An Italian Counter-Terror Blitz/ The Van Gogh Trial
France ramped up its own border security operations. Now Italy is conducting a “blitz” of pre-emptive raids. The Italian authorities indicated these counter-terror operations were planned prior to London’s 7/7 attacks.
From The Washington Post’s report:
Italian authorities reacted Wednesday to last week’s bombings in London, tentatively blamed on four British citizens, by searching the homes of hundreds of suspected Islamic radicals and illegal immigrants.
Police and anti-terror units fanned out in Naples, Milan and other major cities, and searched homes and offices. Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu told reporters that the “maxi-blitz” showed that the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been alert to the possibility of attacks in Italy.
“The operation has been prepared for some time and confirms that Italy has never lowered its guard in the face of the terrorist tide,” he said. “I’m not saying that we have seized terrorists. It’s a preventive operation in high-risk environments.” The police were looking for arms and explosives, officials said. No arrests were announced.
Authorities say they believe that Italy may be the next target of violence, following the bombings of transit systems in Spain and Britain, both allies of the United States in Iraq.
Several months ago Mark Steyn and I discussed Europe’s long term prospects. He’s a Euro-pessimist, I classify as a Euro-optimist of sorts. We both agreed Europe’s response to the Islamist terror challenge was slow and benighted — but one could also accuse the US of following that route until 9/11. The London attacks give Western Europe another political opportunity, the chance to change failed security and social policies. Yes, this will take committed leadership, but not all European leaders are callow crooks like Jacques Chirac.
The Theo Van Gogh murder trial testimony is galvanizing. The jihadi enemy isn’t a poor, misunderstood victim of European imperialism — he’s a vicious religious supremacist. Here’s the link to the NY Times version, which appeared on July 13.
Key quotes:
Breaking a self-imposed silence that had confounded court officials here, a young Muslim man coolly accepted responsibility Tuesday for the brutal slaying of a controversial Dutch filmmaker, adding that he would do it all over again if given the chance.
Shaken by the horrific death of the filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, the Dutch heard for the first time Tuesday the voice of his assailant, who spoke of the murder in the same matter-of-fact manner in which some witnesses say it was executed.
Bicycling to work last Nov. 2, Mr. van Gogh was shot at least six times before having his throat cut.
The defendant, Muhammad Bouyeri, the 27-year-old son of Moroccan immigrants, showed no remorse, saying he had killed Mr. van Gogh based on his religious beliefs.
“I acted out of conviction and not out of hate,” Mr. Bouyeri told the court. “If I’m ever released, I’d do the same again. Exactly the same.”
Why would he do it again?
He added his actions were based on “the law that instructs me to chop off the head of everyone who insults Allah or the prophet.”
Mr. van Gogh - along with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch politician - received death threats after their short but provocative film about abuse of Muslim women was broadcast last year on Dutch television.
Mr. van Gogh once compared fundamentalist Muslims to practitioners of bestiality. He had also written a book, “Allah Knows Better,” that was critical of Islam.
Mr. Bouyeri, who mentioned Mr. van Gogh’s expletive involving animals in court, said he chose his victim because he had insulted God, not because he had offended Muslims.
“As a Moroccan, I never felt offended,” said Mr. Bouyeri, who has passports from both the Netherlands and Morocco.
The following should be required reading for every literate person on the planet:
In a moment of courtroom drama, Mr. Bouyeri addressed Anneke van Gogh, Mr. van Gogh’s mother, who made an emotional statement about the personal and political impact of the loss of her son when the trial opened on Monday.
“I don’t feel your pain,” Mr. Bouyeri said. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child who was brought into this world with so much pain and tears. I realize that my attitude is very confrontational for you and others. I hope that you will derive some comfort from the maximum sentence.”
Prosecutors, having reconstructed Mr. van Gogh’s gory death in a four-hour presentation Tuesday, demanded that Mr. Bouyeri receive the maximum sentence of life in prison. They characterized Mr. van Gogh’s killing as a terrorist act.
“The accused preaches a message of hate and violence,” one of the prosecutors, Frits van Straelen, told the court. “He preaches that anyone who thinks differently can be killed.”
I have searched for a link to a July 14, 2005 UPI dispatch by Jeremy Hurewitz, but can’t locate one. I had a copy of it sent to me via email (one may pop up on google shortly). [UPDATE: A reader says this link will take you to the Hurewitz article. Many thanks.]
Hurewitz’ subject is Holland and its political struggle with terrorism and failed integration.
Here’s a key quote:
The Netherlands is dealing with the same sort of failed assimilation of its post-World War II Muslim immigrants that many other European countries are grappling with. France, Germany, Belgium and others countries have had their incidents with Muslim extremists and no one doubts that radicals are operating across the continent. But The Netherlands — with the assassination first of right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn and more recently of van Gogh –has become a flashpoint for the conflict of Muslim and Western society.
Many point out that The Netherlands’ recent rejection of the European Constitution was due at least in part to the fear of Turkey joining the European Union and increasing the number of Muslims filtering through the continent’s porous borders. Similar fears about Turkey’s ascension are underlying the suspicion of the European Constitution in other countries who have recently voted (such as France) and others who are still considering a referendum.
Out of the ashes of the van Gogh murder Geert Wilders has risen like a phoenix. A former speechwriter for the liberal VVD party, he has founded his own party, the Geert Wilders List, and has taken up the mantle of right-wing rhetoric from Fortuyn.
Wilders’ shock of peroxide-white hair standing nearly straight up on his head makes him look like he has had a terrible fright. And indeed he has: after the van Gogh murder Dutch security services uncovered a plot to kill him, with one video offering 72 virgins for his head. He has since had to sleep in a different safe-house every night and maintains a strict security detail.
At his parliamentary office in The Hague Wilders paints a bleak picture of the failure of Dutch society to grapple with the unsuccessful integration of Muslim minorities and is unsurprised that The Netherlands has become the focal point for the Muslim-Western struggle.
“It’s not a coincidence that the unfortunate slaughter of Mr. van Gogh happened in the streets of Amsterdam and not anywhere else,” he said. “For too long we’ve been tolerant of the intolerant. We’ve had a policy for years that everything should be tolerated, that anything is possible. For instance, when the Kurdish PKK party was outlawed everywhere they came to The Netherlands to hold a congress.
“We should have seen it coming. Only three years ago journalists on public television recorded Imans in The Netherlands saying things on the record about how women could be beaten, homosexuals should be killed and the friends of democracy are the sons of Satan. Our secret service has already known for two years that the recruitment for jihad in mosques and prisons were no longer incidents but a structural phenomenon.”
Wilders has advocated a five-year ban on non-Western immigrants and has proposed that extremist suspects be rounded up without the approval of a judge; those that have dual-nationality should be expelled.
Wilders is a firebrand:
Wilders claims that Article 103 of the Dutch Constitution makes such round-ups legal and he spouts such classic populist grandiloquence as “if I have to choose between protecting the families of The Netherlands, or granting these people the benefits of the rule of law when their sole aim is to kill other people and introduce some sort of Sharia system in The Netherlands, I will not choose for the latter. Do we have to wait until a lot of people are killed in The Netherlands? Must we wait until they use some kind of sarin gas in metro in Rotterdam?”
Wilders’ concerns are valid and there does seem to be a constitutional provision for this sort of action. Nevertheless, most of Dutch society is aghast at the thought of such actions. People still remember how neutrality led to acquiesce in World War II and how nearly three times as many Jews were killed proportionally in The Netherlands than in France and Belgium. There is also the legacy of the colonial past and involvement in the slave trade that many Dutch feel their country has never full grappled with.
However, though Wilders’ party seems popular at the moment, it is not likely the Dutch will vote for the sort of government that would round up and expel the 200 to 300 radicals Wilders sees as ticking time-bombs.
But that’s not to say that Dutch society is not waking up to the dangers of Islamic extremism.
In a landmark essay entitled “The Multicultural Drama” in The Netherlands’ leading daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad, Prof. Paul Scheffer of the University of Amsterdam claimed, “the culture of tolerance is coming up against its limit.”
Published in 2000, the essay generated an enormous response and is widely seen as the first endeavor to honestly tackle what he called the country’s “lazy multiculturalism”. It was something of an intellectual revolution to have a left-wing professor write, “There should be no place in public life for movements opposed to the separation of church and state or equal rights for men and women. Religious symbols such as turbans belong in private life and not in official bodies like the police force.”
Hurewitz notes Scheffer opposes expulsions– and I understand Scheffer to mean the expulsions Wilders advocates.
Here’s a link to a website (Peace Journalism) with more commentary on the effects of Van Gogh’s murder. Hurewitz recently published a an article similar to his UPI essay in Peace Journalism’s newsletter.
Peace Journalism advocates the following policies to maintain social tolerance:
…we continue to aim for “constructive dialog” between all religions. On our home page we have installed a platform for an open discussion. We do not want to restrict ourselves to just a dialog between Muslims and Christians. Together with our readers, we would like to develop a code for mutual respect – such as:
All foreign groups should respect the fundamental rules and laws of the host nation they choose to reside in
All host nations should give foreign groups and individuals a fair chance to integrate and participate
Freedom of worship for all religions should be protected in all countries in a reciprocal manner
No group should be forced to assimilate - they should integrate
Learning the host nation’s language is the first step to integration and participation
Extremists and terrorists should be expelled
The social position of women should be enhanced
Peace Journalism looks like an organization that is on the verge of discovering they may have to fight to protect a liberal society.
Bouyeri is, in my opinion, getting off lightly.
Comment by HaroldHutchison — 7/14/2005 @ 8:52 am
“not all European leaders are callow crooks like Jacques Chirac” Actually, Chirac may be starting to get it: “The terrorists have a different mentality,” [Chirac] said in a TV interview, a week after the London bombings. “No country in the world is safe from attacks,” he warned. Source
Comment by chrth — 7/14/2005 @ 10:24 am
Sooner or later, probaby when the second American city goes up in a mushroom cloud, the West will realize that we are in a religious war. Islam is not “the religion of peace” as we are endlessly told. Get a Koran and read it. Solzenityn said of Stalinism that it was not an abberation. It was communism done by exerts. In the same way, Islamism is “Islam done by experts.” The hope that there will somehow be a “reformation” in Islam is, at best, forlorn. Whatever might come out of such a reformation would not be Islam, which is based on the finality of revelation. Muhammad is see as the last and greatest prophet of God, not just a prophet. Find out about the Islamic doctrine of “abrogation,” which makes the peaceful Meccan suras, with their talk about “People of the Book” and how Muslims are brothers with Christians and Jews, with the later Medinan suras, which talk about “binding your captives tightly” and cutting off limbs. Unless the Muslim community tracks these terrorists down and does not allow them to live in their commnities, I foresee mass deportations in our future. The problem with locking up all Japanese in World War II was not racism, but the fact that they were an “innocent” minority whose loyalty should have been presumed and was later proven, even though they were an insular community with their own language that could not be penetrated. Imagine if the Japanese had been blowing themselves up in subways and shopping malls and defense plants. No one would have objected to putting them in camps, and rightfully so. The only solutions are to penetrate these communities and find out who the terrorists are or deportation of all Muslims to make sure that you are getting the terrorists you might otherwise miss. This is war, like it or not. I just hope that we do not recognize it too late.
Comment by Joseph F. McNulty, Jr, — 7/14/2005 @ 10:39 am
My father was an engineer for Mobil Oil Corp. In 1980 he worked on a trans-Saudi pipeline that would enable the Saudis to export oil to the Red Sea in case the Iranians cut off oil exports at the straight of Hormuz. He brought back some Aramco bumper stickers printed in arabic with the royal Saudi symbol on them. I was going to put one on my car but my dad threw a fit. He warned me then that it was a dangerous thing to do even in Dallas Texas. That’s when I learned there was terrorist threat in America, in 1980. It wasn’t official, no company memo, just my dad being over there a lot and coming home worried about it.
Comment by Rob Finch — 7/14/2005 @ 10:45 am
Hoo, ya got that right. It is certainly a step in the right direction to list the non-negotiables. Of course, this might as well be a declaration of war as far as the Islamists are concerned… just the “reciprocal” religious freedom is enough to lose your head over. Anyone paying any attention knows that. If Peace Journalism knows that much, they know enough.
Comment by megapotamus — 7/14/2005 @ 10:54 am
A promising start, one supposes, but the Dutch and the other Europeans still haven’t come to terms with the stark fact that Islamofascism wants them dead. Once that sinks in, the pace will pick up considerably.
Comment by Banjo — 7/14/2005 @ 10:59 am
Alas, it will be very easy for Europe to pretend to wake up.
Comment by sammler — 7/14/2005 @ 11:06 am
I am a conservative Republican. I voted for GWB (twice) and I contributed to his campaigns. I served as a paratrooper in the Army. My son is presently a Second Lieutenant in the Army. I give you these as my bona fides for what I am about to say. I am not a troll. I am not a lefty pretending to be a Republican. I wish that I could be optimistic about the West’s commitment to fighting terrorism, but I can’t. The US, with its attention span of a gnat, will bring the troops home. We will apologize to the Islamists. We will pay “reparations†for our “wrongs” and to purchase a stop terrorism on our soil, in no particular order (as long as our money holds out; once you pay the Danegeld, the Dane keeps coming back for more). So, the left will pretty much get what it wants. The West lacks the will to fight back. The Islamists know it. Much of the world knows it, and is getting out of the way of the coming train wreck. What is the evidence? Look at the trolls. Listen to Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. Read the New York Times. Look at Spain, and France, and Germany. Know that if 50,000 or so voters in Ohio had chosen John Kerry and not GWB, Kerry would be Presideant today. They will win. The left will expect the Islamists to stop attacking us out of sheer respect for our cowardice and our weakness. So, the left had better be right: the consequences if they are wrong are too horrendous to imagine. They are not right. They will, someday, look back at the choice between: (A) living under Islamist fascism; and (B) giving the President, a good and decent man, doing the very best he can, their support; and wonder why they chose “A†and not “B.†________________
Comment by RJGatorEsq. — 7/14/2005 @ 11:16 am
Though the Muslim imigrants in the Netherlands make up aprox 6% of the population, they are dispraportionaly represented in the Battered Women’s Shelters. More like 60%. What a dilema for a “Liberal” society that praises multi cultural tolerance as well as womens rights…..somewhere along the way, the liberals dropped the Judeo/Christian moral standards (i.e the ten comandments). YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A JEW OR A CHRISTIAN TO RECOGNIZE THE SOCIAL WISDOM IMPLIED THEREIN. It is a shame thar wearing the liberal blinders for so long has so endangered the European way of life and ours. Though there will always be spineless weanies I pray that the majority of well meaning Europeans will come to see this in time to help us win this war.
Comment by George Cowan — 7/14/2005 @ 11:17 am
Austin - sounds a lot like Michael Savage’s “Language, Borders, and Culture.” Art
Comment by Art Fougner — 7/14/2005 @ 11:19 am
There’s an ultra-orthodox right wing movement in Israel started by Rabbi Kahane (who actually came from Brooklyn, New York.) And, who was murdered by an arab. His “gang” have bumper stickers that read: “NO TERROR. NO MUSLIMS.” I suppose at some point, IF the radical arabs fund a massive killing strike anywhere in the Western World; by using WMD’s. I think the response will be a crossing of the line. And, a muslim city will be destroyed. Muslims will die in droves. Until this radical terrorist behaviors are finally stopped. Until then, we’ll see the 9/11’s. Spain doesn’t have the guts to fight back. And, England was way more tolerant than the Netherlands. So we shall see? Until then? I think that a lot of arab storekeepers will be shunned. And, there will be a quiet turning away from these people who infest many Western cities. I don’t think we’re going to see muslims, themselves, voice opposition to something they take for granted hearing spoken in their mosques.
Comment by Carol Herman — 7/14/2005 @ 11:55 am
Wow. I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about the death penalty, but reading this quote of Von Gogh’s killer makes me wonder if he would have calculated differently if the maximum sentence were death: “I don’t feel your pain,†Mr. Bouyeri said. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child who was brought into this world with so much pain and tears. I realize that my attitude is very confrontational for you and others. I hope that you will derive some comfort from the maximum sentence.â€
Comment by James M. Smith — 7/14/2005 @ 12:44 pm
A Principled Defense of the West When you actually have principles to defend, how to defend your pricniples becomes less inscrutible. This is what strikes me as the weakness of the multiculturalists. They are compelled to tolerate the destruction of all of their other principles, i…
Trackback by Pharaoh Speaks — 7/14/2005 @ 1:27 pm
Multiculturalism is the trojan horse of Europe… When you actually have principles to defend, how to defend your pricniples becomes less inscrutible.
Comment by Pharaoh — 7/14/2005 @ 1:28 pm
What the Peace Journalism advocates refuse to understand is that they are not dealing with a logical group of people when it comes to the Islamic terrorists, or even the average Muslim. The terrorists want to kill them. Not open a dialogue or right wrongs. They want death to all who oppose their will. I am not sure if the upper echelons of the terrorist heirarchy are truly driven by religious fervor or a Hitler-like desire for world domination. I am leanding toward the latter, which makes the Peaceful Journalists idea truly hopeless.
Comment by Doug — 7/14/2005 @ 1:56 pm
Todays Links 2005 07 14 Thursday How many Evil Infidel Points is insisting that terrorists act like civilized human beings? Oh. Right. I guess I’m a target. Big target fo…
Trackback by Searchlight Crusade — 7/14/2005 @ 4:26 pm
Blind Spots Now that the London terrorists have been found to be native born, middle class English citizens of Pakistani extraction, the question naturally among our mostly liberal MSM: What could be the root causes of such a turn of a seemingly
Trackback by ShrinkWrapped — 7/14/2005 @ 5:15 pm
My own take is that things are worse and better than we suspect. Worse in that a nuclear attack on a major Western city is inevitable as Sam Nunn warned before the London attacks. Worse in that the response by even, say the French, is likely to be strategic and nuclear. An attack that vaporizes, say Paris, would result in sweeping away the current regime and the installation of the Sixth Republic, with summary deportation under military rule of all Muslims, and the strategic nuclear response to quite a number of Muslim cities. The French were bled dry in Twentieth Century wars, starting in 1914, but can when they are forced to it, be quite ruthless. They wanted the killing to stop and so brought De Gaulle in and ended the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle withdrew from Algeria, and fought the OAS ruthlessly, killing most of them in secret assassinations. With the approval of the French. They haven’t changed much. Unlike Britain or the Netherlands, the French secret police do their work ruthlessly. Suspected terrorists (those intent on blowing up French people in France that is) are very quickly rounded up, put in jail, and questioned without mercy or lawyers. Pretty much anything goes. They’ll certainly receive an Arafat or Saddam with great pomp and ceremony, and take their money. But blowing stuff up in France gets people in jail or dead or both pretty quickly. I think overall in Europe a realization that the EU dream is dead, national elections (and the opinion of the populace) matters, among them basic security from terrorism, has set in. Even Spain who did EXACTLY what bin Laden demanded, got more plots in return, and a demand that the Spanish get out since the nation belongs to Muslims. I could well see another big terrorist act in Spain and more demands for Spaniards to leave their homes. Would the Spanish vote Zapatero out? Probably yes for someone who would just deport all Muslims. Europeans have always been ruthless when really pressed against it. I don’t see that changing.
Comment by Jim Rockford — 7/14/2005 @ 7:02 pm
These terrorists use kids with Down’s syndrome to be suicide bombers. They use jilted lovers in the throes of depression as suicide bombers. They force young men to blow themselves up as a condition for not having their families killed. They kidnap children and make them suicide bombers. These terrorists are evil scum, not to be considered as military or religious people, not even good enough to be considered criminals. Some people admire these islamist pigs. If those people were smart they would be less public in their admiration. After a few more attacks in anglosphere countries a lot of normal people are going to flip out and start looking for someone to take it out on. Those who express admiration for these slime, in writing, will be convenient objects of aggressive contempt. Even people who expressed their approval of the terrorists in private, to people they thought of as friends, may find their words coming back to haunt them.
Comment by Maillot Jeune — 7/14/2005 @ 7:48 pm
As per comment #19, for whatever reason, some people do not want to deal with that. The thing is, if it isn’t dealt with now, it will have to be dealt with later. Waiting will only make things messier and uglier.
Comment by HaroldHutchison — 7/15/2005 @ 11:22 pm
Austin, The problem with the Europeans is that multi-culturalism is the secular religion of the political elites of the left, right and center. They are irrational on the subject and no amount of reality will make them change. European governments will not give up multi-culturalism unless the current elites running them are dead or are replaced with new elites. The whole point of thw anti-democratic European Union is to avoid the nationalism of the masses of citizens that will replace the current eleites and “do whats good for them. ” Including things like mass immigration of Muslims complete with tolerance of female genital mutilation, honor killings, financing of terrorism in Iraeli and elsewhere and political asylumn for terrorists…as long as terrorism is not done in Europe. America’s successes in Afghanitan and Iraq are driving the Islamists back to their “safe areas.” Not their own autocratic Arab states whose internal security forces are ruthless enough to kill them all, but to Europe, where they are given shelter via democratic civil rights and subsidies via the European welfare system. You talk elsewhere of the Palestinian civil war between the secular and Islamist Palestinians. You should be thinking in terms of the coming civil war between native born Muslim Islamists and everyone else in Europe.
Comment by Trent Telenko — 7/16/2005 @ 6:02 pm