Appeasement--a Preview

I'm drafting a long-ish essay considering the virtues of appeasement in stopping terrorism. My conclusion is unsurprising, but I'm still fine-tuning the logic. But my protracted pace shouldn't obscure obscure recent evidence and argument. First, Spanish appeasement provoked another terror attack--over 25 pounds of dynamite on a railtrack 20 miles south of Madrid. Fortunately, Spanish police, not a Spanish train, found the bomb. Second, Mark Steyn, in today's Telegraph (U.K.), considers the consequences of ignoring wars "in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing":

A neighbour of mine refuses to let her boy play with "militaristic" toys. So when a friend gave the l'il tyke a plastic sword and shield, mom mulled it over and then took away the former and allowed him to keep the latter. And for a while, on my drive down to town, I'd pass Junior in the yard playing with his shield, mastering the art of cowering more effectively against unseen blows.

That's how the "peace" crowd thinks the West should fight terrorism: eschew the sword, but keep the shield if you absolutely have to. . . .

Among all the foolish apologists for the murderers of Madrid, it was the Reverend Mark Beach who happened to catch my eye. Preaching at St Andrew's Church, Rugby, nine days ago, Mr Beach said: "The people of Madrid are reaping the fruits of our intolerance towards those of different races and religions. The war in Iraq was never going to solve the problems of that region but instead inflamed Arab people all over the world to new heights of anger towards the West."

God Almighty. . . It is precisely because the West is so open to different races that Islamist bombers can blend in on Madrid commuter trains, and the Tube and the Paris Metro, in a way that, say, a team of blond, blue-eyed Aryan bombers certainly couldn't in Damascus. . .

[T]he Muslims of Araby were far less inflamed than those in the alienated immigrant ghettoes around Paris and Amsterdam. Life in the West, exposure to the self-loathing platitudes of Anglican clerics, these are the sort of things that seem to inflame Muslims. Many of the wackiest Islamists from Richard Reid to Zacarias Moussaoui to Metin Kaplan are products of the enervated Europe symbolised by the Rev Mark Beach. . . They're traveling light on the bridle-paths of Europe - the small cells that operate in the nooks and crannies of a free society, while politicians cling to the beaten tracks - old ideas, multicultural pieties and a general hope that things will turn out for the best.

That's the drawback of sticking with the "Neville again" routine: appeasement is even less effective when the faraway country of which you know little is your own.

Read it all. Twice--once today, again on November 2nd.