I'm glad to tell you that THIS Italian government will never withdraw the troops from Iraq. The great majority of the Italian people is against the withdrawl. As far as the video is concerned, al-Jazeera has decided against the broadcast not because it is gruesome, but because the whole civilised world would revolt, after seeing the scene of the hostage looking (some say helping) at the assassins digging his grave!

MR Quatrtrochi was a Sicilian.
In Sicily HOnor dictates that such a horrific killing cannot go unavenged.
The murderers have picked the wrong man.
After the other Italian Hostages have been released or murdered Al Jazeera will be receiving a new "Video tape" from Sicily.
retaliation is the only language these scum ill understand.

David: Why should they wait until the others are released or killed? The roundup of Muslims should begin now!

By the way, an Israeli missile strike has just killed Hamas leader, Rantisi and his two bodyguards. No one else was killed. It was an exact hit!

La Forza del Ragione has sold several hundred thousand copies. On the television, Magdi Allam, a Venetian named Jaccha, and another man whose name I forget are all offering explanations of Islam, and geopolitics, superior to anything here.

The great crook of modern Italian politics -- it has been all down hill since De Gasperi -- was the sinister bridge-playing, too-pious Andreotti, when the Christian Democrats were at the height of their corruption.

Andreotti was accused of having close ties to the Mafia in Sicily. (If I remember rightly, it was Tommaso Buscetta who spilled the beans). He was specifically accused of ordering the killing of a too-inquisitve journalist. There are so many stories about him, so many reports, so many tales, that only a fool would have thought him innocent. But he did manage to beat the rap (I think the trial took place in Perugia, as trials will). He beat the rap, but everyone of sense knows he was, and remains, a crook.

But the other thing to remember about Andreotti, aisde from his being linked to every scandal, and the shadow of every scandal, in recent Italian history -- Banco Ambrosiano, Licio Gelli and Pdue,, if-there's-a-scandal-there's-got-to-be-an-Andreotti-connection, all the matters that used to take up, the first 8-10 pages of virtually every issue of the Corriere della Sera -- is that he was at the very heart of a sinister philo-Arab policy, with not all of its tentacles exposed. In Italy, he was the Arabs' main man. Exactly what he did, in the early days of the Euro-Arab Dialogue, is likely laid out by Fallaci in La Forza della Ragione.

It may be that the pious President Pertini's folly, more than a decade ago, of giving 7 acres of prime, government-owned real estate in Rome to the Muslims so that the Saudis could build a huge mosque (a beachhead for the Army of Allah), not one mile from the Vatican, was not his idea alone -- he may have been manipulated by Andreotti, whose own link to Western civilization consists largely of his favorite pastime, playing bridge with Roman ladies. About Andreotti, nothing would surprise me.

Whether Quatrocchi is remembered for his heroism, and his murderers for being murderers, or whether it will be somehow twisted so that America is blamed, Muslim killers absolved, one simply cannot predict. But it is safe to predict that should the demographic conquest of Itlay succeed, the statues and paintings in Rome and Florence, in Umbria and the Veneto, will have to be preserved by being shipped over to America, in its redoubtable redoubt.

It would be fitting. From 1933 on, the United States, and to a lesser extent Great Britain, were the grateful recipients of the greatest group of art historians in the history of the world. But the murderous Nazis were willing to preserve, for their own Nazi delectation, the statues and the paintings of that civilization which they were making war upon. In that line, think of Goering's loot, all those stacked paintings.

Muslims, while no slouches in the murdering line, when it comes to Jews (or Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, for that matter), go even further than the Nazis when it comes to art. The Qur'an is absolutely clear, and all its learned doctors agree: no statuary, and no depictions of the human form (Mughal paintings were produced despite, in violation, of Islam).

Before and during World War II, the United States was the beneficiary of its own political stability and decency, when so many sought refuge. There were the scientists, hounded out whether young or old, from Nazi Germany or from Italy after the racial laws: in biology, a whole list, from Otto Loewi to Konrad Bloch, might be supplied. In physics, from Budapest alone came John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller. The racial laws of Italy gave Enrico Fermi (because of his wife), Cesare Segre, Franco Modigliani (if economics can be included here.

But, making landfall safely at NYU. and Harvard. and the Institute for Advanced Study. and the Warburg. and the Courtauld were a host of art historians, trained in the most rigorous manner, were also a great many art historians who not only produced important work, but trained the generation that trained the generation that...well, you know. Their names will immediately be recognized: the inimitable Panofsky, Walter Friedlaender, Jakob Rosenberg, Ernst Kitzinger, John Rewald, E. H. Gombrich, Walter Giedion, Rudolf Wittkower, and on, and on.

And now, having received a large gift of art historians as a result of one cataclysmic horror, the United States may, in coming years, receive a second donation, for a different kind of body-blow to civilisation -- the takeover, through nothing more than over-breeding, of Western Europe by its Muslim population. For today one out of every three children born in France is Muslim. That means, in 20 years one out of every three French children will be a Muslim, and 20 years after that, half of the population of 20 year olds will be Muslim -- if nothing is done. Does it matter? Should we care? Is procreation a personal matter, and should a mere counting of heads decide our collective fate? Is there nothing that can be done?

Curators of America, dream your dreams, and scheme your schemes, and built those buildings. If you build them, don't worry -- the real art will come. Alas.

Those who ask if the muezzin's wail will one day be heard in Rome can be answered: It already is. Will the dream of Muhammad, contained in a hadith, and in recent years widely circulated on the Islamic websites, in which he predicts that "first Constantinople, and then Rome" will fall to Islam, become a reality?

Forse che si, forse che no. Mebbe yes, and mebbe no.

It depends on you, reader.

Very nice post Hugh! I can assure you that muslims will never fool the Italians! Muslims can be crafty, but, trust me, Italians are toooo clever to be fooled by them!

Fabrizio Quattrocchi is certainly a most courageous and honorable man. He and the other Coalition forces are the front line in this war to preserve civilization against the barbarians, and set for all of us a sterling example of the valor required to overcome this enemy. May his family and country find comfort and strength in his noble stand against the evil jihadists.

The sicilian padrinos should invite a few muftis and imams for a chat,treat them well and then send video tapes to al jazeera,with the promise that more will follow...actually about 1000 italian muslims for every italian killed.