America Must Stand Behind Hirsi Ali

Christopher Hitchens, Slate, RCP on Ayaan Hirsi Ali (see my previous post, Great Expectations Go Bust):

The Dutch parliament debates this question later this week, and I hope that its embassies hear from people who don't regard this as an "internal affair" of the Netherlands. If a prominent elected politician of a Western country can be left undefended against highly credible threats from Islamist death squads, what price all of our easy babble about not "appeasing terrorists"? Especially disgraceful is the Dutch government's irresponsible decision to announce to these death squads, without even notifying Hirsi Ali, that after a given date she would be unprotected and easy game. (Lest I inadvertently strengthen this deplorable impression, let me swiftly add that at present she is under close guard in the United States.)

Suppose the narrow and parochial view prevails in Holland, then I think that we in America should welcome the chance to accept the responsibility ourselves. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has become a symbol of the resistance, by many women from the Muslim world, to gender apartheid, "honor" killing, genital mutilation, and other horrors of clerical repression. She has been a very clear and courageous voice against the ongoing attack on our civilization mounted by exactly the same forces.

A brave woman being left to twist in the wind by the Dutch. If America means anything, we must stand behind her.

Related posts: Raping Women and Children, Coming to America, Lifting the Veil, Hirsi Ali Targeted, A Hijab with Your Name on it, Burying Girls Alive, Hirsi Ali Speaks Up