OT: Dutch democracy compromised... Options

[Jeroen]

A truely sad day for all Dutch
Today movie maker, columnist and chain-smoker Theo van Gogh was murdered

He was known and feared for his strong critizism and his blunt and harsh statements that he spewed when ever he got the chance. Often shocking his "opponenents"
Van Gogh had a very stong opinion about the way muslims-funtamentalists suppress women and how they condem gays.

In an ultimate attempt to shut him up, he was brutally excecuted in Amsterdam this morning. He was shot 6 times and then a letter was pinned to his dead body with 2 knives

The killer was captured after a shoot-out with the police. He is an immigrant from Marocco and aparently a muslim-extremist.

Van Gogh paid the ultimate price for what he believed in the most: the freedom of speech

[Bleyseng]

I will be nice too as this is supposed to be like a garage where we are all talking to each other.

One point- Lay off the French bashing. I have spoken at length with my French friends about WW2 and why they gave up. The explanation is that their fathers whose fathers fought in WW1 never wanted to go thru that type of carnage again. Better to surrender and live then die by the MILLIONS like in WW1. They saw what happened to the Polish army which was wiped off the face of the earth.

The French have been fighting long drawn out wars for 2 centurys and have figured out it sucks. Remember the 100 years war (Louis XVI demise), Napoleanic Wars, the Franco/Prussian Wars.
I recall history as MikeZ says in regards to why the Germans liked Hitler.

I never likes Saddam nor do I like the guy in charge of N Korea, or the idiots in Sudan but damn do you really think the US can go around and take out these guys?

I have never seen this evidence that Iraq was near a atomic bomb. I have heard it was a total pipe dream and they had started to make a plan on a laptop. No resources to build such a thing and thing were going to use it to balance theirs with guess who-Iran.

I don't believe anything this Bush/Cheney says. This whole terrorist problem is something else and I don't have an answer. I do think its a small group now but if we don't get our shit together it will become even more of a problem there.

Geoff