Amid all the talk about European ‘appeasement’, it’s worth reading this extract from a Reuters story:

“ROME, April 15 (Reuters) -…Fabrizio Quattrocchi, one of four Italian security guards abducted [in Iraq] earlier this week, was shot dead on Wednesday after Italy refused to bow to the kidnappers’ demands that it withdraw its troops from Iraq. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said a video recording of the killing showed that Quattrocchi was hooded when his kidnappers put a gun to his head. “When the murderers were pointing a pistol at him, this man tried to take off his hood and shouted: ‘Now I’m going to show you how an Italian dies’. And they killed him,” Frattini said. “He died a hero,” he added…”

Indeed he did. The murderers that butchered him are, needless to say, beneath contempt.