Christopher Hitchens:

The Turkish government, too, should be condemned for allowing its Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to visit the shattered synagogue in Istanbul after the latest mass murder (thus becoming, incidentally, the first Turkish prime minister ever to do so). Erdogan is also the first prime minister ever to be elected on an Islamist ticket. Clearly, he was asking for trouble and has not yet understood al-Qaida's conditions for being allowed to lead a quiet life. Not that he hadn't tried—he prevented the U.S. Army from approaching Baghdad through what is now known as the Sunni Triangle. He just hasn't tried hard enough.

It cannot be very long now before some slaughter occurs on the streets of London or Rome or Warsaw, as punishment for British and Italian and Polish membership of the anti-Saddam coalition. But perhaps there is still time to avoid the wrath to come. If British and Italian and Polish troops make haste to leave the Iraqis to their own "devices" (of the sort that exploded outside the mosques of Karbala and Najaf last month), their civilian cousins may still hope to escape the stern disapproval of the holy warriors. Don't ask why the holy warriors blow up mosques by the way—it's none of your goddam crusader-Jew business.

...I find I can't quite decide what to recommend in the American case. I thought it was a good idea to remove troops from Saudi Arabia in any event (after all, we had removed the chief regional invader). But, even with the troops mainly departed, bombs continue to detonate in Saudi streets. We are, it seems, so far gone in sin and decadence that no repentance or penitence can be adequate. Perhaps, for the moment, it's enough punishment, and enough shame, just to know that what occurred in Madrid last week is all our fault. Now, let that sink in.

The Libs and Donkeys seem down right ecstatic that the Socialists won the election in Spain. They should be feeling shame that that win came because Islamofascists killed more than two-hundred humans. I also wonder just how comfortable the French feel right now:

A letter from an Islamist group threatens to plunge France into "terror and remorse," the newspaper that received the letter said Tuesday.
The letter linked the threat to the French ban on headscarves in state schools, the deputy editor of daily Le Parisien Jacques Esperandieu told Reuters.

The letter was signed by a group calling itself the Movsar Barayev Commando, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

That appeared to be a reference to Movsar Barayev, who organized the Octover 2002 Chechen commando raid and hostage-taking at a Moscow theater that ended with 129 dead. He died in the special forces raid on the theater.

No country is safe from terrorism.