WAR WITHOUT END

V. S. Naipaul responds to the initial London bombings:

"We must stop fooling ourselves about what we are witnessing," he said in a telephone conversation a week after the July 7 attacks. The debate in Britain about British detainees held at Guantanamo Bay was evidence of the foolishness. "People here talk about those people who were picked up by the Americans as 'lads,' 'our lads,' as though they were people playing cricket or marbles," Naipaul said. "It's glib, nonsensical talk from people who don't understand that holy war for Muslims is a religious war, and a religious war is something you never stop fighting."

Never one to pull his punches, Naipaul has this to say about Europe:

The bigger issue, he said, is that Western Europe, while built on tolerance, today lacks "a strong cultural life," making it vulnerable to Islamicization. He even went so far as to say that Muslim women shouldn't wear headscarves in the West. "If you decide to move to another country and to live within its laws you don't express your disregard for the essence of the culture," he said. "It's a form of aggression."

Europeans might one day realise it's not a good idea to accommodate the intolerant.