Ayaan Hirsi Ali who wrote the script the 11 minute movie that led to the death of Theo Van Gogh has moved to America and continues to write and comment on Islam and the West. She says that Europe is "invertebrate" and lacks the will to stand up to Islamic extremism. George Will profiles her in this interesting piece.

Another article in the Times of London chronicles the past week in European politics and the tepid response to the attacks on Pope Benedict XVI. Commenting on the moral state of Euro politics Gerard Baker has this to say:

But the scale of Europe's moral crisis is larger than ever. Opposing the war in Iraq was one thing, defensible in the light of events. But opting out of a serious fight against the Taleban, sabotaging efforts to get Iran off its path towards nuclear status, pre-emptively cringing to Muslim intolerance of free speech and criticism, all suggest something quite different.

They imply a slow but insistent collapse of the European will, the steady attrition of the self-preservation instinct. Its effects can be seen not only in the political field, but in other ways - the startling decline of birth rates across the continent that represent a sort of self-inflicted genocide; the refusal to confront the harsh realities of a global economy.

All this comes on the week that Germany's Bundestag approved the historic move to station German ships off the coast of Lebanon as part of the peace keeping force. The ships will likely operate under very strict rules of engagement similar to the troops in Afghanistan.

There is no question Europe is in a political quagmire on many fronts. It will take a massive jolt, something on the par of a 9/11, to alter their present course. What that might be and when it could happen is the big questions to consider. History has provided many such incidents in times past, and it does not take long for such turnarounds to happen with far reaching consequences.