Is European Civil War Inevitable by 2025?

Below is the latest in a series of articles by the British author Paul Weston. It concerns the demographic future of Europe and the civilizational conflict that seems likely to occur sooner than one might have thought.

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Is European Civil War Inevitable by 2025?
Part One
by Paul Weston

If I were to tell you that within twenty years Europe could find itself engaged in a civil war so bloody it made WWII look like a bun fight, you might logically consider me a candidate for the men in white coats. You would be wrong, however. Based on the demographic evidence collated for this article, such a scenario looks not merely possible, but inevitable. In 2005 European males aged 20-40 outnumbered Muslim males of a similar age by 18:1. By 2025 this ratio could drop to a mere 2:1.

There is a common misconception that a significant erosion of our present 95% non-Muslim European majority could not possibly occur for many decades to come. People such as historian Bernard Lewis, a man whose views on Islam are held in high esteem, exacerbate this. When he made his prediction in 2004 that Europe would be Islamic by the end of the century, he did so on the basis of an overall Muslim majority.

Although such a dire prediction is shocking, it does not force us into a position where urgent steps need to be taken to alleviate such a future. We will not be here at such a distant point and can therefore presently reject as overly extreme the actions necessary to prevent it. Suppose though, that contrary to Professor Lewis’s benign view of a “democratically Islamic Europe”, Europe’s Muslims felt unwilling to wait another 80 years to expand their caliphate via the voting booth, and decided instead to take Europe through force.

In this scenario our majority is rapidly eroded due to a number of factors. In 2005, European males aged 0-19 (those capable of fighting in twenty years time) accounted for only 10% of their total population. Muslim males in the same age bracket accounted for 23% of theirs. These figures can be seen in this table and are extracted from the population pyramids compiled by the US Census Bureau 2005. (These figures represent all the countries in continental Europe, rather than EU member states alone).

In addition, the Muslim population, with its birth rate of 3.5 children per women effectively doubles its next generation, whilst the European birth rate of 1.5 children per woman ensures the next generation is 25% smaller than that of its parents.

This loss of almost one third of tomorrow’s generation necessitates massive immigration in order to prop up our welfare states, the majority of which is set to come from Muslim countries. According to the Daily Telegraph, the UN predicts Europe will need to take in 2.2 million immigrants per year, through to 2050.

Once the Muslim population climbs over 3% of the population in Western countries, native Europeans start to emigrate. The Dutch, French, Germans and British are leaving in unprecedented numbers, as noted in a Daniel Pipes article entitled “Europeans Fleeing Eurabia” which should be read in conjunction with this article.

If it is really true that up to 40% of Muslims wish to see Europe operating under Sharia Law, then the ingredients for a Europe V Islamic civil war are already in place, save for the Muslim weight of numbers; an issue being rapidly resolved. By 2025 the combination of factors mentioned above will lead to such a massive transformation in Europe’s demographic makeup that Islam may well have sufficient numbers to confront us.
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I first read Pat Buchanan’s book Death of The West three years ago, which opened my eyes to the demographic imbalance between the birth rates of native Europeans and Muslim immigrants. Although full of doom and gloom, Buchanan never ventured a particular opinion on the likelihood of a full-blown war, perhaps due to the likely backlash from Muslims in America.

This omission was partly rectified by Mark Steyn in America Alone where he does mention war as a possible scenario, but neglects to predict any particular decade. Indeed, he seems to be of the opinion that Europe will acquiesce without any resistance at all. Much as I respect Mr Steyn, I believe he is utterly wrong about this. Europeans have a history of warfare; it is unlikely we will roll over without a fight.

If a Europe V Islam civil war is a possibility, then it is clearly prudent to look at the demographics of the particular section of our population who will actually fight it: Males aged between 18-40. The ratio of these potential combatants in 2005 was 18:1 in our favour.

Now, 18:1 appears to be a number that we can cope with, albeit with a certain amount of low-level violence, but what happens when that ratio becomes 10:1 or 5:1? What would be the likely result, for example, if twenty-five European chartered accountants were confronted by five machete wielding Jihadists? The answer is fairly predictable; they would run away, to file tax returns another day.

Suppose, though, that inside each accountant’s briefcase, lurking alongside their blackberries and slide rules was a machete twice the size of the Jihadists preferred tools of trade? Same answer, they will still seek to escape. Knife fighting to the death is not on the curriculum at the East Midlands College of Accountancy and Equality, nor is it in the temperament of average European males, be they football hooligans with a penchant for fisticuffs, let alone accountants.

Conversely, when a solitary but fully armed US Marine finds himself confronted by five machete wielding Jihadists, it’s fairly safe to say he will recount the ensuing events to his comrades the following morning. The Jihadists, on the other hand, are more likely to have had an up close and personal chat with Allah, prior to salaciously indulging themselves amongst their newly acquired harem of celestial virgins.

Which brings me to the point of this article. 5:1 is no guarantee that the majority will win and 5:1 is where we will find ourselves long before 2025. When I started looking at these figures, I anticipated that the numbers necessary for a civil war — based on today’s 18:1 — would not be in place until well into the second half of this century, but I was wrong. By 2025 Europe could find itself with a potential combatant ratio of 2:1 as shown in the following extrapolated figures, with the ratio figure rounded up or down:

Year 2005 - Overall Population.

Total Population:		519 million
Non-Muslim European population:		494 Million.
Muslim population:		26 Million.
Ratio:		19:1

Year 2005 - Males Aged 20-40

Non-Muslim European population:		70.3 Million.
Muslim population:		3.9 Million 1
Ratio:		18:1

Year 2025 - Males Aged 20-40

Non-Muslim European Population:		53.4Million
Muslim Population:		5.9 Million
Ratio:		9:1

This ratio of 9:1 is not hypothetical; the people it represents are already here in our maternity wards and schools. It does not however, represent the true picture of 2025. Europe’s welfare states need a constant ratio of workers to dependents, a situation that requires immigration due to feminism’s legacy of career before children. The aforementioned UN report suggests that Europe will require 2.2 million immigrants per year, with the majority coming from Muslim countries. When these extra 28 million immigrants are taken into account the figures look as follows.

Year 2025 - Males Aged 20-40

Non-Muslim European Population:		53.4 Million
Muslim Population:		10.1 Million 2
Ratio:		5:1

As these numbers slowly change the character of Europe, many Europeans will simply pack up and leave, a situation occurring already in unprecedented numbers in countries such as Holland which has a 6% Muslim population, one of the highest in Western Europe. According to the Telegraaf an estimated 121,000 native Dutch emigrated in 2006 compared to only 30,000 in 1999. The demographic profile of these emigrants was well educated, 35-44 with good incomes. Their exodus represents a massive 4.5% of their entire age group. In one year.

In Britain, with a lower Muslim percentage but a higher incidence of terrorist activity, more than one in two wish to emigrate. So, to take an overly conservative figure of emigration amongst 20-40 year olds running at a mere 1% per annum, the figures would look as follows.

Year 2025 - Males Aged 20-40

Non-Muslim European Population:		44.6 Million
Muslim Population:		10.1 Million
Ratio:		4:1

In the event of civil war erupting, does anyone seriously think that Turkey would remain on the sidelines? By 2025 there will be some 12 millionTurkish males of fighting age. They will probably be part of the European Union well before then, but, if not, it is unlikely that the necessity of a visa will stop them from crossing the border in aid of their fellow Muslims. Should this transpire, the figures are as follows:

Year 2025 - Males Aged 20-40

Non-Muslim Population:		44.6 million
Muslim population:		22.1 million
Ratio:		2:1

Third world immigration into Europe is quite possibly an issue that politically correct Europeans will grudgingly accept; the Islamification of Europe is another matter entirely and I have seen nothing in the rhetoric or physical actions of European Muslims to suggest this is not their aim. Europeans will not allow this to happen, the politicians in suits will find themselves usurped by the men in the streets. This is why these numbers are so important.

And these numbers are probably worse than I suggest here. As events unfold, the 1% trickle of European emigration I cite could well turn into a flood. Daniel Pipes considers an exodus of the bourgeoisie to be a distinct possibility. Also, I am not a demographer³, so I have no idea how to factor in the children of the millions of immigrants predicted to arrive year on year through to 2050. In addition, the majority of immigration is likely to be made up 20-40 year olds, so the 15% figure of their total between now and 2025 could be only half of the true number.

Finally, what statistical advantage do fanatics prepared to die for their cause have over post-Christian Europeans? Unless things change, Europe will find itself with a mere 2:1 advantage within 18 years, and a 5:1 advantage within the next ten. I wouldn’t like odds of 5:1 let alone 2:1, and the argument that moderate Muslims will not become involved is specious; once a few tit for tat atrocities are committed, everybody will be forced to take sides.

The ramifications of these figures will deeply affect Europe over the next ten years, which I will discuss in part two of this article.

© Paul Weston 2007


Note ¹: The US Census population pyramids suggest countries with high birth rates — i.e. Muslim — are made up of 23% male 0-19 year olds, and 15% male 20-39 year olds. These are the percentages used for this article in the regrettable absence of census figures.

Note ²: I have taken the immigration rate as being 70% Islamic, and used 15% of this figure to arrive at the number of males aged 20-40.

Note ³: I am neither a demographer nor mathematician. Due to this, there are slight inconsistencies in the table accompanying this article, although they do not affect the overall figures. One example is my use of 20-40 year olds rather than 18-40 year olds, purely as an ease of projection. Should there be any professional demographers reading this, perhaps they could build a spreadsheet acceptable to scholars. These figures need to be in the public domain and discussed at the highest level.

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Vigilant Freedom at Ground Zero

The United American Committee has organized the second annual “Rally Against Islamofascism Day” in various places across the country today.

The primary location is at Ground Zero in New York City. Christine of Vigilant Freedom (a.k.a. the 910 Group) has been invited by UAC to give a speech there, and is probably delivering it right about now.

I just talked to her on the phone. She says it’s chilly and breezy, but she’s prepared to go out there and rouse the crowd. She sent me an advance copy of what she’s going to say:

I’m with Vigilant Freedom, home of the citizens network 910 Group — members in 41 states and over 20 countries, working to protect liberty, oppose sharia and counter jihad — vigilantfreedom.org. You’ve come here today because you are vigilant in defending our freedoms, and I want you to know that groups around the world are working for those same goals, against Islamist Imperialism in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Groups like Svenska Forum mot Islamisering in Sweden, Akte Islam and Ulfkotte’s new party in Germany, SIAD in Denmark, Liberté Vox in France — wear a blue scarf to support those resisting Islamification in France — Vlaams Blok in Belgium, in Southeast Asia Aburrahman Wahid and Nadhlatul Ulama in Indonesia, and here in the US we have our own interfaith groups working against Islamofascism, from the American Islamic Forum for Democracy to the signers of the Secular Islam Summit St. Petersburg declaration of March 5th.

Even as we meet, in London our British Vigilant Freedom Coalition is leading a rally to free the fifteen sailors and Marines kidnapped by the Iranian Republic Guard — we are putting feet on the street now. Citizens in Europe, Asia, Africa are saying: Enough! The paralysis of political correctness is slowly leaving the body politic, and we are learning that we can fight back against the Islamist attacks on our liberties that include lawsuits, anti-free speech legislation, bills to criminalize counter-terrorism like ERPA, the endless demands for supremacy of Islam over all other religions in our schools and communities. We offer equality to all, but supremacy to none.

We are awakening from this paralysis and we are resisting, a citizen’s Anti-Islamist international coalition. We are developing a credible platform of common positions to define what are our shared terms of victory over radical Islamists. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are global, networked, financed, distributed and organized, and they’re in it for the long term — and we who oppose them must be all those things and more to win the fight to protect all people’s liberties worldwide.

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We are building coalitions, and grassroots volunteers and leaders are joining up faster than we ever imagined — our biggest problem is handling our rate of growth . Ordinary people — without Saudi millions or UAE millions — who find in themselves the power to begin resisting Islamist pressures in their local communities and legislatures. Liberal Muslims — and they deserve our support when they speak up, because they are the first target of bullying from the Islamofascist lobby — and every other religion and political party. Organizing, tracking legislation, researching the opposition, doing the work of resistance. The world’s citizens see their liberties under attack by Islamist Imperialism. Some countries are close to being occupied by Wahhabism, and we are resisting that occupation and Islamist supremacism. We think our constitutions are just fine, thank you, without the addition of fundamentalist sharia law, much less without deferring to sharia.

Daniel Pipes’ words for the U.S. could apply to any of our countries in this international coalition: “Islam in America must be American Islam or it will not be integrated; there can be no place for an Islam in America that functions as a seditious conspiracy aimed at wiping out American values and undermining interfaith civility.”

If you awake and if you resist you will be called an Islamophobe, a racist, a bigot, a hate-monger, and that’s just the start of it. But “Islamophobe” is yesterday’s term to try to marginalize anyone who would defend the constitutions of their nations — CAIR is behind the curve, wrong on two counts. First, a phobia is an unreasoning fear, and we are eminently reasonable — it’s the Western tradition of reason, science, the enlightenment and the indivisible rights of the individual that we defend and want to share. Secondly, the world certainly fears the political ideology of Islamofascism and Islamic Imperialism and its global agenda of tyranny and terrorism, but we are beyond the paralysis of fear — we are too busy working to resist now to have time or patience for fear.

Why do CAIR and the other groups dwell so endlessly on Islamophobia? They desperately need to spread the lie that all fear them, because without the illusion that they cause fear they are powerless. Take away the bully’s ability to sow fear and you leave him, whining, alone in the playground. If we resist, the millions of Wahhabi from Saudi Arabia and the UAE invested in replacing our constitutional liberties with sharia law will turn out to be the Enron of geopolitics — petrodollars down the drain. If we resist, they get no return on their investment. As Reagan said: “Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.”

So join UAC and vigilantfreedom.org and any other group you can find that defends our freedoms. No other issue will matter if we lose this one, for we will lose our political and civil freedoms if we are not vigilant in defending them.

Volunteer, work on legislation, become a researcher, help with administration, donate if you can — the need for funding to counter the Saudi and UAE millions is serious — give us your time if you can, your ideas, your prayers. We are all awake now, and we are all resisting. Take care, all of you — stay vigilant, and stay free.

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Fatalism and the Loss of Western Cultural Confidence

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.


On my essay about glossocracy, the government of the word, by the word and for the word, reader kepiblanc suggested that the Western culture of self-destruction should be called seppukultur, from the Japanese word “seppuku,” the ritual suicide by disembowelment which was a part of the Samurai code of conduct, more commonly known as hara-kiri. I find the word intriguing, but it isn’t entirely accurate. What modern Westerners are doing is eradicating their own culture. This concept would never have occurred to Japanese who followed bushido teachings. Those who committed seppuku did so precisely out of a deep commitment to their traditions. For good or bad, the Japanese always have been fiercely attached to their culture, which is why they have largely remained insulated to the onslaught of Western Multiculturalism.

Right-wingers can be very short-sighted when it comes to mass immigration, and even so-called “conservatives” keep parroting the “Islam is peace” mantra. And although conservatives will complain about left-wingers, at least Leftists are committed to their cause and more determined to get into positions of influence. However, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the most eager allies Muslims find in the West tend to be among the hard-Left groups. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see some of them actively side with Muslims against their own people if there ever is a genuine physical battle.

There is an aggressive anti-Western impulse in certain segments of the Western Left which is rare among right-wingers. When they break down the “oppressive” nuclear family in the West yet downplay barbaric violence in Muslim families they are being entirely consistent: Their primary goal was never about freedom, it was about destroying the West. This creates fissures between the left-wingers who actually believe their own rhetoric — and some of them do — and between those who always knew it was just a pretext for something else.

According to journalist Ian Buruma, Tariq Ramadan prefers “Islamic socialism, which is neither socialist, nor capitalist, but a third way.” The tyranny to be resisted is “the northern model of development.” Global capitalism is the ‘abode of war,’ for “when faced with neoliberal economics, the message of Islam offers no way out but resistance.” This kind of rhetoric appeals to segments of the Western Left, and Mr. Ramadan knows this.

I’m not claiming that everyone left of the political centre actively seek the destruction of Western civilization. I once belonged to the political Left myself, and I was simply naïve because I had grown up in a sheltered environment in a peaceful country. I can understand those who initially didn’t grasp the sheer magnitude of the forces at work and didn’t foresee how the tiny trickle in the beginning would turn into the vast migration deluge that is swamping the West.

What I find difficult to understand is how people can, even now, with Islamic barbarism and terror attacks spreading across the European continent, continue so stubbornly to claim that mass immigration is good and that all those claiming otherwise are “racists.” We have unfortunately an almost infinite ability to fool ourselves into believing whatever we want to believe, especially if the truth seems troublesome. Moreover, many observers can be shockingly indifferent to the sufferings of actual people as long as they are focusing on the “greater good.”

According to Russian author Vladimir Sorokin, “The word ‘people’ is unpleasant to me. The phrase ‘Soviet people’ was drummed into us from childhood on. I love concrete people, enlightened people who live conscious lives and do not simply sit there and vegetate. To love the people you have to be the general secretary of the Communist Party or an absolute dictator. The poet Josef Brodsky once said: The trees are more important to me than the forest.”

Theodore Dalrymple writes about how George Orwell, because of books such as Animal Farm and 1984, has been made into an “honorary conservative.” However, his 1938 book Homage to Catalonia about the Spanish Civil War gives a different impression of the man:

“‘Churches were wrecked and the priests driven out or killed’: the only regret that Orwell expresses is that it allowed Franco to represent himself to readers of the Daily Mail as “a patriot delivering his country from hordes of fiendish ‘Reds.’” Orwell continues: “For the first time since I had been in Barcelona I went to look at the Sagrada Familia… Unlike most of the churches in Barcelona, it was not damaged during the Revolution — it was spared because of its ‘artistic value,’ people said.. I think the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up when they had the chance.”

Orwell states that “In six months in Spain I saw only two undamaged churches.” According to Dalrymple, George Orwell, a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist,” was a “fundamentally decent man blinded by abstract ideas: He never really asked the right question, which is not whether there could be democratic socialism (clearly there can be, in the one-man-one-vote sense), but whether socialism is compatible with freedom.”


Many of us associate the Spanish Civil War with Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica, and were taught that the “bad guys” won the war. But if the “good guys” were killing priests and blowing up churches, maybe the truth is slightly more complicated than that. Dalrymple points out that Orwell’s anti-totalitarian books did far more good than Homage to Catalonia did damage. 1984 circulated clandestinely in the Communist dictatorship of Romania, where people were amazed to see how a Western writer could so accurately portray their own reality. However, Orwell should also serve as a chilling reminder of how even good men can become blinded by ideology.
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The philosopher Kai Sørlander explains that when optimists don’t see any serious problem arising from mass immigration of people from alien cultures, this is partly because they assume that man by nature is good. To the pessimists — some would say realists — man by nature isn’t good, he is combative, and has the potential to do both good and evil. Cultural education is necessary to bring out his good qualities and suppress his potential for evil. For the optimists, the pessimists appear to be dangerous because they do not believe in the goodness of man. However, Mr. Sørlander notes that where the optimists portray the pessimists as xenophobic and thus evil, the pessimists only makes the optimists naïve. The demonization is one-way.

It is indeed striking how venomous many Multiculturalists are whenever any Westerner stands up for his country. Oriana Fallaci was hated by parts of the Italian Left during the final years of her life. I have seen cartoons in Denmark depicting the leader of the Danish People’s Party, Pia Kjærsgaard, who has been pushing for stricter immigration policies, as a rat, a vulture etc. Years of such dehumanization will eventually lead to physical attacks. Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands was murdered following similar treatment by the media.

The idea that human beings are by nature good leads to viewing criminals as suffering from some kind of disease that can be corrected by treatment. If a person does something bad, this is because he has suffered some form of “injustice.” The same logic is extended to Islamic terrorists.

The tabula rasa or “clean slate” view of humans has been shared by good men such John Locke. As a non-Christian, I too do not believe that human beings in general are born sinful. However, the idea can be dangerous if combined with massive state indoctrination.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau said that: “The state should be capable of transforming every individual into part of the greater whole from which he, in a manner, gets his life and being; of altering man’s constitution for the purpose of strengthening it. [It should be able] to take from the man his own resources and give him instead new ones alien to him and incapable of being made use of without the help of others. The more completely these inherited resources are annihilated, the greater and more lasting are those which he acquires.”

It is this lethal cocktail of the “noble savage” idea and state indoctrination that led via Maximilien Robespierre to modern totalitarian states. I believe the contradiction between Leftists not viewing terrorists as evil, but considering ideological opponents to be evil, can be explained if we postulate that they think that criminals haven’t received proper ideological guidance, whereas political opponents have rejected their ideological indoctrination and are thus considered a threat.

According to Paul Gottfried and his book The Strange Death of Marxism, the so-called cultural Marxism of Antonio Gramsci and others means the death of Marxism, because Marxism is an economic theory. Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal disagrees and thinks that we should call it “the transformation of Marxism.” Personally, I agree with Belien, and believe there is still enough shared DNA to label it Marxism, although I do recognize that there have been some mutations.

Critics state that there is no centralized conspiracy pushing Gramscian views ahead. No, but we should think of it as the Leftist version of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” described in The Wealth of Nations: It’s a spontaneous cooperation between various groups with a shared goal. As examples, the display of the national flag has been denounced as “xenophobic” in Sweden and the United States, Australia and the Netherlands. Was this part of a grand, centralized conspiracy, a Gramscintern? No. But that doesn’t change the fact that the end results were remarkably similar.

Political Correctness, of which Multiculturalism is a core component, has many of the hallmarks of a totalitarian ideology: ideological punishment for newly invented crimes, which creates a climate of fear, public propaganda campaigns as well as a gross perversion of language. Research and media coverage are tailored to suit the ruling ideology, inappropriate questions are not asked, “wrong” answers are suppressed. Since the ideology is logically incoherent, it can only be enforced through repressive means: We’re supposed to celebrate our differences at the same time as it is taboo to say that any differences exist.

Like all totalitarian ideologies, Multiculturalism needs a Villain Class, a group of evil oppressors that can be blamed for all the ills of society. If the ruling ideology falls somewhat short of producing the Perfect Society it has promised, this will be followed by even more passionate attacks on the Villain Class, be that the Jews, the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, etc. The Villain Class of Multiculturalism seems to be white people and Western culture. Any problems will automatically be blamed on “white racism,” which will ensue more state enforced “equality” and suppression of free speech.

According to columnist Leo McKinstry, the white working class is the one ethnic group that it is perfectly acceptable to insult. In his book The Likes of Us: A History of the White Working Class, author Michael Collins recalled coming across a municipal leaflet in a library in south London, listing every group that had settled in the borough, including Afro-Caribbeans, Somalians and Ethiopians. As he read this, Collins sensed an elderly white man looking over his shoulder. “They don’t mention us English. You wouldn’t think we existed, would you?”

Education Secretary Alan Johnson from the British Labour Party has stated that children will be taught race relations and multiculturalism with every subject. In science, key Muslim contributions such algebra will be emphasized to counter Islamophobia. Pupils could also be tested on their attitudes to diversity. Tory MP Douglas Carswell warned that schools would become vehicles for left-wing propaganda and classrooms turned into “laboratories for politically-correct thought.”

This was due to recommendations by former headmaster Sir Keith Ajegbo. Ajegbo also said that resources need to be put into providing education about the benefits of diversity to white pupils, citing an example of a white pupil who, after hearing in a lesson that other members of her class originally came from the Congo, Trinidad and Poland, said that she “came from nowhere.”

But since the goal of Multiculturalism is not just to demographically and culturally eradicate Western civilization, but to erase any memory that it has ever existed, when this English pupil says she comes from nowhere, she is merely parroting what her education system tells her.

According to the West Indian writer V. S. Naipaul, “[Islam] has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say ‘my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn’t matter.’” It is striking to notice that this is exactly what is going on in the West. When Muslims enter our lands, they thus discover that much of their work has already been done for them by Western Multiculturalists.

What’s really amazing is that the people who do this get away with claiming to have a monopoly on good. I believe it’s because they claim to champion “equality,” and if they champion equality, this means that everybody who disagrees with them champions inequality, which is almost the same as racism and discrimination. As Observer columnist Nick Cohen writes, “To be good you had to be on the left.” The problem is, as Hayek has so eloquently pointed out, there’s a world of difference between equality and equality before the law, since absolute equality in all walks of life can only be enforced by a government with totalitarian powers.

In Norway, Government Minister Karita Bekkemellem says that female directors must make up at least 40 percent of all new shareholder-owned companies’ boards of directors. “This is all about sharing power and influence and it is intervention in private ownership, but it was overdue.” Violation of the new rules will be penalized with forced dissolution of the company.

We now get enforced quotas between the sexes, and among various ethnic, religious and racial groups, an idea so radical that it was abandoned even in Communist dictatorships. Communism, the idea of forced economic equality, has been replaced by Multiculturalism, the idea of forced cultural, religious, racial and gender equality. As a result, the supposedly prosperous and free West will end up being decidedly less prosperous and significantly less free.

The next step in the equality drive will lead to extend human rights to animals. According to author Joan Dunayer, “It’s speciesist to deny anyone equal consideration either because they aren’t human or because they aren’t human-like. Nonspeciesists advocate equally strong basic rights—for example, to life and liberty—for all sentient beings. Just as the concepts of sexism and racism have been vitally important to advancing human rights, the concept of speciesism is vitally important to advancing nonhuman rights.”

Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero’s Socialist Party has made attempts to grant human rights to apes.

The Dutch Party for Animals, PvdD, has forbidden the laying of poison to deal with a mouse infestation in its parliamentary offices. Its leader Marianne Thieme says, “Should there ever be a mouse plague, we would wish to combat it using traps that keep the mice alive.”

According to David Green’s book We’re (Nearly) All Victims Now!, victimhood is sought after because of the advantages it brings: “Group self-interest includes not only material benefits but also emotional pleasures such as righteous indignation and exerting power over others. Demands to be able to subject opponents to police action are perhaps the strongest examples of the latter.” The victim is the sole judge of when language is offensive.

The “oppressed” groups constantly change the words that are deemed offensive. That way they can keep potential offenders on their toes, always afraid of uttering, or even thinking, a word that could be deemed insensitive. This is combined with a culture where the most important thing is whether what you do “feels” good. According to writer Mikael Jalving, we have become “seduced” by goodness. He warns that we have to be judged according to the result of our actions, not their intentions, and that a precondition for freedom is the exercise of power. It is tempting to add that this emotional culture is a result of the excessive feminization of society. Everything that smacks of traditional masculinity, such as enforcing rules by force, is viewed as “Fascist.” Tolerance has become a goodness dope, an extension of our pleasure seeking culture, just another drug intended to make you feel good about yourself.

I have heard non-Europeans say that the ongoing colonization by immigration of Western Europe is a fitting punishment for the colonial era. It’s called karma in Eastern religions. However, Norway, which never had a colonial history, has immigrants from all over the world. The Netherlands had colonies in Indonesia, but there is not now a majority of people of Dutch descent in major Indonesian cities, whereas native Dutch will soon be a minority in most of their cities. It is also difficult to see what Moroccans, a large immigrant group in Holland, have to do with Dutch colonial history. The Germans were a colonial power in places such as Namibia. It is unclear why they should have an obligation to accept millions of Turks because of this.

The truth is that there is frequently no direct correlation between past colonial history and present mass immigration. Europeans have a right to resist colonization, too. There is no other place in the world where the indigenous population are supposed to celebrate their own colonization and get punished by their government if they fail to comply with this.

The waves of migration that the Western world is faced with now are far, far greater in scope and speed than those who brought down the Roman Empire. At least 2.2 million migrants will arrive in the West every year until 2050, according to a United Nations report from March 2007. The world’s population could reach 9.2 billions.

It is striking that it appears to be taken for granted by the UN that we will sit back, bleed to death and accept all these millions to flood our countries. It is presented like a natural disaster, as if the massive population growth cannot be stopped by the nations in question, and the ensuing migration cannot be limited by Western countries. But both these assumptions are wrong. Westerners should not and cannot take responsibility for billions of people in other parts of the world. They will have to limit their population growth to a sustainable level. We have already accepted more immigration peacefully than any other society has done in human history.

There is a significant element of blackmail here. I remember a group of African leaders telling the European Union that they needed to get huge amounts of money to limit mass migration from their countries, which is indirectly an admission that they can control this if they want to.

Many Westerners watch with resigned fatalism as we are told by our leaders and our media that this is “inevitable.” But nothing is inevitable. Our societies will collapse if this continues, yet we are supposed to be quiet bystanders to our own demise. Right-wingers tell us that it will be “good for the economy,” and left-wingers attack us for “racism and discrimination” if we desire our continued existence.

At Lawrence Auster’s blog, an Indian living in the West writes:

They say that all ‘rich nations’ will face mass immigration. But, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and even Malaysia are also rich nations. Immigration to those countries is close to zero. I think that immigration is matter of government policy and national will. If the will is there, you can have zero immigration or limited immigration. But there isn’t the will to do anything about immigration in the West. Instead they sit and wring their hands. (…) If there was ever a picture of a society that has been completely finished, this is it. You don’t have to discriminate on racial grounds or religious grounds, just reduce the annual quota to 1000 or 10000. Nothing illiberal about that. But they cannot contemplate even that! Westerners amuse me. Even the worst cowards in the so-called ‘third world’ have more spine than this.

We seem to have lost our willpower. Why? Maybe some of those traits which previously used to be our greatest assets, such as our respect for women, for human rights, individual freedom and for openness to outsiders have been carried into such extremes that they have become liabilities. Perhaps even initially good ideas can turn bad if practiced without moderation. The key word, which we seem to have forgotten, is “balance.” According to a conservative Swedish friend of mine, many of the seemingly crazy excesses now on display are not so much a perversion of Western civilization as a fulfilment of it. What has happened is that Westerners have carried many of the seeds of our culture into their theoretical (and extreme) limits. This has left us confused; we have fulfilled our civilizational mission, and don’t know what to do next.

Besides, when your entire world view is fundamentally out of tune with reality, you are bound to display some irrational behavior. Too many Westerners are still mentally stuck in an age when the West was globally dominant. Many left-wingers thus tend to explain the shortcomings of other regions of the world by Western oppression. Other groups believe we have near unlimited resources, that we are invulnerable and can absorb any number of immigrants to our countries.

But the West’s dominant position is not just coming to a certain end, it ended a while ago. We shouldn’t think of this as “decline,” rather as a return to normality and as an opportunity for a return to Western sanity. If it is true that some left-wingers attack us for being a “global oppressive class,” it is conceivable that their most aggressive anti-Western behavior will subside once it becomes apparent to everybody that the West simply isn’t powerful enough to oppress the rest of the world.

Western civilization has been the first civilization in human history whose influence has penetrated every single corner of the planet, from Greenland to New Zealand. That a single civilization has been so globally dominant is unprecedented, and may never happen again. Besides, critics are probably right that it is immoral for a minority to run so much of global affairs.

We may at best retain a position as a first among equals. However, even this is far from certain. We live in a world demographically — and perhaps soon economically — dominated by Asia. Russians look after Russian interests, Chinese after Chinese interests, Indians after Indian interests, etc. Only Westerners are still supposed to worry about global interests. We should stop trying to save others and start saving ourselves, while we still can.. Only by letting go of illusions of hegemony can we regain our sanity. The sooner we realize that, the better are our chances. We should use this situation as an opportunity to regenerate and define a new civilizational mission dedicated to our own survival. If cultural confusion and a lack of hope for the future is a primary cause of our low birth rates, it is likely that a new sense of cultural confidence will lead to a significant rise in the same birth rates.

The battle for Western hegemony is already over. The battle for Western survival is about to begin.

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Humpty Dumpty is in Charge of EU Translations

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone. “It means just what I choose it to mean — neither more or less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”

                  — Lewis Carroll, from Alice in Wonderland

Humpty Dumpty is definitely the master of official European Union public discourse. As I mentioned in my previous post, words — in the service of multicultural ideals — have assumed a new fluidity and flexibility in Brussels.

And now Humpty Dumpty has taken on a new job as the official translator of EU documents. This is from an article in the BBC:

EU effusion ‘lost in translation’

Sharp-eyed professors have spotted what they say is evidence of “political translation” of the EU’s Berlin Declaration, agreed at the weekend.

Both the Danish and English versions downplay the emotional language of the original German, they say.

Instead of saying that the EU member states are united in “happiness”, they say that they have united “for the better”, or “for the best”.

An EU spokesman said the texts had been agreed by the national governments.

“We, the citizens in the European Union, are united zu unserem Gluck “, the German-language version of the declaration reads. The phrase can be rendered in English as “united in our fortune/happiness”.

By contrast, the English-language version reads: “We, the citizens of the European Union, have united for the better”.

While in the Danish version, the word “Gluck” has been replaced with “‘vor faelles bedste” meaning “for the best”.

Gushing terms

Professor Henning Koch from Copenhagen University told the Danish paper Politiken the low-key translation could be no coincidence.

“It would come as a big surprise to me if the translators are bad at German. So then it’s a political translation,” he said.

It’s no secret that public opinion in Britain and Denmark is, at best, tepid about the European experiment. The French voted non to the EU Constitution as well — I wonder what their translation looks like…?

Professor Rudinger Gorner, head of the German department at Queen Mary, University of London… said there was also a subtle difference in that the English version “suggests something happening in the future”.

“Yet again, it’s an attempt on this side to downplay things wherever possible.”

Forbidden words… doctored translations… a soft blanket covering the media…

As Fjordman has said, it’s “Glossocracy”.


Hat tip: Kepiblanc.

[Nothing follows]

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The Same Old Snake Oil from the EU

We all know that Europe is descending into a sort of politically correct mass insanity. That’s been evident for quite a while.

This morning a reader in Britain has brought to our attention an article from today’s online Telegraph which demonstrates that the slide into multicultural madness is in fact accelerating.

First, the note from our reader. She says, in part:

Essentially, the EU has issued a diktat that the words “Islam,” “jihad,” and “terrorism” are not to be used in news coverage together and that terrorists should be referred to as “abusing Islam.”

I had personal experience of this two days ago when my comments (and the entire page full of comments) on Islam were removed from a news article in the Telegraph. That was the first time in my experience of that paper in my decades’ worth of reading and writing to the paper which has published both my Letters and comments several times, usually on Islam.

It is a very dire turning point for Europe. I think your readers should know of this…

I read the latest report of the religious freedom act. I think that reporter is naive. The danger is real, everywhere. If people are kept ignorant of the core and evil doctrines of Islam, they will not be able to appreciate that Islam is antithetical, in every respect, to our beliefs, values and laws, as Americans and as predominantly Judaeo-Christians. (Lest you think I am too intense on that last reference, we have several Hindu friends, my husband’s family having served in India during the Raj, and for decades we have been warned by them that it was sheer madness on the British part to allow Moslems into Britain in such numbers. They are having huge problems in India now with Moslems. Not for nothing was it called the Hindu Kush — slaughter of the Hindus. You may also find it interesting that these same Hindu friends, whose accents and vocabulary are a joy to hear, have said to us frequently that “You British will never rule anywhere, again, least of all over yourselves — because you have lost your love of the English language.”)

And now let’s hear from the gibbering lunatics of the EU:

Don’t confuse terrorism with Islam, says EU

The European Union has drawn up guidelines advising government spokesmen to refrain from linking Islam and terrorism in their statements.

Brussels officials have confirmed the existence of a classified handbook which offers “non-offensive” phrases to use when announcing anti-terrorist operations or dealing with terrorist attacks.

Banned terms are said to include “jihad”, “Islamic” or “fundamentalist”.

The word “jihad” is to be avoided altogether, according to some sources, because for Muslims the word can mean a personal struggle to live a moral life.

One alternative, suggested publicly last year, is for the term “Islamic terrorism” to be replaced by “terrorists who abusively invoke Islam”.

I’ve got an another suggestion: “individuals of differing cultural values who choose violence as a personal lifestyle.”
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An EU official said that the secret guidebook, or, “common lexicon”, is aimed at preventing the distortion of the Muslim faith and the alienation of Muslims in Europe.

This is truly Newspeak, to call a manual of guidelines for censorship a “common lexicon”.

“The common lexicon includes guidance on a number of frequently used terms where lack of care by EU and member states’ spokespeople may give rise to misunderstandings,” he said.

“Careful usage of certain terms is not about empty political correctness but stems from astute awareness of the EU’s interests in the fight against terrorism.

“Terrorists exploit and augment suspicions.”

Aha! Now I understand the solution. If we quit being suspicious, the terrorists will stop bombing and beheading us. That’s only common sense, right?

“Ahmed! Defuse that bomb. The kuffar are no longer suspicious. Now at last we can forget about jihad!”

Details on the contents of the lexicon remain secret, but British officials stressed that it is there as a helpful aid “providing context” for civil servants making speeches or giving press conferences.

“We are fully signed up to this, but it is not binding,” said one.

The guidelines are secret. Why are they secret? Surely the enlightened European populace is in broad support of their leaders’ efforts…?

I feel compelled to quote Catch-22 again:

“They don’t have to show us Catch-22,” the old woman answered. “The law says they don’t have to.”

“What law says they don’t have to?”

“Catch-22.”

Not everyone has lost his mind, however:

However, Conservative MEP Syed Kamall hit out at the lexicon. “It is this kind of political correctness and secrecy that creates resentment among both the mainstream in Europe and in Islam,” he said.

Meanwhile, UK Independence Party MEP Gerard Batten claimed that the EU was in denial over the true roots of terrorism.

“This type of newspeak shows that the EU refuses to face reality,” he said. “The major world terrorist threat is one posed by ideology and that ideology is inspired by fundamentalist jihadi Islam.”

Notice that one of the voices of reason quoted above is — based on his name — “a brown person”. One of those multicultural chaps. What’s wrong with him? Why doesn’t he get with the programme?

This whole fiasco is so absurd, so ludicrous, that it would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high. People are actually going to die because of the EU’s lunatic policies. Dozens, hundreds, thousands — who knows? But real people will eventually lose their lives because of this tendentious nonsense.

The soft-spoken and well-dressed inmates are now in charge of the EU asylum.

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The Crossed Pond Reports From Kansas City

The blogger Rojas of The Crossed Pond heeded my call for volunteers, and went to the First Freedom seminar in Kansas City today.

He has written a lengthy and informative report, “The Kansas City First Freedom Seminar, or How I Stopped the Jihad”. I’ll just excerpt a few pieces of it here.

I did in fact attend the event. As a result, you will have noticed, the US was not transformed today into a brutal Islamic dictatorship writhing in the vice-like grip of Shar’i’a law.

So, clearly, I succeeded.

A brief note before a somewhat snarky post: I do in fact regard the global Islamist movement, and the attempts by some western nations to accomodate it, as a substantial threat to western liberty; Brad and Adam will be familiar with my ravings at another site regarding the affair of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. I did, however, enter this event somewhat skeptical of the thesis that Alberto Gonzales’s cabinet department was being overrun by advocates of submission to Allah’s will, and none of what I saw today changed my mind. The DOJ representatives present were all well-informed on the issues and seemed considerably more interested in informing the audience about the details of civil rights law pertaining to religious practice than in advocating any kind of agenda regarding reform of the law. Indeed, when invited specifically to comment upon the hate crimes legislation currently before Congress, the panel declined in toto to express an opinion. As Eric Treene, the DOJ’s Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination commented, “we’re attorneys in law enforcement and do not comment on pending legislation.”

He seems to think we were overreacting in our alarm about this seminar, and perhaps we were. But it’s always better to be too alarmed than not alarmed enough!

There have been concerns expressed in a variety of fora (including the GoV link above) that agencies such as the Council of American-Islamic Relations have been attempting to coopt the First Freedom agenda in order to cast aspersions upon legitimate criticisms of Islam. I have to say that I saw very, very little indication of that. The closest instance came near the end of the presentation, when a group of DOJ community relations specialist distributed a “Quiz on Muslims and Islam” authored by the Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force (now known as SALDEF.) As an educator, it’s not hard for me to identify when a “quiz” is intended to re-educate its takers about a subject, and this was certainly such a quiz. As re-education efforts go, though, this was not a particularly pernicious one. I don’t think that pointing out, for instance, that Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation, can be considered to be part of an effort to force Americans to accomodate a radical Islamic agenda. The entire enterprise came off as more patronizing than misleading. Nor, to my knowledge, is SALDEF an organization that makes excuses for terrorist actions, as could be said of CAIR. In fact, I’d argue that Sikhs have had it pretty rough since 9/11, as they are among the most easily identifiable practicitioners of Islam, yet practice a school of thought that is specifically divorced from Wahabi ideology and which is historically no more inclined to terrorist tactics than any Christian denomination you’d care to name (the Indira Gandhi business being a prominent but atypical example).

Just a minor correction here: the Sikh religion is not a form of Islam; it is a reaction to Islam, a response of the indigenous population of the Indian subcontinent to the Moghul conquests.
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Another complaint that has been raised regarding the “First Freedom” project is that it seems to subordinate speech rights to those of religious practice; the tone of the discussion in the blogosphere suggests concern that this might indicate a trend to criminalize criticism of religion. To some extent the rhetoric of the First Freedom folks has lent credence to this concern; the opening remarks of Mr. Treene dwelt uncomfortably on the point that the framers of the constitution chose to list freedom of religious practice BEFORE the freedom of speech when writing the first amendment (hence “First Freedom”). When this point came into question, however-by a bearded, emphatic, Madison-quoting audience member who bore a stunning resemblence to former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop-the panel was quick to clarify that the “first” designation was for rhetorical purposes only.

Be that as it may, the DOJ’s expressed positions on the issues discussed did at times strike me as potentially dangerous to speech…

What was particularly interesting was Kappelhoff’s discussion of federalism concerns related to hate-crimes legislation. In discussion of the Church Arson Prevention Act (18 USC 247), Kappelhoff acknowledged that the act explicitly required that the offenses in question have an affect on interstate commerce. In his words, however, DOJ attorneys “have become very creative in our ways of establishing an affect on interstate commerce” in order to justify their prosecutions. I am not comforted by the idea that federal prosecutors consider it part of their job to make end-runs around the written intent of the legislation they are asked to enforce, particularly when the effort is a deliberate attempt to federalize what might legitimately be considered a state issue. I am still less comforted by the fact that said attorneys take pride in celebrating this practice at public seminars. One need not sympathize with hate groups to feel uncomfortable about the prospect of the government’s prosecutorial tactics coming untethered from the law.

Exactly.

Apparently, I was not alone in my concern with the strident tone of the government’s representatives regarding hate crimes. When commenter Bev Ehlen expressed the concern that “we should prosecute the crime itself, not the motive,” she recieved loud applause throughout the room. It should be noted that the panelists themselves were quick to agree with her sentiment. It may well be that the somewhat heated rhetoric of the attorneys in question is not indicative of their approach to prosecution. We should hope so.

But Rojas is sanguine about the overall thrust of the DOJ’s efforts:

On the whole, and despite the concerns listed above, I came away with the impression that the First Freedom project is on balance a pretty good idea; certainly it isn’t some kind of fifth column for madcap Islamism. In fact, I’m inclined to think that more liberals than conservatives would object; the whole process struck me as an attempt to expand appreciation for the free exercise clause of the first amendment, which is generally something of which conservatives tend to approve.

If that’s all that it is, then I will withdraw my alarm, and rest content with the efforts of our Department of Justice.

Be that as it may, though: I want it noted that when Kansas City needed counterjihad volunteers, it was ME that stemmed the advancing tide, damnit. The way I figure it, that makes me the new Charles Martel.

You people owe me. Big time.

OK, OK, Chuck! Do you want that in twenties or fifties?

Go over to The Crossed Pond and read the rest.

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Swedish Security

The Swedish Security Service (Säkerhetspolisen) launched a very slick, professional-looking new website on March 26th, with an English-language version as well as a Swedish one. If you go to the publications page and follow the links, you’ll find a series of pdf documents on various topics.


The latest annual report for the Security Service is from 2005, and can be found in pdf format here. It’s an expensively-produced and visually appealing PR sheet, but it’s also an interesting read.

As you would expect — it is Sweden, after all — there’s a lot of emphasis on the dangers from right-wing nationalist and crypto-fascist groups. But the report also talks about left-wing extremists and other security threats against Sweden.

The most interesting thing, however, is what Swedish Security has to say about Islamic terrorism:
- - - - - - - - - -

Low level of threat but increased risk of terrorist attacks

The overall level of threat against Sweden is low. There is, however, an increased risk of terror attacks, mainly as concerns foreign interests in Sweden. The intelligence threat from certain foreign powers remains, although, in later years, focus has shifted from military issues to politics and technology. The threat posed by domestic political extremist groups is low, although the tendency towards an escalation of violence is alarming.

New terrorist networks are difficult to detect

The risk of a large terrorist attack in Sweden is limited, whereas the risk of attacks against certain foreign interests in Sweden has increased. There is also a risk that terrorists and their sympathisers conduct supporting activities in Sweden. This threat is posed mainly by Islamist extremist groups.

The Islamist motivated terrorism is currently going through a phase of decentralisation. Up until 11 September 2001, it was characterised by a global and relatively interrelated network structure. Today, it largely consists of regional and more or less independent networks, which makes the work of the security services more difficult. Moreover, there is a clear and dangerous radicalisation in some Islamist circles in Europe as well as in Sweden. There are also persons in Sweden who in various ways support acts of terrorism in other countries, for instance through financing,

Intelligence activities in Sweden

We know that Sweden and Swedish interests are the targets of ongoing intelligence activities. This gathering of intelligence mainly focuses on political issues and advanced technology, including defence technology, The actors engaging in this type of activity in Sweden do so on a broad scale, and work systematically.

The developments in the world, and above all the increased terrorist threat, have entailed a greater need for intelligence. In many countries, intelligence services have been accorded more resources and a broader mandate. In the long run, this may result in more foreign intelligence actors being tempted to conduct illegal operations in Sweden.

It’s encouraging not only that Swedish intelligence is monitoring the Islamist groups, but that it is also willing to discuss the issue publicly. There’s no prescription for solutions — the security service has nothing to say about the decline in the numbers of native Swedes, the population explosion of unemployed and criminal immigrant groups in Sweden’s cities, or the suffocating blanket of multiculturalism and socialism that makes the whole mess possible.

But at least they’re watching it, and talking about it.

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The pdf document linked here was locked for copying, which was very annoying. I had to print the thing and then scan the pages I wanted and run them through the OCR in order to get a working text to quote here.

More and more pdfs seemed to be locked this way. I’m not sure of the purpose — anybody can print and copy the thing, as long as it’s not locked for printing as well.

Maybe they want to discourage people from copying, so that only the dedicated blogging zealot will go to the trouble of posting the text. Good thing I’m a dedicated blogging zealot…


Hat tip: Harry Palmer.

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A Reminder: We Need People in Kansas City Tomorrow

This is a brief recap of last week’s post about the DOJ seminar tomorrow in Kansas City.


The event is called “A First Freedom Project Seminar: Federal Laws Protecting Religious Freedom”. Under that harmless-sounding title, the Department of Justice is providing the opportunity for Muslim groups like ISNA and MPAC to lobby successfully for more stringent anti-profiling legislation and increased federal regulation limiting “hate speech” — i.e., they are putting a bull’s-eye on our First Amendment right to free speech, all in the name of “respect for religion”.

We need volunteers from Kanas City and the Missouri suburban areas to attend this meeting to help counterbalance the Islamist tilt. See my earlier post for more details.

The venue is:

Hyatt Regency Crown Center
Kansas City, Missouri
Thursday, March 29, 2006
9:00 a.m. — noon

Go here for a map.

If you go to the seminar, send a report and I’ll post it here for you.

[Nothing follows]

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Holger, the Guardian of the West

Regular readers know that I have recently become enamored of Holger Danske.

For latecomers: Holger Danske — a.k.a. Holger the Dane — was a semi-mythical Danish hero. He fought against Charles Martel in the early part of the 8th century, but overlooked his differences with the Franks in order to journey south and fight alongside Charles the Hammer in his successful battle against the Saracens.

The Islamic threat from al-Andalus meant more to Holger than his quarrels with his Frankish neighbors, and so he became a hero of the Western World at Poitiers in 732.

That part of his story is recorded in history, but now we come to the myth. According to legend, Holger retired to the old Kronborg castle and entered a twilight sleep in one of its cellars, to awaken only when he was needed by Denmark. Hans Christian Andersen tells the tale:

But the fairest sight of all is the old castle of Kronborg, and under it sits Holger Danske in the deep, dark cellar which no one enters; he is clad in iron and steel and rests his head on his stalwart arm; his long beard hangs down upon the marble table where it has become stuck fast; he sleeps and dreams, but in his dreams he sees everything that comes to pass in Denmark. Every Christmas Eve an angel of God comes to tell him that all he has dreamed is true, and that he may go to back to sleep again, for Denmark is not yet in any danger! but if it should ever come, then old Holger Danske will rouse himself, and the table will break apart as he pulls out his beard! Then he will come forth, and strike a blow that shall be heard throughout all the countries of the world.

As a non-Danish person who only recently learned about Holger’s story, I find him very inspiring, an apt symbol for the dire times ahead.

But not everyone agrees with me. A Danish reader recently sent me an email, part of which is excerpted below:

Dear Baron,

I apologize for not having replied to your latest email. I have some doubts about the use of nationalist imagery such as “Holger Danske,” I believe it causes great damage to the “cause,” which is making counterjihad a mainstream issue. I believe the approach of e.g. Robert Spencer and Lars Hedegaard is far more constructive and likely to gain results.

I wrote him back:

I understand your reservations, and I respect them.

The funny thing is, I don’t find Holger Danske to be a nationalist symbol (though, obviously, the Danes consider him to be one). To me, he is the spirit of the West, a spirit which is awakening in its hour of need, and anyone who cherishes the values of liberty and self-determination can claim Holger as their own.

He’s like the Statue of Liberty. Do you remember the demonstrators in Tinananmen Square in 1989, who built a replica of the Statue of Liberty? They didn’t consider it to be a nationalist symbol of the USA, but used it as an icon representing their struggle for freedom.

And so it is with Holger, who put aside his differences with Charles the Hammer to journey southwards and fight alongside his former enemy against the Saracens in 732.

Holger Danske is a worthy symbol for all of us, and I am happy to have learned about him.

But I don’t blame you for being nervous about him — the recent history of nationalism in Europe has not been pleasant.

One is certainly loath to rouse the ghost of European nationalism. We’ve seen enough of that particular shade to last us several lifetimes.

But why does Holger have to be an exclusively Danish symbol? Why can’t the West claim him as its own, the way the Tiananmen demostrators claimed Lady Liberty?

In researching the images for this post, I wandered into an archive of Tiananmen photos from 1989. It’s been almost eighteen years, but looking at those photographs made it feel like just the other day.

Remember all those inspiring photos on the front pages of the newspapers? The crowds of youthful demonstrators with their signs and their zeal for liberty — it seemed as though China would follow the Soviet Union along the path of reform and glasnost.

But it was not to be. The tanks came in, the movement was crushed, and the Western democracies could only express “grave concern” and then resume business as usual after the appropriate interval of diapproval.
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Watching Tinananmen Square in 1989 was like seeing the tanks stop before they rolled on to Baghdad in 1991, or being a spectator to those American soldiers who were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993. It was something one had to endure; it was necessary for the sake of Realpolitik; but it wasn’t right.

And remember how all those Tiananmen photos stopped after June 4th, 1989? A couple of long-distance views of tanks rolling into the square among the demonstrators, and then that was it. A little outrage here and there, some negative editorials in the Western media, and then down the memory hole with the whole affair. Commerce and diplomacy resumed shortly afterwards.

There were stories of hundreds or thousands of dead students, and of the survivors who were hauled off to the laogai, never to be seen again. But as far as the authoritative media were concerned, those were scarcely more than rumors. Uncorroborated and undocumented.

But they weren’t. That’s what I found out when I encountered the Tiananmen archives. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, all that information is available to anyone who wants to look for it.

None of the more disturbing photos are reproduced here, but the horrors of those few days in June of 1989 are well-documented, as is Auschwitz. They carry a similar impact — all those youngsters, filled with a zeal for liberty, and the horrific and bestial things that were done to them!

Follow the link at your own risk.

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The demonstrators at Tiananmen Square took up Lady Liberty as their symbol. They didn’t think of her as an American nationalist symbol, an icon of United States imperialism. Why should they? She stood for what they didn’t have — the right to speak freely, to live their lives according to their own consciences, and not according to the whims of the Socialist State. They knew that America represented those rights, however imperfectly realized.

Why can’t Holger take on the same universality? Why should the Danes claim sole proprietary rights to such an inspiring figure?

Lady Liberty symbolized freedom to the doomed youth of Tiananmen.

To us, to the besieged people of Western Civilization, Holger Danske represents resistance, the newly awakened spirit that stirs in us when we are threatened by the Demonic Convergence of socialism, nihilistic postmodernism, and Islamic fascism.

Holger is not just the avatar of the Danes, or even of the Men of the North. He stands for the West. He is the defender of what we hold dear, of what we have all but forgotten how to fight for.

He is the equivalent of Aragorn at the Black Gate of Mordor shouting, “I bid you stand, Men of the West!”

He stands alongside Charles Martel in 732, and Jan III Sobieski, the savior of Europe at Vienna in 1683. Martel does not belong to the French, nor does Sobieski belong to the Poles. They belong to all of us.

And so does Holger Danske. He is Holger, Vestens Vogter: Holger, the Guardian of the West.

The Danes will just have to learn to share.


Thanks to the redoubtable Kepiblanc for Holger’s new title in Dansk.

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American Justice for All? No Way!

David Hicks, the Australian convert to Islam currently residing in Guantanamo, has pleaded guilty to “providing material support for terrorism.”

The 31-year-old Muslim convert, arrived at Guantanamo in early 2002, a month after being captured in Afghanistan in December 2001. He admitted that he had supplied material support to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

[…]

Hicks was accused of having completed al-Qaeda training courses and fighting against American forces and its allies in Afghanistan.

Since he has admitted his guilt - his obvious, undoubted guilt - he is being allowed to return to Australia, where he will likely serve a lighter sentence than the court at Guantanamo imposed.

His family is complaining about his mistreatment, but as you can see from the picture of Mr. Hicks, he is a terrorist. So he had to grow his hair long in order to cover his face because of the lights in his cell being on all the time? What a shame.

Those American soldiers he killed now lie in eternal darkness but we’re supposed to feel sorry for this creep because they left the lights on to prevent suicide attempts. I have no sympathy at all for a man who turns on his own heritage and begins killing people in the name of a murderous ideology.

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If he is spared the death sentence, then he failed to get what he was so willing to dish out to others. And if Daddy is upset because Sonny doesn’t look well, whose fault is that? Oh, right: the Imperialist Americans.

So he goes back to Australia to serve his [shortened] sentence. What do you suppose happens after he is released from prison in Australia? Will his fellow Aussies welcome him with open arms?

Of course Amnesty International , your fair and balanced human rights group, has its own opinion of this horrible affair:

Human rights group Amnesty International has condemned the tribunals as “shabby show trials” and demanded that detainees be tried under the regular US judicial system.

See that foot under the tent? We’re supposed to apply the rules of the US judicial system to foreign terrorists.

Justice? Those are suicidal terms. Oh, I forgot: Amnesty International’s fondest hope is to live in a world without America.

Too bad.

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Cogito Ergo Bloggum

Bernie at Planck’s Constant has tagged us with a meme — a meme which comes with its own built-in award. That is, should you get tagged, you are also dubbed with a little icon which announces that you have won a “Thinking Blogger” prize. The meme started here, and showing its point of origin is interesting since it allows one to see, at least partially, how it spreads.

Of course, the catch to this, and to all memes, is that you have to notify the bloggers you tag. ’Tis only courteous to let them know why they are suddenly getting hits from your site.

But for me, there’s a larger problem: I always feel obligated to write a short follow-up post on each of the bloggers I am “meme-ing” so that our readers know a bit about them. But given both my ADD and like, man, my totally unpredictable energy levels, I never manage to finish posting the list. It’s depressing, like totally, dude (sorry, I’ve been hanging out with a teenager and have picked up a verbal tic).

If anyone had ever tagged me with that ancient meme called “Five Things You Don’t Know about Me” (and Were Afraid I Would Tell You), my tendency to being a tad obsessive-compulsive would be in that list. Do you know what a lethal combination ADD and being obsessive — i.e., a perfectionist — is for the person who gets those two cards in the draw? It means you cannot attend long enough to any one particular task to accomplish all the things that you know need to be done.

[The Baron says I should have stamped on my forehead (backwards, of course, so I could see it in the mirror) a big sign that reads “You Don’t Have To Do EVERY Good Thing You Think Of.” All of us busybodies need one of those. And maybe little doilies with that message embroidered on them. Or t-shirts. Or coffee cups… See, here’s another good thing I could do, but will I ever remember to contact Café Press…? I don’t think so.]

There’s another, and more important reason that I don’t want to do this meme. How does one choose five smart blogs to put on the list? Already our blogroll on the sidebar overflows with smart, funny, thinking people. If they weren’t thinkers, they wouldn’t be there. What?? You think we link to schmucks?

So I am declining Bernie’s meme, for reasons of self-preservation. I realize this is not the proper thing to do. One does not mention a meme and then refuse to join. A tad discourteous. But if Bernie saw my desk or the inside of my refrigerator, he’d forgive me.

By the way, Norm Geras — now there’s a real thinker for you — reports the UK Sunday Times technology section is claiming that blogging has jumped the shark. They’re on the decline, The Times says hopefully:
- - - - - - - - - -

According to research by a firm of US technology analysts, the blogging phenomenon may have peaked last October, when 100,000 new blogs were being created every day. As well as personal diaries these included corporate, professional, celebrity and other specialist blogs.

Yet the Gartner research firm also concluded that the trend would level off in 2007, with perhaps 100m people still blogging worldwide. Other analysts predict that number will fall to 30m.

“A lot of people have been in and out of [blogging]”, said Daryl Plummer of Gartner. “Everyone thinks they have something to say until they’re put on stage and asked to say it.”

Yawn. Just one more hopeful MSM premature obituary. Just wait till the US elections heat up. More blogs will proliferate like desert flowers after a rain.

Blogs aren’t going away anymore than email did, or cell phones, or any other means of communication. I suppose it could be superseded by something better, the way the telegraph was, but I don’t see anything coming down the pike real soon.

Yes, blogs do come and go. But blogging in itself is here to stay. Sorry, journalists out there, but you have to share at least one of the baby spotlights with the competition in the corner.

Since I’m not up to Bernie’s call-out, instead I propose this to our readers: please feel free to name your Top Five Thinkers’ blogs. There are few rules…

• No biggies. Suggesting someone who receives tons of traffic doesn’t introduce new information which is one of the reasons for memes. I have a number of small and medium blogs I try to visit as often as possible. Surely you have your own list of those, too; thinking places where you like to hang out, yet the blogger isn’t in the Top Thousand or so.
  
• If you can’t find five, then three will do.
  
• Blogs in English only, please. The majority of our readers speak or read only English. Besides, the Baron and I are ignorant monolinguals. And you know how American hubris goes: “WHAT?? You mean everyone doesn’t speak English?
  
• And, of course, the main thing is thinkers not spouters.

Any subject is open — cooking, cats, or maybe bird-watching. Umm… no sites about “cooking cats” however, or Sissy Willis will hurt you. In fact, let’s limit it to PG-13 blogs — never can tell when the homeschoolers will drop by.

If people respond to this invitation in sufficient numbers, we’ll be able to see if a common thread runs through your responses. Thus, we end up with a Top Five list generated from the bottom up: by y’all, our readers, rather than by me with my limited, if somewhat perfervid imagination.

[Of course, if anyone nominates Neighborhood of God, I won’t complain. Conflict of interest? What conflict?]

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Multiculturalism Versus Law and Order

A volunteer who calls himself Scandinavian Dissident has translated this article from the online version of Die Welt. It’s about the notorious incident in which a German judge who decided to apply Sharia to a case involving domestic violence and a Muslim woman.

The fact that the case received widespread publicity in Germany, and was greeted with almost universal condemnation, indicates that the situation in the heart of Eurabia is changing.


Where Tolerance Collides with Law and Order

The ruling of a female judge in Frankfurt, in a divorce case involving an abusive Muslim man, has caused indignation. However, this situation is no longer unique; in more and more cases there is a collision between cultural tolerance [multiculturalism] and law and order.

The regret that the Frankfurt Family Court judge Christa D. expressed afterwards doesn’t really make things any better. From the feminist Alice Schwarzer to the right-wing politician Wolfgang Bosbach, there’s a surprising unanimous indignation over the fact that a German judge, in all seriousness, justified rejecting the divorce petition of a German of Moroccan background by quoting a Surah from the Koran.

It’s hard to tell if it’s “clumsiness” or moral arrogance when the judge now tells a speaker from the District Court that she seriously “looked for a clarification in the Koran, and was proud that I found one, thus quoting Surah 4:34 as a source.” The Judge seemed unable to see that you could interpret this as trying to apply the Koran to German law. In the meantime she has been pulled from the case.

The district court says Mrs. D is embarrassed. The judge was in the headlines ten years earlier, when a man shot his ex-wife in the judge’s courtroom. Was her motive naked fear, the kind of panic that makes the head of the Berlin Opera Kirstin Harms to cancel a production of “Idomeneo” because she had received vague threats?

An individual case with no precedent

Lawyer and CDU [Christian Democratic Union] party head Volker Kauder explains that the incident “is an individual case, which cannot set a precedent for any other case.” However, this kind of opportunistic haste is a form of precedent itself. What you can see here is a foul mixture of self-hatred, lack of civil courage, and arrogance disguised as cultural sensitivity.

The examples are legion. When you look at honour killings, there have been some court decisions where a murder has become mere manslaughter, because the court takes into account “cultural characteristics.” “I started fighting against this in the eighties,” says Barbara John, former member of the Berlin Commission for Foreigners, “when cultural discounts were made. But there are also idiots among the judges.” Four years earlier the Federal High Court had to override the ruling of a court. A Turk living in Germany had his wife, who was looking for a divorce, stabbed to death. The regional court in Frankfurt sentenced him to thirteen and a half years.

Normally he would have gotten life in prison. In addition the perpetrator had acted out of base motives. The judge, however, didn’t want to exclude the idea that the perpetrator, due to his “Anatolian values,” had not been aware of the baseness of his motives.

Therefore the perpetrator was convicted of manslaughter, not murder. The case was moved to the Federal High Court, and a ruling came in April 2004: Foreigners living in Germany can be found guilty of murder due to base motives. German customs and laws regarding the relationship between men and women were explained to the perpetrator. On the other hand it was not said that the perpetrator had the right to “kill and abuse his wife in accordance to Anatolian values.” The Federal High Court instructed the regional court to re-assess its sentencing, to see whether or not it could still be a murder. A new ruling is still pending.
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The cartoon debate disgraced many news outlets

During the Mohammed cartoon controversy, many news organisations and publishers distanced themselves from the controversial caricatures and the decision to publish them — they did this to avoid hurting the feelings of the Muslims (some also did it because they found the caricatures to be tacky). An airline forbids its stewardesses from carrying crosses around their necks. A kindergarten in Bozen decides to stop singing Christmas Carols where Jesus is mentioned, because it could offend the predominantly Muslim children. The demand that Germany be the primary language in a secondary school is greeted with reproach and claims of “forced Germanisation.” One shouldn’t “pour gasoline on a fire” said Karl-Heinz Werner of the Mainz Carnival association: it would be absolutely idiotic to show Mohammed on one of the floats.

However, there’s no topic that causes so much anger and heated tempers as the relationship between men and women. In response to the petition that she be excused for partiality, the Family Court Judge Christa D. —astonishingly enough — responded, “The honour of the man according to the Koran is, to put it simply, is bound up strongly with the chastity of his wife, so strictly speaking a man with an Islamic education would view a woman who leads a life according to the norms of western culture as an obvious injury per se upon his honour.”

Mrs. D has overslept and completely missed recent developments in Morocco. At the behest of the King, family law in Morocco was completely reformed two years ago. The age of marriage was raised to 18. Abuse in marriage was made a crime. At last women in Morocco have a right to divorce, to have custody of their children, and to receive alimony.

Weakening of the German judicial system

Do we seriously want Morocco to overtake us from the left? The author of Emma, Alice Schwarzer, fears a weakening of the German judicial system: She pointed out numerous rulings in recent decades that acquitted perpetrators for reasons of “different customs” or because they were from a different “cultural area.” The judicial system has for a long time been infiltrated by Islamic forces. A judge who appoints herself to rule according to the Koran utters law in the name of Sharia, and not in the name of the Basic Law. She is no longer trying to be a German court.

Mina Ahadi, chairman of the newly created Central Council for Ex-Muslims says that the German judicial system is frequently too careless when it comes to such cases. At the Central Council of Muslims the ruling was also criticized. Their spokeswoman, Nurhan Soykan, explained that force and the abuse of human beings, regardless of their gender, are all valid Islamic reasons for seeking a divorce. A legal commentary by the Greens is also interesting: Bilkay Öney, the spokeswoman for immigration politics, explained: “The Koran’s Surah 4, verse 34, leaves much room for interpretation. The first interpretation of the verse was actually made by the prophet Mohammed who said ‘Do not strike women. Those who strike women are truly the worst of creatures.’ Respectable Imams do not preach the abuse of women. Even in countries with a predominantly Muslim population the Koran does not stand over the law — excluding countries where the Sharia code is used.” (Those are, unfortunately, all countries where Islam is part of the doctrine for the national government.)

Since the Islamic conference brought up the delicate topic of freedom of speech, it is not feasible anymore to rush ahead ignoring the majority in Germany. Now it is even illegal.

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Closeup of Aliville

Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been getting somewhat more attention lately than it probably wants.

On his way home from the Gathering of Eagles in Washington DC, the blog Constantinople Again paid a visit to the Muslims of America compound known as “Aliville”, near Odum, Georgia. As CP has written previously, Aliville is just a stone’s throw from the Hatch nuclear plant and Ft. Stewart.

Counter-Jihadist writes that he was nervous as he drove into Aliville. I can well understand the feeling — a close encounter with a Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound can raise the hairs on the back of your neck.

No ‘Muslims of America’ signs or one announcing that you have arrived at ‘Holy Aliville’, just a guardhouse and a road. Below, however, you can catch a teasing glimpse of what I saw when I peered down the eastern entrance to Mecca Circle. There were a few trailers and several houses, some of them under construction, and a number of cars. This picture was taken after I passed the easternmost entrance to the circle, negotiated a hasty U-Turn on a narrow muddy, clay road and stopped long enough to snap a photo of the road sign and part of a rather nice house. I was sure my maneuvers on the dirt road had gotten the attention of some of the inhabitants as I saw some movement at the far end of the circle.

Notice that the residents of Aliville have “Mecca Circle” instead of “Sheikh Gilani Lane”, and will thus manage to avoid some of the controversy engendered by their counterparts in Charlotte County, Virginia.

Go on over to Constantinople Again to read the rest of the story.

[Nothing follows]

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Digg This, Y’all!

I nagged the Baron for quite awhile to put up a Digg link at the bottom of our posts. After much grumbling (he’s cute, but he grumbles), he finally faced the inevitable and got the necessary tag to put up. As it turned out though, he uses the site much more than I do. On occasion, he will come downstairs to tell me what is being linked, or laughing at one of the comments. For example, look at this one today from a sniffily dismissive “erikfm 49.” (the number in his nic may refer to his IQ):

Gates of Vienna is a wannabe Littlegreenfootballs hate site. Needs to be buried whenever it appears on dig.

Oh my heavens! Someone out there thinks we are an LGF imitator! Surely they jest? I’m not about to jump on a bike and ride for hours, and my geekiness extends to a passing acquaintance with html. Though now that I think of it, all my husbands (two) and two thirds of my sons are (or were) in the computer biz. I can count on family meals where much of the conversation will be in some geeky language that I will never speak or understand. And my daughter-in-law is one of them, too.

Unlike Charles Johnson my idea of exercise is gardening or using a rebounder, or chasing the Baron around the house — usually with a “to-do” list in my hand. Or, on my less-than-optimum days, lying in bed reading British crime novels, and waiting for the Black Dog to leave. He can be a persistent mutt sometimes.

But get on one of those fancy-Dan bicycles like Charles rides every day for miles and miles? No way, Jose. No bike for me unless they have balloon tires and “braking” is accomplished by the simple means of pedaling backwards. As for gearshifts, they belong in fun cars that ride low to the ground, definitely not on bikes, thankyouverymuch. A few years ago on our summer vacation we stayed on Ocracoke Island (a favorite haunt of the Baron and his college friends long before I knew them); during our stay we rented bicycles. These were “real” bikes: good old balloon tires for riding around on the very flat land of that barrier island [this was before my appointment with the fig tree, and both my knees worked well. Thus I had great fun pedaling around].

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But back to the Digg itself , submitted by DantThePainter, who snipped this:

You stone your mom, whip your sis, mutilate your kid; but be my friend

Our Swedish correspondent LN sent me a link to a Norwegian web page featuring a new song by the singer Åge Aleksandersen. LN translated only the song lyrics for me, and based on those I thought the song had to be a spoof, an ironic and deadpan takeoff on Norwegian dhimmitude. So I wrote to Kepiblanc ... and asked him what he thought…

Submitted: 20 hours 12 min ago
Submitter: DanThePainter

There were a few friendly comments, and then the gnome showed up, dragging LGF behind him. I suppose in certain circles (or octagons, maybe) covering some of the same material Charles does, and being committed — as he is — to preventing the dhimmification of the United States while making fun of the hypersensitivity of some denominations of Muslims….I suppose that gives us similarities.

But in truth, our godfather was Wretchard. It was where we spent our time commenting when we discovered blogs, and his often brilliant analyses would turn the kaleidoscope just a bit, allowing us to see things in a new light. Wretchard's insights created a whole new world for me and the Baron, a world we have inhabited ever since.

Thanks to Charles’ indefatigable output — helped in part by his many, many fans — he is the go-to-guy for information on the strange and outrageous doings of both the beheaders in the world and of the fifth column sneaking around in this country. Little Green Footballs is the pulse of the conservative, patriotic regular folks who refuse to take seriously the nonsense spouted by the incestuous MSM-academonia-political connections that work so hard to keep a lid on the conversation in this country. Charles is an un-maker, his efforts are a crucial component in keeping the flame alive.

That is why Charles Johnson and Little Green Footballs are despicable in the eyes of the pretentious. The fearful pretentious, I might add, since they cannot bear to hear through even a sentence of those who disagree with their Utopian, socialist hallucinations. They put their hands over their ears and hum loudly in order to keep the scary truth at bay.

Imagine what Vietnam might have been had there been an internet and a Charles Johnson in that generation? Our nation would be on course now. Nancy Pelosi would be an anonymous grandmother living somewhere besides Washington, D.C. The moonbat left would be… well, it might not be period, at least in any meaningful sense. And George Soros would be known for what he is: a destablizer of countries, whose hunger for power is pathological greed.

No, Gates of Vienna is not an LGF wannabe, but thanks for the compliment what’s-your-name 49. However, if you knew us at all, you’d see we’re descended from The Belmont Club, so you’re not even close.

Now maybe a meander over to LGF is in order, just to see what I can steal…

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Countries of Origin

Thanks to a tip from Zerosumgame in the comments, I looked up Gates of Vienna’s traffic statistics on Alexa. There were some real surprises there — I knew our overseas traffic was high, but the traffic from the USA is only a plurality of our numbers, not even a majority. Does that make us un-American?

Country		Percentage
United States		34.9%
Canada		30.3%
United Kingdom		14.7%
Denmark		8.3%
Switzerland		5.5%
Greece		0.9%
Cambodia		0.9%
Argentina		0.9%
Australia		0.9%
Germany		0.9%
India		0.9%
Thailand		0.9%

And I knew Denmark would rank fairly high — we’re Viking-oriented here, after all — but where are Sweden and Norway? Is Fjordman without honor in his own country?

And why Canada? We don’t even write about Canada very much. What is it with all you hosers, eh?

And Switzerland! I only remember one post that we’ve done on Switzerland in the whole time since we started this blog.

I scraped the stats off Alexa and brought them into Excel to play with. When you add the population of each country (from 2004 statistics) to the table, and calculate the relative proportions of the traffic, it really gets interesting. Using the number of US visitors as a baseline and weighting for each country’s population, here are the results.

Country		Percentage		Population		Weight
Denmark		8.30%		5,432,335		1294.7%
Canada		30.30%		32,805,041		782.7%
Switzerland		5.50%		7,489,370		622.3%
United Kingdom		14.70%		60,441,457		206.1%
United States		34.90%		295,734,134		100.0%
Greece		0.90%		10,668,354		71.5%
Cambodia		0.90%		13,607,069		56.0%
Australia		0.90%		20,090,437		38.0%
Argentina		0.90%		39,537,943		19.3%
Thailand		0.90%		65,444,371		11.7%
Germany		0.90%		82,431,390		9.3%
India		0.90%		1,028,610,388		0.7%

I guess those Danes don’t have anything better to do than hang around here — it must be those long winter nights. Same goes for the Canadians, for that matter.

Anybody using a dialup connection will end up with an IP address based on their provider. Can something like that be at work here, skewing the statistics? I know we have quite a few Swedish visitors — are they using Danish ISPs when they log on?

Anyone who has some ideas about these statistical anomalies is welcome to hold forth in the comments.

[Nothing follows]

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Let’s Be Friends

Our Swedish correspondent LN sent me a link to a Norwegian web page featuring a new song by the singer Åge Aleksandersen. LN translated only the song lyrics for me, and based on those I thought the song had to be a spoof, an ironic and deadpan takeoff on Norwegian dhimmitude.

So I wrote to Kepiblanc (who reads Norwegian), and asked him what he though of Åge Aleksandersen’s song. Here’s what he replied:

Sorry to say, Baron: this guy is a 112% moron. He is dead serious and wants to embrace Muslims, no matter what. If you have the text, you know how abominable this is.

As Steen says: Norway is in serious shortage of psychiatric wards.

I asked Kepiblanc to translate anything else on the page that seemed pertinent, and he kindly agreed to. But first, here are the song lyrics:

“Reaching out a hand for Islam”

Utdrag fra sangen “Æ vil vær din venn”		Excerpt from the song “I want to be your friend”
Æ vil vær din venn		I want to be your friend
Æ vil sitt ved ditt bord		I want to sit at your table
Elske under himmelnatt		Make love under the heavenly night
Kysses av kjærlighet		Be kissed by love
Sammen i sorg		Together in sorrow
Ta i mot liv		Receive and welcome life
A vil vær din venn		I want to be your friend
…		…
Du steiner dine mødre		You stone your mothers
Pisker dine søstre		Flog your sisters
Lemlester dine døtre		Mutilate your daughters
Bak slør		Behind their veils
Men æ vil vær din venn		But I want to be your friend

The page is from Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK — Norsk Riks Kringkastning). The caption under the photo reads:

He has sold more than 1.5 million albums since his debut in 1972. This is his thirtieth anniversary as a soloist. Today Åge Aleksandersen finishes his twenty-first album, “Two Steps Forward”.

An excerpt from the article itself:

Wants to befriend the Muslims of the world

This time it’s a mature Åge Aleksandersen stepping forward with his lyrics. In one of his songs “Æ vil vær din venn” [I want to be your friend] he tries to explore his tolerant attitude towards Islam.

“This is about a love so encompassing that it can’t go any further,” says Åge Aleksandersen.

“At the intersection between Islam and Christendom, it is a colossal challenge to me to remain open and try to see the good in all people.”

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Stretches the borders

“I have worked with this text for three or four years. One word here, one word there. Meticulously, I tried to compose a song that tells something essential about my feelings and how complicated I find them. I am prepared to go out of my way in order to reach out to those on ‘the other side’.”

“It probably won’t be a hit,” Åge Aleksandersen sighs.

“During those three or four years when you struggled with this text, a lot of things happened to the relationship between Islam and The West. We waged war against them, not once but twice. A backdrop when you wrote this song, perhaps?”

“Yes, this song is my safety valve. It’s where I can let off steam. Explore in detail. Proclaim how I perceive this.”

Kepiblanc supplies us with some additional commentary:

The rest of the article is just the usual babble about popularity, chit-chat, and promotional platitudes.

Baron, I can assure you: there’s no irony at play here. This is NRK at its worst. Norwegian political correctness and dhimmitude gone ballistic. And NRK — just like the Norwegian Government — doesn’t even know the words “irony” or “sarcasm”.

Funny thing is, the song is in Nynorsk [New Norwegian], an artificial, constructed dialect invented to protest the dominant Bokmål [Book Language] — essentially Danish. Nynorsk took some remote dialects from isolated valleys, tossed them in a melting pot and came up with a dialect almost indistinguishable from my childhood dialect of South-Jutlandish [Old Anglo-Saxon]. Talk about irony…

After reading — and translating into Danglish — this nonsense I urgently need a beer or five, be it early morning or not. It saddens me immensely to see good, old Norge going down the drain.

How about a very wet “Norge’s Wake” here at Gates of Copenhagen?

I’ll take him up on that, and raise a virtual mug of Mørkt Hvidtøl to the Vikings, the fjords, and the Old Norse who are no longer among us!

By the way — when Kepiblanc refers to “Danglish”, he is employing my term for the dialect our Danish volunteers use when they translate an article from their native Dansk (or from Norsk or Svensk) for Gates of Vienna. Danglish differs from Standard English mostly in the spelling, the punctuation — Danish has different conventions about the use of commas — and the word order. When I receive a an article in Danglish, I make the minor modifications required to put the translation into Standard English.

And Kepiblanc is being modest — his English is virtually flawless, as is that of several of our other translators.

Now I’ll let the good Swede LN have the last word:

Come on all you Muslim dudes — you gonna get love…

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Watching Your Government at Work

For a lazy Saturday, here’s a website to browse and to consider keeping on hand for review or reference:

Citizen Joe appears to be a bipartisan affair. Hence their spectacles at the top of the page. The site is quite comprehensive and would make a good learning tool for those of your friends and relatives (especially relatives) who appear to be congressionally-impaired…which may include most of us by now. Not because we’re stupid, or don’t pay attention; rather, it’s the increasingly complex nature of legislation, what with each bill's special interests riders (spinach anyone?) and fatty pork sauce. And, of course, there's the behind-the-scenes bribing lobbying that never, ever stops. If there is a Hell, it surely looks much like the Imperial Congress of the United States of America. And like Hell, many people seem eager to go there.

You not only can’t stay on top of legislation (especially given the long turn-around the government printing office seems to have once a bill passes), but by the time you get to read the fine print, the bill you wanted to look at is making its way down the road and headed for the President’s office.

This site has a Civics 101 page and an Econ 101 page (look for the links to original sites on this page if the charts don’t seem up to date. The person maintaining this page says it’s a glitch with Excel that makes it appear to be shorted a few years).

On the home page, linked above, there is a poll concerning our actions in Iraq. It features four options, going from very right to very left.

Here is their raison d’être:

citizen Joe was founded in 2003 by two professionals - Julia Kamin and Jason Palmer — who noticed that with all the information on the web, it was surprisingly impossible to find unspun info on current policy debates. We looked in vain for a site that didn’t have a political agenda and that just offered up the facts plain and simple.

So we decided we’d create that site ourselves. After incorporating and becoming a 501(c)(3), citizenJoe expanded its team to twenty five - attracting people from the legal, business, research, media and nonprofit worlds - to sit on our boards and volunteer to contribute cJ’s content.

Most of our volunteer columnists are not journalists; they are concerned citizens who, in addition to their full time jobs, pay close attention to policy debates and are committed to clarifying the issues for other Americans. Their work is supported by cJ’s staff, student interns and freelance editors.

They’ve done a massive amount of work and have more material than you could cover in one go. As a political science reference site, it’s excellent.

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Meanwhile, for the basic de la basic explanation of our government, go to good old Wikipedia’s site on our Congress and system of government. This is an excellent place for children’s civics classes. I realize I’m talking about homeschooled children; public schools have dropped “Civics” in favor of more pee-cee classes on diversity and American imperialism. If you want to know about Harriet Tubman, the fate of the indigenous Americans, et al, just visit an American History class at your local high school. The Vietnam era is also an interesting read.

Having just finished a perusal of the book used in Li’l Kumquat’s tenth grade classes, I’m a bit uneasy. Concerned parents with children in government schools have so much un-teaching to do before they can even begin to inform their children about the real world.

Check out Citizen Joe. It makes government a bit more accessible and is managing to walk a middle line of information rather than spin.

See what you think.

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The Valiant Word Warriors: Roggio, Totten, and Yon.

UPDATE: Colonel Boyd is rolling over in his grave. The generals are trying to wreak their ignorant havoc on a system that is running well without them. Maybe that’s what fuels this latest hubrstic hissy fit.

Austin Bay has the story here.

It seems that Michael Yon is being hassled by the brass - they are threatening once again to kick him out of Iraq. And it’s not the first time. Here’s AB’s report on his experience in the matter:

This is stupid. Michael Yon and Bill Roggio are the best out there. Telling Michael Yon to exit the theater is the WWII equivalent of telling Ernie Pyle to quit filing dispatches.

Everyone knows the PAO system has never been much more than mediocre — I’ve met some very smart public affairs officers and non-coms, but the system is inadequate, at times inept. Now Yon says someone wants to kick him out of Iraq. Tut. At a Pentagon lunch last fall General Pace mentioned to me the importance of milblogs. I then told him the word circulating the blogosphere was that the Army wanted to limit milblogs. Yes, there is an OPSEC argument, but read the milblogs. The soldiers posting know about OPSEC.Pace told me he would look into the rumor. No, I never heard back.[emphasis mine -- D]

I suggest that General Pace look into this report from Yon.

I second the suggestion. As Colonel Boyd would say to his protegés, “do you want to do something, or do you just want to be a general?” Which is just one of the reasons that Colonel Boyd remained a colonel. But his strategy and tactics will remain pertinent to the conduct of war for generations to come. Meanwhile, pissy generals continue to throw their weight around and then, damage done, they will be gone...sans accountability. ‘Twas ever thus.

Click on Austin Bay’s link to read the punchline from Michael Yon.


Fox has posted what appears to be an introductory passage to the book Michael Yon must be hammering out during his time as a warrior-with-camera.

They also have up the iconic image from several years ago of that Army major holding a dying Iraqi child, rushing her to the medics even as her life’s blood begins to ebb, soaking through the all-too-mortal blanket wrapped around her. That picture remains one of the most moving images of Iraq.

Yon writes honestly. He is a lyrical photographer. We compare him to Ernie Pyle but he’s more, much more than Pyle. For one thing, he was a Green Beret himself before he traded his weapons for a camera. For another, he was a reluctant correspondent in the beginning. And a third thing: he had no financial backing except his own funds and the donations he received from family, friends, and the internet. Fourth, and not least, he tells us when things are not going well - as in some of his reports from Afghanistan.

Michael Yon is not, and likely never will be, a card-carrying member of the MSM. When the war is over, it will be he (and Roggio and Totten) rather than the reporters huddling in the safety of the Green Zone whose words will be remembered. His images will bear testament in the future to what happened in a way no words ever can.

Bill Roggio has followed in his footsteps, though with more to lose: he has a family and children to provide for. But he writes well and is a magnificent citizen for being willing, like Yon, to step into the vacuum that a lack of honest reporting has left in Iraq.

Michael Totten has been a saving grace also. He writes from Iraq now, but he has covered so much. His reports from Lebanon - back when parts of it were briefly places of hope - green banners flying.

Their reporting makes you wonder what the outcome of Vietnam might have been had we the likes of Yon, Roggio, and Totten on the scene, telling us the real story.

But back then we had no precedent for Vietnam. The death-driven, self-hating elites of post-WWII had not yet come into power in Congress and academia. They met over Vietnam and they destroyed millions upon millions of people. The Killing Fields are ultimately their responsibility, as is the killing that continues in Vietnam. Those immaculately groomed academicians and political hacks, whose hands have never touched blood, are far more dangerous than the phantoms they created and that they believe in - like Dr. Strangelove, for instance.

The Yons and Roggios and Tottens are the Davids against the giants like CNN, the New York Times, and Fox. When one of the Goliaths pays at least a modicum of respectful attention, you know the media is feeling a bit shaky.

Go here for Yon’s latest post, which begins by quelling rumors that he’s “selling out” because of the Fox Report. From Baghdad he begins:

- - - - - - - - - -

Recent mention of cooperation with Fox News kicked rumor into high gear, leading some long-time readers to lament my “selling-out” to a major outlet. Simultaneously, thousands of new readers via the Fox website have little idea why my work suddenly is featured there. This dispatch will hopefully quell both concerns. My website and Iraq coverage remain independent of all financial support save that of my readers.

Here’s a brief on how I became witness to this war… [continued on his post]

Especially click on the site to see the picture he has of a decidedly metrosexual young anti-war demonstrator. The image is made less disturbing when you read Yon’s caption and summary judgment — Some people just grow up protesting, starting maybe by not cleaning their rooms. A pertinent dismissal.

Bill Roggio’s report on the first month of the new battle plan in Iraq is hopeful:

The Baghdad Security Plan is now over one month old since its official announcement on February 14. While it is impossible to judge progress over the course of one month in a complex battlespace such as Baghdad, the initial signs are encouraging. Sectarian murders, the fuel for the potential Sunni — Shia civil war, have been dramatically reduced. Before the beginning of the operation, Scores of bodies were found executed daily, now the number is in the single digits. Massive car bomb attacks, which in the past have killed dozens and wounded hundreds, have been reduced.

While the number of car bombings has increased, their effectiveness has decreased.

[...]

There have been few changes to the disposition of forces inside Baghdad over the past week. The 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division completed its deployment to Baghdad, and spread its four battalions into the Bayaa, Mansour and Doura districts. General David Petraeus announced an additional Combat Aviation Brigade will deploy to support operations. The deployment of the aviation brigade is being sped up by two months. Again, the U.S. Army still has an additional three combat brigades preparing to move into Iraq, and the deployment of the last brigade will not be complete until June. [my emphasis — D. The aviation brigade will have a telling effect once it is fully deployed. This can only help morale and effectiveness]

By the way, Bill has a daily report on Iraq. It is linked from his blog to where it appears in The Weekly Standard. Here is today’s edition

Go to Michael Totten’s essay on the new Iraq -the Kurds’ progress in the north as the other factions in the south continue killing one another. The Kurds’ initiative and productivity are so at odds with the rest of the country. But by now, if you’ve read Gates of Vienna long enough, you know it’s genetic.

Totten, like other westerners who meet the Kurds, are drawn to them. Our own correspondent in Mosul, while concerned with the Kurdish persecution of the Yezidis, still found himself drawn to them:

As for the Kurds themselves I cannot deny my affinity for them. They’re hard working (relative to Arabs) and ambitious, and everyone loves the underdog especially when he’s making the big comeback.

Totten says:

ERBIL, IRAQ - What a difference a year makes.

Fourteen months ago I flew to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, from Beirut, Lebanon, on the dubiously named Flying Carpet Airlines. Flying Carpet’s entire fleet is one small noisy plane with propellers, cramped seats, and thin cabin pressure. Only nineteen passengers joined me on that once-a-week flight. Everyone but me was a Lebanese businessman. They were paranoid of me and of each other. What kind of crazy person books a flight to Iraq, even if it is to the safe and relatively prosperous Kurdistan region? I felt completely bereft of sense going to Iraq without a gun and without any bodyguards, and it took a week for my on-again off-again twitchiness to subside.

Last week I flew to Erbil from Vienna on Austrian Airlines to work for a few weeks as a private sector consultant with my colleague Patrick Lasswell. This time I didn’t feel anything like a fool. Almost half the passengers were women. Children played on their seats and in the aisle with toys handed out by the crew. We watched an in-flight movie and ate the usual airline lunch fare served by an attractive long legged stewardess. The cabin erupted with applause when the wheels touched down on the runway. The pilot announced the weather (sunny and 60) in three languages and cheerfully told us all to have a great day. Have a great day may seem an odd thing to say to people who just arrived in Iraq, but this is Kurdistan.

Like our anonymous correspondent last month, both Totten and Yon have done pictorial essays on the Yezidis. This new essay by Totten is full of compelling images from Kurdistan - colorful, exotic, and hopeful. One can’t help but cheer them on, even while keeping an eye on what they’re up to vis-à-vis the Yezidis and the Assyrian Christians - those miracle survivors in the face of Islam.


Although I am careful to refrain from using Yon’s images without permission (I received it for the Yezidi story last month), this screen cap from Fox is probably within acceptable parameters. If that turns out not to be the case, I will remove it. One doesn’t take for free the work of an artist. As the wife of an artist, I am aware how frequently that can happen -- and how offended people can be when called on it.

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Wanted: Counterjihad Volunteers in Kansas City

Most of our readers are aware of Rep. John Conyers’ efforts to pass a congressional resolution against the desecration of the Koran. One of the highest priorities of Muslim interest groups in the United States is to get this legislation and similar initiatives passed. They are following multiple strategies on these issues, lobbying for legislation that bans airport profiling, agitating for rules protecting Islamic practices in the schools, and pushing for non-legislative regulations in addition to laws and resolutions. They are seeking the expansion of the definitions of “hate crime” and “hate speech”, and a blurring of the distinction between the two.

I can’t emphasize too strongly or too often that the erosion of our freedom of speech and the encroachment of sharia in our country will come sneaking into the public discourse disguised as the protection of religious freedom. Muslim interest groups will claim — and are claiming — that all their religious practices, no matter how contrary they are to the rest of the First Amendment and the Constitution in general, are protected by the Religious Freedom Clause.


This is a pernicious strategy which is designed to turn our Constitutional liberties into a smoking ruin. And there are people in our government, both elected leaders and those within the permanent federal bureaucracy, who are all too eager to go along with this farrago.

The next skirmish in this war is taking place next week, on Thursday March 29th, in Kansas City, under the auspices of the Department of Justice. The event sounds innocuous enough — “A First Freedom Project Seminar: Federal Laws Protecting Religious Freedom” — but the significance of the occasion is revealed by the inordinate interest in it displayed by MPAC and other Muslim advocacy groups. The fact that these organizations are anxious to get their members to this meeting and intend to have an impact on it tells you a lot about what they hope to accomplish.

Meetings between the DOJ and Islamist advocacy groups that may have led to the “First Freedom” initiative are summarized at the American Muslim Perspective:

[The January 8 meeting was attended by] representatives from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the Arab American Institute (AAI), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML), and the Islamic Society of North American (ISNA).

[…]

The January 8 meeting with Attorney General Gonzalez followed a similar meeting on December 4, 2006 between prominent American Muslim leaders with key senior US government officials to discuss the state of Islamophobia in America and US-Muslim relations. It was organized by the Bridging the Divide Initiative of Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. It was co-sponsored by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists.

The government was represented by several participants from the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security and associated agencies including Alina Romanowski, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Professional and Cultural Affairs and Dan Sutherland, the Officer for Civil Rights at the Department of Homeland Security.

American Muslim leaders included: Nihad Awad, the Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, Louay Safi, the Executive Director of the ISNA leadership Development Center, Imam Mahdi Bray, the executive Director of MAS Freedom Foundation, Ahmed Younis, the National Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists and Muqtedar Khan of Brookings Institution.

Ambassador Martin Indyk, Director of Saban Center and Stephen Grand, the Director of the US-Islamic World program also addressed the meeting. This was the first US Government and American Muslim conference on Islamophobia.

The upshot is that Justice Department policy on religious discrimination is being guided by leaders from CAIR, ISNA, MAS Freedom Foundation (co-sponsors with ANSWER of the March 17 demonstration against the war), and MPAC.

As I’ve said before, this is a Trojan horse being rolled into the heart of the United States Constitution, and we have to make our voices heard if we want to stop it.

I’m asking members of the Counterjihad, especially bloggers, to travel to Kansas City if they possibly can and attend this meeting in order to offer a counterweight to MPAC, ISNA, and all the rest of the alphabet soup that fronts for the Umma here in the USA.

If we sleep through this one, it makes it easier for them to set the agenda for the next one, and the one after, and the one after that.

Then one day you’ll wake up and find that the Religious Freedom Clause protects the right of Muslims to have separate public swimming pools for men and women, or to be guaranteed a pork-free school lunch, or not to be deployed by the Armed Forces during a conflict with an Islamic country.

In other words, America will have become just like Eurabia.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Christine of the Center for Vigilant Freedom (the international coalition that has recently emerged from the original 910 Group network) has compiled a pdf file of background materials on the First Freedom Project and Islamic organizations. Here’s her cover note for the document:
- - - - - - - - - -
The Department of Justice’s The First Freedom Project on religious liberty, starting next week with a March 29 public meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, may be monopolized by Islamist organizations. Other seminars will be held in Tampa, Florida, on April 25, 2007 and Seattle, Washington, on May 10, 2007. If members of other religions attend these DOJ meetings, a more balanced view can be presented. Criticism of other religions should not be criminalized, including criticism of Islam or the Koran.

Meetings between the DOJ and Islamist advocacy groups that may have led to the “First Freedom” initiative are summarized here at the American Muslim Perspective.

As conservative writer Janet Levy has noted, “Muslim leaders such as Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, insist that Muslims have a right to petition for special accommodation based on their religious beliefs as mandated by the First Amendment. In truth, no requirement exists, either in state or federal statutes, requiring that such petitions be addressed or behavior adjusted accordingly.”

Below we provide background information:

1.		A congratulatory email notice from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), stating that the DOJ’s First Freedom Project “is designed to provide additional enforcement tools for laws against religious discrimination and hate crimes.”
2.		The press release on the First Freedom Project, as provided from the ADC.
3.		A similar email notice from the Muslim Public Affairs Council on the First Freedom Project.
4.		Related Legislation: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (LLEHCPA) , just introduced March 21 (text not available online on 3/22/07). See “Christian belief a ‘hate crime’ under plan”.
5.		Related Legislation: The “Domestic Radicalization” Amendment to the Improving America’s Security by Implementing Unfinished Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007.
6.		A partial list of Kansas City events, including the March 7, 2007 charges against a Columbia, Missouri charity designated as a supporter of terrorism.
7.		A list of Islamic organizations in Kansas City, ranging from local chapters of national Islamist advocacy groups, to local mosques, schools and foundations that may be moderate.

I hope you can cover this DOJ Project and encourage more people to attend to balance the views offered.

Thanks!
Regards,
Christine
Director, The Center For Vigilant Freedom

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Allah Ska Med — All Must Come Along!

In case you tend to think of Sweden as monolithically Swedish, with a few troublesome Muslims thrown in, here’s some information (several years old now, but still instructive) regarding the Swedes’ melting pot. Or, perhaps one should say, their simmering cauldron:

Origin		Foreign-born inhabitants (2004)
Finland		186,600
Serbia and Montenegro		74,600
Iraq		70,000
Bosnia and Herzegovina		54,500
Iran		54,000
Norway		45,000
Poland		43,500
Denmark		41,700
Germany		40,800
Turkey		35,000
Chile		27,700
Lebanon		21,100
United Kingdom		16,800
Thailand		16,300
Syria		16,200
USA		15,300
Somalia		15,300
Hungary		13,700
India		12,900
Romania		12,500
Vietnam		12,000
People’s Republic of China		11,900
Ethiopia		11,200
Greece		10,800
Other Nordic Countries		277,100
Western Europe		106,400
Eastern Europe		326,100
Former Soviet Union		37,800
Middle East		223,700
Rest of Asia		91,700
Sub-Saharan Africa		51,000
North America		26,500
South America		55,500
Oceania		3,500
Total Foreign-Born		1,199,300

Much like Ireland, though less drastically, and with no external pressure (Ireland had British rule and not-so-benign neglect to deal with), during the mid-19th century and well into the first third of the 20th century, Swedes poured out of the country and into America, Canada and Denmark. They were driven by crop failures and the scarcity of jobs for a rising population -

What is less well-known is the number of emigrants who returned to the home countries. This was especially true in Sweden: The re-migration of Swedish nationals from U.S. was culturally more important than the absolute figures reveal. The re-migrants often re-settled in their native parish, where their relative wealth and foreign experience ensured a prestigious position in the community. U.S. views, values and not the least world-view followed the re-migrants, ensuring a popular perception of closeness to U.S., contrary to the situation in for instance neighbouring Denmark or Finland (and contrary to the Swedish elite’s closeness to Germany and Europe).

Ah, now we begin to get some sense of the tensions existing in Sweden long before the arrival of the new immigrants, beginning in the 1960’s.

Who, precisely, was making the policies that led to the influx of the foreign-born immigrants in the table above? Do their motives - their multicultural, Europe-trumps-Sweden attitudes - begin to make more sense? And is it the case that the average Swede-in-the-street is friendlier toward America than the elites, who hate the US? (I realize that’s not saying much. The American elites hate the US).

The elites could let the tsunami begin because they lived on high ground, far above the day-to-day consequences of living with huge, unassimilated, and often mutually opposed groups of foreigners.

Perhaps Fjordman could tell us. Was it cheap labor (as is the case in America)? Was it political pressure from the countries the immigrants fled? Was it a needof the elites to see themselves as being capable of bringing in such disparate groups and making them fit into a small, relatively homogenous population?

I say “relatively” homogenous. Long before the onslaught, there were the fractures within:

Beside the Swedes, the Sweden-Finns are the largest ethnic minority comprising approximately 50,000 indigenous people along the Swedish-Finnish border, and 450,000 first- and second generation immigrated ethnic Finns. Also in the farthest North a small indigenous population of Samis live (sometimes referred to as “Lapps”, which, however, is considered a pejorative term by the Sami).

Not to mention the Jews who fled Denmark during World War II, many of whom stayed; and the Romany (gypsy) population. Like America, there is not an official Swedish language, but there are groups who languages are recognized:

Even though Sweden (similar to the United States) has no official language, Swedish dominates totally. The indigenous Finno-Ugric languages were repressed well into the 1960s. Since 1999 Sweden has five officially recognized minority languages: Sami, Meänkieli, Standard-Finnish, Romani chib and Yiddish. The Sami language, spoken by about 7,000 people in Sweden, may be used in government agencies, courts, preschools and nursing homes in the municipalities of Arjeplog, Gällivare, Jokkmokk and Kiruna and its immediate neighbourhood. Similarly, Finnish and Meänkieli can be used in the municipalities of Gällivare, Haparanda, Kiruna, Pajala and Övertorneå and its immediate neighbourhood. Finnish is also official language, along with Swedish, in the city of Eskilstuna.

Now, of course, that has been further complicated with the arrival of the various additions to the work-force, driven from their homelands by strife and ambition to settle in Sweden. Now the majority of the minority languages are Finnish, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Arabic, Persian, Spanish, English, Sorani and Somalian. These groups however, do not totally take into account the Babel of tongues coming from the political refugees — Persians, Kurds, Palestinians, Jews, Vietnamese, Chileans and Hungarians. Not to mention the Yugoslavians.

All of this is happening in a country of just over nine million people. Try to imagine the average American state coping with that level of onslaught. What a prescription for the sundering of any culture’s social fabric.

And don’t forget religion. While the Muslims make the most noise, they are not the majority, just the squeaky wheel. Islam seems to move from squeaky wheel to resentful entitlement to threat in relatively short order. So it has been in Sweden. Unlike America, Swedes are nominally Christian with a polyglot minority of beliefs and faiths. In other words, it translates into a negligible amount of attention to religious affairs:

The majority (78%) of the population belongs to the Church of Sweden, the Lutheran church separated from the state in 2000. Other Christian denominations in Sweden include Roman Catholic…, Orthodox, Baptist, and other evangelical Christian churches (frikyrkor = “free churches”). Some of the Sami practise Animism. There are also a number of Muslims, Buddhists and Jews in Sweden. It is estimated that 46-85% of the population do not believe in God.[2] An estimated 5% of the population attend church.

Is “church” meant to signify church, synagogue, and mosque? If the numbers were broken down that way, it might be quite different. It is well to remember that Swedish Jews feel threatened and some have emigrated to safety. Jews do not wear any religious paraphernalia that might lead to attacks on the street. The synagogue in Stockholm spends twenty-five percent of its revenues on security.

We read much about the dhimmification of Sweden by the Muslims there: Kurds, Africans, Persians, etc. But there are also hopeful signs. People are fighting their way to the fore. Take, for instance, Nyamko Sabuni, the current Integration and Equality Minister of Sweden. To coin a phrase, she’s black, she’s beautiful, and she plans to be the Prime Minister one day.

Is she controversial? You bet. The child of a Christian father and a Muslim mother, Sabuni is Congolese by birth and Swedish by choice. She is an agnostic who does not identify herself as a Muslim Swede, but a Swede of Congolese extraction. Her family moved to Sweden when she was twelve, when things were relatively calm. She is Swedish by education, by citizenship, and by her ministerial position.
- - - - - - - - - -
She wants to ban veils, genital mutilation, and all the baggage that keeps ethnic minorities — women and girls in particular — in the Middle Ages. This makes her controversial. Social critic and author Kurdo Baksi, a Swede of Kurdish origin, is one of her nay-sayers:

“I’m very disappointed that a person whom I perceive as an Islamophobe has been appointed integration minister. It’s a very bad start to the centre-right government’s integration policy,” he told Swedish news agency TT recently.

He cited her “lack of empathy in integration issues and lack of experience from the field.”

“Appointing incompetent foreign-born people is symbolic politics, but not an active policy,” he said.

He does not say in what areas she is incompetent (other than not being a Muslim - which makes her by definition an Islamophobe, not to mention an apostate). Nor does he cite what constitutes her “lack of empathy” - when you listen, her empathy for mutilated little girls and women forced into unwanted marriages sounds far more “empathetic” than his carping disapproval:

“Honor-related violence is an urgent gender equality issue,” said Sabuni, 37. “Everyone who works with it — the police, social services and women’s shelters — say that we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. It’s a big problem.”

[…]

“I know there are girls who cannot choose with whom to marry. I know there are girls whose genitals are mutilated. I know there are girls whose virginity is checked before they marry,” Sabuni said. “For me it’s unacceptable that these phenomena exist in a democratic country.”

But perhaps what Baski means is that the Minister is not sympathetic to those who are cruel towards women, and she spurns Muslims’ excuses for refusing to adapt the mores of their adopted home. Nothing like being invited in and then declaring your superiority by spitting on the floor, Mr. Baski. It’s one of the characteristics of aggressive Muslims like you who make the average Swede dislike you so much.

In the end, the assimilators, the adapters like Sabuni who transcend being black - and are often unwelcome in stores and restaurants because of their color - will win. The disdainers, like Baski and the other “superior” critics, will lose, for they cannot win demographically. As soon as one group of Muslims starts to gain power, splinter groups will bring them down and demogrpahy will be irrelevant.

What Mr. Baski hasn’t learned, despite the millennia of Kurdish persecution, is that victory does not lie in oppressing back.

How does a country teach its immigrants that crucial lesson?


Hat tip: Reader LN, via email.

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“Islam Intends to Consume Thailand”

This article was written by a Westerner who lives in Thailand and has intimate and extensive knowledge of the country. He has asked to remain anonymous.


The Muslim Threat in Thailand

Thailand’s losses in its war with Islamofascism are causing massive suffering. The puzzle is why the Thais tolerate this heartbreaking tragedy, instead of putting an end to it.

What follows is an attempt to clarify the nature of the problem, the Thai responses to it, and the prospects for the future.

I. The Suffering

First we need to grasp the scale of Thailand’s agony. Here are a few numbers collected from the CIA’s website, a Bangkok English-language wannabe newspaper, and an anti-Iraq-war website. Some of these data are certainly wrong, but not by much.

Date of US invasion of Iraq: 20 March 2003
Beginning of recent cycle of violence in southern Thailand: January 2004

Dead US military, due to combat, since Iraq invasion: 2,619.
Dead Thais, due to southern violence, since January 2004: 2,088

Note: Thai deaths may include terrorists killed by police and military units, but my sources are unclear on that question.

Recent trend in southern Thai violence, reported in The Nation (Bangkok “newspaper”): “… the number of deaths per month soared from 49.2 before the coup to 64.6 after the coup.” The military seized power in Bangkok on 19 September 2006. (Reference: Nation, 19 March 2007, page 1A.)

Population of USA: 298.4 million
Population of Thailand: 64.6 million

For every Thai, the USA has 4.5 people.

The US military adventure in Iraq has been going on for just about a year longer than the Muslim insurrection in the south of Thailand. But in the shorter history of the Thai violence, the total number of dead there is fairly close to the USA’s military combat losses in Iraq, and seems to be closing the gap.

Can we compare the effects of the Iraq and Thai insurgencies? Probably. The population disparity between the USA and Thailand means, in my opinion, that the impact on Thailand of a single death in the southern insurrection is almost five times as great as the impact on the USA of the death of a single US warrior in Iraq. If we multiply Thai deaths by 4.5 in order to show what is happening to Thailand, we can see how the suffering of the two nations actually compares:

USA: 2,619
Thailand: 9,363

Adjusting for population size allows us to get some insight into the true level of Thailand’s misery.

Now consider the duration of each conflict, remembering that the USA has been in Iraq almost a year longer than the violence in Thailand has persisted:

USA, actual deaths per month, four years: 55 Thailand, adjusted deaths per month, 37 months: 253
- - - - - - - - - -
II. Contrast Provides Perspective

Thailand is bleeding at a pitiable rate. Islam is literally savaging the nation. Yet the Thai response to the systematic murder is a bizarre calm — a passivity that is much easier to see if it is contrasted with how another nation would cope with the same problem.

Consider these facts:

1.		Iraq is on the other side of the earth from the USA.
2.		Thailand’s increasingly bloody conflict with Muslims is taking place entirely within the borders of the country.
3.		In Iraq, many Muslims are fighting alongside the USA, trying to establish a decent government. The USA is clearly not at war with Islam.
4.		Islam is at war with Thailand. In Thailand, the only peaceful Muslims are the tiny minorities that live in the midst of overwhelmingly Buddhist populations. That superficial tranquillity is imposed on Muslims in, say, Bangkok by sheer numbers of non-Muslims, not by Muslim sentiment and the teachings of the Koran and the Hadith. In the south, virtually everyone opposes the police, the military and all attempts to safeguard the small Buddhist minority. It appears that Muslim death squads are now attacking schools in an attempt to infuriate the locals, who are told (and believe) that the people killing their children are soldiers and policemen.

What do you suppose the reaction of the US government and population would be if the Thai insurrection were raging in parts of Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma? What would happen, and why?

If you were born and reared in the USA, you are qualified to answer that question. If you are a Thai, you are not qualified.

I insist that the US response to the nightmare scenario presented above would be immediate and definitive.

In Thailand, however, the insurgency is being permitted to win.

III. The Failures

The Thais literally do not know what to do. Some bleat about irrelevant economic factors; some complain about injustice, shoddy public administration, incompetent civil servants and bad policing, all of which exist everywhere in Thailand; others ruminate on cultural isolation and “second-class citizenship.” The religious character of the war remains unacknowledged, for Thais consider all religions “peaceful” and “good.”

Sometimes Thais insist that a few hotheads in the south have been indoctrinated with fake Korans and other hoax texts. The solution was obvious: once every Muslim in the south has the real Koran, the evil teachings will be exposed and peace will prevail. This nonsense springs from Thai ignorance of the Koran. That document contains all the incitements to mass murder needed to inspire fanaticism.

Former — now deposed — prime minister Thaksin was accused of trying to deal too harshly with the insurgents; true, some of his policies did upset them and their allies. In fact he tried just about everything, beginning with his instinctive attempt to buy them off. Thaksin was, after all, a typical Thai politician, which means he knows everybody can be bought. So he promised the south populace handouts, a tactic that had bought him millions of votes in the rural north and northeast of the country. When the Muslims ignored his bribe, he was utterly baffled.

Thaksin’s gentle measures included sending an astronomical number of origami birds to the south, dropping them from airplanes. No, really. He also excused the slaughter of the insurgents’ sympathisers, and approved a failed program of assassinations that may or may not have survived his time in office. Nothing worked.

The current government removed Thaksin and initiated its southern policy by apologising to the people in the south — well, just to the Muslims, but not to the Buddhist minority, whose safety the government had not been able to and still can not ensure. That demonstration of weakness produced knowing smiles in the Muslim community. Then violence rose sharply. Islamists, smiling or not, do not fear apologies and do not respect weakness.

(For details on the insurgency and the Thai political/military situation, see the excellent post at the Counterterrorism Blog)

So the Thai government is stymied. While some of the military and police are achieving limited success rounding up suspects and locating a few weapons caches, overall the situation is deteriorating.

Why?

IV. The “Reasons”

The proximate causes for this catastrophic failure to deal with Islamofascism are visible. They include:

1.		Militant ignorance. Thais literally do not want to know what Islam is.
2.		Denial. If they are confronted with the text of the Koran and the teachings of Islam, Thais refuse to believe that any major religion could be so intolerant and bloody. Anyone who provides the facts is branded a “Muslim-hater.”
3.		Fear. Effective military measures will anger the southern Muslims, Thais claim, and only make things worse.
4.		Resort to magic. Thaksin’s voodoo-like origami and the faith that bureaucratic reorganization of the Bangkok regime will cool Muslim tempers are manifestations of an irrational mindset.

V. Examples of Thai Self-Deception and Incompetence

1.		On page 4A of the same issue of the “newspaper” I quoted above, we find this fascinating item: Malaysia to hang terrorists Malaysia has introduced a new tough anti-terror law… mandatory death penalty… those convicted… of giving financial aid to… terrorists, would meet the same fate (hanging)… If there is no death (caused by terrorists), the convicted persons would be liable to (sic) a jail sentence of between seven and thirty years… Malaysia is currently holding over 100 people in detention under the (security law), more than 80 of whom are described as suspected Islamic militants. (Agence France-Presse) This does not square with the officially-released statement of the Malaysian foreign minister that all Muslim nations should consider sending arms and other aid to Hezbollah, assisting that organization materially in its effort to exterminate Israel and the Jews. That Malaysian statement was strictly censored from the Thai news media (at the time, Thaksin was still in power). Thais were not allowed to learn just how bloodthirsty and hostile their southern neighbour is. Now we have Malaysian claims of total opposition to Islamic terrorism. Censorship fosters ignorance, and that in turn makes people gullible. Even though I live in Thailand, I was aware of the ominous news from Malaysia (the Thai government was unable to block all the news websites that carried the report), so I don’t believe this recent story in the local “paper.” Who is lying: the Malaysians? After all, they are telling the world that some folks, who may just be political opponents of the current regime, are in prison because they are Islamofascist terrorists. Is that claim true? (Hah!) Or is the Thai government misrepresenting yet again the nature of the government of overwhelmingly Muslim Malaysia? Did the generals in Bangkok plant a fake article in the press? Or how about the media giant Agence France-Presse? Can that outfit be trusted? Was it even involved at all? I don’t know. I can only provide some guesses and ask a question. In my opinion, Malaysia is certainly deceitful, and Thailand is willing to enable that malicious policy. Who benefits?
2.		On 20 March 2007, another English-language would-be newspaper, The Bangkok Post, published an article (page 2, section 1) summarised here: New Islamic bill ready for cabinet A new bill aimed at restructuring Islamic organisations… has been drafted… “We believe that when the draft bill becomes law, it will not only help douse the flames of the southern violence but also make Islamic organizations… more united,” said Mr. Nideh Waba (advisor to the prime minister) “… and chairman of the private religious schools association in the three border provinces… “ (Thai officials) “are convinced that elected Islamic leaders had failed in their duty to create a better understanding about religious principles… and spread the true teachings of Islam… “ (A government spokesman) “said the present batch of Islamic leaders were neither united nor cooperative, and that the Islamic provincial committees have never had any clear policy directions from them for the South.” Words fail me. The breathtaking stupidity revealed in this straight-faced news item is hard to characterise; my thesaurus is not up to the challenge. The meddlesome, bureaucratic Thai attitude toward religious congregations is not merely irrational — it approaches outright lunacy. First Thais fail to comprehend Islam, and then they propose to deal with a vicious Islamist insurrection as if it were a question of how to bring tax legislation up to date. Would the US Congress draft legislation called “Roman Catholic Organizational Restructuring Act of 2007”? Imagine, if you can, a headline in a US paper that reads, “President to sign Presbyterian bill today,” or “Congressional committee told Orthodox rabbis are uncooperative, new legislation likely.” Why is the “unity” of any religious community a proper matter of concern to the Thai government? Why should pastors, rabbis, priests, monks or imams be scolded for not being “cooperative” with the government? The absurdities multiply every time I re-read this news item. I have often said that Thais, like most people in the so-called “developing” nations, do not believe in freedom of speech or in freedom of the press. Now I must add that Thais do not understand or believe in the value of freedom of religion. Their claims to the contrary, they do not share the evolved Western conceptions of these three freedoms. Confusion and ignorance — and a failure to recognise that both are present — characterise the Thai view of freedom. Muslims, however, are very clear on freedom.

VI. The Puzzle

Unpleasant reality seems not to impress the Thais, who cherish a short-term value system and a crippling desire to avoid conflict. No one admits that Islam is invading Thailand. Yet if the present ineffectual policies remain in effect, the flight of Buddhists from the south will grow, and the border of Thailand will be redrawn. The insurgents will eventually deprive Thailand of at least three of its provinces.

Thais cannot believe that will happen, nor can they face the fact that their implacable enemy is a death cult that will never tolerate Buddhism. Simply being a Buddhist is a capital offence, according to the Koran. Thailand has yet to learn this, let alone believe it and take it into account.

Even though I can describe these irrational responses to the horror in the south, I admit I cannot explain why the Thais prefer them over common sense.

I can only provide this absurdly inadequate explanation: there is something in Thai culture, some pernicious maladaptation, that shrinks from reporting, facing or coping with bad news. Call it denial, call it a hatred of confrontation and conflict, call it the Thai misunderstanding of the Buddhist scriptures (the local version of Buddhism is profoundly infused with Hinduism, superstition and animism) — whatever you call it, I call it insanity.

Ultimately, I can not answer the question, “What in the world is WRONG with these people?” It seems to me that whatever the flaw, it may be fatal.

VII. The Future

All will not be well when the rebellious southern provinces are torn away. For many years, Muslim men have been literally colonising the rural regions of the country north and northeast of Bangkok, taking advantage of poverty. They collect desperately poor multiple Thai “wives” (polygyny is not legally sanctioned but widely practiced) and establish mosques and Islamic schools for the resulting swarms of Muslim children. As we see in Europe, the ultimate Islamofascist weapon is demographic. The seeds of tomorrow’s insurgencies are being planted.

Islam takes the long view. Recall that Osama bin Laden is still upset by “the tragedy of Andalusia,” the expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian peninsula five hundred years ago. He remains infuriated by the crusades. If it takes centuries, Islam intends to consume Thailand, the soft target inhabited by people whose religion qualifies them for decapitation.

Of course the Thais could easily prevent that tragedy. Islamic conquest is nowhere inevitable; it can succeed only when and where it is permitted to. Whatever happens, I believe Thailand’s fate will provide a lesson for the West.

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I WANT THIS GUN!

This weapon matches my Hello Kitty wallet. A girl likes to coordinate her accessories.

From the collection of grumblings, oddities, and images at Mauser Med.




[nothing further. The gun is quite sufficient unto itself]

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Déjà Vu All Over Again

One of the great iconic images of American impotence and humiliation — along with the helicopter lifting off from the roof of the embassy in Saigon in 1975, and the hostage-takers taunting the Great Satan in Tehran in 1979 — is the TV footage of an Army Ranger’s corpse being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1992.

That abomination, that desecration, was almost too much to bear. I felt the same way then as I did about Iran in 1979: level the country, and then turn it into a parking lot.

But that’s not the way the United States conducts its foreign policy any more. The world’s pit bull insists on acting like a yappy little Chihuahua. Cut and run, then start a “peace process”. Engage in “dialog”. Send foreign aid.

Above all, don’t direct any overwhelming force against those who would mutilate, torture, and murder Americans.

And now it’s happening again in Mogadishu. But this time it’s not American corpses being dragged through the dust and flies. Today the victims are Ethiopian and Somali soldiers.

According to the story:

Insurgents dragged the corpses of two soldiers through the streets of the Somali capital and set the bodies on fire Wednesday after a fierce street battle killed at least seven people, witnesses and medical officials said.

An Associated Press photographer saw insurgents drag the bodies of one Ethiopian soldier and one Somali government soldier through the streets of northeastern Mogadishu and then set them on fire.

As one of the bodies was still burning, women wearing head scarves and long, loose dresses picked up stones and pounded it as a handful of young men looked on.

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The Ethiopian-installed government of Somalia is at pains to distance itself from Ethiopia:

Somalia’s government began the operation at about midnight Tuesday at the former Defense Ministry headquarters and plans to move forces into other parts of the capital, said Mohamed Ali Nur, the country’s ambassador in neighboring Kenya.

The operation is meant to try to stop militants from firing rockets at government installations, he told the AP.

Nur denied that any Ethiopian troops were involved in the operation.

That’s not what the Shabelle Media Network (a Somali news operation) says. It has photos of the soldiers involved, and at least one is identified as Ethiopian:

Somalia: Death toll in Mogadishu violence rises fresh battle continues

The death toll of today’s violence in the Somalia capital Mogadishu rises to 20 people and wounds of more than 80 others some of them seriously, medical sources say late Wednesday.

Medical officials in Media hospital in south of Mogadishu confirmed that the number of wounded people has increased. “the number of injured civilians being brought to the hospital reached to more than 80, mostly they were hit by stray round bullets and shrapnel of the artillery shells,” one health official at the hospital said.

Nine of the dead people were belonging to the transitional federal government while crowds dragged and burnt two of the government soldiers in the streets of Mogadishu.

Masked men supposedly are supporters of the ousted Islamists fought with the government troops backed by the Ethiopian forces in three locations of south and northern Mogadishu where the rival sides engaged in fierce clashes.

Today’s gun battles which were the worst since the Ethiopian backed transitional government arrived in the capital forced many villagers to flee their homes in fear of exchanging mortar and rocket shells.

Self organized local militia men could be seen in the streets of Mogadishu manning roadblocks and checking up all cars and ready to repel any government soldiers.

Meanwhile, fresh gun battle erupted northern outskirt of Mogadishu where the interim government forces clashed with local militants.

There is no immediate casualty [count] on both sides as the exchanging artilleries [are] reaching residential areas. Many people grew more concern[ed] over the fighting might spread into fresh areas.

And the captions with the photos:

The body of an Ethiopian soldier lies in the Middle of Hawlwadag road, south of Mogadishu on Wednesday 21 March, 2007 after as heavy fighting between Somali government soldiers backed by Ethiopian forces and armed Somalis opposing the transitional government takes place in the capital Mogadishu

The body of a Somali soldier lies in the Middle of Black Sea road, south of Mogadishu on Wednesday 21 March, 2007…

Whenever you read about bringing democracy to the Muslim world, remember Somalia. This is what happens in Somalia whenever the iron fist of a dictator loosens its grip.

I’m not saying that the entire Muslim world is like Somalia. I’m not saying that democracy is impossible there, nor do I deny that the vast majority of Somalis desire peace.

But whenever they are left to their own devices, this is what they tend to produce. The place is a textbook case of the behavioral sink. It makes Gaza look like the heart of civilization.

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If you follow the link to the Shabelle site, you’ll notice some interesting features surrounding the news stories there. On the sidebar and in the header, next to or above the photos of horror and mutilation, you’ll see ads for anti-Bush T-shirts. The same ads you might find on Daily Kos, or on virtually any commercial American website.

In Somalia!

There’s also a banner proclaiming that Shabelle is a “partner with Radio France”. Does that explain the anti-Bush commerce? Or is there just a perfect convergence across the entire world of moonbat sentiments?

Your guess is as good as mine.

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Gently, Gently, She Leaves Us

UPDATE: Pajama Media notes that Cathy died at 2:05 p.m., Pacific Time. As the universe would have it, that’s precisely when I was writing the post below.

She had been on my mind for days and days, like an insistent tune, but I didn’t begin to write until Cathy was actually ready to leave.

Under her picture on PJM is a quotation from Ezekiel:

“Wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh. Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail.

And that, as best one can express it, is the imperishable Self that will comfort her survivors.



Kathy Seipp is dying. She may be gone even as I write these words to bid adieu to a fine writer, a good woman.

When she was diagnosed with lung cancer, she did not rail against the cosmos. She didn’t complain that because she had never smoked “it wasn’t fair.” For her, it simply was what it was: a likely death sentence, one she would deal with as best she could.

And now Death has arrived, and waits in the wings for her to breathe her last. This, the latest posting on her blog, is from her daughter:

In hospital

posted 03/19/07 (edited Tuesday, Mar 20, 2007 07:44)

As earlier mentioned in the comments section, my mother is in the hospital. The doctor says that right now they’re just making her comfortable. She’s sedated, with painkillers among other things. Lungs collapsed so right now we just want to make sure she has dignity and is not in pain. The doctor says she has a couple days left. I want to thank all her readers for reading this blog, her friends for supporting her who made up “Team Cathy.” Through you all, I learned what a true friend was. I’m at her bedside now, holding her hand. I tell her she has 292 comments on the latest blog post..her last but she just squeezes my hand. She was very happy with this blog. In honor of her, if you can...support the American Lung Cancer Society and or adopt stray dogs and cats from the pound. Those were her causes. Thank you all so much. Will keep everyone posted.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who posted. As of 7:45am this morning she is still breathing and pulsing but is passing peacefully.

[By the way, the comments have increased to well over 600 by now. Understandably, everyone wants to say goodbye. —D]

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When I was a child in elementary school, I sang in the Gregorian choir our monsignor insisted on having as part of the curriculum. It didn’t matter much if you could actually carry a tune — what mattered was numbers. And since the good Monsignor was a Colonel in the Army Reserve, a Gregorian choir is what we had.

Twice weekly we practiced the timeless chant in preparation for the liturgies of the season. While the sonorous cadences of Palm Sunday made for good processional music, I was always fondest of Easter, for it had the most lilting and joyful melodies — and the loudest.

Whenever a member of the congregation died (and it was a large congregation) a group of us were called out of class to make the climb up to the choir loft to sing the Requiem Mass “for the soul of the departed.” As I stood there, perhaps chanting “Dies Irae”, I would look out over those attending the funeral and wonder idly who would be the next one to leave. Of those heads I could see, who had the shortest time left? [As you can tell, I was not the most devout of children.]
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That particular reflection stayed with me long after my years in the choir. Gathered in any large group, when things were slow — perhaps listening to a boring instructor — I would again wonder, “Who of us is the next one to go?”

When I joined the blogosphere, the same question eventually occurred to me as I perused the thoughts of those brave enough to put their words out there. Who would be the first to leave us? Cathy Seipp did not come to mind. Not at all. Not someone so vital.

And now her voice will be missed.


By the way, our beloved Gregorian choir director, a funny and gifted musician who had graduated from that very same school in 1941, still buzzes around the diocese, making CDs and raising money for her order, the Sisters of Saint Joseph.

But Sister Marie Therese is a story for the Neighborhood of God, not here — though she was the first one to tell me my gift was writing. When I asked her last year — she has email and a cell phone — to what she attributed her long life and creativity, she said that of course it was God’s will, but that she also thought it came from constantly giving away her “stuff.” On occasion, she emails me, “Want some ‘stuff’?”

That’s the hardest part of being among the survivors: figuring out what to do with all the stuff left behind

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The Norwegian Government Surrenders to Muslims

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna. For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.


This weekend, Norway became first Western country to announce its recognition of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government. Norway was home to the original back-channel talks between left-wing Israeli politicians and the PLO which created the ill-fated Oslo Peace Process of the 1990s, and also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to PLO-leader Yasser Arafat.

The decision to fund the Hamas-led government was accompanied by cheers from the media, including newspaper Aftenposten which praised this as a “wise” move. Aftenposten in 2006 published an essay by Jostein Gaarder, author of the bestselling book “Sophie’s World,” which called the Ten Commandments “amusing stone tablets” and said that Israel has “raped world recognition and will have no peace before it lays down its arms.” The essay was denounced as anti-Semitic by many observers, but also received significant support.

During the Cartoon Jihad in 2006, Bruce Bawer, the author of the book While Europe Slept, described how Velbjørn Selbekk, the editor of the tiny newspaper Magazinet, had firmly resisted pressure by Muslims who made death threats. But then Norway’s Minister of Labor and Social Inclusion Bjarne Håkon Hanssen hastily called a press conference at a government office building in Oslo. There Selbekk issued an abject apology for reprinting the Danish cartoons. At his side, accepting his act of contrition and asking that all threats now be withdrawn, was Mohammed Hamdan, head of Norway’s Islamic Council, accompanied by a number of imams. As Bawer commented, it was a picture right out of a sharia courtroom, with the Muslim leader declaring Selbekk to be henceforth under his protection.

In a Friday sermon on February 3, 2006, Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, exhorted worshippers to show rage to the world in response the cartoons depicting Muhammad. The sermon was aired on TV. The following day, the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria were set ablaze by an angry mob. A few days later, a delegation led by Mohammed Hamdan of Norway’s Islamic Council and a senior pastor representing Oslo’s bishop visited Qatar to meet Mr. Qaradhawi. The trip recieved support from the Norwegian government. Qaradhawi accepted the apology that Velbjørn Selbekk had issued on February 10.

Walid al-Kubaisi, a Muslim dissident living in Norway, warned that Yousef Al-Qaradhawi was more dangerous and influential than Osama bin Laden, and that the Muslim Brotherhood, whose founder Hassan al-Banna Qaradhawi had followed when he was young, wants the West to submit to sharia. Kubaisi reacted strongly to the statement by Mr. Hamdan that he would now give Mr. Selbekk protection:

It frightens me that he presents himself as an authority that can grant or revoke protection. Does this mean that [Minister] Bjarne Håkon Hanssen thinks that the next time I feel threatened because of something I have written, I should contact the Islamic Council, not the police? Sadly, the government, in their eagerness to end the current troubles, have made the authoritarian forces stronger.

Kubaisi feared that Islamists would from now on just burn something every time they felt offended about anything, and expect to get their will.
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The status given to non-Muslim dhimmis who accept Islamic rule is technically referred to as “protected.” During the Cartoon Jihad, the left-wing government demonstrated in public that Norwegian authorities did not control the security of their citizens, and thus had to accept Muslim intervention to secure Norwegians’ safety. This amounted to the acceptance of Islamic rule according to sharia laws, a view which was subsequently strengthened by payments to Muslims both at home and abroad. Undoubtedly these payments were viewed by Muslims as jizya, the “protection money” non-Muslims are required to pay in willing submission (Koran, 9:29), as a sign of their inferior status vis-à-vis Islam.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi has boasted that “Islam will Return to Europe as a Conqueror.” The spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood was thus indirectly responsible for the attack on the Norwegian embassy; technically the attack could be interpeted as an act of war.

Hamas is by many viewed as the Palestinian branch of the MB. They even write this in their own charter. This means that the Norwegian government is now funding an organization that has caused physical attacks against their country. Admittedly, even the USA and Israel are doing so, too, but it is still embarrassing and worrying that Norway is part of this bribe scheme.

In the fall of 2006, Minister Bjarne Håkon Hanssen from the Labor Party called for increased immigration to Norway from Pakistan because this wuld be good for the Norwegian society. The majority of Muslims in Norway voted for the Labor Party in the 2005 general elections, which the left-wing coalition won by a very slim margin. Eighty-three percent of Muslims voted for Leftist parties.

There have even been calls for translating Norway’s national anthem to Urdu because this would be good for integration.

Kristin Halvorsen, the leader of the Socialist Left Party, began her election campaign in 2005 in the Pakistani countryside, praising all the “blood, sweat and tears Pakistanis in Norway have spent on building the country.” She is now Norway’s Minister of Finance.

The deputy leader of the party has announced that he wants to abolish private property rights. It is stated in the party’s programme that the United States constitutes the greatest threat to world peace. However, their calls to boycott Israel have had no affect on consumer attitudes.

Trond Giske, Minister of Culture and Church Affairs from the Labor Party, met with Mohammed Hamdan, the then head of Norway’s Islamic Council, a few months after the Cartoon Jihad and announced that government subsidies for the Islamic Council would be raised from sixty thousand kroner a year to half a million. That’s more than a seven hundred percent increase in a single year.

The government would also meet more frequently with the Islamic Council to “improve dialogue.” Its leader Hamdan smiled after having talked with Mr. Giske for about one hour. “We’re pretty pleased with the meeting. For us it’s important to improve contacts with the government so that we can get to know each other better.”

Mohammed Hamdan participated during a meeting with members of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas at Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament, in the summer of 2006. According to him, he was only an interpreter, but his brother Osama Hamdan is a member of parliament for Hamas in the Palestinian Territories. Since the Norwegian government decided in March 2007 to continue sponsoring the Hamas-led government, this can hardly be viewed as anything but a total surrender to Islamic rule.

Muslims can spot a good dhimmi when they see one. In Bergen, Norway’s second largest city, Labor Party politician Jerad Abdelmajid threatened that Muslims would take their Friday prayers in Torgallmenningen, Bergen’s central public square. This threat occurred because Muslims would be temporarily without a mosque after March 31. Thus, if the authorities didn’t provide them with a interim mosque until the new one was finished, they would disrupt the community with public prayer meetings.

In contrast to the Selbekk case, Mullah Krekar, the former leader of the Islamic terror group Ansar al-Islam, still continues to be permitted to live in Norway — even though he has

• pretty much openly threatened the country with terror attacks,
  
• has called Osama bin Laden “the jewel of Islam”
  
• and bragged that Islam will conquer Europe.

Krekar has written a book about himself, which was published William Nygaard – a man who was dhimmified when he was shot and almost killed in the early 90s for having published the Norwegian translation of Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses.

It was recently confirmed that the posts I wrote on my blog two years ago about Muslim rapes were indeed accurate. I continue to maintain that the Norwegian Minister of Justice — if not the entire centre-right government — should have resigned in 2005, when this scandal came to light.

In September 2001, the newspaper Aftenposten published statistics from the city of Oslo showing that two thirds of those charged with rape in Norway’s capital were immigrants with a non-western background. This means that a majority of rapes in Oslo are committed by Muslim men. In addition, the total number of rape cases continues to rise.

The numbers published in 2001 were publicly discussed in at least two of Norway’s three largest newspapers: Aftenposten and Dagbladet. A leading member of the Liberal Party (Venstre), Odd Einar Dørum, demanded all the numbers be put on the table: “A scumbag is a scumbag, regardless of skin color.” A few weeks later, Mr. Dørum became Minister of Justice, a position he retained for the next four years. However, any mention of these statistics disappeared.

Last year, 2006, the number of rapes in the Norwegian capital Oslo was six times higher (per capita) than they were in New York City. Such statistics are likely to worsen, as New York City has become tougher on crime, and Oslo continues to silence any discussion of the imploding issue of safety for women in their city.

Dr. Jens Tomas Anfindsen, one of two editors of the bilingual website Honest Thinking, in 2007 revealed that there was a police report from 2005 that confirmed the trends from 2001. He talked to former Minister Dørum, who denied that the government had hushed it down. Yet as Mr Anfindsen pointed out, the report was met with total silence from both the political elites and the media that year.

Why?

In 2005, when the country was about to have national elections, I wrote that the country’s Minister of Justice knew that the huge spike in rapes was intimately linked to immigration. He denounced this cultural degradation before being elected, but once in power, this official did absolutely nothing about the problem. In fact, he refused to acknowledge that it even existed during his four years in office.

Normally this would have led to calls for his resignation, or that of the entire government of PM Bondevik. When this didn’t happen, I suspect it was because both the media and the left-wing opposition parties championed Multiculturalism and wanted to keep a lid on “delicate issues” related to immigration. In addition, the left-wing parties currently in office actively courted the Muslim vote – no doubt a decisive factor in their narrow victory that year.

Statistics showing that immigrants, especially from Muslim countries such as Iraq and Somalia, were behind two thirds of the rapes in Oslo were published again by newspaper Aftenposten in 2007. It is good that these numbers were finally published. Muslim violence in Western countries includes far more than just rape. The fact that it is actually being discussed in Norway, rather than silenced, is a positive turn of events. This willingness to address the real problems makes Norway one of the better countries when it comes to public dialogue.

However, why did newspapers Aftenposten and Dagbladet as well as other media, refuse to cite the police report in 2005? This omission may have decided the outcome of the elections. Yes, they did publish the reports in 2001 and 2007, but what motivated them to let the subject drop completely in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 or 2006. After all, the numbers of rapes grew to unprecedented heights year after year.

Is it a coincidence that they finally published the numbers again after I had written several articles denouncing their silence , and that Honest Thinking had just written about it as well? I don’t know the answers, but I’m entitled to ask them to explain their silence. And if our media withholds such information from us, what other kinds of information are they withholding?

It would be unfair to say that there is no opposition to these insane policies. Erna Solberg, the leader of Høyre, Norway’s conservative (with a very small “c”) party, is a dedicated Multiculturalist who has proposed the establishment of an officially sanctioned sharia council in Norway. However, a new book by a former member of Parliament for Høyre, Hallgrim Berg, warns against Islamic plans to turn Europe into Eurabia. He discusses the growing anti-Americanism in Europe and maintains the United States is the only power in the world capable of securing freedom.

In 2005 the police issued a mobile security alarm to leader of the right-wing Progress Party, Carl I. Hagen. Hagen had criticized Islam, and could see no similarity with the concept of morality and justice found in Christianity. He also said that if Israel loses in the Middle East, Europe will succumb to Islam next. He thinks that Christians should support Israel and oppose Islamic inroads into Europe. In an unprecedented step, a group of Muslim ambassadors to Norway blasted Carl I. Hagen in a letter. Other politicians quickly caved in and condemned Hagen, including then-Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik of the Christian Democrats.

In 2007, the Progress Party, which is one of the most pro-Israeli and pro-American parties in Western Europe, is on the brink of replacing the Labor Party as the largest party in the country. Ordinary citizens have beomce disillusioned with Multiculturalism and Muslim immigration. However, as elsewhere in Europe, the established political, cultural and media elites are firmly behind these wrong-headed policies.

In 2001, Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, told Dagbladet that “Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes” because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor’s conclusion was that “Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.”

Meanwhile, Trond Giske, Minister of Culture and Church Affairs and the same man who provided Norway’s Islamic Council with a seven hundred percent increase in funds after the Cartoon Jihad, announced that 2008 would be an official Diversity Year, dedicated to celebrating Multiculturalism and “cultural diversity” in all sectors of society.

The more the state ideology fails, the more the state promotes its doomed tenets in public propaganda campaigns. China’s Chairman Mao would have been proud of Norwegian authorities.

I’m not, but then I am an ignorant Islamophobe.

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A Transsexual Energy Policy?

Mona Sahlin is a Socialist politician in Sweden. She is pictured at right during a famous incident when she donned a veil when visiting a mosque.

Our Swedish correspondent LN has been following Ms. Sahlin’s career for years, and sent us the following article about her.

Caritas-Caritatis, or a Lady of Dubious Credibility

The Swedish Social Democratic Workers’ Party got a new and female leader last Sunday. If the Socialists come back into power after the next election in 2010, she will probably become Prime Minister.

The new leader, Ms. Mona Sahlin (50), started her career early: at seven she founded the Barbie Club, and ten years later she joined the Socialists. What is and has been typical for her is her habit of intermixing feelings and carelessness in all her doings, which means that objectivity, stringency and analytical precision get lost.

The former prime minister Göran Persson describes his party chum (1997) in quite biting terms: “What crosses her lips is not very remarkable; her strength is not in her thinking, but her ability to convey a message.” For Ms. Sahlin, minority issues have always been the big ideological topic, something that by definition requires the ruling people, the majority — the true democratic foundation — to yield.

For nine years she has always been among those leading the procession at the annual Pride Festival in Stockholm. On this occasion HBT persons (Homo-Bi-Trans-sexuals) fill the streets of the capital in order to proclaim their disposition. In an interview on the festival’s web page in the summer of 2006 she declared: “Of course I always speak about HBT in almost everything I do. It is even possible to connect to HBT questions when you discuss ‘nuclear energy’ or ‘energy policy’.”


Ms. Mona Sahlin in her element

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In the multicultural world of Ms Sahlin it is the reverse order that is valid. Ethnic Swedes must, when searching for employment, leave room for immigrants. If two persons, a Swede and an immigrant with similar qualifications, apply for a job, according to Ms Sahlin the employer must chose the person called Mohammed. It will be counted as a ‘decisive qualification’ to have ‘another ethnic background’. (GöteborgsPosten 001022)

“We Swedes have neither culture nor history!”

She does not refrain from deprecating Sweden and its history and culture of peace, democracy, equality, and decency, plus more picturesque elements such as the midsummer celebration. When she participated in Euroturk — the Turkish Youth Association’s congress — in the spring of 2002 she said: “I believe that what makes Swedes so envious of immigrant groups is that you have a culture, a history, something binding you together. And what have we got — ‘midsummer celebration’ and such corny things.”

One of her best friends, former immigration minister Jens Orback, according to Ms Sahlin, said in connection with the murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands 2004, “We must be open and generous to the muslims and Islam, because when we become the minority we hope they will treat us likewise.”

The future of Sweden does not look hopeful, nor does it inspire confidence.

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"May the Truth Win!"

Sissy Willis has kindly brought to our attention the following invitation:

Climate Change Challenge

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley presents his compliments to Vice-President Albert Gore and by these presents challenges the said former Vice-President to a head-to-head, internationally-televised debate upon the question “That our effect on climate is not dangerous”, to be held in the Library of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History at a date of the Vice-President’s choosing.

Forasmuch as it is His Lordship who now flings down the gauntlet to the Vice-President, it shall be the Vice-President’s prerogative and right to choose his weapons by specifying the form of the Great Debate. May the Truth win! Magna est veritas, et praevalet.

Given at Carie, Rannoch, in the County of Perth, in the Kingdom of Scotland, this 14th Day of March in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand And Seven.

God Bless America!     God Save The Queen!

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Carie, Rannoch, PH17 2QJ, Scotland
011 44 1882 632341
monckton@mail.com

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The article in Breitbart says that Monckton was a former policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher while she was Prime Minister. It quotes the Viscount:
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“A careful study of the substantial corpus of peer-reviewed science reveals that Mr. Gore’s film,An Inconvenient Truth, is a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors, now being peddled to innocent schoolchildren worldwide.”

Unfortunately, it’s being peddled by to these children by equally ignorant adults, led by an almost-president who himself came close to failing Earth Sciences in college.

Will Gore rise to the challenge? Or will he weenie out, just as he did for the proposed debate with Bjorn Lomborg when Gore visited Denmark in February?

Monckton’s mocking may be enough to drive Gore to address the issues, but he’s been breathing Hollywood’s fumes so long, it’s hard to predict what he’ll do with this dare for a face-to-face debate:

Monckton calls on the former Vice President to “step up to the plate and defend his advocacy of policies that could do grave harm to the welfare of the world’s poor. If Mr. Gore really believes global warming is the defining issue of our time, the greatest threat human civilization has ever faced, then he should welcome the opportunity to raise the profile of the issue before a worldwide audience of billions by defining and defending his claims against a serious, science-based challenge.”

For those of you who remember your Philosophy of Science classes, the proposed debate will echo the most famous of them all. It is a stroke of good fortune that Lord Monckton has the standing to command such a venue:

The arena of the glittering “Second Great Debate” will be the elegant, Victorian-Gothic Library of the Oxford Museum of Natural History, which was the setting for the “Great Debate” between the natural scientist T. H. Huxley and Bishop…Wilberforce on the theory of evolution, following the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species.

Lord Monckton says he chose this historic venue “not only because the magnificent, Gothic architecture will be a visually-stunning setting for the debate but also because I hope that in this lofty atmosphere the caution and scepticism of true science will once again prevail, this time over the shibboleths and nostrums of the false, new religion of climate alarmism.”

The Greenies definitely have created a new religion of Global Freezing Warming. And the further you follow it down the dark trail, the more you begin to trip over its fundamentalist roots, its snake-handlers and hucksters and fire-breathing preachers predicting hell on earth for those who refuse to believe.

Monckton’s views, as they appear in this clip from a Wikipedia entry, are looked upon somewhat skeptically. No surprise there. However, he aims a good shot across the bow of two US senators:

Monckton has been in the news in recent months due to his skepticism of global warming. In November 2006, he published in the The Daily Telegraph a widely publicized article critical of the prevailing climate change opinions. After U.S. Senators Rockefeller and Snowe wrote a letter to the Chief Executive Officer of ExxonMobil asking him to stop funding scientists who reject global warming, Lord Monckton wrote a letter to the senators reminding them of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and calling on them to reverse their position or resign.

Did you know that in his youth, Gore considered the possibility of a calling to Christian ministry? But he had been groomed by Père Gore for politics and presidential ambitions. The idea of ‘vocation’ is one that has been largely neglected in the modern world. Now we choose what we will do with our lives - or (as has always been the case) ambitious parents choose for us.

Gore is a sad example of what happens when we ignore a calling, that quiet voice within that beckons us to the potential of our best selves. Instead of listening to his heart, former vice-president Gore listened to Daddy. He carried “honor thy father” to a sad extreme.

Let us hope he finds the courage to stand in that historic place to which Viscount Monckton has summoned him. Win or lose, this is an appointment of karmic proportions.

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The Effete Versus the Peons

When I was at the Eagles’ gathering last Saturday, I stood for a while with some of the Rolling Thunder guys while they screened people who wanted to enter the walkway that led to the Vietnam War Memorial.

The first time I saw one of the vets turn away a protester at the checkpoint, I asked him, “What are you doing, screening out the moonbats?”

“Well,” he replied, “let’s just say ‘the college-educated’.”

I thought about what he said when I went up to Moonbat Central a few minutes later to scope out the demonstrators. There were some veterans taking part in the demonstration up there, but not many. Besides the Aztlans and the Palestinians — who were out in force — the crowd consisted mainly of college students and aging boomers, hippies for whom the sixties never ended.

It was definitely an effete crowd, a bunch of people who had enough education to know that they were better than the vulgar flag-wavers down the hill, people who were sure that they had a truer knowledge of the world than all of the great unwashed with their repulsive patriotic display over by the Vietnam memorial.

By all rights I should have been with the protesters. I come from a solid middle-class background. I’m a college-educated man and an unabashed intellectual. I’ve read Chaucer and Schopenhauer. I listen to Bach. I even like to drink latte.

So why is it that I felt at home among those Rolling Thunder guys with their flags and their Harley-Davidsons? Why did those demonstrators seem to be aliens from Arcturus?

All I know is that the veterans are my people, and the ANSWER folks most assuredly are not.

The Party for Sedition and Treason

The major issue that keeps me out of the ranks of the moonbats is that I love my country. No matter what Nancy Pelosi and Hillary do when they’re running the place, I still love my country.

The same cannot be said of the demonstrators. They claim that they love America, but when you listen to what they have to say, there isn’t a single example of American history or culture of which they approve. They revere Cuba, Palestine, North Korea, and any other barbaric thug-state, so long as it’s an enemy of the United States.

And I don’t think electing Democrats is going to ease their dissatisfaction much — they are, after all, communists, and nothing short of the Revolution will cure their alienation from Amerikkka.

Take, for example, this paragraph from The Militant, whose members were among the demonstrators:
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Here in Washington Democrats continue to posture in “opposition” to the war. Their latest charade is to attach amendments to a $100 billion supplemental bill on war spending that would also set Sept. 1, 2008—two months before the next U.S. presidential election—as the date for withdrawing combat troops from Iraq. As with previous proposals of this type, it faces substantial opposition from within both parties.

As far as these folks are concerned, the Democrats are taking their campaign donations and then acting like warmongering imperialist running dog lackeys! They’re no better than the Rethuglicans! You can bet they’ll be among the first up against the wall and blindfolded when the commissars finally take control.

Socialism is the Dream That Will Not Die. I picked up some literature from one of the groups and scanned it to present here for your edification.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a newly-formed working-class party of leaders and activists from many different struggles, founded to promote revolutionary change. Capitalism — the system where all wealth and power lies with a handful of big banks and corporations — is the source of the problems facing humanity today: “endless war,” poverty, exploitation, layoffs, unemployment, racism, sexism, LGBT oppression. Socialism is what we’re fighting for: a society where all wealth belongs to those who produce it, for the benefit of all, based on solidarity instead of greed and competition. Do you want to learn more about socialism and Marxism? Do you want to join us in struggle? Contact the PSL, check out our website, subscribe to our magazine, and get involved… The time is now!

“Working-class”? How many of those people at the Lincoln memorial were really working class? Do working-class people consider LGBT oppression to be among their highest priorities? How many in the Socialist Workers’ Party are really workers?

One of the notable features of the Socialist conglomeration was how splintered it was into different and distinct sub-groups and sects. Christine of the 910 Group was there, and had this to report:

Along Portapotty Walk — marked by a row of small Cuban flags on the south end, and a Palestinian flag at the north — there were pairs of people selling socialist newspapers, but each one was not only a different paper, it was from a different party. The Revolutionary Communists… Socialist Workers’ Party… Freedom Road Workers’ Party… several others, each anxiously and earnestly affirming that it was different from the others.

But on being asked exactly what the difference was, one person said, “Well, Cuba. We’re different from other groups on Cuba. Somehow…” Passersby seemed to welcome having all that reading material there given the proximity of the portapotties — though reading may not have been the intended use.

I’m reminded of Protestant denominations, of schisms over Predestination and the true nature of the Paraclete. Trotsky or Che? Lenin or Mao? Can the Dictatorship of the Proletariat wait, or must it be ushered in immediately?

And Socialism is not without its lighter moments. Take this St. Valentine’s Day treatise on Revolutionary Love, from Freedom Road (Organización Socialista Camino de la Libertad):

I want to talk about love this month not because the corporate holiday is coming up but because it is a little summed-up experience that has a big impact on our movement. I draw here from both theory and practice. I am in no way an expert on dating or love, with my limited experience of it, but my mother always said that the people who struggle make the best teachers. She was talking about math as an example, not the struggle, but I think you can apply it to both. In either case, I think I might make a good teacher.

Revolutionaries need love is the point here and we need to share love with other [sic] in our circle in good principled ways. Of course the conditions we live under — hegemony, oppression, patriarchy — affect all of this. Maybe you can learn from my mistakes, or Lenin’s if you prefer…

Revolutionaries need love! Have you hugged your Trotskyite today?

Watch out — those bomb belts really hurt your chest when you hug those righteous Hamas dudes.


Thanks to Christine from the 910 Group for all the moonbat research.

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The Capricious gods on Mount Journalism

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. - Marcus Aurelius

I found the quote above in the comments section of a Newsbuster’s article. The commenter, dscott, claims membership in The 14th Amendment Society. To my sorrow, this group appears to be non-existent, though I appreciate the sentiment. We need "The 14th Amendment Society." If you follow the link to his site, you’ll see why he wants one.

Meanwhile, the Newsbuster’s essay is most encouraging. Enough to put some shine on your Monday. Who would have thought Algore’s hallucinations would have jumped the shark so soon after his glorious Hollywood appearance? Not I. Surely this Henny-Penny-the-sky-is-falling scare-mongering had several more months of slavering media attention due?

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Apparently not. The gods of Journalism, pronouncing from Mt. New York Times, have decided - for their own [currently] inscrutable reasons - that Algore’s theories need a brake. Here, Noel Sheppard hat tips Drudge for the report:

Question: When you’re a liberal, how do you know if you’re on thin ice, especially the kind that you’re claiming is melting all over the planet due to global warming?

Answer: When even papers like the New York Times are publishing articles skeptical of the junk science you’ve been peddling across the questionably warming globe.

Sure, soon-to-be-Dr. Gore has kind of won an Oscar for his schlockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” even though all he got to take home that evening was Tipper and all the food she was able to stuff into her pocketbook at the buffets thrown in his honor.

However, it must have been a quite shock to find out that the leftists working for Punch Sulzberger were going to publish a not so adoring article after all that oohing and aahing Gore received from the Hollywood elites just days prior…

Poor Tipper.

Sympathy aside, it is amazing that the gods have turned their gaze from Algore so soon.

What goes here? Who is going to be propped up in his stead? Obviously, they are dethroning AG, but in preparation for whose coronation?

Bad science on the environment has wafted from the pages of the NYT since the 1970’s. Why this sudden conversion to reality?

Stay tuned. The Times could get interesting.

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Newspeak for the Oldest Profession

For those of a certain political persuasion, the phrase “sex worker” has replaced the word “prostitute”. “Prostitute” itself replaced the word “whore” back in Victorian days. Each substitution arose from the zeitgeist of its era, but the reasons for the successive euphemisms were quite different: Victorian circumlocutions arose to screen distasteful immoral activity from the public discourse, while postmodern ones are used to empower the affected individuals and remove stigma from them. In other words, the former served a communal social purpose, and the latter a narcissistic one.

Similar euphemistic transformations of other words are:

• From “cripple” to “handicapped” to “disabled”, and recently to the ludicrous “differently abled”.
  
• From “idiot” to “imbecile” to “retarded” to “special needs”.
  
• From “deaf” to “hard of hearing” (the Victorians seemed to have no need to euphemize this one).
  
• From “sodomite” to “homosexual” to “gay”.

When, as is inevitable, the phrase “sex worker” develops its own stigma, will it have to be replaced by yet another euphemism?

My candidate for its successor is “pleasure consultant”.

The original word for the oldest profession has an appropriately ancient pedigree. According to my tattered copy of The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, the word whore is derived from the Old English word hōre, which came from the Common Germanic root χōrōn, and has very similar relatives in all the Germanic languages. The Germanic root in turn is derived from an Indo-European base, qār-, and has descendents in many Indo-European languages. Among those that have made their way into modern English are caress and caritas via Latin, and charity via Latin and French.

Somehow the word’s original connotation of affection evolved into one of opprobrium when it was applied to a person whose affections were for sale. This is a deep and natural human response, and presumably speaks to an instinctively ambivalent reaction to prostitution.

But modern political ideology deems these natural sensibilities to be benighted and archaic, and requires that they be overthrown by linguistic engineering.

The Victorian fad for prudish euphemism eventually faded, leaving us with a few incongruous remnants such as “drumstick” and “white meat” for the leg and breast of a chicken. I presume that the current politically correct fads will fade in their turn, to make way for the ascendancy for some new rule of euphemism.

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I bring all this up because of a comment that came in last night on an old post, made by a sex workers’ advocate named “pick”. Pick was reacting to my essay about the Sex Workers’ Art Show, which, as you may remember, was brought to the campus of the College of William and Mary by official student activity funds and your tax dollars.
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Here’s what pick had to say:

Hi Baron,

Couple of things…

Does it bother you at all to hold such a virulent opinion on a show that neither you nor your progeny have ever actually SEEN? Are you really content to let fox news tell you what it was all about, and then make your decisions from there?

How is it at all feminist for you to compare women to turds? You claim to be so opposed to the degradation of women, but you say that sex workers and turds are both distasteful things that need to be kept out of the public eye. How is calling women shit not degrading?

If you don’t think you should have to pay for shows on campus that you disagree with, what about people who don’t care for football, or ballet, or visual arts, or choir concerts? Should those be abolished on campus as well? Clearly your truck is with the actual content of the show, not with the fact that you had to ‘pay’ for it, otherwise you would not support funds for any arts and recreation. The complaint about funding is just a distraction from the fact that you support censorship, which is highly un-American.

By the by, your links are all messed up. You conflate the SWAS with the sex work matters conference, referring to one at the beginning of a sentence and then linking to the bios of the other.

I hope you’ll consider what it is that REALLY threatens you about the idea that sex workers might be able to make decisions for themselves, and might have something worthwhile to say.

Although my first impulse was to ignore her, I decided to answer at length. Below are her words in italics interleaved with my responses:

Pick —

Does it bother you at all to hold such a virulent opinion on a show that neither you nor your progeny have ever actually SEEN? Are you really content to let fox news tell you what it was all about, and then make your decisions from there?

No and yes, respectively. The argument that one can’t judge something that one hasn’t witnessed is fallacious. That logic would prevent me from offering an opinion on the Gettysburg Address or the Holocaust.

If one has sufficient information, it’s possible to offer an opinion on an event without being present. There was a large amount of detailed information on the show available in various news articles.

How is it at all feminist for you to compare women to turds? You claim to be so opposed to the degradation of women, but you say that sex workers and turds are both distasteful things that need to be kept out of the public eye. How is calling women shit not degrading?

I didn’t say that I was a feminist. And I didn’t compare women with turds. I questioned the validity of the unexamined premise that it’s a good idea to air everything in public, no matter how vulgar, inappropriate, or distasteful most people find the material. No one has ever offered a convincing argument to support that premise.

If you don’t think you should have to pay for shows on campus that you disagree with, what about people who don’t care for football, or ballet, or visual arts, or choir concerts? Should those be abolished on campus as well?

If the vast majority of the people who actually pay for them disapprove of them, then, yes, they should be abolished — or, rather, de-funded. Let the interested people who comprise the audience be the ones to pay for them.

Clearly your truck is with the actual content of the show, not with the fact that you had to ‘pay’ for it, otherwise you would not support funds for any arts and recreation.

My “truck” is that people are forced to pay for something that the vast majority don’t approve of. That’s all.

The complaint about funding is just a distraction from the fact that you support censorship, which is highly un-American.

The assertion that a refusal to fund an activity is tantamount to censorship is an old one, but it is not true. Censorship only occurs when expression is forbidden by law.

By the by, your links are all messed up. You conflate the SWAS with the sex work matters conference, referring to one at the beginning of a sentence and then linking to the bios of the other.

I followed links within these groups which clearly indicated that all were associated with one another. They shared a link base, just as Gates of Vienna does with Jihad Watch. I don’t mind if you conflate us with Jihad Watch; it’s appropriate.

I hope you’ll consider what it is that REALLY threatens you about the idea that sex workers might be able to make decisions for themselves, and might have something worthwhile to say.

The vast majority of “sex workers” are exploited drug addicts, many of them underage. A huge trafficking of them goes on, especially in Europe. It is to the eternal shame of the Left and the feminists that they have turned a blind eye to the overwhelming evidence of the immense harm done to young women by sex trafficking. Calling it a “choice” for these underage refugees is an Orwellian use of the language.

What’s interesting in all this is pick’s conceit that I am “threatened” by her ideas. This is a common formulation on the Left — that conservatives are somehow threatened by the ideas of the progressives.

Can you say “projection”?

This topic is also important because it presents four themes which have been drilled in by postmodern theorists for so long that they have become dogma:

1.		The fallacy, most commonly seen in the “chicken hawk” argument, that someone who has not participated in nor observed an activity is disqualified from commenting on it.
2.		The conceit that turning a private activity into a public one is a self-evident good, even when that activity is, in most cases, considered shameful and degrading by both parties to it.
3.		The assertion that the removal of public funds from an activity is the same as censoring it.
4.		The notion that the prostitute’s occupation is always a matter of choice, and that she is not being harmed by what she does.

The last one is the most pernicious. Many thousands of women and girls, some as young as thirteen, are abducted, sold, and live in a condition of virtual slavery as prostitutes in Western Europe and the United States. There is copious documentation for the callous and cynical exploitation of these children, yet the bien-pensants avert their collective gaze.

It would be better for them if great millstones were hung around their necks and they were cast into the sea.

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A Gathering of Eaglets

Yesterday the Baron trudged through the cold in Washington, talking to veterans and families, witnessing various acts of kindness among strangers, and seeing determined patriotism when it came to protecting the Vietnam Memorial. Given the fact that this demonstration of protection came together by word-of-mouth and internet organizing only, it is amazing that so many people from all over the country were able to show up.

Don’t believe the MSM — either their lying by entirely omitting any mention of the numbers of people attending the Gathering of Eagles, or their deliberate playing down of the numbers who did come. The Parks and Service people counted thirty thousand patriots gathered to protect the Wall.

I searched Fox News this morning and couldn’t find even a mention of yesterday’s event. Their pictures of the week in review featured such momentous occasions as a woman spraying her dog green for the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. Less than twenty-four hours later and the Gathering of Eagles is already down in the memory hole. In their defense, at least for today, they also ignored the well-engineered Moonbat Mingle further down the way, including the march on the Pentagon. No doubt the leftie blogs have their own pictures of derring-do against the evil country in which they are forced to live. I often wonder why more of them don’t simply emigrate to, say, the socialist EU. I also wonder why so many of the moonbats were Mexicans, protesting against their country of choice.

Whatever. The “we-report-you-decide” motto of Fox is certainly hollow. The Baron is right: in order to get any semblance of truth, we need a new order of journalism, one which lacks the narcissism and triviality of what is currently on offer. Who gives a damn what Brittney Spears thinks? Or that she is even capable of cerebration? What does she, or others in the entertainment circus, have to say that we would want to hear?

While the Baron was in the midst of the scene in Washington, asking questions and taking pictures, the future Baron and I were elsewhere: we went to a Gathering of Eaglets in Farmville, VA.

It was the annual fund-raising dinner for the Heart of Virginia Boy Scouts’ Council, District 60. Ironically — when you think about the MSM phobia noted above — the speaker was a retired television journalist, Jim Kincaid. He talked of his rural upbringing in Kansas, and the experience of earning his Eagle Scout badge. The Peabody awards and other achievements he earned in his career in media never came close to the sense of pride and success he felt at his Eagle Scout ceremony.

The fund-raising dinner was held in the National Guard Armory. Going in, I noticed the sign which said the Farmville Guard had served in Omaha Beach and Iraq. I wished I had the camera at the time, to capture this image of the baton being passed. However, the Baron had taken it to the Gathering of Eagles so the night went by without any pictures from us. I didn’t think to ask any of the camera-wielders inside the armory to email some images to us. Maybe it was the Scout food we were served that distracted me from thinking ahead.

Some interesting features of this “Friends of Scouting” fundraiser: the number of men who stood up when they asked for a count of Eagle Scouts. For all of them, it was a defining moment; I was reminded of the elderly Episcopal priest who attended the fB’s Eagle ceremony in 2003. Father Weatherly’s Eagle badge was pinned proudly beneath the white collar of his adult ministry. Did this achievement lead to his calling as a chaplain in the Korean War? Or to his service in World War II? Or to his son’s following in his footsteps in the military and the ministry?

The Boy Scouts are one hundred years old now. And some of the people there nearly matched it in age. In a state known for its slave-holding history, the crowd last night had its fair share of black men of all ages. In fact, the fB and I gave a ride home to a man of 93. He still drives, but not at night. And given the far reaches of District 60, we were the nearest family on his route home. It was probably eight miles out of our way, and as we rode to his house, he told an old man’s stories of being in New Guinea during the war, of prospering after he came home — he owns a great deal of valuable land in our county — and of the achievements of his children. Now he numbers among his grandchildren several lawyers and doctors, though he slyly noted the propensities of lawyers and laughed.
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So we had our local gathering of eaglets while the Eagles gathered in Washington D.C. We carried home pledge cards and brochures and car decals. We also came away with the knowledge we were contributing to the good. Not just talking about it, but doing something important. Just like the Eagles at the Wall.


Here are some Boy Scout statistics to consider:

Scouting tradition — do a good turn daily

For every 100 boys who join:

• Two will become Eagle Scouts
  
• Rarely will any be brought before juvenile court
  
• Twelve will have their first contact with a church or synagogue
  
• Eighteen will develop hobbies that will last a lifetime
  
• Five will earn their religious award
  
• Eight will enter a vocation learned through a merit badge
  
• One will use his Scouting skill to save a life
  
• One will use his Scouting skill to save his life

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And in a recent National survey of Scouts, former Scouts and adult volunteers, these were some of the results seen —

• Of adult Scout volunteers, 88 percent said Scouting helps them become better parents. And 71 percent said it helps them to be a positive role model for their own children.
  
• Of current boys in Scouting, 84 percent said getting an education was very important.
  
• 70 percent of inductees into Who’s Who in America were once Scouts, compared to 51 percent of all men in the United States.
  
• 40 percent of men who were Scouts for five or more years are college graduates, compared to only 16 percent of men who were never in Scouting.
  
• Nearly 75 percent of men who were Scouts say there have been real-life situations where having been a Scout helped them be a better leader.
  
• More than 80 percent of men who were Scouts agree that the values they learned in Scouting continue to be very important to them.
  
• The longer the Scouting experience, the greater the positive effects of the program seemed to have on adult men.

Want to do something meaningful and lasting for the future generation? Join the Scouting family. You don’t need to be a Scoutmaster, or give great amounts of time you don’t have. There are needs you could meet in a few hours a month or even a few hours a year.

For example, volunteer your expertise to help boys earn their badges. When the future Baron wanted to earn his badge for Personal Management (Eagle requirement), he worked with a local banker who was willing to spend some hours with the fB helping him develop his ability to manage his finances and plan for future spending.

When he needed help with his Bird Study badge, a local amateur bird watcher helped him acquire that one. As a result, the future Baron can identify almost any bird with just a glimpse, differentiating males and females. He knows the nesting habits, the shapes and sizes of nests, the egg shapes and number of eggs usually hatched by a given species of bird. He can recognize the bird songs — I know, I often ask him to tell me what I’m hearing when we do yard work. The field glasses he used still hang by the kitchen window so we can spot the various birds that flit through the yard.

Obviously, he could tell you far more about his experiences than I will ever know. But as a mom, one memory stands out particularly. The fB was fearful of being alone in the woods, particularly at night. As a middle-schooler, this fear was shameful to him, but there it was, lodged deep in his character. He knew if he was to achieve membership in the Order of the Arrow, which is the national honor society for Scouts he would have to do exactly the thing he most feared: spend a night alone in the woods, separated from other young Scouts who were going through the same experience. So on a cold weekend in early March, he did it. He persevered through that long night and he came home proudly wearing his new white sash with the bright red arrow. For him, perhaps, it was even more of a milestone than the Eagle badge. To earn his Eagle, he had to slog through the many requirements. However, to become a member of the Order of the Arrow, he had to face his greatest fear and transcend it.

To see where you can donate your time one-on-one, or with a group, go here, to the merit badge page. You’ll be surprised to find that you do indeed have something to give.

Not all of us can go to Washington, D.C. to guard the Vietnam Memorial from those who would dishonor our dead. Nor can we march off to war — even if the military would take the tattered brigades we would make. But each and every person reading this post can give a little time to boys; each of us can contribute to our future generation of men.

The boys of today are an endangered species. They need your help.

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Gathering With the Eagles

There was another big anti-war rally today in Washington DC, and an anarchist website tipped its hand by announcing that they intended to vandalize the Vietnam War Memorial as part of the action, as they did earlier with the Capitol building.

Free Republic responded by organizing a massive counter-protest of Vietnam vets and other patriotic volunteers in order to protect the memorial. I made the long drive up early this morning to report on “A Gathering of Eagles” for Gates of Vienna.

Note: each of the following photos is a thumbnail. Click the small image to see a larger version of the same thing.


After a long walk down from the Metro station at Farragut West, I expected the area on the Mall around the Vietnam Memorial to be crowded with lefty demonstrators. But it wasn’t — apparently the moonbats like to sleep in. But the veterans were out in force; I saw a heartwarming combination of Rolling Thunder people, Patriot Guard Riders, and VFW representatives of various ages crowding their counter-demonstration area next to the memorial.

It was very cold and blustery with occasional snow showers, and the veterans’ area soon became a sea of icy mud. But that didn’t dampen the spirits of those who came to protect the memorial. I talked to people who had come in from California, New York, Florida, Texas, and many other places across the country.

The first veteran I talked to was a man named Kevin Gray, who was carrying a sign dissing Jane Fonda. Ms. Fonda is a frequent target of gibes and insults among vets — I heard one of the organizers announce over the PA system that the porta-johns were available along Constitution Avenue “for anyone who wants to take a Fonda or a Sheehan.”
The veterans were industriously putting up flags all over the area when I arrived.
One of the Rolling Thunder vets kindly agreed to hold still for me to take a photo of his back. Notice Jane Fonda’s upside-down appearance here.
Major Eric Egland, a reservist who returned recently from Iraq, had set up a table to sell his book, The Troops Need You, America! He found a publisher for it, but it would would have taken until June for the book to come out. As a result, he decided to self-publish it, and I bought a copy, but haven’t had time to read it yet. It’s available for sale on his website, in case you’re interested.

Those who wanted to visit the memorial wall had to wait in one of two very long lines in order to be X-rayed and wanded for dangerous contraband. I spent an hour in the cold with a lot of veterans, and directly in front of me was a disabled veteran in a wheelchair, accompanied by his wife.
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Even though he was bundled up with a hat, coat, gloves, and a lap blanket, the poor guy was obviously very cold — you could see his arms shivering.

Next to him was a family, a husband with his wife and teenage son. The wife took off her coat to drape over the disabled vet’s shoulders.

“I’ve got my long underwear on, so I’m fine,” she told him. “And you can keep it. I’ve got four more just like it at home.”

The family continued to chat with the vet and his wife, and I noticed the woman was very well-informed about the Great Jihad, and also the enemy within. At one point she said, “You know, we had to throw Islam back once before at the gates of Vienna.”

I said, “Excuse me — did you say ‘Gates of Vienna’”?

She agreed that she had, so I told her, “I’m half of the blog Gates of Vienna.”

“You’re Baron Bodissey? I love your blog! I read it every day.” It turns out that she has commented here occasionally, under the nickname “Right Mom”. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Right family: Right Dad, Right Mom, and Right Junior.
There were volunteer veterans at the wall to help visitors find any specific names they were looking for.
Some of the vets stood there a long time finding the name of someone they remembered who never made it home.
This is a group of vets who agreed to pose for a photo. I specifically asked one of them to pose so that the back of his jacket could be seen.
When I came out of the memorial area, the moonbats had arrived in force up on Constitution Avenue.

I was in deep cover — I had no flag or other insignia identifying me as a member of the VRWC — so I headed up to the Lincoln Memorial to investigate the demonstration.

Signs for ANSWER and the Socialist Workers were everywhere, as were Cuban and Palestinian flags. There were plenty of Latin Americans and Muslims present, judging by appearances. The music over the loudspeakers seemed to alternate between anti-war standards (“War! HUH! What is it good for?”) and salsa numbers.

My favorite sign was one that read “The Only Way To Win The Hearts And Minds Of The Iraqi People Is To Apologize And Leave.” Second prize went to “Workers’ Rights Have No Borders”.
A squadron of vets had set up a fortified position inside the snow fence around the Lincoln Memorial coffee shop, and some of them argued with any of the demonstrators who came close enough.
I was very surprised to find that Holger Danske was there helping to protect the memorial. He said he had ridden in on his Harley-Davidson from North Carolina, but I wasn’t fooled — you could tell he was really Holger. He even had both eyes open, so the moonbats never had a chance.
A number of veterans got up on the platform and spoke to the crowd. In this photo Kevin Martin is making a passionate and inspiring speech, but, unfortunately, he’s mostly obscured. The vet in the foreground on the stage is signing the speech for the audience.

The Rolling Thunder guys stood shoulder to shoulder across the walkway that leads to the memorial, and refused entry to any of the demonstrators who tried to get in. I was standing next to one of the vets when a woman carrying a peace sign and pulling a suitcase on wheels wanted to get past us.

“Excuse me,” she said, with a thick European accent.

“You can’t come in here,” he told her. “You’re not wanted.”

“What do you mean?” she exclaimed in outrage. “This is America! You can’t stop me going in there.”

“Oh, yes I can. Go back down there —” he pointed towards the Lincoln Memorial — “that’s where you’re wanted. And we’ll stay down here.”

He never did let her get by.

There were several DC cops opposite the vets, watching impassively from across the sidewalk next to Constitution Avenue. I asked one of them if the checkpoint was OK with him. He shrugged. “They’re not blocking the sidewalk. That’s all I care about.”

The demonstrators were now arriving by the busload and massing on the lawn by the Lincoln Memorial. Their plan was to cross Memorial Bridge and march a mile and half to the Pentagon. There was no way I was going out over the Potomac in those temperatures and with a stiff wind blowing, so I decided to head back towards the Metro.

The last thing I saw before turning to walk up the hill was this very peculiar icon or totem. It was being wheeled up the sidewalk by one woman while two others held ropes and struggled to keep the wind from blowing it away. It seemed unlikely that the monstrosity would ever make it across Memorial Bridge intact.

I never did figure out exactly what the thing represented. It sported an eye-and-pyramid on its forehead, and had something to do with Bush, and something to do with Oil, but beyond that it was inscrutable.

After I left DC, some of my TV-owning sources told me that CNN had lavish coverage of the anti-war protesters, but no footage of the veterans. CNN reported that there were “about two thousand counter-demonstrators”, but don’t believe them — early in the morning, when the vets met at their staging area, I saw considerably more than that. I heard that they fanned out across the city later on to place a protective cordon around all the major monuments.

God bless those veterans! They renewed my spirit.

I’ll have more to report on these events later, when I have more time.

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Muslim Violence — Crime or Jihad?

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.


Although the European Union warns against “,” those who live in the real world know that there has been an explosion of violent infidelophobia in Western Europe staged by Muslim immigrants. This wave of violence especially targets
Jews, but the attacks against Christians that are going on in the the Middle East, where there may soon be no Christians left in the cradle of Christianity, are increasingly spreading to Europe as well. In more and more cities across the continent, non-Muslims are being harassed, robbed, mugged, raped, stabbed and even killed by Muslims, yet EU leaders continue their quest to merge Europe and the Arab world by making it easier for Muslims to enter and settle in Europe.

The fact that European leaders and media voice such concern for “Islamophobia” yet do very little to stop attacks against Christian Europeans demonstrates the creeping dhimmitude in Europe which has been accurately predicted by Bat Ye’or. Native Europeans are slowly becoming second-rate citizens in their own countries.

This violence by Muslims is usually labelled simply as “crime,” but I believe it should more accurately be called Jihad. Those who know early Islamic history, as described in books such as The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer, know that looting and stealing the property of non-Muslims has been part and parcel of Jihad from the very beginning. In fact, so much of the behavior of Muhammad himself and the early Muslims could be deemed criminal that it is difficult to know exactly where crime ends and Jihad begins. In the city of Oslo, for instance, it is documented that some of the criminal Muslim gangs also have close ties to radical religious groups at home and abroad. As Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen points out, the Koran is seen by some Muslims as a God-given “hunting licence,” granting them the right to assault and even murder non-Muslims.

It is hardly accidental that while Muslims make up about tem percent of the population in France, they make up an estimated seventy percent of French prison inmates. Muslims are over-represented in jails in countries all over the world, and a striking number of non-Muslims in jail also convert to Islam. There could be many reasons for this. Some observers have suggested that prison inmates generally lack control over their personal lives, and thus seek a strict code which provides them with the discipline they themselves don’t have. Perhaps, but personally I suspect that the most important reason is much more simple: If you’re a Muslim you can continue doing criminal things yet at the same time claim to be morally superior. If you rob and mug non-Muslims you are not a thief or a thug, you are in fact a brave Jihadist doing God’s noble work:

Tariq Ramadan and Islam’s Future in Europe

Non-Muslims are lesser people. By saying this they justify the behaviour of young Muslim criminals who target the non-Muslims whilst they never touch fellow Muslims. They told me that drug trafficking is perfectly acceptable as long as one only sells to non-Muslims. They told me that stealing from non-Muslims is allowed as long as one does not harm fellow Muslims. One day our office was burgled and our computers were stolen. All except the two computers belonging to our two Muslim colleagues. You don’t steal from brothers or sisters! …

Many victims of burglaries in houses and cars, of steaming and other forms of violence, can testify that aggression by Muslims is not directed against brothers and sisters, but against whoever is a kafir, a non-believer. Young Muslims justify their behaviour towards women who do not wear the headscarf, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, by referring to the Salafist teaching which says that these women are whores and should be treated as such. They told me this. I wrote it down in my reports, but the authorities refuse to hear it.

Andrew Bostom has demonstrated in his book The Legacy of Jihad that the basic patterns have remained remarkably similar throughout the centuries, regardless of whether the non-Muslims in question were Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists. Jihad and dhimmitude frequently have less to do with huge terror attacks or spectacular invasions than with accumulated daily humiliations and insults. A small group of Muslims move into an area, then gradually expand their numbers and with continuous verbal and physical harassment of non-Muslims and sexual harassment of their women force them to leave their homes or convert to Islam. Here is an example from Iran where the non-Muslims are Zoroastrians, but it might as well have been certain areas of Amsterdam, Birmingham or the suburbs of of Paris today:

The Islamization of Europe

Mary Boyce, Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of London, has confirmed the external validity of Bat Ye’or’s analytical approach in her description of how jihad and dhimmitude (without the latter being specifically identified as such) transformed Zoroastrian society in an analogous manner. Boyce has written definitive assessments of those Zoroastrian communities which survived the devastating jihad conquests of the mid 7th through early 8th centuries 20. The Zoroastrians experienced an ongoing, inexorable decline over the next millennium due to constant sociopolitical and economic pressures exerted by their Muslim rulers, and neighbors… Boyce describes these complementary phenomena based on an historical analysis, and her personal observations living in the (central Iranian) Yezd area during the 1960s:

…Either a few Moslems settled on the outskirts of a Zoroastrian village, or one or two Zoroastrian families adopted Islam. Once the dominant faith had made a breach, it pressed in remorselessly, like a rising tide. More Moslems came, and soon a small mosque was built, which attracted yet others. As long as Zoroastrians remained in the majority, their lives were tolerable; but once the Moslems became the more numerous, a petty but pervasive harassment was apt to develop. This was partly verbal, with taunts about fire-worship, and comments on how few Zoroastrians there were in the world, and how many Moslems, who must therefore posses the truth; and also on how many material advantages lay with Islam. The harassment was often also physical; boys fought, and gangs of youth waylaid and bullied individual Zoroastrians. They also diverted themselves by climbing into the local tower of silence and desecrating it, and they might even break into the fire-temple and seek to pollute or extinguish the sacred flame. Those with criminal leanings found too that a religious minority provided tempting opportunities for theft, pilfering from the open fields, and sometimes rape and arson. Those Zoroastrians who resisted all these pressures often preferred therefore in the end to sell out and move to some other place where their co-religionists were still relatively numerous, and they could live at peace; and so another village was lot to the old faith. Several of the leading families in Sharifabad and forebears who were driven away by intense Moslem pressure from Abshahi, once a very devout and orthodox village on the southern outskirts of Yazd; and a shorter migration had been made by the family of the centenarian ‘Hajji’ Khodabakhsh, who had himself been born in the 1850s and was still alert and vigorous in 1964. His family, who were very pious, had left their home in Ahmedabad (just to the north of Turkabad) when he was a small boy, and had come to settle in Sharifabad to escape persecution and the threats to their orthodox way of life. Other Zoroastrians held out there for a few decades longer, but by the end of the century Ahmedabad was wholly Moslem, as Abshahi become in 1961. [Boyce’s footnote: The last Zoroastrian family left Abshahi in 1961, after the rape and subsequent suicide of one of their daughters.] It was noticeable that the villages which were left to the Zoroastrians were in the main those with poor supplies of water, where farming conditions were hard.

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Note: The following examples are all from Sweden, which is probably the most politically repressive and totalitarian country in the Western world, with virtually no public debate about immigration. Still, the muggings, rapes, beatings, murders and daily harassment described here could be from virtually any country in Western Europe, and indeed from any region in the world where Muslims are numerous enough to harass their non-Muslim neighbors:

Veiled girl gang in Stockholm attacks old ladies

A group of five teenage girls have been accused of a wave of vicious attacks against old women in Stockholm…

The girls, aged 17 and 18, have been remanded in custody for attacking the women in Tensta and Rinkeby, suburbs of the capital.

Their victims, mostly in their seventies and eighties, were usually mugged outside their homes…

In one of the muggings, the girls stole a 71-year-old’s handbag and pushed her down a flight of steps. In another case, a 78-year old woman was pushed to the ground and kicked where she lay.

The girls worked in groups and wore veils during the attacks, making it harder for the police to identify them.

While Sweden Slept, by Bruce Bawer

Recently, the city of Stockholm carried out a survey of ninth-grade boys in the predominantly Muslim suburb of Rinkeby. The survey showed that in the last year, 17% of the boys had forced someone to have sex, 31% had hurt someone so badly that the victim required medical care, and 24% had committed burglary or broken into a car. Sensational statistics — but in all of Sweden, they appear to have been published only in a daily newssheet that is distributed free on the subways.

Stockholm Suburb: “It’s too Dangerous for Children here, Many are Wearing Bulletproof Vests”

Nalin Pekgul, a well-known Social Democratic advocate of suburbs with a high concentration of immigrants, is leaving her own suburb Tensta because she thinks it has become too insecure. Tensta has become too dangerous for the children, she says. Nalin Pekgul, who is a Muslim herself, has also noted that fundamentalist variants of Islam are growing stronger in Tensta. Her children come home and wonder why their mother doesn’t wear a hijab or why their family don’t go to the mosque. They also have heard that Muslims are better than Christians. “I don’t like it when my son comes home and says that ‘Mom, we Muslims don’t lie, but Christians do, because they don’t have God.’ He hasn’t got that from us . We had not reckoned on this religious fundamentalism,” she says.

Swedish Welfare State Collapses as Immigrants Wage War

The wave of robberies the [increasingly Muslim-dominated]city of Malmö has witnessed during this past year is part of a “war against the Swedes.” This is the explanation given by young robbers from immigrant backgrounds when questioned about why they only rob native Swedes, in interviews with Petra Åkesson for her thesis in sociology…

“When we are in the city and robbing we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes.” This argument was repeated several times. “Power for me means that the Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet.” The boys explain, laughingly, that “there is a thrilling sensation in your body when you’re robbing, you feel satisfied and happy, it feels as if you’ve succeeded, it simply feels good.” “It’s so easy to rob Swedes, so easy.” “We rob every single day, as often as we want to, whenever we want to.”

Immigrant Rape Wave in Sweden

The number of rape charges in Sweden has quadrupled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six - 6 - times as common today as they were a generation ago. Most other kinds of violent crime have rapidly increased, too. Instability is spreading to most urban and suburban areas.

An Islamic Mufti in Copenhagen sparked a political outcry after publicly declaring that women who refuse to wear headscarves are “asking for rape.” Apparently, he’s not the only one thinking this way. “It is not as wrong raping a Swedish girl as raping an Arab girl,” says Hamid. “The Swedish girl gets a lot of help afterwards, and she had probably f***ed before, anyway. But the Arab girl will get problems with her family. For her, being raped is a source of shame. It is important that she retains her virginity until she marries. It is far too easy to get a Swedish whore…… girl, I mean;” says Hamid, and laughs over his own choice of words. “Many immigrant boys have Swedish girlfriends when they are teenagers. But when they get married, they get a proper woman from their own culture who has never been with a boy. That’s what I am going to do. I don’t have too much respect for Swedish girls. I guess you can say they get f***ed to pieces.”

The New York Times and Sweden: The Dark Side of Paradise

Ethnologist Maria Bäckman, in her study “Whiteness and gender,” has followed a group of Swedish girls in the suburb of Rinkeby outside Stockholm, where native Swedes have been turned into a tiny minority of the inhabitants due to rapid immigration… Bäckman relates that several of the girls she interviewed stated that they had dyed their hair to avoid unwanted attention and sexual harassment. They experienced that being blonde involves old men staring at you, cars honking their horns and boys calling you “whore.”…

The official explanation given by Swedish authorities to the increase [in rape charges] is that much of it is a “technical” increase due to the fact that more victims of rape now report this crime to the police. There is not a hint of evidence for this explanation. On the contrary, intimidation of people reporting any kind of crime to the police has rapidly worsened in Sweden during the same time period. Threats against witnesses in Swedish court cases quadrupled between 2000 and 2003 alone… Street violence of all kinds is soaring on a national level. Private security companies are in great demand in major Swedish cities, as a serious lack of police to combat rising crime has made many citizens tired of being robbed.. Gangs of 14- and 15-year-olds raping and robbing is now common in many Stockholm suburbs… At the same time, the underfunded and undermanned Swedish police officers feel “unmotivated” to fight crime, according to a study made by police researcher Stefan Holgersson, who interviewed 2000 Swedish police officers.

One person who seems to have a decent grasp of what’s happening with Muslim immigration in Sweden and Europe is Christopher Caldwell, who has written several articles about the topic, including one in the New York Times in February 2006 called “ Islam on the Outskirts of the Welfare State.” Visiting the Stockholm immigrant suburb of Rinkeby, Caldwell asked whether something like the French riots of the fall of 2005, with burning cars and rampaging gangs, could happen in Sweden. “Absolutely,” said one lanky boy near the window. “People burn cars here all the time. Not because they’re angry — because they think it’s fun.”

One person who seems to have a decent grasp of what’s happening with Muslim immigration in Sweden and Europe is Christopher Caldwell, who has written several articles about the topic, including one in the New York Times in February 2006 called “Islam on the Outskirts of the Welfare State.” Visting the Stockholm immigrant suburb of Rinkeby, Caldwell asked whether something like the French riots of the fall of 2005, with burning cars and rampaging gangs, could happen in Sweden. “Absolutely,” said one lanky boy near the window. “People burn cars here all the time. Not because they’re angry — because they think it’s fun.”

Sweden: The Country that Sacrifices its Children, and Celebrates

Sweden is a country that has virtually no public debate about mass immigration, which continues at full speed. The Swedish political and media elites congratulate themselves for their Multicultural goodness. If sacrificing your own children is the definition of good, then exactly what constitutes evil?

[…]

A high school teacher in Malmö discovered that about a dozen Arab students were laughing and shouting “Allahu Akbar!” while watching a DVD of infidel hostages being beheaded in Iraq. The headmaster didn’t think the incident was such a big deal. At least 139 schools in Sweden suffered arson attacks during 2002 alone, a number which by 2007 has grown to at least 230. Such as an incident in Malmö, where three schools were put on fire during one night. “Teenage boys” are suspected to behind the arson. Björn Vinberg from the fire department in Kroksbäck in the Malmö area says it’s humiliating and degrading to put out fires again and again in the same immigrant areas, with school kids laughing at them and lighting a new one just afterwards. His colleagues have been to the same place no less than twenty times, all totally unnecessary.

From The Local, January 12, 2007: Rival gangs of 10-year-olds in the eastern town of Söderhamn have threatened to wipe each other out. One of the gangs is made up of indigenous Swedes and the other of immigrants, and police in the town are taking the problem very seriously. The conflict has escalated on the Internet, and police fear that there may be fatalities if the fighting is not stopped.

“Let Them Eat Kebab” – The New Marie Antoinettes

Jens Orback, Democracy Minister in the previous Social Democratic Swedish government, said during a radio debate that: “We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.”

In 2006, a man was attacked and nearly killed for the crime of wearing clothes with his own national flag while Sweden was participating in the World Cup. Sweden, of course, has the same Christian cross in its flag as does England, and apparently, some “Multicultural youths” found this to be an intolerable provocation. The 24-year-old man was run down by a car in the city of Malmö. According to the police, he was wearing some clothes with Swedish national symbols on them, and this “provoked some emotions.”

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Holger Danske Is Stirring

I’ve made a little sidebar logo for our Danish colleagues.

Feel free to borrow it, but please don’t hot-link it — that is, make yourselves a copy, and store it on your own image server.

For our Anglophone readers: the caption says, “Holger Danske is stirring.”

When he manages to get that other eye open, everyone would be well-advised to take cover…





Thanks to Kepiblanc for the translation.

[Nothing follows]

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And Another One Reappears!

Wally Ballou pulls it out of the hat again…

I had been wondering about the appearance in Turkey of the disappeared general‘s family — wifey and children showed up unannounced and demanded that Turkish officials do something about her husband’s disappearance.

Say wha’? I’d read that Ali Reza Asghari, a former deputy defense minister had pulled a fast one, a flit which included his wife and family. So what was this spouse doing even existing?

It turns out the one in Turkey is wife #2.

Wife #1 and children are gonzo:

As it turns out, Gen. Asgari has two wives. His first wife left Iran with him, bringing along their three children. His second wife, Mansoureh Mirmohammadi, is just 31 years old and is a relative of Rezai, the sources said. She has indeed remained in Iran.

Shortly after Gen. Asgari went missing on Feb. 7, a damage control team headed by Rev. Guards Brig. Gen. Naser Ghasemi was set up.

Gen. Ghasemi is the deputy chief of counterintelligence for the Revolutionary Guards. Over the weekend, he recommended that the regime blame the “kidnapping” of Asgari on the Mujahedin-e Khalq, a militant opposition group that was supported all during the 1980s and the 1990s by Saddam Hussein.

On Sunday, Baztab dutifully quoted Rasoul Nafisi, an Iranian political analyst based in Virginia, asserting that the MEK was responsible for Asgari’s kidnapping, noting that the group “is active in Turkey . . . and might be behind this event.”

Wally B, researcher extraordinaire.

[le fin]

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