The Wrongheadedness of Calls for Civil War in Europe
by Sam Grant
In a Gates of Vienna post on November 9, 2007, one reads:
Naser Khader is Islam’s Trojan horse in Denmark. “Tongue-in-cheek” they will grant all rejected asylum-seekers a work and residence allowance. In reality this means that any Muslim anywhere who can make it to Denmark and shout “asylum” is granted “work” (Islamo-lingo for lifelong welfare provision) and residence. No need anymore for other regulations such as green-cards or family-reunions with cousins, uncles, extra wives, aunts, parents and grandparents. Just shout “asylum” — that’s all, folks.
If this party “New Alliance” gets any influence at all, Denmark is one step closer to the inevitable civil war. Which isn’t a bad thing entirely — the sooner, the better.
Sadly, this post isn’t the only one in its vein at GoV. It should be the last.
The sentiment that civil war cannot come soon enough is madness. Let us begin with the obvious. The horrors of war are real. A passage from Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell (pdf format):
This dialogue is the case for rebellion.
STAUFF. Oh wife! a horrid, ruthless fiend is war,
That smites at once the shepherd and his flock.GERT. Whate’er great Heaven inflicts, we must endure;
But wrong is what no noble heart will bear.STAUFF. This house—thy pride—war, unrelenting war
Will burn it down.GERT. And did I think this heart
Enslaved and fettered to the things of earth,
With my own hand I’d hurl the kindling torch.STAUFF. Thou hast faith in human kindness, wife; but war
Spares not the tender infant in its cradle.
Let us continue with what ought to be obvious: justified and necessary counts for nothing, if there is no reasonable prospect for victory. He who thinks he has justification and necessity nailed, is not finished with the task of making the case for war.Hope for victory springs eternal; every man believes himself and his own brothers in arms the best of the best. It might even be true, on occasion. But in war, quantity has a quality all its own.
The history of the American Civil War bears this out. Having lost an election, the South determined on secession. Many southerners believed that Yankees were cowards and city folk, hence soft. Others believed that Yankees cared more for money than anything else, and would give up the fight as not worth the trouble once Southerners had demonstrated their determination. A few prescient southerners saw better. Sam Houston was one.
- - - - - - - - -
Another, Robert Toombs, commenting on the decision to shell Fort Sumter (Toomb’s warning) insisted that the attack “will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet’s nest…. Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal.” (Toombs didn’t understand that his cause was in the wrong, whatever the details of the path to secession. But that is another story.)
Finally, it bears noting that what Europe faces at the moment is no emergency warranting civil war. There is no necessity, no justification, for this. If Europe shall be ruined by immigration from hostile shores, that ruin will run to completion all the quicker if native Europeans fall to killing each other.
Europe has time to think things through, and can make arrangements that meet the danger by peaceful and lawful means. Calls for war will be met first with laughter and derision. Then, if they are persuasive to a sufficient mass of hotheads who translate hot words into action, these calls will be met with a forceful legal response. This talk of civil war is, after all, seditious.
If the hotheads are numerous enough and determined enough that the law cannot go where it must to make arrests, then one has one’s civil war. But with what weapons are those now counseling war to fight? Words won’t cut it. Arson and kitchen knives and private arsenals of rifles and pistols won’t cut it. This kind of war results, if married to desperate courage, only in carnage and defeat. If not backed by that kind of determination, it becomes a farce. The putsch goes down to ignominious defeat.
And if, somehow, the revolution carries the day, backed by mass sentiment and defections from the armed forces, well, under such circumstances, an electoral victory would have been much simpler and far less painful.
He who cannot win an election, cannot expect such daydreams to come to pass. If you can win the election, then do so, and spare us the trauma of war. If you cannot win it now, then have patience, and settle down for a long campaign of educating the public. If you are right, in the end, you may well prevail. If you are not, you probably won’t prevail, but then, you shouldn’t, should you?
26 comments:
Nicely put. I've often heard young folks call for "revolution", and wonder if they're really so naive. First off, that often means bloodshed, and more often leads to a result completely different than what the revolutionaries intended.
It's called "The law of unintended consequences", and it's one we should all live by.
I've explained to a few of these young 'uns how the whole revolution thing works- how the new regime takes action against anyone that wasn't sufficiently fervent on the way up, which leads to a revolt against the new regime, ending with yet another overthrow. And this latest regime generally turns out to be everything that the radicals falsely accused the original regime of being.
Thus they create their own misguided reality.
Somehow, I doubt that my history lesson ever manages to get through to anybody. I recall how amazingly brilliant I was when I was under 25 and knew more than my elders. So I guess the same holds true now.
I like the pseudonym Sam, but this one is probably on the rails already. We just haven't found out yet where the train stops.
Let me get this straight. Civil war in Europe is a bad idea.
Okay then...
WTF were those Muslims in France doing 2 years ago?!
Too late! Civil war is HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. You dumbasses are the only ones who don't see it.
Two thoughts: First off, Stormgaard, ease up. There are very few people here that fall into the category of dumba**es. Name calling isn't helping. And France's problems are less than in other, more dhimmified places.
Secondly, to Epaminondas: From what I see, it's not even close to too late. Recall that in 1914, the militarists in Germany insisted that the mobilization couldn't be halted (at least according to what I was taught). Of course it could have been stopped, if the order had been given.
The Kaiser believed them, and led the Continent into a cataclysm, from which they've still not recovered.
Until there are full-blown battles in the streets, I don't believe it's too late.
Wars start when the two sides disagree over who would win a fight. Imagine if Europe (as a single entity) told the Slammies "enough", and began enforcing that edict. No more immigration, no preferential treatment, deportation of trouble-makers, etc. It would cause problems- including violence, of course, but I doubt the Slammies would fight to the death- their culture calls for actual fighting only when they know they can win. Until then, they flee and wait for another chance.
Europe could still solve the problem with far less bloodshed than would be seen in a civil war. The problem is that they (at least the elites) lack the will.
At some point, things may well reach a tipping point. And when it does, then the bloodshed is likely to be horrific, as some have pointed out here in the past.
I would like to introduce an other aspect concerning this issue. I actually never understood why and how the USA caught up that fast with the rest of the industrialized world. I mean Brazil got a republic by 1889 (seceded in 1822 from Portugal – emigrants arrived form all over Europe - Empire until 1889), had more or less the same amount of territory but is up to today not an industrialized country, while enjoys huge amounts or oil and minerals. While today there are many wealthy islands and has a high tech industry, it never played a role as the USA did, concerning global affairs. Somehow the US managed to pull off an incredible act of power and persuasion.
While this blog once said, that the US south remembered them most of Europe, I have to say, me as a European, feels most at home at the US east coast. I don’t know if that is because I grew up in a city, but when I am in New York or in New England etc., that’s where I feel most at home, and not in the centre of the country.
And so wasn’t the Union the party, who managed the US as a whole, to integrate in today’s open society – creating the American way of life, which made the US big and powerful after all? So maybe we should be more faithful in our cosmopolitan culture, which is more and more the all defining culture of today’s globalized world?
It is a mistake to call a war like this civil. Real civil war is when two brothers appear in opposite camps for idealogical reasons. War in Iraq, for example, is not civil. It is the war between different nations of sunnis and shiites. The problem is that those two nations appeared in one artificial state. Talking about such a war as 'civil' is in fact supporting the idea that artificial multinational multicultural state is one nation.
It may be prudent to point out, that while Europe is not yet ready for civil war, it is ready for civil revolution.
The mood amongst many European countries now is one of political revolt. We have had about enough of the political correctness, the unchecked immigration and the appeasement.
The efforts and growing numbers of people such as those getting involved with grass roots movements like SIOE, CVF and others, are going to change the picture sooner or later.
We are beginning to take the politicians to task for their policies. We are making them aware that they need to support european values if they are to stay in power.
Opposition toward the EU is growing and the balance here is about 50/50 on any support for or against the EU apparatus in almost all european countries.
I would agree that civil war is not likely yet and can hopefully be avoided. But if our leaders don't wise up soon, then the rioting in France will pale into insignificance compared to the civil unrest that will come later.
The political revolution is in its youth now, its childhood if you like, but it will grow and it is maturing.
With more European countries voting consistently to the right of centre, we may be able to avoid any bloodshed.
It doesn't have to lead to a blood dripping Civil War. All it takes is an overthrow of the regime in Brussels and zero tolerance for Islam, with harsh punishments for people who break the new law. If that happens all the mad Mullahs and the people sharing their views will leave like the rats they are. In that sense a temporary dictorship to restore the order and clear the problems which have been created would actually serve native European interests well. I for one could live under such premises, as long as they served Europe's interests.
Sam Grant and Gun-totin-wacko, I don't know your whereabouts, but you seem to ignore that a civil war is actually unfolding and revving up here in Europe. Something like the 'phony war' between Hitler's attack on Poland and his invasion of France. A few shots here and there, nothing to worry about....Muslim 'brownshirts' and 'stormtroopers' prowling the streets every night, looking for weak or defenseless prey, stabbing an old lady here, robbing a teenager there, while gang-raping lonely girls - and boys - everywhere.
The war is declared (submit to Islam or die!), perimeter fighting has started and we are taking casualties - in Denmark at a rate of 1 - 2 killings per week and escalating in parallel with the number of Muslims. So, it's not a question of civil war or not. The war is on, like it or not.
How will it end? - A negotiated peace, perhaps? - A democratic solution with peaceful elections, compromises and mutual agreements? - With an enemy who's one and only objective is to crush civilization and democracy?
Come on, be realistic, please.
Of course no civilized person welcomes war and bloodshed. Hence the term: "the sooner the better": if the civil war can somehow come to an end before it gets all too bloody everyone will benefit, especially the Muslims. They can't win this war no matter what, but they can continue multiplying exponentially and keep on flooding our lands. The longer they do so, the more messy and bloody the final outcome will be.
So, how can this grisly scenario be prevented? - By allowing unrestricted Muslim immigration, like our friend Naser Khader and some other useful idiots seem to believe? Of course not. By treating them well, like Swedish minister Jens Orback proposes: "We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.".
Good heavens....
As far as I can see from my European foxhole, where I can actually see the enemy's eyeballs, the obvious and least cruel solution is to prepare for mass deportations of Muslims. Starting with a full stop to immigration from Islamic countries, immediate deportation of all criminal Muslims regardless of the offense, encouragement for voluntary returns to Islamic countries (generous rewards for doing so) and discouragement of all Islamic habits and mores like building mosques, prayer rooms, polygamy, genital mutilations, suppression of women, special food and so on. And if a Muslim here and a Muslim there actually wants to integrate and behave like a civilized human being - and proves it - he should be welcome to stay. But in the end, Islam must be denied any influence whatsover in a civilized country, even if it means mass deportations in order to avoid the far worse scenario: the Balkanization and ethnically cleansing of Europe.
OK, sometimes the REMF's can see the overall battlefield scenario better from their more secure observation posts, so maybe you can propose better solutions? I certainly wish you could....
Seems that there are several wars that need to be considered...
1 - Foreign invasion by the non-assimilating Muslim hordes.
2 - The EU bureaucracy
3 - The govts of the individual nations of Europe.
The measures that need to be taken to roll back the Islamic invasion are banned/barred by the EU.
The national govts are betraying their citizenry by refusing to honor the pledge that joining the EU was to be based on votes BY THE PEOPLE! In nations where sentiment runs against EU membership the politicos are using administrative measures to essentially bypass the legally-required referendum.
Is this 1 war with 3 fronts? 2 wars? 3 wars? How many of those could be considered civil? I would say that soft-revolution may be the better word in struggling with local govt.
In any case, I would really discourage looking to the U.S. Civil War for any useful lessons. Pretty much all of what "everyone knows" about that conflict is actually wrong.
See here.
Wowser. I say, 'much ado about hyperbole.'
Kepiblanc made a rash comment on a tense situation fomented by the Dane's own apathy & lack of vigilance. But war is not the answer, although a soft rebellion is underway - a immigrant muslim rebellion of infiltration & coercion. This rebellion is political & religious in nature and affects the fabric of Danish society, but it is (mostly) non-violent, and should be dealt with accordingly via education, & the ballot box. Unless the Dane's cannot get out of the way of their own apathy & lack of vigilance.
In short; listen to Sam Grant.
"... If you can win the election, then do so, and spare us the trauma of war. If you cannot win it now, then have patience, and settle down for a long campaign of educating the public. If you are right, in the end, you may well prevail. If you are not, you probably won’t prevail, but then, you shouldn’t, should you?"
The expulsion of moors and jews from Spain in the 16th? century...the population transfers between Greece and Turkey in the early 20s...the mass expulsion of the German populations of Eastern Europe immediately after WW2....Who lies awake at night haunted by these crimes against humanity? Who even remembers?
A single eviction is a tragedy; a million evictions are a statistic, to paraphrase a renowned authority in these matters. Here the EU might actually be useful. It's an entity that has placed itself above the will of the people, and this would be just one more action taken without anybody's consent.
My question to the Europeans here is: you are already accustomed to government by commissar. Is it possible to install European-patriotic ones to order the necessary measures?
Certainly better than civil war.
Crawdad,
I thought I had seen everything. You linked to an actual supporter of John Wilkes Booth!? I dont want to get into a whole Civil War revision thing, but wow! Do you really subscribe to that?
Who would you even fight? There are no clear cut enemies, only ideologies. Attacks against mosques and immigrant communities would scar the country forever. What needs to be done is for people to reduce immigration by enforcing the current policies and forcing immigrants to assimilate to European values. Any Muslim who preaches violence or hate should be deported. The government must create incentives for Muslims to assimilate, not baby them and appease them.
http://grizzlymountain.blogspot.com/
Spackle:
Well, yeah, I wrote it. (crawdad had already been taken on wordpress)
Even Lincoln's hagiographies admit that his conduct of the war was criminal in pretty much every respect and that the slavery issue was just another means to his anti-secessionist end.
It only takes a small amount of googling and reading of generally accepted sites such as wikipedia to see the truth about Lincoln.
Spackle:
“Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.” -- Thomas Jefferson.
If the assertions made by Crawdad are held true - that Lincoln was a moral monster who ordered massacres of civilians and created a war that was completely illegitimate than resistance to him was justified.
Certainly few morn the assassination of dictators.
We recall those who attempted to kill Hitler with a suitcase bomb with some fondness.
One's view of Booths rightness or wrongness probably depends on one's overall view of the civil war.
Also, I think there is still, for some, the matter of chivilry. Killing him after the war was lost seems pointless and without merit.
The 19th Century still maintained some standards of conduct in war. Standards which Lincoln and his generals did much to diminish. One of these was the officers (much less political leaders) were not directly targeted as combatants.
Still it is always dangerous for the righteous and vanquished to take on the wosrt tactics of their new masters. (vis: Palestinians)
Down that road lies nothing good.
This generation of "leaders" is mired in political correctness and their own self-interest. If we leave it to them they'll just continue making concessions to whoever threatens them most. Nobody wants war if it can be avoided but I don't want to have to learn Arabic and convert to Islam so I can get medical treatment or find a place in a nursing home. Let's face it, as long as we're as comfortable and financially well-off as we are, civil was is unlikely. Severe economic trouble - like Germany before the second war - might change things. Of course, since our governments (some more than others) have been doing everything in their power to disarm the populous we'll be reduced to fighting with cutlery and pointy sticks (assuming you've still got something hidden away with which to put a point on said stick).
Zeke and Crawdad:
I had no idea there were still "Copperheads" around :)
To each his own.
So we just sit around and wait for our turn in power,and i am sure if we ask the muslims politely they will stop killing and raping and undermining our countries.A great strategy for the preservation of our cultures.if any one in the past actually knew what war entailed, the human race would never have had one,can any-one truthfully say that the citizens of europe are living in a democracy?Endless talk cripples the power of decision enough!the enemy is before you,you know his aims,you know his ruthlesness,but you have no stomach for the reality of this situation and you wait for someone else to get his hands dirty so that you can comdemn him while reaping the rewards of his action,this war is inevitable,it is not a civil war,it is a war to secure your right to freedom,and if you have to debate before you lend your assistance to a cause that we all believe to be just,you hamper that cause and become part of the problem.
There actually IS one lesson Europe should learn from the U.S. Civil War, and it concerns the European Union: sovereignty lost can never be regained.
The people of the nations of Europe need to realize that once "admitted" to the E.U., they will NEVER be allowed to leave that "voluntary association" under any conditions.
BTW, Spackle: Copperheads were northerners.
This issue has worried me for some time now. Sam Grant has picked up on something I noticed in several recent comments, I just hadn’t gotten around to formulating a contribution. I suppose this is as good a time as any – especially considering the quality of Sam’s argument, and of the comments he is now receiving. For the purposes of my discussion, I will use the term ‘civil war’ as being an armed conflict between people inhabiting the same civil/political space (sorry Ypp, great argument but I can’t really think of a better term for what we’re discussing).
My first concern is a growing fear that Europe may already be experiencing a low-grade civil war, and a new concern that the possibility may be considered rather too cavalierly in (some of) our discussions. I think Kepiblanc says it best:
“A few shots here and there, nothing to worry about... Muslim 'brownshirts' and 'stormtroopers' prowling the streets every night, looking for weak or defenseless prey, stabbing an old lady here, robbing a teenager there, while gang-raping lonely girls - and boys - everywhere. The war is declared (submit to Islam or die!), perimeter fighting has started and we are taking casualties - in Denmark at a rate of 1 - 2 killings per week and escalating in parallel with the number of Muslims. So, it's not a question of civil war or not. The war is on [….].”
I can’t shake the feeling that the majority Deobandi/Wahhabi Imams (as several European intelligence agencies have warned) have the perfect ideology to appeal to a rapidly growing, young, and aggressive audience. It can’t be a coincidence that young Muslim men, when interviewed on TV, boast that (I’ll paraphrase) “the possessions [including women] of the infidels are ours by right”. After all, they have about 150 years of Ijtihad, illuminating the Koran and Hadith, on their side. As if that weren’t enough, we also have the one constant that runs through the history of Islam: conquest, occasionally interrupted or stalled when resistance becomes too strong. This parasitic attitude also dovetails perfectly with the current open arms policy towards purported “refugees” who are encouraged to apply for social benefits that the natives have to meet a higher standard to obtain. So now we have, besides the occasional Al-Qaeda cell, an internally unorganized, but locally encouraged “militia” learning to apply the purest dictates of their creed. The Left, and especially the hard Left (Anti-Fascist Action and others) are once again allying themselves with their future enemy. And, to cap it all, the majority of the native population remains unable – or unwilling – to resist the tide.
Immigration is, I fear, rapidly becoming an issue that only the European Union (EU) will have the authority to address. When 80% of the laws passed in individual countries are actually originated by the EU, and those laws abrogate any contradicting national laws, the EU’s organizing principles become the guiding factor in determining how things may proceed. Unfortunately it’s not a pretty picture: since the oil embargo of the early 1970s the EU has consciously engaged the Muslim Middle-East to ensure access to oil by committing to large-scale immigration from that region. Bat Ye’or’s “Eurabia” is the standard reference work on this construct so I won’t belabor it here. Suffice it to say that, in my humble opinion, the emerging superstate “European Union” has little interest in actively legislating against immigration at any but the most token levels. Remember, the real power in the EU rests with an oligarchy of unelected elites, not the European Parliament. Adding the Left/multicultural set and a largely indulgent media, the emerging anti-Jihad “movement” has the appearance of being xenophobic – and the EU can legislate against xenophobia, too. I suspect the 2005 Holocaust Resolution lays the groundwork for just such legislative follow-up. Theoretically, an nationally elected government could separate from the EU under the “self-determination of peoples” principle, but that country would become a pariah within Europe – and building a trustworthy coalition to break off a good chunk of the EU would be a long time in the making. The legal resistance option is thus rapidly disappearing. The only solution I see is to return the EU to what it used to be: an economic union, i.e. the old European Community. However, nobody in power in the EU will stand for it.
In related news, the EU recently raised the manning level for EUROGENDFOR to 1.5 MILLION. This is a EU-wide police force, and as I wrote in a previous comment, EUROGENDFOR, is a Euro-wide police force which operates under military authority (see http://englandexpects.blogspot.com/ ) - no Posse Comitatus here. And while their Charter explains that this force is to be used for situations between peacemaking and peacekeeping (which sounds like an out-of-area function), I think it's telling that a recent demonstration for a French official had Breton nationalists as the "enemy". Not the un-PC Muslim troublemakers, but “natives”. I suspect that is what EUROGENDFOR’s most important function will be, should it come to that. After the legal options have expired, that is what the “Resistance” would face. And remember, we’re talking about a largely disarmed resistance.
My second concern is somewhat lower grade, but it picks up on Sam Grant’s post: some of the comments of late are a little too cavalier in their anticipation of a future brawl. For those of you who imagine a 1776-style event, with a lopsided conflict between conventional forces and a relatively low body count, I really doubt it. I fear that by the time these things come to pass there will not be a sufficiently large groundswell of resistance to the EU’s attempt to turn the lights out on its own society. Our ultimate enemies, if they have any sense at all, know this. If they simply continue with the brushfire war without raising the ire of the authorities too much, nurture their ties with the multicultis, increase their legislative representation, and provoke an insuffiently powerful opponent into action, all they have to do afterwards is reap the rewards. Short of this scenario, all I can imagine is an ongoing Lebanese-style conflict.
In the end it will be a matter of timing. The current legal efforts must succeed before secession from the EU becomes a practical impossibility.
Just a small note on the American Civil War. Everyone declaims anyone that stands up for the Confederacy because slavery is a barbaric practice and a distasteful subject, but while slavery was the rallying cry of the north, it was already on it's way out in the south. The issue was state's rights to decide their own laws. If any lesson is to be learned from that war during a discussion of the EU and present issues in Denmark, it should be that individual states and nations, when attempting to protect their rights from larger organizations are rarely allowed to do so.
As for arguments over whether or not Lincoln was a really great dude, keep in mind that history is always written by the victors.
Hey Kepi..
REMF's !!
Been a long time since I heard that one.
What an odd little tidbit from Baron.
Europe needs a second amendment.
Weapons for resistance?
Guns - no match
War starts when there is two or more completely opposite sides where compromise is absolutely no altenative 'and' IF there is 'sufficient' firepower to make challenge. Sufficient firepower doens't mean egual. It means: 'sufficient'.
What we see here is that the elite 'lets' muslims to bang their war drums and at the same time denies a legal right to express the freedom of speach to the natives. This is a fact.
Hands up who honestly think that those who are against multiculturalism thinks that they have a chance to make a challenge against the muslims 'and' against the elite forces?
I keep my hands down on this one.
I see no other alternative, but to keep on writing. - that is the only weapon available (with a book about basic logic).
If things gets dirty.. Well. Surveilance systems that stalin or hitler couldn't ever dream of are now in place. They are fully operational to pinpoint wrong ideas and to make accurate attacks against whole networks of 'wrong thinkers'. It is only a guestion, wether the elite gives a go-call or not to silence people (by whatever means, thats up to them). Someone said, that if people 'are' looking at you, you propably are 'not' paranoid.
Just have to keep on writing, but without provoking. Provocations have only a reversed effect, well, unless the intention is to have a reversed effect. - What, as a matter of fact, the left uses to paint right side as rednecks with some drool on their shirt.
Satire works if it is provided with hard facts. Mediocres, what the multiculturalists are (100%), fear probably more to become laughed at than getting shot at.
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