And there was the foiled plot in Belgium. And let's not forget London and Madrid in years past. Be warned, I'm about to go on a bit of a rant….
America doesn't have an extremist Islamic problem (or at least not anymore; we did a good job cleaning house after 9/11). But Europe certainly does. This isn't about ordinary Muslims, but the unassimilated, radicalized Wahhabists in their midst. The radicalized extremists are a minority, and of course no one should blame ordinary Muslims for the attacks like those extremist-right parties do in Germany; but on the other hand, I also get sick of the false equivalences some on the left use to try to deny this problem exists by bringing up the fact that Christian shooters also exist. Yes, but they're lone nuts who are shunned by everyone, even fellow political/religious extremists; the problem with radical Islamic terror acts is they are condoned by fellow extremists and seen as justified, such as attacking cartoonists for depicting Muhammed. After the terror attack in Paris, they were discussing on the news about there being 8,000 people on a terror watch-list in France. The thing was there wasn't enough police presence to monitor all of them, so the brothers in that attack slipped through the net. So if you can't monitor them all, why not just deport those on the list back to their native countries (or if they're second-generation/naturalized, place them under house arrest)? I'm sorry but if you're on a terror watch-list, you did something to get on there. I think Europe has to get tougher with its immigration and national security, I think good, law-abiding Muslims (the vast majority) have to confront and report those they suspect of radicalization in their community, and I think people need to be more honest about the cause of all this instead of dismissing them as isolated criminal incidents and getting defensive and evasive when others point out the obvious. Or else nothing will change.
