Quote:
Originally posted by Solid
It would seem so. Is it me, or do very few countries operate under the banner of NOT giving in to terrorism? Germany, despite its stance on the war, seems to be the least susceptible country to terror because it does not have an ethnically diverse population.
Solid
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Motassadeq's conviction was reversed on March 5, before the Madrid attacks. Appeasement is not the main factor. The German trials are prime examples of the folly of the law enforcement approach to fighting terrorism. Add this reversal to the acquittal in Germany of Abdelghani Mzoudi last December and the lack of good cooperation with the US over Zacharias Moussaoui by European officials because opposition to our death penalty is more important to them. German courts also dropped terrorism charges against 4 Algerians in January 2003, but did convict them of conspiracy to commit murder in March 2003.
Germany's Muslim population numbers over 3 million. The vast majority, such as my ex-girlfriend, are Turks who are moderate and relatively well assimilated, compared to Muslims in other parts of Europe and even non-European Muslims in Germany (such as the Arabs of the Hamburg terror cells). Nevertheless, there is still prime recruiting ground there. Germany is less susceptible not because of demography, but more because it has a lower profile in the Middle East than the US, France, the UK, Italy and Spain. It also has more effective law enforcement (at least on the police side, not the court system, notorious for its leniency).