John Bolten Can't Handle The Truth

In an interview with the BBC's World Service World Update this morning former US Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton suggested that Europeans do not appreciate the danger of terrorism.

Mr. Bolton was in the studio to respond to a BBC report based on interviews with Iraqis as well as recent polls conducted in Iraq which show that the so-called surge is a failure. Among other far fetched statements Mr. Bolten said:

I don't think Europe has yet fully appreciated the threat we all face from international terrorism. (6:57)

Perhaps Mr. Bolton, despite his service in the State Department, has not heard of the Irish Republican Army and the troubles in Northern Ireland, or ETA and the Basque separatist movement in Spain and France. Perhaps he missed the news coverage concerning the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie and the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. More recently it is possible that Mr. Bolton was unaware of the bombings in London on July 7, 2005 or those in Madrid on March 11, 2004. The list of other less well known, at least to Americans, terrorist attacks against Europeans is literally to long to recreate here. For more on Europe's long and deadly history of terror please see these links:

France, England, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Germany

Mr. Bolton's suggestion that Europe fails to appreciate the threat posed by terrorism is ludicrous in its clear lack of understanding of or appreciation for the history of international terrorism in Europe as well as throughout the world.

While the host of World Update, Dan Damon, rather surprisingly let Mr. Bolton's comment on Europe's relationship with terrorism slide he conducted a much more vigorous interview than any you are likely to hear from an American journalist today.