Zacht Ei - After the siege in The Hague

Thursday, November 11, 2004

After the siege in The Hague

• The Antheunisstraat in The Hague will remain closed off. The official reason is that 'there's no guarantee there are no explosives in the house'. In non-bureaucrat lingo: the house is probably full of explosives, meaning the rumors were right.
• As was already known, two suspects were taken into custody.
• During the arrest, one of the suspects 'did not follow orders from the police'. He was shot in the shoulder.
• A third suspect was arrested in Amersfoort. Despite an extensive search, no explosives were found.
• Four other suspects were arrested in Amsterdam today, bringing the total number to seven.
• The evacuated people in The Hague will have to spend the night elsewhere.

Update 1.08:
• Two people were arrested in Baexum. The police won't say why. It makes me wonder: if they can find all these guys this quickly now, why couldn't they have done this before? Especially since:
• Mohammed B. turns out to have been in the scope of the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD since August 2002. If this were America, and we had a dual party political structure, some people would have a field day.
• Well, they may have it anyway, since this information comes from the letter secretaries Johan Remkes (Domestic Affairs) and Piet-Hein Donner (Justice) have sent to the Second Chamber (the Dutch Lower House). Remkes is under a lot of criticism, and he was the sole responsible person for the AIVD at the time.
• Idiots seem to be in no short supply outside of politics either, as there has been yet another torching of a junior high, this time in Eindhoven. Apart from one destroyed classroom, the damage seems limited. The interesting thing is that this was not a Muslim school, so it may have been a retaliation - or an 'ordinary' arsonist or copycat. Yesterday, a Muslim school in Uden was completely destroyed by fire. On Monday, some equally mentally challenged people tried to blow up a Muslim school in Eindhoven. They failed, but did destroy a lot of windows as well as the entrance of the school.

0:18

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The politics of apologetics

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All the activities and commotion around the tensions between the population groups may have a dangerous outcome in the sense that the Netherlands will become the focus point of Europe for the JIHAD movement in the world.
This might lead to more militant people coming to Holland to perpetrate terror attacks on the society at large.

Groet uit Canada

Cees de Rijk (ip:24.67.253.203) 11 November 2004 - 0:52 uur

it has seemed to me for a long time that Holland is an attractive target for a terrorist attack anyway, and that there will be one sometime in the future: open borders, plenty of places for terrorists to hide (within the immigrant community), a lax justice system, a general feeling among the population (until now?) that Holland is such a nice and tolerant country that no one would want to hurt us, plenty of (soft) targets and a high population density (commuter trains, busy department stores, stations etc.), and on top of that: involvement both in iraq and afghanistan, and a generally pro-american and pro-israeli government.
it's the question of when rather than if. and when you look how the government (PM, ministers) are already in disarray now, after the murder of one man, imagine what their incompetent and impotent reaction would be after a terrorist strike that kills tens or hundreds of people.

they wouldn't know what to do to or what to say so that the people would have a feeling of resolve and security. i can't imagine our PM Balkenende appearing on tv and give an address like GW' Bush's after 9/11 and be convincing.

our problem is the lack of true leadership and vision from our political elite, who don't have strong and deeply felt beliefs. they also lack a clear and thought through agenda, for which they are able to get support through the political democratic process.

in the case of a terrorist attack they'd call for everyone to remain calm, but they don't have the moral and intellectual gravitas to be concincing.

that should all change. but how? easy populism (like that of MP Wilders) won't do it, nor will the inadequate left overs of pim fortuyn's party be helpful. we need good people to lead us out of this mess. but where do we find them?

peachtree (ip:170.140.65.63) 11 November 2004 - 1:16 uur

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After the siege in The Hague

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