Anders Breivik's Victims-Also Guilty?

At his trial in Oslo, Norway, Anders Behring Breivik shocked onlookers yesterday when he announced he would “like to offer a large apology” to those innocent bystanders injured or killed in his bombing of an Oslo government building last July.

As for the other 69 people—mainly teenagers—who he gunned down in cold on the nearby island of Utoya—well, that was something else: They bore some of the fault themselves.    Shockingly, similar views are echoed by Islamophobes in Europe and the U.S., some of whom, these days, are even  considered a respectable part of the political right.

Those kids on the island, according to Breivik were “legitimate targets.” Their crime, as it were: attending a summer camp hosted by the youth wing of the ruling Labour party. Indeed, they were political activists, working for the “deconstruction of Norwegian society: Their insidious weapon: “multiculturalism, which is leading to a “Muslim invasion” of Norway.”

Sound like the unhinged ravings of a madman. Where could Breivik have got the idea that he was part of a much larger worldwide organization?

In fact, he was--and is. And I thought I thought I’d written enough on this issue, but this is no time to forget that despicable as his views are, they are grounded in the spewings of a network of Islamophobes in Europe and the United States.

One of the most prominent and respectable, being Pamela Geller, who runs a blog called Atlas Shrugs, is rabidly pro Israel, plays a prominent role in right wing Republican circles, and is a regular on Fox News.

Last August, a few weeks after Breivik’s shooting spree, Geller lashed out at critics who highlighted the role of her site as a cheering circle for the kind of racist garbage that Breivik spewed.  (Think Progress wrote an excellent piece on this last August)

First, Geller made perfectly clear that she was ”not condoning the slaughter in Norway or anywhere” and violently disapproved of the killings.

That said, Geller than performed a neat 180 degree turn, and delivered a political dissection of Breivik’s young victims—remarkably similar to Breivik’s mind-boggling justification yesterday in the Oslo Courthouse.

Geller—who has labeled Obama “President Jihad--was aghast, she explained, because  “the jihad loving media never told us what anti-Semitic war games they were playing on that island.”

Yes, the slaughter was horrific, she said “On the other hand..what those kids were being taught to do was a different kind of grotesque.”

Indeed, the youngsters Breivik was targeting were far from innocent: they were the future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims who refuse to assimilate , who commit major violence against Norwegian natives including violent gang rapes, with impunity, and who live on the dole”

Turns out however, as Geller views the world, that even worse than the crime of promoting multi-culturalism, those kids were also listening to speakers who actually criticized Israel. Norway’s Foreign Minister, for example, had told them “That the Palestinians must have their own state.the occupation must end and the wall must be demolished and it must happen now.”  

Further, wrote the outraged Geller, some of the games played at the camp dealt with breaking the Israel blockade of Gaza.

Knowing all that, said Geller, “Glen Beck was not far off when he compared it to the Hitlerjugend of Young Pioneers.”

She also posted a picture taken of the young campers on a sunny hillside just a few days before the massacre.

Under the picture was the caption: “Note the faces which are more Middle Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian.”

Later, that caption was deleted. As Think Progress pointed out, it can still be found on an earlier screen shot.

Norway's Andres Breivik: Our standard bearer?

As the trial of Norwegian mass murdered Andres Breivik opens in Oslo, we look on in horror at his arrogant posturing, his clenched fist salute, his regret that he didn’t kill more that seventy-seven. But the fact is that this outrageous young Norwegian, is in no way the crazed psychotic we would like him to be—an unrecognizable monster who by his ghastly acts has exiled himself from civilized society.

Deranged he may be, but his beliefs and bloody actions are very much a natural product of the mounting fear and hatred of Muslims throughout much of Europe these past few years, as well as the United States.

Indeed, going about their daily lives there are probably tens of millions of Europeans (and Americans), shocked at Breivik’s actions, who would, just the same, probably agree with the premise that drove him to action: Muslims are a threat to the Western world.

In France where I live, for instance, five to six million Muslims represent about ten percent of the population, the highest concentration in Europe. We are constantly receiving emails forwarded by friends--middle-class, well-educated, professionals mind you--who are convinced that, with their growing numbers, and higher birthrate, the Muslims will soon predominate in France.

The next step, the argument goes, is that they will insist that their own fundamentalist teachings, the Sharia, become the rule of law in France—for all the French.

For instance, an email that arrived just yesterday was from a blogger outraged by a Socialist Party proposal to give the vote to all residents of France--including immigrants who are not yet citizens.  “France is for sale!” reads the message. ‘When they will have the right to vote, they will make pro Sharia candidates, as is already being done, and they will then hold in their hands the future of YOUR children!”

Which brings us to an interesting question the court in Norway will probably never address: would Breivik ever have launched his murderous attacks if he had not viewed himself as part of a global crusade, cheered on by his fellow besieged Europeans, and even more by rabid Islamophobes on Internet sites around the world.

In fact, as I wrote at the time, most of the rambling manifesto posted by Breivik before he launched his attacks last July was not spun out of his own unhinged mind, but was drawn from the writings of notorious Islamophobes, such as Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, the latter a regular on Fox News. 

Tellingly, Pamela Geller attempted to wash her hands of any pre knowledge of Breivik’s plans by excising a paragraph from one of his long rants which she posted in 2007. The portion cut out:  “We are stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment. This is going to happen fast.”   

In fact, so many Internet sites now speak of Islam as a deadly menace, so many of them issue a call to arms before it’s too late, is it any wonder that a few deranged individuals take that threat seriously, decide to give their lives, as valiant champions if you will, of “our Christian way of life”.

Bottom line:  Either there is a mortal threat to our civilization, or there isn’t. If there is, then how can you possibly condemn a heroic young fellow like Andres Breivik who decided to heed a clarion call to selfless action?

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Mike Wallace-Attacked as Self-Hating Jew

The most controversial reports Mike Wallace and I did at 60 Minutes involved Israel--and provoked --from some-- the charge that Mike (and I ) were self-hating Jews...There's an in-depth look at the most controversial of all those reports in the current edition of The Jewish Daily Forward in New York. If  you're interested, check it out:

My Quarter Century with Mike Wallace

I worked on 60 Minutes for more than 26 years, most of the time as a producer with Mike Wallace. Each report on the show has “produced by” written on the art work introducing it, but most viewers have no clue what “produced by” really entails.

Indeed, the great irony of 60 Minutes was a question of truth in packaging. That is 60 Minutes, which prided itself on ruthless truth telling, exposing cant and fraud, was, in itself, something of a charade.

The fact is that, although the viewers tuned in to watch the on-going exploits of Mike, Morley, Harry, Leslie etc. etc., most of the intrepid reporting, writing, and even many of the most probing questions posed in the interviews, were not the handiwork of the stars, but much more the effort of some thirty or more very talented—producers --and associate producers--who researched and reported the stories that the stars presented --as their own exploits--each Sunday night.

I was willing to go along with that system because it allowed me to help shape what was the most powerful news show on television. I was also willing to rein in my ego because Mike Wallace brought so much to the team himself: a sharp, penetrating mind, an uncanny ability to seize the essence of a story, to sense an opening in a tense interview, then thrust with a rapier-like question for the journalistic kill.

To Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who had once been a radical underground leader, Mike asked,  “What is the difference between the Yasser Arafat of today and the Menachem Begin of 1946?” 

Seated crosslegged on the floor in front of the Imam Khomeini in 1979 during the hostage crisis, Mike asked, “President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt calls you, Imam — forgive me, his words, not mine — a lunatic.” Khomeini’s shocked interpreters refused even to translate until Khomeini insisted.He predicted, correctly, that Sadat would soon be overthrown.

Or to Yassir Arafat, in a backstreet building in war-torn Beirut. After Arafat excoriated the U.S. for ignoring the human rights of the Palestinians, Mike leapt at the opening to ask the PLO Chairman about a small article Mike had found in the back pages of the Times, in which Arafat had praised former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.  

Mike asked a startled Arafat, “In other words, Mr. Chairman, Idi Amin, the butcher, you admire?”

Afterwards, Arafat’s aide, Mahmoud Labadi, said to Mike as we were wrapping our equipment and PLO armed toughs roamed the room,  “Mike, you’re not going to use that part about Idi Amin, are you?” Mike smiled and said ever so quietly, 

“Mahmoud, do I tell you how to do your job?

No,” said Labadi.

“Then please don’t tell me how to do mine.”

On another occasion in Western Iran, we were with a group of journalists being escorted by a particularly crazed  Iranian colonel to cover the war with Iraq.  After the colonel had delivered a long diatribe against the U.S. government, Mike turned to him and said, “You know, colonel, “I don’t think much of your government either.”  

Later that evening, in a room off the hotel lobby, with other journalists watching the evening news, the colonel entered, unholstered his 45, strode up to Mike a wild look in his eyes, and moved forward until the muzzle of his revolver almost touched Mike’s forehead. Everyone in the room froze. Mike looked up at the colonel, and with his hand pushed the revolver so it pointed towards the ceiling. The officer grinned, pulled the trigger. The pistol was empty.

He was part reporter, part actor playing reporter. He had a flare for the dramatic, the ability to achieve almost instant rapport with interviewees, no matter their wealth, achievement, or background. He made them forget the camera, the lights; he was totally with them in the moment, fascinated by whatever they happened to be saying, from a famine-stricken mother in Ethiopia, a child dying in her arms, to the crooks of all shapes and sizes who attempted –almost always unsuccessfully with Mike--to lie their way to respectability,  

Mike’s political agenda never seemed to get in the way. There was no story that he wouldn’t agree to go after, from detailing the enormous power of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby in Washington to the peccadilloes of Walter Cronkite, who we accused of accepting airline tickets for a piece we were doing on the widespread practice of press junkets.  Mike’s targets were often livid, but their rage only heightened Mike’s pleasure. He loved controversy, being the center of a story, seeing the sparks fly.

Though he greatly admired the Shah of Iran, was charmed by his wife and Iran’s ambassador in Washington--when I suggested a report on the Shah’s brutal secret police, the Savak, Mike immediately concurred.

Later, we did a report during the hostage crisis explaining why the Iranians had such hatred for the United States. President Jimmy Carter called to asked CBS News President Bill Leonard, not to broadcast the report. Leonard refused to comply. The shameful facts we were revealing about U.S. complicity with the Shah were not unknown to the Iranians—but to most Americans

The only time I saw Mike flinch was when he backed away from the excellent report produced by Lowell Bergman, claiming that U.S. cigarette company executives lied under oath before Congress when they claimed they didn’t know that nicotine was addictive .  

 CBS management was refusing to broadcast the report. It was a very tense time, and later became the subject of a movie, “The Insider.”

Mike, of course, was seriously concerned that his reputation—as well as the reputation of 60 Minutes--would forever be tarnished if he didn’t fight back. I agreed and over a bottle of wine at an Italian restaurant, I suggested he could end the face-off by threatening to resign if CBS refused to go ahead with the broadcast. There was no way, I argued, that CBS could take the public relations bashing that would ensue if Mike Wallace quit over that issue.

Mike finally agreed. He was going to talk to the powers-that-be the next morning, he said.  

He didn’t.

When I asked why, he said he just couldn’t go through with it. He couldn’t use such tactics.

The bottom line was that Mike could not bear the thought of not being on the air, on 60 Minutes. That, for him was what life was all about. During the countless times the subject of retirement came up, he would invariably shrug,  “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

He relished the adulation, the eyes following him as he made his way through a crowded restaurant, the people coming up to him in increasingly distant airports telling him how much they liked his latest show. It validated his existence. But more than anything he enjoyed the flash and spark of controversy, confronting miscreants, catching an interviewee out, breaking through emotional barriers, to reveal some carefully-hidden weakness. And it could all be done with a simple gesture, a raised eyebrow and a single word, like “and?” or “but?”

And yet, and yet, despite having worked with him for more than a quarter century, I never really knew who he was; what was really going on deep inside, in the soul, if you will. I would be sitting with him over dinner after a long day of work and he would be asking me questions about my domestic life, or whatever, with that same sincere look in his eyes that same intense concern--that I had seen him use just a few hours earlier in an interview.

But I loved that man. My wife and I will miss him.

He had said he wanted to keep on working till his toes turned up. Mike, you almost made it.

Toulouse-who will profit? Sarkozy's gambits

Even before Mohammed Merah-a 23 year old French punk and part time garage mechanic turned jihadi—died in a hail of bullets in Toulouse, the horrific affair had already become the focus of France’s current heated presidential campaign.

No one benefited more from the crisis than President Nicholas Sarkozy, for whom law and order has always been a calling card. But after acting admirably presidential during the most ghastly moments of the crisis, calling for national unity and a temporary halt to electioneering, once Merah had been disposed of, Sarkozy abruptly reverted to the erratic manner that has also been his hallmark over the years.  

He announced his intention to present legislation to the French parliament making it a crime for people to travel abroad for terrorist indoctrination or consult jihadist Web sites.

Predictably Sarkozy’s tough proposal immediately drew fire from a wide range of critics.

As I argue in another blog, the president’s proposals are precipitous, and, above all, a dangerous threat to French civil liberties. Punishing people who –for whatever reason—choose to read the contents of certain proscribed Internet sites, would, in effect, oblige France to create a new category of law enforcers—very much akin to the  “Thought Police” so terrifyingly portrayed by George Orwell in 1984.  

France already has enough laws on the books to deal with the terrorist threat without crippling its democratic traditions.

Another tack taken by Sarkozy, this time to hobble his opponents on the left, is to wrap himself in the national flag and maintain -as Sarkozy immediately did--that it is despicable for anyone to blame French society for the outrageous actions of Mohammed Merah and the obscene rampage in Toulouse.

Sarkozy’s challenge is a blatant attempt to sweep France’s enormous social problems—particularly the integration of the country’s 5-6 million immigrants of Islamic origin--under the carpet, at least during the election campaign.  It was also a bet that, with the French,  outraged by the events of the past few days,  would turn against any attempts by Sarkozy’s opponents to take up the issue of integration at this time.

Indeed Sarkozy’s theme was immediately amplified by four deputies from his UMP  who called for revision of the French Code of Nationality. They’re after regulations that would make it easier to dispatch the hordes of delinquents and trouble-makers in the banlieues, like Mohammed Merah, (“scum” Sarkozy once famously called them) back to the lands of their forefathers.

After all, the UMP deputies argue, the only thing about Merah “ that was French were his identity papers”.

The statement is absurd. As the leftist  “Liberation” editorialized this morning,

“Merah is certainly a monster, but a French monster and monsters also reveal the fabric of a country. For how many generations can a child born French be sent back to his Algerian origins, and for how many generations will the origin of his ancestors make him a foreigner in the country that is his?”

For further background, readers might be interested in other recent blogs I’ve written over the past few days on Mohammed Merah and the slaughter in Toulouse.

  

Toulouse Aftermath: Is It really?

Mohammed Merah, a teenage loser, a petty thief and unemployed garage mechanic, who achieved instant worldwide notoriety as the latest symbol of Islamic jihad went down in a hail of bullets early this morning.

He leaves a string of unanswered questions and paradoxes in his wake.

Such as, to what degree was this beardless, hash-smoking, lacoste-wearing  young tough actually linked to al-Qaeda, as he claimed to police and reporters?  To what degree was he really a self-declared jihadist, acting almost entirely on his own?  An individual target, rather than part of an organized cell, a target much more difficult for police in France and throughout Europe to deal with.

--Another paradox, mentioned in my previous blog, but well worth repeating, because it leads to a further question:

France has chosen to spend hundreds of millions of dollars sending troops to Afghanistan to support Nato and the U.S.  The presumed theory being to prevent that country from remaining a breeding-ground for terrorists to attack France and Europe and the U.S.

But it’s almost certain that Merah, like hundreds of young would-be jihadists throughout Europe of Muslim descent, was drawn to Afghanistan, exactly because French troops had joined in the invasion of that Islamic country.

Which brings up another irony (and question for Mohammed Merah.)   

Why, if he was such a rabid jihadist, did Mohammed Merah attempt in 2010 to enlist in the French military, specifically the Foreign Legion? For some reason—either because he was rejected straight off, or got cold feet—he never wound up in uniform.

If he had, the young man who became an overnight symbol for the Clash of Civilizations, might with—just a slight twist of fate--have joined French troops in Afghanistan battling Islamic militants.

Another question: what impact will this bloody national trauma have on the presidential elections, the first round due next month. Difficult to say at this point, but many commentators think that—despite attacks from the far right that he has not been tough enough on radical Islamists—the speedy resolution of the affair will only bolster an embattled President Nicholas Sarkozy.

[The French and American authorities will presumably also have to explain the fact that Mohammed Merah was reportedly also on the U.S.  "no-fly" list.] 

Ironically, it was a similar tense standoff  in 1993 that first brought Sarkozy to the national spot light:

He was then the mayor of Neuilly, a tranquil community just outside Paris. when a gunman wearing a dynamite belt burst into a local school and demanded ransome to reslease eight hostages. 

With incredible aplomb, Sarkoy talked the gunman into releasing one child and—with the TV camers rolling—walked out of the classroom with the youngster in his arms. 

After 46 hours of talks, the gunman was finally killed by police sharpshoorters. The seven remaining hostages were freed unharmed. Sarkozy was launched.

The similar bloody denouement of Toulouse notwithstanding, whoever becomes France’s next President will continue to face enormous problems—and threats.

How many other Mohammed Merah’s are out there? 

Toulouse: The Nightmare is not over

The horrific chain of 7 murders in Toulouse, France that have stunned this country, could have been lifted directly from a television thriller. In fact, this whole terrible affair has been a nightmare scenario that, for decades, has haunted authorities in France, Europe—and the United States. 

And the nightmare is far from over.

Mohammed Merah, a 24 year-old French man of Algerian origin, a few years ago gets involved with a Salafist network in France. According to the little that is known so far, Merah then heads off to Afghanistan where he links up with al Qaeda. In 2007, he is arrested for planting bombs and jailed for three years by the Afghans, but he  escapes in a Taliban-led breakout. He is later picked up by Pakistan authorities in 2010 and released.

Mohammed returns to Toulouse where his family lives and bides his time. Then last week with the most deadly aplomb, he kills three French soldiers and four days later rides his stolen motorcycle to the entrance of a Jewish school near his home and methodically shoots down a rabbi and three Jewish students.

And, in the age of You Tube and the Internet, to ensure that his gruesome act will some day be witnessed by all, around his neck he wears a video camera.

Islamic leaders in France have made clear how horrified they are that anyone—including Merah himself –would attempt to link his vicious acts with Islam. French President Sarkozy is calling for national solidarity. The leader of the Jewish community in Toulouse has declared himself “immensely relieved” by the news that the killer has been caught.

But the crisis highlighted by Merah is far from over.

The problem, of course is that Mohammed Merah is just one of between five to six million French, most of Muslim descent living in France. A large number reside in shabby, banlieues of the country’s major cities, where housing is dilapidated, unemployment high, and bitterness rampant.  

Meanwhile, the current political storm--about public street prayer, permitting new mosques, banning burkas, and controlling hallal butchers--that has roiled this country has ensured that many Muslims feel even more marginalized.

There is also a considerable burden of history. Incredibly, last night—around the same time as police were planning how to apprehend Mohammed Merah in Toulouse—my wife and I were watching a gripping movie on French TV depicting the courageous attempts of a young Algerian girl brutally tortured by French troops in Algeria as her country fought a bloody struggle for independence. (Was Merah watching the same flick? )

But what counts far more than colonial history to young French Muslims, is the fact that France chose to join Nato and the United States in invading Afghanistan. Thus, Mohammed Merah’s calculated targeting last week of four French soldiers. Ironically, three of them were also of North African origin, but, in his Salafist eyes, that probably made their “treachery” even more condemnable.

The ghastly, methodical slaughter of the rabbi and three Jewish school children four days later were—Mohammed Merah has already told the French police —revenge for the young Palestinian children killed by the Israeli army in Gaza.

(Did he realize that, in fact, the four people he murdered at the Jewish school were all Israelis?)

The bottom line is that there is no way that, knowing these facts, anyone can credibly write off these events as another despicable case of anti-Semitism: the same kind of deeply embedded racial hatred that has come down through the ages; the virulence that fueled the Holocaust and the dispatch with which French police rounded up Jews for the Nazis during World War II.

Mohammed Merah’s anti-Semitism was probably not driven as much by ancient loathing —but more by the actions of Israel over the past few decades--the expulsion of the Palestinians, the rampant expansion of West Bank settlements, the invasions of Lebanon, the massive attacks on Gaza, take your pick.

To prove the point, the various upsurges of anti-Semitic attacks in France have corresponded precisely with each upsurge in the bloody conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians.

Whether Israel’s defenders feel the country’s actions are justified or not is almost bedside the point: those actions are regarded as outrageous in the eyes of millions of European Muslims, who watch the graphic coverage on TV and the Internet of all these grisly events—including the regular statements of Jewish leaders in France and elsewhere that they fully support Israel’s actions.

As outspoken Israeli commentator, Uri Avnery, one of the most acerbic critics of his country’s policies, has pointed the irony that Israel, created as a haven from anti-Semitism for Jews around the world, has instead, by its actions, become the greatest promoter of anti-Semitism around the world.

So, what to do?

Beef up anti-terrorism efforts even further? It turns out that Mohammed Merah was already on a “watch list” in the Toulouse region of some 600 people, from Islamic radicals to right-wing bigots. Which is how the police, through some keen detective work, finally managed to run him down. He was on that list because Pakistani police had notified French authorities after spotting the young man in 2010.   

We can be assured that anti-Terrorist units in France and across Europe have infiltrated Salafist groups and have their own watch-lists.  So why not take action?

Because if there were indeed 600 names in Toulouse, then across France and Europe, we’re talking thousands—perhaps tens of thousands --of such people. There is no way to keep them all under round-the-clock surveillance.

Then expel them all.  French citizens?  

Arrest them.

On what grounds? On whose evidence? 

Of course, anything is possible as we’ve seen in the U.S. since 9/11, and we can be sure in the current super-heated political climate in France, we’ll hear the most extreme demands.

You can also be sure that that any massive crackdown will only further increase the alienation of young Muslims. 

And, in the end, there will almost certainly be plenty of bloody-minded young men and women who will slip through the net.

How about dealing with the root problem? Launch massive programs to really integrate deprived Muslim communities in France and throughout Europe: housing, schools, jobs, etc. In fact, President Sarkozy has been making an important effort to provide better housing, but a few years of effort can not overcome decades of  prejudice and neglect.

In my view, a much more immediate way of at least alleviating the issue would be for France to pull out of Afghanistan. The adventure has cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars, and some eighty-four dead soldiers, including four recently murdered by an Afghan soldier they were supposedly training. The Afghan campaign has been a disaster for all concerned.  The U.S. is headed for the doors, seeking only a seemly way to exit.  The French could show the way.

You can be sure, however, that there will be many who will cite the Toulouse killings to argue just the opposite: that the fact that Mohammed Merah may have received some terrorist training in Afghanistan is proof of the threat that jihadis operating there still pose to Europe. Thus, the imperative need to persevere until the Taliban and their allies and defeated, the threat totally liquidated.

But the problem is that, as the past decade has brutally demonstrated,  despite a huge investment in treasure and blood by the U.S. and its allies, such a military victory is not in the cards. The only way out is some kind of deal with the Taliban and their allies—a deal whereby they take a share of power, with the understanding that any attempt to turn their country again into a training ground for terrorists targeting Europe or the U.S. will be dealt with by drones and special forces, not massive troops interventions. 

Indeed, there is a strong argument that the American and Nato presence in the Muslim world have done more to ignite the outrage of young Muslims elsewhere than any ragtag training camps. Why would Mohammed Merah have gone to Afghanistan if it were not for the presence of French troops in that Muslim country?

Which brings us to Israel and Iran.

Some militant Israelis—and their backers in the U.S.—will use the Toulouse attacks to bolster the case for bombing Iran. The argument: just imagine if that Al Qaeda killer in Toulouse and others like him throughout Europe and the U.S., just imagine if they had access not just to a 45 pistol and a Kalashnikov, but to a nuclear weapon, furnished by Iran.

One would hope however, that the Toulouse attack would give Israeli hawks pause. In assessing the risks of bombing Iran, Israeli intelligence analysts have been speculating about the kind of retaliation their country might face.

It’s clear now that not just Israeli citizens would be at risk.  

In fact, compared with the 191 people killed and 1,800 wounded when al-Qaeda inspired terrorists bombed the railway in Madrid in 2004, and the 52 people killed and 700 injured in coordinated suicide attacks on the London Underground in July 2005, France so far has had it easy.

Imagine the incredible mayhem if, one day, terrorists like Mohammed Merah decided to target The Chunnel linking Paris and London?