Terror in Europe. Three views from the IHT op-ed pages

The IHT features three pieces dealing with terrorism in Europe in today's edition. All three are read-worthy.

The first notes the worrying emergence of home grown terrorists, as well as the high number of attractive targets. The authors' hope? That Europe and the US will combine forces. Obviously, this is what the Bush administration has been preaching for some time. Perhaps Europe is finally getting the message: Friend or foe of America's Middle East policies, no one is safe from these vermin.

Piece two raises the alarm for Germany, which has more than 3 million Muslims, mostly from Eastern Turkey. Many of these Muslims were brought over to do the work Germans refused to perform. They were treated horribly (same in Austria), and never integrated to any meaningful degree. Now the second and third generation are seen as having a high likelihood of being recruited into radical Islam.

By way of comparison, by the second or third generation, most immigrant families in the US are more American than Americans, having thrown themselves into the process of being American.

I find the lack of integration in Europe fairly scandalous. Although it was not contemplated that many Muslims would choose to stay, once it became possible to bring families over the authorities should have made good faith efforts to put pressure on the immigrants to integrate, as in the US.

The author's solution is to make radical Islam a discredited idea in the minds of Muslims. I would start by pressuring local imans to tone down their rhetoric on penalty of jail or deportation.

Finally, we have an article on France's own Muslim problem. Hard to have too much sympathy here as we listened to endless French lectures on how they best understood the Muslim mind during the run up to the Iraq war. Turns out that France, even with her superior culture and world-wise experience, is a target. France made the same mistakes as the rest of Europe: not putting cultural pressure on immigrants to integrate.

After decades of navel gazing, smugness and complacency, Europes' Islamic chickens have come home to roost (to coin a phrase).