here – we are circling back to the core patterns of open-source jihadist terror:

1. Initiated primarily by terror cells in Europe with links to the Middle East;
2. Religious in nature;
3. Use of new technologies, or a high degree of innovation.

What does amaze me is the technical sophistication through which the terrorists have managed to put airliners back on the agenda. Increased security and the establishment of a United 93 standard had led many to believe that the next move would most likely not be on passenger airlines. Well, that conclusion was apparently premature and we can only commend the diligence and efficiency of British security forces for neutralizing this very close call with another massacre of innocent lives.

UPDATE: Take note of this analysis:

Israeli al-Qaida expert Reuven Paz also suspects the would-be killers arrested in Britain belong to a "new generation of jihad-seekers," which has taken shape in recent years, especially since the murder of the Islam-critical Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam. These new terrorists are typically "Islamic fundamentalists with a poor Islamic education, but a great deal of motivation for jihad in the sense of terrorism. They're not waiting for al-Qaida to recruit them. They initiate their own operations, in accordance with al-Qaida's strategy," Paz told SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of these potential killers reside in Europe, he assumes.

David Frum once more explains, cogently, the Iran angle and why Hezbollah’s destruction is of paramount importance.

The Dutch will go to the polls for a general election later this year – November to be precise - and one party in particular is projected to do well, namely the Socialist Party, a more radical and doctrinaire Labour Party offshoot. Its leader, Jan Marijnissen, made headlines last week by comparing jihadist terrorism to the Dutch resistance during World War II:

" Terrorism is a recurring thing throughout history and often has the intention to make life for an occupying power as difficult as possible. The Dutch have, during the Second World War here blown up city halls in order to disrupt Nazi Germany’s machine of destruction – most city halls kept registries with names of Jewish citizens. In the Middle East, things are not that different. Islamic fundamentalism, including its terrorist subsidiary, is a reaction to the occupation of Palestine by Israel, the American presence in the Middle East and the support of undemocratic regimes in the Middle East by the west "

Not only a false and to some highly insulting analogy, Marijnissen also fails to note that radical Islam is driven by religion and not by politics, a point that is not often understood in Europe's secular circles. As we have seen over the past few weeks, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is merely a useful conduit to expand the radical Islamic franchise as is so eloquently explained by Amir Taheri in the Times today:

The problem is that since the Iranian regime is Shi’ite it would not be easy to sell it to most Arabs, who are Sunni. To overcome that hurdle, it is necessary to persuade the Arabs that only Iran is sincere in its desire and capacity to wipe Israel off the map. Once that claim is sold to the Arabs, so Ahmadinejad hopes, they would rally behind his vision of the Middle East instead of the “American vision”.

The jury is out on whether the Palestinians would really enjoy life under Ahmadinejad’s Shi’ite umbrella, but that’s a topic for a very different discussion.

In the meantime Marijnissen has hurried to tone down his original comment on his own weblog as Dutch pollsters predict that he will pick up some 10% of the vote if an election were held today. If he does indeed manage that in November, the Socialist Party may become a player in parliament, possibly holding the balance of power. I will leave it to your imagination as to how that would affect the Dutch, and to some extent the European, debate over waging war on terror.

Read this and then convince me that death would have been better. (ht: Sullivan).

The Moussaoui debate continued today with even La Noonan coming out in favor of a death sentence. There are many good round-ups, but if you check out the Moderate Voice you will get comments from both the right and the left and it appears no one is really pleased with the outcome. Still, I suspect that would have been the case too if Moussaoui had ended up on the injection table, where unanswered questions and making-martyr theories would no doubt have abounded, on the left and the right. Either way a no win situation, so I stick to my residual asset value theory which got a boost from one reader:

Having a terrorist renounce radical Islam would be useful in the battle for hearts and minds. I don't know what the odds of him renouncing radical Islam while serving life in prison are, but I do know what they would be if he was dead.

Wishful thinking maybe, but you never know.

From a reader weighing in on the Hirsi Ali-affair and describing European attitudes:

" Total concern about individual comfort and safety with no regard for present morality or future consequence "

Indeed, and the quote neatly captures one of the core themes of this blog when Europe is on the table. For completeness sake I will give you the entire e-mail to put the quote in context:

The reason the Hirsi Ali story has no traction is that it is so basically and basely European. When I first read about her problem I thought this is Europe today mirrored in an apartment building. Total concern about individual comfort and safety with no regard for present morality or future consequence. Europe after WWII is like France after WWI, a place of total lack of will. During WWII France had a six week retreat and a war long collaboration. Were the lessons learned from Munich, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Vichy, and the Holocaust that evil ignore is evil that goes away?

In the meantime media debate about it remains scant, one of the bigger Dutch blogs notes that a parliamentarian from the Green Left has so far been the only one to raise questions in parliament. Which begs the question, do some have a vested interest - including Hirsi Ali's own party - in staying quiet about this? More in the days ahead.

The jury has spoken. This may not be addressing the immediate need to punish and seek some form of compensation, but it is the right decision. As I noted earlier, Moussaoui has residual asset value, although I doubt that is what motivated the jury.

It's five days now since the contentious court ruling, but all I can see in the Dutch and international media landscape is a ghastly silence. The blogosphere picked it up, looked at it and moved the story forward, the rest of the world didn't care.

Related Posts
Hirsi Ali, The Hunted (2)
Hirsi Ali, The Hunted

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

One of the beautiful things about blogging is that once you’ve put forward a certain idea, you will find that in a very short period of time there is an overwhelming amount of fresh evidence online to support it. So, the idea that the debate over Europe, immigration and jihadist terror is entering a new phase where the left-of-center elites are reclaiming some lost ground, is corroborated by a new report from The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy. This is an independent think tank for the Dutch government and it advises a sitting administration on a variety of issues. This council is highly regarded as providing some solid scientific underpinnings to public policy, at least that is what I remember of it.

Their latest report on Islam in Europe will be released tomorrow – with an English summary on their website - but one of their key researchers, Jan Schoonenboom, has been kind enough to talk to the press in advance of the report’s release and in doing so has given us a preview of the report's general intellectual direction:

An unjustified fear of and aversion to Islam exists in the Netherlands. Instead of continuing to drag the name of that faith through the mud, there should be far more criticism of friendly countries such as the US, Israel and Russia, the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) concludes.

As I said, the tone is set. In an unusual move Schoonenboom takes on a number of politicians directly, no doubt targeting one particular female member of parliament when addressing the issue of sharia:

According to Schoonenboom "we should not be so spastic about the Sharia." It may be that the system leads to corporal punishment in countries like Saudi Arabia and Sudan, "but under the Sharia in Morocco, family law has been reformed, very much to the advantage of women's rights." The Sharia for Muslims is comparable to the Ten Commandments for Christians, in the researcher's view. "It is God's plan for human nature."

The WRR researcher wipes the floor with Islam critics such as MPs Hirsi Ali, Wilders and Verhagen, law philosopher Afshin Ellian and Rotterdam politician Marco Pastors. "They often play on gut feelings in the debate. On fear of Islam and of Muslims. You also see that in the debate on the accession of Turkey to the EU, this country is made out to be much more Islamic than it is, and Europe much more Christian that it really is."

Without having seen the report it is hard to determine how the council arrives at foreign policy recommendations, but it seems to me that the one that they have now tabled is driven much more by playing politics and emotional reactions, than by offering sound advice. Hold on to your jaws for this one:

Schoonenboom advises "an adventurous foreign policy" for the Dutch government. "We must support the moderate Islamic powers much more, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hezbollah in Lebanon, instead of secular movements without prospects in Muslim countries. We must talk to the Palestinian regime of Hamas. They are democratically elected. It is a terrorist movement, but so was Arafat's PLO. And the IRA in Ireland."

There is a series of blogposts to be written about this last paragraph alone, but for now let’s suffice by pointing to the Counterterrorism Blog’s recent take on the pre-emptive capabilities of Hezbollah. An adventurous and moderate foreign policy partner indeed.

As I mentioned earlier today, the debate in Europe is becoming more polarized. This report from an independent government-funded think-tank is all the evidence you need to have to support that observation.

UPD