Terror cop: Qaeda 'heavily damaged'

Where to find news about Islam:

http://www.apostatesofislam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=650

http://jihadwatch.org/

http://www.nieuwsbronnen.com/newssearchportal/

http://news.yahoo.com/

http://news.google.com/

http://edition.cnn.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

http://www.foxnews.com/

http://www.alertnet.org/

http://www.reuters.com/

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/world/

http://www.voanews.com/

http://www.insideworldnews.com/

http://news.nabou.com/world/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

http://www.time.com/

http://www.economist.com/

http://www.iht.com/

http://www.newsnow.co.uk/newsfeed/?name=Islamic+News

http://islam.newstrove.com/

http://www.topix.net/religion/islam

http://internet-haganah.co.il/haganah/

http://www.terrorism.com/

http://www.trackingterrorism.com/

http://www.pressdigest.net/tocnews.html

http://www.worldpress.org/

http://www.drudgereport.com/

http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/

http://muslimwakeup.com/

http://www.islamicity.com/

http://www.memritv.org/

http://www.worldtribune.com/

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/

http://www.theatlantic.com/

http://www.rocketnews.com/
(Just type "Muslim" and 0 days (today), and it will search out news)

http://www.centralasianews.net/about.php
(Look for news after region or country)

OTHER SOURCES:

http://www.amnesty.org/

http://humanrightswatch.org/

http://www.wluml.org/english/

http://www.forum18.org/

http://www.indexonline.org/

http://www.siteinstitute.org/

http://www.globalsecurity.org/

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/

http://ctstudies.com/

http://www.freedomhouse.org/

http://www.uscirf.com/

http://www.dhimmi.com/

http://www.wwrn.org/

http://cultnews.net/

http://www.skeptic.com/

http://www.beliefnet.com/

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/

http://www.infidels.org/wire/cats.shtml#islamism

http://virtuallyislamic.blogspot.com/

http://www.strategypage.com/

http://www.citizenlab.org/

http://www.rsf.org/

http://unix.dfn.org/

http://www.ifex.org/en

http://www.iabolish.com/

http://www.stopstoningnow.com/

http://www.cis.org/

But wait a minute! Al-queda doesn't exist, remember? The whole thing is a neo-con conspiracy to rule the world thru fear, backed by the Illuminati and the Elders of Zion. Bush is their front man! OBL is on the payroll!
Or so that is what I am hearing from leftists at some of the forums I read in, despite what people like giaour say.

btw giaour, I find I Do agree with your contentions about michael moore's 911 film, at least in one point: There were kids peacefully flying kites in Iraq. While their fathers tortured the parents of kids starving in the streets. Filling mass graves. Raping atheletes in the Olympic offices... After all, the parents of those kite-flying kids were on Saddam's payroll.

Ali Dashti,

Aren't most if not all of those links already in the left hand frame of the Jihad Watch main page?

Why repost these links in the comments section?

f.g.

Another excellent article about the dangers of cultural relativism:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050119/TAYLOR19/TPColumnists/

Faith no excuse for attacking artists

By KATE TAYLOR

UPDATED AT 10:41 AM EST Wednesday, Jan 19, 2005

If Jesus really saves, why would Christians care that the BBC has televised a musical that depicts him wearing a diaper and admitting to being "a bit gay?" If Mohammed is Allah's ultimate messenger, surely his message is powerful enough to withstand some criticism from a minor Dutch filmmaker? If Sikhs are dedicated only to their relationship with God, why are they so distracted by a play that depicts rape and murder in a Sikh temple?

The big religions seldom display the courage of their convictions. These days, every other believer seems to think he has a copyright on a truth so perfectly peaceable it has to be defended with violence.

The recent and disheartening European cultural controversies reveal the deep fault line in Western democracies that divides liberal multiculturalism and religious exclusivity. How do you tolerate those who won't tolerate your tolerance? Somewhere along the line you have to decide that while a liberal democracy permits much it also does stand for something and that, to be true to itself, it should consider any dissension a virtue but all violence a crime.

The British have, in recent weeks, shown signs of buckling under pressure from angry religious minorities: Both the BBC itself and Britain's broadcast regulator are now pointlessly investigating whether airing Jerry Springer - The Opera earlier this month contravened some regulation or other. The West End musical, a satire of American society with irreverent figures of God, Mary and Jesus, drew a record number of complaints and has led some critics to suggest Britain must update its laws against blasphemy. The BBC, however, had plenty of time to ascertain the show's legality before airing it, since most of the complaints preceded it.

Meanwhile, in December, the Birmingham Repertory Theatre cancelled a play by Sikh writer Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti that shows rape and murder taking place in a gurdwara, saying it could no longer withstand the violent protests it was facing. Last week, Bhatti, who is now in hiding, broke her long silence to declare herself a proud Sikh and call for some sense from those who have threatened her and her family. Coincidentally the British government is currently considering a new law that would make inciting religious hatred a crime, despite protests from writers that it would censor criticism of religion.

In similar if more deadly circumstances the Dutch, on the other hand, initially responded with such anger toward religious extremism that the very reaction threatened the country's own cherished record of tolerance. The fate of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, allegedly murdered by a Muslim radical angered by his film critical of Islam's treatment of women, led to riots against Muslims and attacks on mosques and churches.

To pretend that the Western embrace of relativism as its special cultural value means everything is up for grabs and that there is no dominant culture is wrong and potentially dangerous: The Birmingham theatre had told the Sikh community about its play and had conducted consultations that had already resulted in some rewriting before the disagreements became protests and the protests became violent. In doing so, the theatre had already abandoned the principles of free speech in favour of a cultural appeasement that didn't do any good anyway.

Liberal democracy is itself a belief system (and, like religions, can be dangerously prone to abandoning its principles to persecute dissenters), but if it's the democratically expressed belief system of the majority then it will have to trump conflicting minority views. To cite an extreme and therefore very easy example: Canada permits its citizens to uphold any cultural traditions they like but bans the African tradition of female circumcision because it conflicts with Canadian laws on child abuse.

The artistic cases are greyer and in defending freedom of expression as a value, Western liberals, always happier championing artists they agree with, have to be clearer in their own minds where criticism of an opponent ends and his or her censorship begins. Freedom of expression includes the freedom to protest, criticize or satirize loudly, rudely and even, within the limits of libel law, maliciously. Most important of all, it includes the right to offend, as van Gogh, a cultural gadfly dedicated to blowing a raspberry at Dutch society, knew so well. Van Gogh and Bhatti are not somehow getting what they deserved or asked for: It is their right, even their artistic duty, to rock the boat.

But in turn, protesting against their offensiveness is also a right and not necessarily a call for their censorship. British Sikhs are free to take to the streets to complain about a play they don't like in the most outraged language imaginable, but threats to the playwright and the theatre are de facto a way of silencing them. British Christians are perfectly within their rights to complain loudly about Jerry Springer and symbolically burn their TV licences, but publishing the home phone numbers of BBC staff is an invitation to harassment. And when political leaders contemplate laws that would muzzle criticism of religion in the first place they have definitely crossed the line.

In an age where the death threat seems to have become the rhetorical tool of choice, the challenge is to make the outraged understand how to craft peaceful polemic.

ktaylor@globeandmail.ca

© 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Not "heavily damaged" enough.

Them, Hamas, Hizbollah, al Aqsa, Islamic Jihad, and all of their front groups who pretend it's Halloween, posing as Muslim civil rights and charity organizations will only be "heavily damaged" enough when they actually no longer exist.

The offical states,

"...These guys don't do anything else." "

An obvious result of the single-idea richocet effect.

All other thought processes have been virtually destroyed because the grey matter between the skull has been pulverized by this singular viewpoint.

It could be the free countries are somewhat waking up to where the Jihadis are finding it more difficult, forcing them into a more careful approach and seek other avenues. For now all the have to do is to let the PC elements keep working in their favour and in time everyone will let their guard down. The battle against the Jihadis has to be strengthened and never believe they have been rendered helpless.

Kepel paused, then concluded: "I consider multiculturalism to be a chic word for apartheid." Another apologetic smile. "That's rather provocative, isn't it?"

Multiculturalism is another word for apartheid!

Read all about it:

http://www.macleans.ca/switchboard/backpage/article.jsp?content=20050124_99035_99035#

A war for muslim minds

What's the right way to counter Islamic terrorists? Ask Gilles Kepel.

PAUL WELLS

Gilles Kepel doesn't look like a provocative man. Compact, neatly dressed, apologetic about his jam-packed schedule ("I must make a quick telephone call to Saudi Arabia"), France's foremost expert on Islamic fundamentalist terrorism found a half-hour to spare for a reporter the other day in his office at Paris's venerable Institut d'études politiques.

Kepel is visiting Canada to deliver three lectures: on Jan. 18 at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Jan. 19 at the University of Ottawa and Jan. 20 at the University of Toronto. As he discussed recent events in the continuing clash between Western nations and Islamic fundamentalism, it was easy to imagine he'll intrigue and outrage his audiences in equal measure.

Kepel first appeared on North American radar screens with a book called Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. It argued that fundamentalist terrorists were losing their big game -- a war for the allegiance of the entire Muslim world. He described Islamist extremists as history's losers. The book was published, in English translation, shortly after 9/11. Kepel's timing seemed a little off.

Yet he persists. His latest book, The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, rejects the simplistic idea of a clash of civilizations. Instead, he describes a clash within civilizations: a fitna, an Arabic word he defines as "war in the heart of Islam, a centrifugal force that threatens the faithful with community fragmentation, disintegration and ruin."

The question posed by the international post-9/11 conflict, Kepel says, is whether the populations tempted by jihad will grow or shrink: whether the terrorists will gain converts or lose them. He is no fan of the U.S. invasion to depose Saddam Hussein, which he sees as a poor deployment of scarce resources. "At bottom, our western weakness -- the Americans' as well as ours -- is that we think of these groups as emanations of states. The American army and American intelligence are very sophisticated and are quite capable of destroying a state. But against the network that is al-Qaeda, smart bombs aren't much help."

But Canadians who might welcome an opponent of the Iraq war may have more difficulty with the other half of Kepel's thesis: that the ranks of the jihad movement also swell when Muslim populations in European capitals are left to the control of radical imams instead of integrating into the larger population.

"The Muslims of Europe are between the rock of assimilation and the hard place of multiculturalism," he told me. "They'll have to find a middle path, which I suspect will more closely resemble a truly integrationist policy of shared rights and privileges."

A path much like France's, in fact. Kepel sat on the commission that recommended a law forbidding French students from wearing the Islamic veil or other religious insignia in school. He was skeptical of the policy at first. "But as we heard testimony about the pressure the Islamist movement was putting on girls to wear the veil -- calling them bad Muslims, burning them in working-class neighbourhoods because they weren't dressed as one should -- it seemed very important to us that the state defend these most fragile of young citizens. It would have been a completely racist attitude to say that, because a girl is named Yasmina, she mustn't be defended by the laws of the republic."

Kepel believes France's policy of integration has passed its recent tests better than the multicultural policies of a neighbouring country, the Netherlands.

The law banning religious headgear came into effect in time for the current school year, in September. French Muslims, in the main, disliked the policy. But they protested, Kepel said, as members of French society, not as outsiders -- so much so that some girls marched in the streets wearing veils in the red, white and blue of the French flag. When French reporters Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were kidnapped in Iraq last year, "there was quite a remarkable mobilization of French citizens of Muslim origin or culture to deny the Iraqi Islamists the right to speak in their name."

This unexpected solidarity across religious lines contrasts with the violent uproar in Holland after Theo van Gogh, a provocative documentary filmmaker, was murdered in broad daylight by a young man of Moroccan origin.

"In the multiculturalist system, the frame of common reference is very fragmented. It's a logic of 'other,' not of 'same,' " Kepel said. "Suddenly, with the stabbing, the Dutch had the impression they had nothing in common with these Muslims whose lives were juxtaposed with theirs."

Kepel paused, then concluded: "I consider multiculturalism to be a chic word for apartheid." Another apologetic smile. "That's rather provocative, isn't it?"

Muslims admit that the Quran might be banned under the new religious vilification laws in Britain:

http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=10645&TagID=1

Quran to be banned in the UK?

The proposed British legislation relating to religious hatred may be perceived by many Muslims as a real benefit. Others may see it as something of a double-edged sword. However it is best described as a dagger in our back. The adoption of an “incitement to religious hatred” law will be an attempt to muzzle Muslims from quoting from the Quran, and the other sacred texts of Islam. The new law, under consideration in the Westminster Parliament, would mean Muslims convicted of incitement would face up to seven years in jail. Quoting from the Quran in a “threatening, abusive or insulting” way will become a crime in the amendment to Part 3 of the Public Order Act of 1986. Rather than introduce new legislation on the vague but broad concept of religious hatred, the UK government has decided to slip the new provisions into amendments. These are planned to change a range of minor matters in the existing Act. These include additional protections for the victims of “animal rights” activists, or greater sanction against trespass on Crown land or “a site belonging to the Monarch or Heir to the Throne”. This comes in the wake of high profile publicity stunts staged at royal residences (Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace) during the past few years.

Muslims will take particular note of the new definitions of religious hatred, which several high profile comedians have already complained about. The comedians are concerned that they will be restricted in their ability to pour scorn on all forms of organised religion, a not inconsiderable percentage of the typical comedic routine. They needn’t be concerned. In Schedule 10 of the bill, Religious Hatred is defined as “hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief”. The emphasis is clearly upon the adherents of belief (or rather perversely those of no belief). Quite how one can express religious hatred against someone who has no religion will be interesting to note. Legal commentators have indicated that expressing insults, abuse or worse against religions per se including Islam is perfectly OK in the planned scheme of things. To express any such thoughts, and hatred in particular against members of any belief/non belief will not be allowed.

The pressure group Liberty has rightly pointed out that the “broad criminalisation of religious hate speech is far more dangerous to freedom of conscience and expression”. The contradiction inherent in forbidding certain statements purported to be against adherents of belief while allowing similar statements of offence against the belief itself is not addressed by this amendment to the Act. And whether withering attacks against belief is not in fact the same as an attack against the adherents of that belief is also a moot point.

It also cannot be ignored that the British Labour government will soon face a general election, and amidst rising unpopularity, due to its foreign policies, it needs to court the Muslim community. Rising anti-Muslim sentiment in the UK in the wake of 9/11, and the war against Islam is hardly surprising. This legislation will do little or nothing to protect Muslims, and is more likely to be used against those that carry and propagate Islam. Liberty has warned that the new law will be directly used against Muslims rather than protecting them: “We are particularly concerned that Home Secretary has publicly stated a desire to target and prioritise certain Islamic clerics for prosecution once the proposed extension of the law is passed”. The now former Home secretary David Blunkett when presenting the amendments to parliament stated: “It is possible to quote or misquote passages of sacred texts out of context so that they become threatening, abusive or insulting and intended or likely to stir up hatred. Such activities would rightly be caught by the scope of the law”. That these “paragons of secular virtue” now feel able to distinguish clearly between legitimate quoting and misquoting of sacred texts would be laughable if it was not so serious.

There is no shortage of verses in the Quran to excite the interest of the British judiciary. The dozens of verses exhorting Jihad for starters, or perhaps the verses warning of the plans of the Jews or Christians, or which castigate the unjust!

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ لاَ تَتَّخِذُواْ الْيَهُودَ وَالنَّصَارَى أَوْلِيَاء بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَاء بَعْضٍ وَمَن يَتَوَلَّهُم مِّنكُمْ فَإِنَّهُ مِنْهُمْ إِنَّ اللّهَ لاَ يَهْدِي الْقَوْمَ الظَّالِمِينَ

“O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.” [Quran 5:51]

At a time in which the Muslims living in the Western nations need to be even more vocal in presenting the clear guidance of the Quran to both Muslims and non-Muslims we find ourselves again under pressure to adhere to poorly defined and biased legislation to silence the call to Islam.

يُرِيدُونَ أَن يُطْفِؤُواْ نُورَ اللّهِ بِأَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَيَأْبَى اللّهُ إِلاَّ أَن يُتِمَّ نُورَهُ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْكَافِرُونَ

“They wish to extinguish Allah’s guiding (light) with their utterances, but Allah will not allow (this to pass) for He has willed to spread His light in all its fullness, however hateful this is to those that deny the truth” [Quran 9:32]

I need some help.

Saw news on WABC TV News yesterday, via web, about a severed head/body found in a field behind a movie complex in Hazlet, New Jersey.

Thoughts of the Coptic Christians murdered, also in New Jersey, and some possible connection sprang to mind.

Today, i find nothing about the head/body found, in any media.

Am i just missing something here ?

Ali Dashti,

Aren't most if not all of those links already in the left hand frame of the Jihad Watch main page? Why repost these links in the comments section?

f.g.

Don't you have anything more important to worry about? Like why we're all on this site? And what the purpose of this site is? Quit with the nit-picking.

per dby:

Am i just missing something here ?
(re: lack of msm follow-up on murdered copts and severed head found at theatre)

I'm also missing something. Sick, isn't it?

dby,

I saw it too...

Here's the link to the story:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_011605_bodyfound.html

Whoa. This looks really bad. How many freaking beheadings have they ever had in New Jersey? Now this happens on the heels of that families murder? Also, we have this crazy mess that went on at the anti-terror rally in Berkley. Are we on the edge of a storm here?

f.g.

Even if a given beheading isn't jihad-related, I still give them credit for inspiring who-knows-how-many copycat crimes.

WELL WE KNEW THEY WERE RUNNING OUT MONEY CAUSE THEy FROZE THE BANK ACCOUNTS OF ubls[yellow coward who runs away] BROTHER IN FRANCE??

Of coure there is also the latest video telling all to buy the Euro??

Europe says it will keep the Tax on the Fishing ind. of Thialand if they don't buy 6 air bus WOW how feeling for them aftre Thialand had a killer wave??

Doesn't France make air bus?
So France is Blackmailing Thialand??

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and ALL who Fight with her give them Strength, Wisdom, Sight, and Courage to stay the course to Victory[FREEDOM] to Destroy ALL Islamic Terrorist and ALL who Support them Open the Worlds Eyes to their Evil give the World Strength to Stand Up and Fight this Evil Amen

PS
And could some of those who support the Islamic Terrorist be thinking twice because of Bam 31,000 dead and Indonesia over 200,000 dead?? we know they were in support saw the Tshirts??

Admiral Don Juan,

Kepel is correct about multiculturalism, but I wouldn't put much stock in much else he has to say. In fact, as soon as a bleeding-heart-liberal recommended Kepel to me I did my homework. Here it is:

"Kepel, a professor of Middle East studies at the Institutde of Political Studies in Paris, gathers his early themes in the following statement: 'The attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon were not a thunderbolt out of the blue. They were part of a precise, carefully
considered program that combined the logic of jihad, the operational tactics of guerrilla warfare, the opportunistic advantages offered by the Arab-Israeli conflict during the second intifada, and the political
influence of neoconservative ideology on US foreign policy - all of which worked to the advantage of radical Islamism.'"

From: "War on terror is part of a larger battle within the Muslim world" 01/04/2005 Christian Science Monitor
http://csmonitor.com/2005/0104/p17s02-bogn.html

"Kepel lays out very clearly the methods the neocons used to hijack Bush's "war on terror" to pursue their own pre-existing agenda. This consisted of abandoning the Oslo peace accords and instead seeking security for Israel by eliminating the Arab regimes which threatened it - ironically a goal which the neocons shared with al-Qaida."

From "The missing peace" William Dalrymple, December 11, 2004 The Guardian http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,6121,1371231,00.html

"Neocons do not want to be reminded that help from Reagan’s administration made jihadism possible...In my view, the question of whether someone like Tariq Ramadan is two–faced is not the real issue"

"The war for Muslim minds: an interview with Gilles Kepel" 11 - 11 - 2004 http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-5-57-2216.jsp

My analysis:

First, we pretty much know that 9/11 was planned long before Bush took office and neocons could earn their wrath. Second, anyone who still thinks that the Oslo Peace Accords were a good idea is either an Islamist or a fool. Third, Willaim Dalrymple, who praises this book is a notorious Islam apologist on the same level with Karen Armstrong. Fourth, I learned the most about how suport for the mujahideen facilitated the rise of Al Qaeda from neocon-leaning experts from Benador associates. In effect, there is NO EVIDENCE that neocons overlook this important piece of history. Fifth, the plan to funnel military through Pakistan to support the mujahideen (which resulted in more money going to extremists like Hekmatyar) was organized by Zbigniew Brzezinski. He was national security advisor under Jimmy Carter. Reagan only continued this bad policy. Sixth, anyone who trivializes the agenda of Tariq Ramadan is either an Islamist or a fool.

Anyway, here are six reasons why I file Kepel quotes in a folder that is labeled "clowns."

keep your sheep at home today

Posted by: Ali Dashti at January 19, 2005 10:04 AM

I love the Reminder Thanks!!
Looks like some people think they are the only ones around they must be really lonely??

Here is for those lonely people out there??

http://www.beecy.net/frank/

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and ALL who Fight with her give them Strength, Wisdom, Sight and Courage to Stay the course to Victory to Destroy ALL Islamic Terrorist and ALL who Support them Amen

Posted by: Rublev at January 19, 2005 03:33 PM

Gold Star for You toady!!!

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE USA AND HER FIGHTING FORCES AND ALL WHO FIGHT WITH HER GIVE THEM STRENGTH, WISDOM, SIDHT AND COURAGE TO STAY THE COURSE TO VICTORY TO DESTROY ALL ISLAMIC TERRORIST AND ALL WHO SUPPORT THEM AMEN

PS
Turns out that Volker works for the Bank that is Under investagation do you really think he is going to cut his own throat??

Just back from Thailand,the Go-Go Girls really on form
Hear that Mussies go bonkers for fat gyrating bellies,
PORK IS MURDER

>Just back from Thailand,
You went to Thailand for the weekend?

>the Go-Go Girls really on form
The Go-Gos are doing a reunion tour in Thailand? Why wasn't I informed earlier? I'm a member of the fanclub!

>Hear that Mussies go bonkers for fat gyrating bellies,

What's this? Has Belinda chumbed up again?

>PORK IS MURDER

What's this? Got some bad Bar-B-Que at the concert?

Sometimes I just don't get this board.

f.g.

:)

Rublev:

I agree with you about Kepel generally speaking; however, I just like what he had to say about multi-culturalism in this article. I hate multi-culti, cultural relativist, clap-trap. Western culture is superior to any other culture created so far, period!

Admiral Don Juan,

On the other hand, criticism of multiculturalism from a leftist is particularly refreshing; It's the only way to get other clowns to believe it!

Gilles Kepel's assumption that France is on the right path towards cultural assimilation is way off the mark. Mixed societies will always have Italian neighbourhoods, Greek neighbourhoods, Indian neighbourhoods etc, this is not apartheid. Islamic neighbourhoods in France are no go areas for police, ambulances, fire services, social services and of course white french people. The word apartheid suggests that they are forced to live in certain areas and segregated. This is false. Education is free and anyone who chooses to can achieve a modicom of success in any western scociety, France included. Apartheid is shock word used to imply white man's guilt and cannot apply in this context.

France also has no reason to boast that its model of integration is more successful than the Dutch. Sure the Dutch had to deal with the issues raised with the murder of Theo Van Gogh. But that seems more down to relative diversity of the media. Theo van Gogh was a well known journalist who contributed to the free daily newspaper 'Metro'. The dutch also pretty much all speak English and access to the Blogosphere and other English speaking media is very easy. They also have no cultural issues with this. The murder of Van Gogh could not be hidden at the bottom of a local newspaper like the recent stoning to death of a french/arab girl near Marseilles.

France is a seething boiling kettle waiting to explode. There are no politicians such as Gert Wilders, no writers like Mark Steyn, no Fox news and a culture which is instinctively suspicious of anglo-saxon motives. So right wingers will win no votes by being too obviously America friendly.

Gilles Kepel is way off the mark. If there is a 'fitna' (as he describes the struggle within Islam, ) it is between Western Civilization and Western Civilization. We still haven't agreed on our enemy yet and Gilles Kepel isn't really helping.