First Spain now the Belge

In Belgium... King Leopold agrees to the surrender of the Belgian army without consulting the other Allies or his government (now in Paris). The capitulation becomes effective at 1100 hours.

Last week, a couple of Belgian television networks received a video with masked Arabs claiming to speak on behalf of al-Qaeda. The men threatened attacks in Belgium if the country does not pull its tiny military contingent from Afghanistan. The video quickly turned out not to come from al-Qaeda but to be a compilation of existing al-Qaeda tapes. It was the work either of people attempting a sick joke or of potentially dangerous amateurs from the local Muslim community trying to mimic the big boys.The reaction of the Belgian media was telling, however. Rather than exposing the video as a hoax and stating that, if the threats were genuine, the country should not grovel to terrorists, De Standaard, Belgium’s leading allegedly center-right newspaper, opened a public debate about the question whether Belgium should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. Fortunately, the government has not responded affirmatively or Belgium would be the first country to give in to threats from jokers or Muslim kids who seek media attention with an amateur movie made on their pc.It is to be feared, however, that if there ever is a major terror attack in Belgium the Belgians, whose country hosts the headquarters of both NATO and the EU, will react like the Spaniards did after the 2005 Madrid attacks: by painting their hands white and surrendering.