Slow Learner in Germany?

Looks like Angela Merkel may be starting to get it. From the BBC:

Merkel: Islamist terror is ‘greatest threat’ to Germany

Islamist terrorism is the biggest challenge facing Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has said in her New Year message.

Referring to the deadly truck attack in Berlin by a Tunisian asylum seeker, she said it was “sickening” when acts of terror were carried out by people who had sought protection.

She said 2016 had been a year of “severe tests”.

There’s an old joke about the preacher in church who said that although he’d been violently mugged, he still considered himself a liberal and didn’t blame criminals for the problems “society” had caused them to have. Whereupon an elderly lady in a pew in the back of the church said, “Mug him again.”

Fits Merkel, because she may not entirely get it, as the rest of the story makes clear:

But she also said she was confident Germany could overcome them.

“As we go about our lives and our work, we are saying to the terrorists: ‘You are hate-filled murderers, but you do not determine how we live and want to live. We are free, considerate and open’,” Mrs Merkel said. . .

The attacks have led to some criticism of Mrs Merkel’s policy of admitting more than a million refugees and migrants in 2015.

But in her New Year message the chancellor said images of the devastation in the Syrian city of Aleppo, where Syrian government forces have forced out rebels after months of fighting, showed how “important and right” it was for Germany to take in those fleeing the conflict.

“All this is reflected in our democracy, rule of law and values. They are the opposite of the hate-filled world of terrorism and will prove stronger than it. Together we are stronger. Our state is stronger,” she said.

Having called a few weeks ago for banning the burka in Germany, Merkel is clearly worried about re-election in September. I suspect this photo explains Merkel’s careful calibrations:

merkel

But this is likely to be more salient:

merkel-ruins-continent

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