Dawson's Danube has a plethora of posts on the news and views of the Sgrena story from Europe. Start here and work your way up, but stop to read his post "The reality behind 'Easongate'".

Then head on over to Peak Talk for his "In Europe, Terror Pays" but don't leave 'til you've caught his coverage of the Madrid Anti-terror Conference here and here.

Update: Sorry, I cannot resist coming back to this Madrid AT Conference subject. Peaktalk excerpted these from the CNews article:

“The consensus ... is a ’soft’ power approach based on prevention, not like the United States has in mind, but (rather) with engagement with North African Muslim nations, economic development, assimilating and integrating immigrants into host nations,” said Charles Powell, a history professor at San Pablo-CEU University in Madrid. [...]

"I believe (the conference) is going to support the European style and not put force first; rather, only as the last resort," said Andres Ortega, director of the Spanish edition of Foreign Policy magazine. Ortega will be one of the panelists at the conference.

This is claptrap. As in medicine, prevention is the method you use when the patient is in good health. Treatment is required when the patient is sick and when the sickness is as severe as Islamofacsism is, there is no doubt operations will be required. And the "'soft' power" cliche; let's start at the end. Powell thinks you should use 'soft' power on your citizenry? Only in the EU, I guess. Now, economic development; while economic development is sorely needed in much of the Arab world, in the majority of the countries, lack of resources is hardly the cause of the underdevelopment. The problem is an overabundance of kleptomaniacs and assorted other elites with power complexes. Lastly, engagement is so ambiguous as to mean absolutely nothing. Lastly, engagement goes on every day and has been since whenever. It is the details of engagement that matter and Powell, in this case, seems at pains not to utter the word "freedom" and it is my humble observation that that word is not bantied about very much in these European venues because these latter day 'monachs' and 'elites' of Europe are so stingy in apportioning it lest they lose control of the 'peasants'.

Ortega's "not put force first" quickly correcting himself with "rather, only as the last resort" puts post paid on this cliche and sends it to the same claptrap address. Anyone letting that initial phrase pass their lips as a suggestion the US puts it first doesn't deserve to be taken seriously. And the latter phrase is now nothing more than one in the repertoire of a Chatty Cathy (for those in the dark on that, its a pull string doll that doles out random pre-recorded messages.) The US puts it last, too, but our definition of "last" does not include "never" as a synonym.

I'll take any argument on how to fight terrorism seriously if the word "freedom" occurs in the discourse as often as any other suggested solution. I'll support the 'soft' power approach to freedom over the 'force' approach every time. But it is assinine to make force the "last" resort just as it is to make it the "first" resort.

And when it comes to discussion of the causes, don't tell me the problem is poverty when the problem is thievery, and don't tell me the problem is resentment when the problem is oppression, and don't ever suggest that the approach should be to engage murderous fanatics, their sponsors, inciters, and asundry supporters when the approach should be to rescue their victims.