Saturday, April 22, 2006

Sheikh Gilani’s Ongoing Recruitment Efforts

 
Sheikh GilaniThe Politics of CP is reporting that Sheikh Gilani, the notorious founder of the terrorist group Jamaat ul-Fuqra, is still recruiting mujahideen to fight against US and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

Citing the invaluable B Raman and the South Asia Analysis Group, and using conversations with Fuqra Hater, CP comes to the conclusion that
…Gilani, having an intimate relationship with elements of the ISI in Pakistan and others in Afghanistan, has access to covert networks of recruiters and operatives to mask such activities.

He quotes Fuqra Hater as saying that

Gilanis are well known in Afghani regions as well.

When I was working on the Bloody Borders Project, I discovered a town called Gilan, in Ghazni Province in Afghanistan. From then on I assumed that Sheikh Gilani’s forebears must have come from there, so it makes sense that he has connections with Afghanistan and supports jihad operations there.

Go over and read the rest of what CP has to say on the topic.

Those Penniless Palestinians

 
Joshua Pundit has an interesting post about the financial situation of the Palestinians, which is not as bad as you might think.

Those poor Palestinians! The evil, Zionist-controlled governments in the EU and the USA are withholding money from the democratically-elected Palestinian government for no reason other than Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel and stop suicide bombers from killing Jews. How petty-minded can you get?

But the Palestinians are not without resources. According to Joshua Pundit,

Using [the salaries paid by the EU for non-existent employees] and other scams to skim off millions in stolen aid, Yasir Arafat established The Palestine Investment fund– PIF – which was set up to conceal and invest the funds Arafat diverted over the years from international donors that was supposed to go to ‘aid’ the Palestinian people. This little treasure trove is now in the hands of Mahmoud Abbas.

It’s no small amount, either. The capital is estimated at $1.2-1.4 billion and its monthly yield counted in tens of millions. And that’s just the one fund we know about. Keep in mind that the Pals still receive millions in ‘humanitarian’ aid that frees up money the Hamas government would ordinarily have to spend on the needs of its people.

However, Abbas reportedly won’t hand over a single shekel, let alone control over the hedge fund until Hamas recognizes – not Israel, but the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the paramount authority over the Palestinians. Abbas says that these ill-gotten gains belong to the PLO and he won’t release funds to an organization that refuses to recognize its authority.

Hamas has another option besides the PLO, however: Iran. The Iranians fund a number of terrorist organizations — such as Hezbollah — but they expect a lot of bang for their buck — and that bang has to involve plenty of scattered Jewish body parts.

Which way do you think Hamas will choose? Go over to Joshua Pundit and find out.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Malmö Update: School Closing

 
A reader from Scandinavia sent us the email below.


MalmöJust thought I’d bring this little update.

Some time ago, there was a mildly semi-heated debate on this blog regarding the state of affairs in Malmö, and I argued in length against the Swedish “journalist” who proclaimed that my statements were wildly exaggerated etc., etc.

He in turn offered the prospective student a guided tour to some of the hotspots I pointed out, to show him how calm everything really was.

Turns out he is kind of right :) If he tours one of the schools I mentioned it will indeed be very very calm. Actually, it will be completly empty. The school has had so much trouble, violence and crime (etc, etc), that the city now is closing down the entire school(!).

I will not translate the entire articles, but for the sake of documenting it, they are Dagens Nyheter and Bergstrand – Krönika.

Basically, although one is more apologetic then the other, violence and crime were indeed, as I said, rampant.

It should be noted that the school had 95% of its students being “immigrants” (guess who…).

On a side-note, there were officially in 2005 more rapes in Malmö and its county Skane alone then the entire country of Denmark(!).

Notional Politburo Radio Strikes Again

 
We report, you derideLast night I was listening to the 6:00 o’clock news on NPR and heard a report about the decline of leading economic indicators in March.

I can’t recall it verbatim, and NPR does not provide transcripts of its news reports, but this Marketwatch story says much the same thing:

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- A gauge of future economic activity declined for a second straight month in March, signaling a slowdown, economists said Thursday.

The Conference Board’s U.S. index of leading economic indicators fell 0.1% last month after a revised 0.5% drop in February, much larger than the 0.2% decline initially reported.

Five of the 10 leading indicators tracked by the Conference Board improved in March, while four declined and one remained unchanged.

After reporting the above information, the newsreader (probably Cory Flintoff) said something like this:

Analysts are concerned that the declining indicators may signal a coming slowdown, after several months of strong economic growth.

DISCLAIMER: I am not economically well-versed, so I don’t have any idea of the accuracy or the value of these ten indicators. Dymphna is the economist in the family, and she may well want to put in her two cents about this story.

But that’s not my point. My point is that, if you believe NPR, the “strong economic growth” of the past few months never happened.

If you’re a masochist, like me, and listen to NPR regularly, you know that every month when the economic reports come out, the results are an occasion for nothing but gloom and alarm. In fact, if your sole source of news is NPR, you’ll never even know about economic good times, presuming they occur during a Republican administration. There is simply no such thing as good economic news under the circumstances.

Housing starts up, durable goods orders up 8%?

Analysts fear that this may ignite a new round of inflation.

New jobless claims down for the third month in a row?

Economists worry that record high employment may bid up wage rates, igniting a new round of inflation.

Unemployment rate drops to 4.7%?

Critics point out that most new job formation occurred in the service sector, where wages and benefits are low, particularly for women and monorities.

Real wages on the rise?

Some economists report that consumer debt is rising faster than wages, cancelling the effect of the new wealth and dampening the national savings rate.

Month after month, year after year, that’s what you hear on NPR. Good ol’ NPR, our own Ministry of Information, paid for in part by your tax dollars! And the rest, of course, paid for by left-wing foundations whose agenda is indistinguishable from that of A.N.S.W.E.R.

Economic boom? There’s no economic boom! At least until it’s over, and then we can announce the news that the good times have come to an end, and now we’re in for some real suffering.

Nothing but doom on the horizon, as far as the eye can see.

But wait a minute! NPR’s resident economic soothsayer is here, wearing his embroidered robe and pointy hat with the occult symbols, and staring into his crystal ball.

I see bad times ahead… 2006… war, pestilence, famine… 2007… trouble, strife, suffering… 2008… 2009… January 21st, inauguration of Hillary Rodham… hmm… big changes coming after that! Forecast looks rosy! A tofu chicken in every pot and a Prius in every garage!

Let’s stick around and see if happens.

What Is Iran Going to Do with George Bush?

 
“Wait him out,” according to an opinion piece in the Telegraph. And the author, Amir Taheri, is quite specific about the steps Iran will take to maneuver around the (insert favorite appellation here) current President.

First, the current advantages of Islam over the infidel:

  • Islam has the demographic advantage in its available numbers of young men ready to do battle.
  • Lots of them can’t wait to be martyrs for the cause while the infidels’ young men simply want to have fun.
  • Islam has most of the world’s oil reserves.
  • the only country capable of standing up to Islamofacism is the U.S., and it is the most hated nation on earth (if you don’t count the Zionist entity).

However, according to Hassan Abasssi, supposedly Iran’s Dr. Kissinger, George Bush is an aberration since every President since Truman has cut and run when the rubber hit the road.

Therefore all Iran has to do is wait him out. 2008 just isn’t that far away.

Meanwhile, of course, that gives the mullahs the time they need to continue developing its nuclear arsenal. By 2008, when America reverts to its more normal ostrich policies, Iran will be ready to ride.

Here’s the author’s predictions for the short term:

The Iranian plan is simple: playing the diplomatic game for another two years until Bush becomes a “lame-duck”, unable to take military action against the mullahs, while continuing to develop nuclear weapons.

Within 12 days, Iran will announce its “suspension” of uranium building, which will win accolades from the idiots on Turtle Bay. Everyone from Jack Straw to the IAEA will pat Iran on the back. “Talk to the hand” will be the response to anyone uncouth enough to discuss sanctions against such obvious Iranian sincerity. This, in turn, will head off any move against Iran at the G-8 summit in July. And thrown in for good measure, the Iranian parliament will sign off on some taqiyya promise or other to stop production of anything even resembling radioactive materials.

Those are short-term goals and easily verifiable.

Meanwhile, says Taheri, Iran will continue to consolidate an impressive base of allies:

While waiting Bush out, the Islamic Republic is intent on doing all it can to consolidate its gains in the region. Regime changes in Kabul and Baghdad have altered the status quo in the Middle East. While Bush is determined to create a Middle East that is democratic and pro-Western, Ahmadinejad is equally determined that the region should remain Islamic but pro-Iranian. Iran is now the strongest presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, after the US. It has turned Syria and Lebanon into its outer defences, which means that, for the first time since the 7th century, Iran is militarily present on the coast of the Mediterranean. In a massive political jamboree in Teheran last week, Ahmadinejad also assumed control of the “Jerusalem Cause”, which includes annihilating Israel “in one storm”, while launching a take-over bid for the cash-starved Hamas government in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ahmadinejad has also reactivated Iran’s network of Shia organisations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen, while resuming contact with Sunni fundamentalist groups in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. From childhood, Shia boys are told to cultivate two qualities. The first is entezar, the capacity patiently to wait for the Imam to return. The second istaajil, the actions needed to hasten the return. For the Imam’s return will coincide with an apocalyptic battle between the forces of evil and righteousness, with evil ultimately routed. If the infidel loses its nuclear advantage, it could be worn down in a long, low-intensity war at the end of which surrender to Islam would appear the least bad of options…[emphases added]

All they need to do is wait for George Bush to go away. It’s just a matter of time.


Hat tip: M. Rudkin

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Make My Day

 
Gates of Vienna is a middling blog so we get a fair number of requests from other, usually smaller (but not always) blogs asking that we read their posts and consider reciprocally linking to them. Sometimes I have the time and energy to go look, just to be polite. I remember how hard it was starting out.

So today comes just such an email. I will reprint it here— minus the actual URL, because I wouldn’t give this kind of thinking a link. Here’s why:

In the first place, I won’t bother reading very far into a post when it’s derivative and full of fourth-hand ideas and nothing to back up these opinions. And that’s even when I agree with what the post is saying. In the second place, when these opinions are diametrically opposed to my own political and cultural philosophy, what’s the point? I’ve had my opinion changed before, but it was by coherent, logical arguments backed up by evidence. Like darn Wally Ballou, who made me into a conservative and will have to answer for that… actually, it was Thomas Sowell’s fault, too. And Hayek. But Wally B. is close to hand and easier to blame.

Here’s the email:

- - - - Original Message - - - -
From: A spammer
To: gatesofvienna@chromatism.net
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 6:25 AM
Subject: Re: New Kid on the Blog

Hi there,

I’m a reader. I’ve recently started a blog of my own, at Iamausefulidiot.blogspot.com, and I wonder if you’d consider adding a link to me. I’ll put up a reciprocal link.

You’re doing a great job, by the way. Keep up the good work.

—Steve Barnes

Poor Mr. Barnes. He caught me at a bad moment. Or rather, he created a bad moment for me. I was feeling polite enough before I pulled out his URL and put it up. My generosity quickly evaporated when I read what he had posted. So I responded to his email:

“Hi there” yourself, Mr. Barnes:

I took the trouble to pull your URL out of the email (if you solicit reciprocal blog rolling, it would draw more clicks if you used the HTML tags to hyperlink your blog — just a suggestion).

So I read thru the first post, till I got to this:

“My position has always been that soft power is far, far stronger than hard power over the long haul, as well as being gigantically cheaper. George Bush has squandered the soft power reserves of the United States just as he’s squandered the US military.

No, we’re not going to let them come over here in junks and sampans and swarm our shores. Of course, there’s no real danger of that, is there, any more than there’s any real danger of Iran becoming a nuclear power capable of challenging us.

The administration’s lies about WMD are ringing pretty hollow to me.”


Say wha?

Why on God’s green earth would you want to reciprocally link to Gates of Vienna? And why would you claim to be a reader of a blog that has nothing in common with your ideas?

Was this just a random email to all sorts of bloggers?

On which points do you think our respective blogs would align?

As far as I’m concerned, your “position” on “soft power” is a supine position. It is soft-headed and dangerous when dealing with a culture — say, China, Russia, or the Middle East tribal states, just to name a few — which respects only hard power.

Our military has not been “squandered.” That’s just your opinion. When was the last time you read the report on Defense Planning Guidance? Which years have you read? On which authority do you base your opinion?

As for “Bush lied about WMD” — that meme is dead, except for people who keep digging it up, dusting it off, and propping it up. Go read some of the mil blogs who have actually done the research on the ground. And try some of the intel people who are fairly certain those weapons, such as they were, went to Syria. Have you seen any of the pictures of the portable materials? And what do you call the deaths of all those Kurds — men, women and children. Is that not “mass” destruction? If Saddam had wiped out your town with poison gas would that be “mass” enough for you?

I won’t link to your blog because I don’t respect your opinions. Please, please don’t link to ours — I looked at your blog roll and I don’t want to be there.

Meanwhile, I suggest you refine your reciprocal blog requests so that you don’t spam people you don’t read. If you did actually read our blog, as you claim, you wouldn’t have sent this email. We are diametrically opposed to everything you said in those first few paragraphs.

First rule of blogging: don’t lie to your fellow bloggers. Sheesh.

Second rule of blogging: don’t use your real name, Mr. Barnes, if you haven’t had the sense to check out your audience.

Dymphna
Gates of Vienna

Oh, and thanks for the compliment. I’m glad you think we’re “doing a great job.” We have to, just to combat the useful idiots, as Lenin called people of your ilk.

Trouble in the Solomons

 
The Solomon IslandsSince yesterday morning the capital of the Solomon Islands, Honiara, has been enveloped in riots and unrest. Both Australia and New Zealand have sent troops to the archipelago to quell the disturbances and restore order so that the newly elected prime minister can be sworn in.

I first heard the story on NPR yesterday morning on the way to work. NPR, which generally displays a tender sensibility where multicultural issues are concerned, mentioned only that the cause of the rioting was “ethnic tensions.”

But what ethnic groups are involved? Who hates whom?

According to The Age,

The mayhem that enveloped Honiara started on Tuesday outside the parliament when a crowd opposed to [Prime Minister-elect Snyder] Rini claimed that his election had been fixed.

Rini has denied allegations that he bribed MPs with money from Chinese business interests.

Most of the buildings targeted in the subsequent riots were Chinese-owned.

So it seems that Chinese people are the victims here.

An AP story has more:

Government spokesman Johnson Honimae said about 90 percent of Chinatown had been destroyed by rioters Tuesday and Wednesday. The rioters also torched a new hotel in Honiara and several parked cars.

And ABC News (Australia) reports:

The ABC has been told by a senior Opposition politician that the events of the last two days were the result of a build-up of resentment toward ethnic Chinese Solomon Islanders and the political power they have in the country.

Not surprisingly, Xinhua has plenty of information about the events in Honiara:

The Chinese government will take every measure possible to secure the safety, lives and property of Chinese people in the Solomon Islands, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said here Thursday.

During the recent unrest in the Solomon Islands’ capital Honiara, dozens of residences and shops in the city’s Chinatown were looted and set on fire. Hundreds of local Chinese residents were forced to flee their homes.

It goes on to describe the humanitarian effort underway to care for the newly homeless Chinese refugees. China does not have diplomatic relations with the Solomons, so all its contacts with the local government must go through a third party.

The ABC reports that the unrest has spread to the neighboring province of Auki, but the arrival of Anglosphere troops has pacified the capital so that Mr. Rini could be sworn in as Prime Minister today, after a 24-hour delay.

In parts of the world where the population of Jews is in short supply, ethnic Chinese people often have to stand in as local scapegoats. The population of the Solomon Islands is about 552,000, and according to Infoplease, the ethnic breakdown is: Melanesian 93%, Polynesian 4%, Micronesian 1.5%, European 0.8%, Chinese 0.3%, and other 0.4%.

No mention of Jews. But notice that there must only be 1,600 or so Chinese in the whole country – enough to scapegoat, but too few to muster the collective clout to fight back.

All across the world the Chinese diaspora strongly resembles that of the Jews. Relative to their surrounding communities, they are usually more economically successful, better-educated, and harder-working. Combined with strong family traditions and the tendency to maintain a distinct ethnic identity through successive generations, these characteristics make them natural targets for resentment and scapegoating.

But what makes them different from the Jews is that they have a “homeland” with more than a billion of their ethnic fellows, always keeping their interests in mind. That’s probably small comfort for the displaced residents of Honiara’s Chinatown, but in the long run it will serve them well.

The Earth Compels

 
Fourth in an occasional series on the poetry of Louis MacNeice

Many writers have observed the similarity between our time and the waning days of the 1930s. Wretchard even finds an analogue with the “Phony War”, the period between Hitler’s invasion of Poland and the fall of France in 1940.

So we await our equivalent of the blitzkrieg and the end run around the Maginot Line, and then the real war can begin. In the meantime we can look back on the 1930s and find a commonality of experience.

The period leading up to the Second World War was a study in contrasts, a time of raucous celebration combined with a grim foreboding. As Al Stewart says, we were “laughing into 1939.”

It is this sense of impending doom, of the imminent end of all good things, which appears most strongly in the poetry of Louis MacNeice during that period. For example:

The Sunlight on the Garden
By Louis MacNeice


The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

Technically speaking, this poem is superb. A tight rhyme scheme ties the end of one line to the beginning of the next without destroying the rhythm of the poem or causing it to become stilted. I particularly like the conflation of Shakespeare’s Cleopatra with the biblical Pharaoh, bringing a double premonition of the disaster to come, tying the asp’s venom to all the locusts and frogs and boils that lie ahead for Egypt.

It’s a gloomy poem. But it was a gloomy time.

You Can't Kill The Dream

 
The Whole Post from Iraq the Model: “Kill us, but you won't enslave us.”

"Last week we stopped writing for a while and we apologized to our readers saying that we lost a close friend but we didn't want to give more details as we were overwhelmed by an exceptional situation and a huge shock. We also were afraid from writing more about this subject for security concerns but now I think I must share this with you as it's part of the pain and suffering my nation is going through.

Last week our little and peaceful family was struck by the tragic loss of one of its members in a savage criminal act of assassination. The member we lost was my sister's husband who lived with their two little children in our house.

He was a brilliant young doctor with a whole future awaiting him, the couple were the top graduates in their branch of specialty. They had to travel abroad to get their degrees and the war started while they were there but months after Saddam fallen they decided to come back to help rebuild the country and serve their people.

We welcomed them with all love and care, we would sit and talk everyday about our hopes and dreams for a better future for the new generation and for their two little children. We realized that time is needed before they could have a secure and prosperous life and we were satisfied with the little we could make because we believed in the future.

He was not affiliated with any political party or movement and spent all his time working at the hospital or studying at home and he was dreaming of building a medical center for his specialty to serve the poor who cannot afford going to expensive private clinics.

We didn't know or anticipate that cruel times were waiting for a chance to assassinate the dream and kill the future.

It was the day he was celebrating the opening of a foundation that was going to offer essential services to the poor but the criminals were waiting for him to end his life with their evil bullets and to stab our family deep in the heart.

Grief and pain is killing me everyday as I hold my dear nephews, my sister is shocked beyond words while my parents are dead worried about the rest of us.

We are trying hard to close the wound, summon our patience and protect those still alive while we look forward to the future that we hope can bring peace for us.

The terrorists and criminals are targeting all elements of life and they target anyone who wants to do something good for this country…They think by assassinating one of us they could deter us from going forward but will never succeed, they can delay us for years but we will never go back and abandon our dream.

We have vowed to follow the steps of our true martyrs and we will raise the new generation to continue the march, these children of today are the hope and the future.

What a difference between those who work to preserve life and those who work to end it… it's terrorism and crime and there are no other words to describe these acts.

They will keep trying to steal life from us and we will keep fighting back and we will keep exposing them but not with bullets and swords, we never carried arms and we will never do because we are not afraid and because we are not weak unlike those cowards who know no language but that of treason.

April will always be there to remind us of the sacrifice and remind us of the dream we fight for.

My God keep safe the Iraqis and their friends who stand with them in their noble cause, peace and prosperity may seem far away but we will get there and I hope our sacrifices be a bridge to a better world."

Right now, Death rules Iraq. It has done so for many decades. But with families like this, it cannot continue to rule. With people like this, it cannot win. Death-dealers come from afar and may win some of the battles, but they will not defeat the Iraqi people. Let us remember that.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Changing Minds, One Fist at a Time

 
A commenter on LGF, Terp Mole, linked to two articles in an “alternative” newspaper in Minneapolis. The stories — one from January, 2004 and the second from April, 2006 — cover the same ground: the problems Minneapolis is having with its Somali immigrant community. But how different in atmosphere these stories, separated by two years, have become.

The first is much longer, about three thousand words. And those words are carefully chosen for effect. You cannot help but notice the political leanings of its author and those he chooses to interview.

He begins his story with an angry anonymous email about the violence occurring in the Somali community around the West Bank:

Somali violence has been happening on the West Bank since before Bush was elected. Somali youth travel in groups of six to 25. They carry unbroken beer bottles in their pockets to break later and use as weapons. They also use two by fours, tire irons etc. They are undeserving of our country and its values.

“Somali elders are in denial. Teens have taken over Riverside Park and kids in my neighborhood rarely venture there anymore. The gangs are rude, uncivil and not quite human. They are cowards and like to hurt strangers while robbing them. They knock people down and beat them while stealing from them.”

The writer went on to describe an alleged incident late last year where a bartender from the Viking Bar was beaten up.

“He looked like an eggplant” and had to be taken to a hospital emergency room… The e-mail gives another example: “Some…South High School students were cooling off in the pool at Riverside Park after 10 p.m. They were surrounded by a group of 10 Somali ‘gangstas’ that terrorized them with threats of gang rape for about 10 minutes until the girls’ screams drove them away. Give me gangsters from Detroit and Gary (Indiana) any day. At least they only hurt each other. The West Bank is a war zone and it is because of our ridiculous immigration laws allowing masses of Third World refugees to move here from a culture that does not respect women, our laws, religion or values. They will never assimilate, they do not want to…”

The puzzle in the email is this: Somali violence has been happening on the West Bank since before Bush was elected. Does this non sequitur make sense to you? How are Bush and Somali immigrant violence in Minneapolis connected? Is Bush’s election somehow germane here?

Let’s go on.

The story proceeds to interviews and the writer doesn’t know whether the incidents he reports are indicative of a larger problem:

Based on these two incidents alone, one would get the impression that wild bands of Somali youth gangs are constantly roaming the streets of Cedar-Riverside wreaking havoc on all who stand in their way. But whether that perception is largely fact or fiction—reality or exaggeration—depends on who you talk to.

Fair enough. But then he makes a jump to this series of “facts”:

One thing is for sure: ongoing conflicts between Somali residents and law enforcement officials are having an impact on hundreds of immigrant teenagers with too much idle time on their hands.

The smoke from 9/11 is still rising from the ruins of that fateful September day. The Bush administration’s response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, has had a devastating impact on the safety and civil liberties of most Americans, but especially recent immigrants.

And the Twin Cities have been no exception. Annie Young puts it this way: “Thanks to George W. Bush and the war on terrorism for adding to the violence on the streets of America and right here in our own beautiful Minneapolis.”

So it is the fiend, Bush. I thought so. Had Bush not gone after terrorists where they live, why “beautiful Minneapolis” would be living in peace with its Somali immigrant community. Not only that, but the U.S. government —

“decided to crack down on some Muslim-run businesses it claimed were funneling money to terrorists soon after 9/11 it picked a Somali-run company next door to the North Country Co-op on Riverside Avenue…”

Do you notice how the U. S. government — the Bush cabal?— just “decides to crack down” on money laundering is simply “picks” a Somali-run company in the neighborhood. That’s the fascists for you — just random raids on law-abiding citizens.

This is not a journalist who did any background work on Somali money laundering, obviously.

So Minneapolis did what all blue cities do: it held a candlelight rally, just as they had in support of Mohammed A. Warsame, when he was picked on for alleged connections to Al Qadea. Here’s some information on Warsame, from The Center for Immigration Studies:

Mohammed Warsame was born in Somalia and sought refugee status in Canada in 1989. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen and moved to Minneapolis in 2002. He was arrested in December 2003 as a material witness in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. At the time of his arrest, he was a student at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. In January 2004, Warsame was indicted and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda. Warsame has admitted attending an al Qaeda training camp in 2000 and 2001 and receiving military training (weapons, martial arts). He attended lectures given by Bin Ladin and even sat next to him at a meal. Moreover, he fought with the Taliban and provided financial assistance to al Qaeda members in Pakistan once he had returned to the United States.

This is from a larger report on individual terrorists, Immigration and Terrorism: Moving Beyond the 9/11 Staff report on Terrorist Travel, 2005. You should see the company he kept.

But that is not our author’s intent. He wants to show us how these Somali youth aren’t to blame for their behavior:

The abundant and active Somali presence on the West Bank has manifested itself in another significant way. East African youth, caught between cultures and generations, and often seen congregating in groups, have been branded as gang members by some Cedar-Riverside residents—an accusation denied by most Somali leaders and law enforcement officials.
[…]

“Some of these troubled youth are drop-outs or homeless or have come from single parent households where they have not been adequately cared for, or may be living with relatives other than parents,” Fahia continues. “Some are bitter and angry about the civil war in their home country or over some personal issue. They all have had problems integrating into American culture. In Somali culture, for example, there are strict curfews and dating is not allowed like it is here. The problems usually start with lack of adequate parental supervision complicated by the fact that some youth learn English before their parents and then rebel against authority.”

City police officials with connections to the West Bank and/or Muslim community, don’t buy the “Somali gang” line. Luther Krueger, downtown-area community crime prevention specialist, claims that most reports on Somali gangs are “exaggerated.” For example, he says, “We get reports like ‘there was a gang of 40 Somalis beating up somebody’ from someone who may not like immigrants being here. When we ask them for names of victims, details on time, place, etc, they can’t provide that. There have been (lots of) rumors that have not panned out. It’s mainly fear-mongering. Somalis complain that they have been accused of loitering,” he says. “They loiter or congregate as part of their culture.”

So. It’s the parents, it’s the strange cultural changes, and it’s fear-mongering. But is it crime? Evidently not. Nor are the increase in car thefts, muggings, and violence any indication of a pattern. “Nothing to see here, move along.”

Finally, the author ends with this statement and a question to consider:

Providing youth programs and improving Somali-police relations are keys to preventing and stemming violence on the West Bank and elsewhere. But there is still the public perception to deal with. As Fahia puts it: “These are the same problems immigrants have faced ever since 9/11.” The question is: will the new generation of immigrants continue to bear this burden?

That was more than two years ago. Now, in April, 2006, the same reporter, Bert Berlowe, returns to the neighborhood. This time his story has 753 words instead of 3,000. The Somali representatives and the police aren’t willing to be interviewed for this go 'round, in stark contrast to their expansive views two years ago.

Mr. Berlowe returns to Palmer’s Bar. This was a scene of an alleged “gang” attack in his first article — an attack dismissed by the police as having been an exchange of heated words, an attack blamed on Bush back in 2004. Here’s what he says about his visit to the bar:

Doug Anderson was seated on a stool at the bar finishing a drink, and gazing out from behind a thick white beard. Anderson has a long history on the West Bank. He was a political revolutionary during the turbulent 1960s, one of the organizers of a “new American city” movement. After a period away from the neighborhood, he has been back for 15 years, and now lives in an apartment above the Viking Bar. He has one other less desirable distinction. He has been a recent victim of a Somali gang.

Anderson shifts his glance and tells me how it happened. “One night a few weeks ago I was by the outside door of my apartment about to go in when I was attacked by three black youths and knocked out. That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me. They were wearing hoods so I couldn’t identify them. But someone later told me they were Somali youth. Now, every time I’m out and about I’m careful. I think they know who I am.”

Marty Johnson, a Viking bar employee and longtime West Bank resident happened to be in Palmers’ that day. In contrast to Anderson, he is clean-cut with long straight blonde hair falling to his shoulders. He was the victim of an assault by a Somali youth gang that was mentioned in the 2004 Pulse article. He told that story in more detail. “I was walking home from work at the bar at 2 a.m, when I was approached by group of three Somali youths. They asked if I had any money. I told them I had spent it all at the bar. They punched me in the head twice. I began to run but they caught up to me, knocked me down and kicked me in the face. Some people came by and pulled them off of me. I recognized their language as Somali. I had a couple of shiners and my face looked like an eggplant.”

During his hours at the Viking, Johnson has seen the groups of African youth jump out of cars, take money out of people’s pockets, then go back to their automobiles to talk to one another. He has followed them through parking lots, where they tend to hang around and has smelled Khat (a Somali, cocaine-like drug) on their lips.
Johnson is careful not to stereotype all of these perpetrators as Somali gangs. “There are groups of Somalis who hang out together. But they are not necessarily gangs. And you can’t always assume that the troublemakers are Somalis. Sometimes it’s just Africans who drank too much, but are not gangs.

Tofiq Hassam, an Ethiopian, seated on a corner bar stool, lives in the Seward neighborhood and has been in the U.S. about seven years. Last year, he claims, he was hit on the head by a group of Somali youth near the Riverside Café. He didn’t call the police for fear of losing his job at Mystic Lake Casino. He blames the gang activity on the fact that there is “too much democracy, too many rights” in the U.S., and that some of the immigrants take advantage of it.

Three different people in a sparsely-populated bar. All three with the same kind of story. Coincidence? Perhaps. But indicators seem to show that two years haven’t brought peace to the streets of Cedar-Riverside.

That’s the only conclusion he can draw from these interviews? I wonder how the people he talked to in the bar felt when they read his vague conclusions? Did they feel safer, knowing this intrepid reporter was on the scene, willing to interpret the facts as he saw them? Certainly he had opinions in his first piece. What’s the cause of his sudden journalistic reticence?

And that’s it. That’s all he has to say about the presence of Somali gangs in Minneapolis. Perhaps that’s all he dare say if he wants to keep his skin intact. If the p.c. police don’t get him fired should he forget to toe the line, there’s an angry group of marauding Somali “youth” who wouldn’t mind a go at him if he says anything questionable.

That’s why they carry broken beer bottles and Mr. Journalist doesn’t want a face that looks like an eggplant.

Ironically, Minnesota — and Minneapolis — were settled by Norwegians and Swedes. Back in the old countries, they are having their own problems with violent crimes by Somali immigrants. Only Norway and Sweden, being further along the multi-culti death path than is the U.S., won’t admit the problem.

If you want to discover the truth — about America, about Europe — skip the MSM, including these trendy “alternative” weeklies. Instead, ride the rails of the blogosphere to the people on the scene. For Scandinavia, your first stop is Fjordman's old blog, where he has this report from September, 2005:

I keep hearing claims that I am exaggerating the problems in Sweden. Well, here’s a post where I have gathered just a few of the links I have about crime in Sweden. Instability is spreading to most urban and suburban areas. 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. The official number of rape charges in Sweden has more than tripled in 30 years.

[…]

The number of reported cases of physical abuse/assault in Stockholm has also tripled in three decades. This steep rise in all kinds of crime and violence has happened at the same time as an unprecedented amount of immigration to the country. Of course, Swedish politicians would never dream of connecting the two. However, in one of those rare cases where a Swedish newspaper has actually told the truth, Aftonbladet revealed that 9 out of the 10 most criminal ethnic groups in Sweden are Muslims. A trend known from other European countries such as France, where Muslims make up 10% of the general population, but 70% of the prison population…[links are in the original, not in this post.]


In a grotesque parallel, Sweden and Norway are stuck in the amber of the same paralyzing world view as are the descendants of those Swedish and Norwegian immigrants who traveled to this country to start a new life. Now, life comes full circle for all of them and they will learn the hard lessons of Theo van Gogh and the Danish cartoonists, and all the other martyrs to free speech.

And they will learn it one fist, one knife, one broken beer bottle at a time.

The Insanity Defense

 
‘A Lunatic behind Bars’ by Francisco de Goya y LucientesZacarias Moussaoui’s trial is in its sentencing phase, and his lawyers are finally hitting their stride in their attempts to keep the needle out of his vein. According to today’s Washington Post,

Michael First, who edits the standard diagnostic manual for the mental health profession, testified in federal court in Alexandria that Moussaoui suffers from delusions and disorganized speech – two of the five symptoms of a paranoid schizophrenic.

First’s diagnosis followed testimony yesterday from clinical psychiatrist Xavier Amador that Moussaoui has paranoid schizophrenia and is delusional. Amador pointed to Moussaoui’s belief that his attorneys are conspiring to kill him.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in the United States in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda terrorists. He pleaded guilty in April 2005 to conspiracy charges, and his defense has been trying to convince the jury he should be spared a death sentence because he is mentally ill.

So Moussaoui is a nut-case, and therefore shouldn’t be executed. Additional experts have testified that he had an unhappy childhood, was abused by his father, and suffered from post-natal stress syndrome (all right, I made that last one up, but you get the idea).

His attorneys are providing him with the standard All-American red-white-and-blue legal defense – “I’m not responsible for my actions because I have X Syndrome” – but Moussaoui isn’t buying it. “It’s a lot of American BS,” he said.

We’ve come to a strange pass, when a statement of the most lambent clarity has to come from an admitted Al Qaeda terrorist.

And, yes, it’s come to this,
It’s come to this,
And wasn’t it a long way down,
Wasn’t it a strange way down?


                    – Leonard Cohen, “Dress Rehearsal Rag”

Isn’t it about time to say good-bye to the law-enforcement approach in the war on “terrorism”? If nothing else illustrates the farce of this strategy, surely the fatuity of the Moussaoui trial does.

If the modern human-rights sensibility holds sway in our dealings with Islamic terrorists, it leads us to the following:

  • You can’t shoot them.
  • You can’t intern them at Guantanamo.
  • You can’t return them to their dusty fly-specked countries of origin, because the repressive Islamic regimes there might not treat them right.
  • They get the same legal rights as a full-blown American citizen in a court of law.
  • They get a court-appointed lawyer, paid for by you, the American taxpayer, a lawyer who can make motions and petition for change of venue and do all those lawyerly things for years and years until his client dies of old age, or the Shari’ah is finally instituted here in the United States, whichever comes first.
  • Failing all the above, they can be declared insane, and then
  • In five or ten years’ time a compassionate federal judge can intervene to order their release.

But I’ll buy the idea that Moussaoui is nuts. Heck, I’ll buy the idea that the entirety of Islam is nuts. Whether you think the Twelfth Imam is calling the shots from the bottom of a well, or that 72 virgins await you in Paradise if you just shred some Jews with nails and rat poison, you’re pretty crazy. Maybe Islam needs to don a collective straitjacket and undergo intensive psychotherapy for several centuries in order to get better.

And maybe anybody who really believes in their religion is nuts.

But somehow Christianity and Judaism must have evolved a cultural version of an anti-psychotic drug, so that their followers can look and act sane, and lead normal lives as productive members of the community. So that believers like me can go out in public without scaring the children or peeing in the potted plants.

But not Islam. The only Muslims who are regularly taking their medicine are the ones who live in the West, or have come into long-term contact with it. And not even all of them.

So, insane or otherwise, let’s stop dealing with the mujahideen as criminals. Insane or otherwise, people who conspire to fly passenger jets into our skyscrapers are not criminals.

They are the Enemy, and this is the Long War.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Jet Fuel in the Backyard

 
Update (4:30pm EST): I drove over to Short Pump to try to get a picture of the site of the Great Jet Fuel Geyser, but the neighborhood was blocked off and immense equipment was in operation all over the area. There was no place to park on Church Road, and the police were directing traffic, so no photos today.

It looked like the EPA and the pipeline people were digging up all the culverts and replacing them. There were huge pumps operating just above Lake Loreine, gushing large amounts of water into the creek. I assume they’ve been drawing the water out of the creek, filtering it, and then putting it back. A strong chemical smell pervaded the whole area.

This is a huge, expensive operation. It makes me wonder how much overhead it adds to Plantation’s 2¢ a gallon pumping costs from Baton Rouge to D.C.


Jet fuel pipeline breakUntil last night I didn’t know that there’s a pipeline carrying jet fuel that runs from Louisiana to D.C. It passes under the West End of Richmond near Short Pump in Henrico County, through an area that was mostly countryside thirty years ago, but is now an upscale suburb.

According to a story on last night’s local NBC 12 news,

A 3,000 foot pipe ruptured in Henrico County Monday night, sending jet fuel 30 feet into the air. Residents had to be evacuated from about 20 homes. No one was injured.

The pipeline runs through the Short Pump neighborhood where Barrington Bridge Place meets Church Road. It carries the jet fuel from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Washington D.C.

This morning, that spill has been contained and residents are home, but they’ve still got to deal with the cleanup.

The actual TV news program had a lot more information, including interviews with local residents, video footage showing the big puddles of jet fuel still standing in people’s driveways, and shots of local emergency crews dealing with the situation. One man described standing in his backyard looking up at a “geyser” of the smelly stuff.

The local paper, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, also has a brief report this morning, including this information:

[Henrico Fire Lt. Gary] Hutchison said Plantation Pipe Line Co. had been working in the neighborhood during that time.

Plantation released a statement that said workers temporarily suspended operations on a portion of its pipeline. The statement said the company is working on the cleanup with emergency responders.

The petroleum product, similar to kerosene, emits flammable vapors, Hutchison said. But cool weather and moist ground reduced potential for the fuel to ignite, he said.

This same pipeline was one of those temporarily shut down by Hurricane Katrina last year. The Plantation Pipeline website says:

The Plantation system consists of approximately 3,100 miles of petroleum products pipelines connected to 130 shipper terminals in 8 states. These delivery terminals are owned by petroleum refiners, marketers, military, and commercial fuel users. Products are tendered to our system from 9 refineries in Mississippi and Louisiana, from other products pipeline systems, and via marine facilities on the Mississippi River. Deliveries of motor gasoline, diesel and home heating fuels, aviation gasolines, kerosenes, commercial and military jet fuels total more than 20 million gallons each day.

Products are received in minimum batches of 25,000 barrels (1,050,000 gallons) and shipped through lines ranging in size from 6 to 30-inches in diameter. A batch leaving Baton Rouge, Louisiana may travel as much as 1,100 miles to reach a final destination such as Washington National or Dulles airports. Total travel time for such a trip is approximately 20 days. Products can be efficiently transported from Baton Rouge to a shipper’s facility in Washington, D.C. for approximately two cents per gallon.

When I see those pipeline signs by the road, I usually think of sludgy oil running through the pipes. But apparently that’s not always the case.

The Plantation site also has a map showing their operation:
Plantation Pipeline

Here’s what the CSG Aviation Jet Fuel Information page has to say about jet fuel:

JET A-1

Jet A-1 is a kerosine grade of fuel suitable for most turbine engined aircraft. It is produced to a stringent internationally agreed standard, has a flash point above 38°C (100°F) and a freeze point maximum of -47°C. It is widely available outside the U.S.A. Jet A-1 meets the requirements of British specification DEF STAN 91-91 (Jet A-1), (formerly DERD 2494 (AVTUR)), ASTM specification D1655 (Jet A-1) and IATA Guidance Material (Kerosine Type), NATO Code F-35.

JET A

Jet A is a similar kerosine type of fuel, produced to an ASTM specification and normally only available in the U.S.A. It has the same flash point as Jet A-1 but a higher freeze point maximum (-40°C). It is supplied against the ASTM D1655 (Jet A) specification.

My uninformed opinion is that those Short Pump suburbanites were probably seeing a geyser of Jet A. Now, Jet A is not like gasoline for sheer combustibility, but it is the same stuff that made those big orange fireballs and black clouds around the World Trade Center back in 2001.

It has a flash point of about 120°F, which is not all that hot. What if someone had been out on the back deck firing up a barbecue, or lighting a cigarette?

In that case the NBC 12 story would have been different, a big fireball in the heart of Henrico County instead of a smelly puddle in the backyard. Heck, you’d have seen it yourself on the national news last night.

It makes me think about those 3,100 miles of pipeline. And men in rented cars with binoculars and videocameras, tourists from the Middle East, just here to see the sights.

Checking out the local hot spots. So to speak.

Some Barriers Work Better Than Others

“www.coxandforkum.com”


Monahan AFB pop-up barrier
Commenter Bill Keezer sent this picture of an attempt to run the Swan Gate at Davis-Monahan AFB in Tucson. The intruders found out the hard way that the pop up barrier works.

In case you’re wondering: no, it wasn’t terrorists, just pests. Two drunk “undocumented” aliens from south of the Border. Who knows what they had in mind? Or if they even had a mind between them at the time.

The driver will be arrested when he gets out of ICU. The passenger was sent on to a hospital in Mexico.

I think the driver should be returned also, as soon as he’s stable. Why bother prosecuting him when it just means we have to also take care of him?

The Fall of France and the Multicultural World War

The Fjordman Report
The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.


In my essay about the retreat of the Western world order, I mentioned the possibility of civil strife in the West caused by runaway immigration. This is no longer just a theoretical possibility. It is pretty clear to anybody following the developments in Europe that the situation in France is starting to become rather serious. President Jacques Chirac threw out part of a youth labor law that triggered massive protests and strikes, bowing to intense pressure from students and unions. The unemployment rate for youths under 26 is a staggering 22 percent nationwide, but soars to nearly 50 percent in some of those troubled areas with many Muslim immigrants. French Jews are leaving the country in ever-growing numbers, fleeing a wave of anti-Semitism. Nidra Poller, American ex-pat writer and translator in Paris, has written some appalling stories about aggressive anti-Semitism, such as the murder and brutal torture of French Jew Ilan Halimi early in 2006.

Muslim blogs are calling for violence against the Jews, the whites and the well-to-do. They say, “We must burn France, as Hamas will burn Israel.” The growth of the Islamic population is explosive. According to some, one out of three babies born in France is now a Muslim. Around 70% of French prisoners are Muslims. Hundreds of Muslim ghettos are already de facto following sharia, not French law. Some have pointed out that the French military are not always squeamish, but there are estimates that 15% of the armed forces are already made up of Muslims, and rising. How effective can the army then be in upholding the French republic? At the same time, opinion polls show that the French are now officially the most anti-capitalist nation on earth. France has chosen Socialism and Islam. It will get both, and sink into a quagmire of its own making. Some believe France will quietly become a Muslim country, others believe in civil war in the near future:

The French Disease

Within 20 years, one person out of four in France will be Muslim, and almost certainly poor and angry. So the French disease progresses. It is chronic becoming terminal. On the way toward collapse, there will be no civil war, just moments of harsh violence. The population will change. People with a high level of productivity will choose exile. People with a low level of productivity will immigrate. Jews and Christians will leave. Muslims will arrive.

The unreported race riot in France

Fredric Encel, Professor of international relations at the prestigious École Nationale d’Administration in Paris and a man not known for crying wolf, recently stated that France is becoming a new Lebanon. The implication, far-fetched though it may seem, was that civil upheaval might be no more than a few years off, sparked by growing ethnic and religious polarization.

I’m not sure which of these scenarios is scarier. People keep talking about the nukes that the Iranians may get, but what about the hundreds of nuclear warheads the French have? Will they be used to intimidate the rest of the West? How do we handle an Islamic France, still the heartland of the European continent, with Muslim control of hundreds of nukes? And how do we handle a Bosnia or Lebanon with a population much larger than either of these countries, and with hundreds of nuclear warheads at stake?

If Muslim immigration continues, the impending fall of France could mark the starting point of the Balkanization of much of Europe, perhaps later even North America. I fear this is a world war. Maybe future historians will dub it the Multicultural World War. Just as WW1 was caused by Imperialism, WW2 by Fascism and the Cold War by Communism, this one will be caused by Multiculturalism. The term “the Multicultural World War” has been coined by Fjordman. I find this to be more accurate than “The Islamic World War” because what will cause this world war is Western cultural weakness, through Multiculturalism and Muslim immigration, rather than Islamic strength. As poster DP111 says, this world war may very well be in the form of a global civil war, where you get a succession of civil wars instead of countries invading other countries. Multiculturalism and uncontrolled mass-immigration destroy the internal cohesion of the decadent West, which will slowly fall apart as it has lost the will to defend itself and the belief in its own culture. The wars in the Balkans in the 1990s will in hindsight be seen as a prelude to the Multicultural World War. Rather than a Westernization of the Balkans, we get a Balkanization of the West.

I guess there is some poetic justice in the fact that the country that initiated and has led the creation of Eurabia now gets consumed by its own Frankenstein monster, but we should not gloat over this. The downfall of France is very bad news for the rest of the West. Again, what happens to their nukes and military resources? As stated in the book “Eurabia” by Bat Ye’or, the merger of Europe and the Arab-Islamic world has been encouraged by the French political elite in particular at least since the early 1970s, with a vision of creating a united Europe and Mediterranean basin under French leadership, in what has basically been a French dream since the age of Napoleon, the great hero of current French PM de Villepin. Several prominent French leaders stated quite openly in 2005 that the proposed EU Constitution was basically an enlarged France. Justice Minister Dominique Perben said: “We have finally obtained this ‘Europe à la française’ that we have awaited for so long. This constitutional treaty is an enlarged France. It is a Europe written in French.” Education Minister François Fillon stated: “This Constitution allows the French ambition to assert itself in the big Europe that General de Gaulle hoped and prayed for.” The French dream of an enlarged France. What they may get is a France carved into tiny pieces.

My personal belief is not that we are witnessing the final triumph of Eurabia, but rather the last spasms of the Eurabian Union. There will be at least as big changes in Western Europe over the coming generation as there were in Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall. There will be the downfall and disintegration of an anti-democratic, bureaucratic superstate, the European Union instead of the Soviet Union, and there will be the downfall of “soft Socialism” in the shape of the Multicultural welfare state in the West just as you had the downfall of the “hard Socialism” in the East. The difference is that the downfall of Communism in the East happened through a relatively bloodless “Velvet Revolution,” whereas the downfall of Multiculturalism in the West may turn out to be anything but bloodless. And it will come, sooner than many people think. Multiculturalism, cultural Marxism and the idea of forced cultural equality, will collapse just as Communism, the idea of economic Marxism and forced economic equality fell.

The difference is that when Communism was discredited in Eastern Europe, it was still Poles who lived in Polish cities, Bulgarians who lived in Bulgarian cities etc. When the veil of Multiculturalism disappears, it will be Pakistanis who live in London, Turks who live in Berlin, Algerians who live in Paris and Moroccans who live in Amsterdam. And then the show begins.

Europe may not be finished yet, but she will go through a painful period of transition even if we do get a rebirth here. It should be noted that a revolution doesn’t usually come when the oppression is at its worst, but when the grip of the authorities and their totalitarian ideology, in this case Multiculturalism and Political Correctness, seems to be slipping. This was the case with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and it will be the case with the European Union now. I see increasing signs that the idea of Multiculturalism is on the retreat. Even Germany’s and Europe’s largest newspaper ran a series about the collapse of Multiculturalism recently.

I am not alone in predicting such a turbulent scenario. Prominent critic of Islam in Denmark, Lars Hedegaard, is quoted in Bruce Bawer’s book “While Europe Slept, How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within” in support of this dark view:

“If there’s any hope,” Hedegaard suggested dryly, borrowing a line he knew I’d recognize from 1984, “it lies in the proles.” Yet we both knew that the “proles” – if they did take over the reins from the elite – might well lead Europe back down the road to fascism. He did admit that he was glad to be living in Denmark and not elsewhere in Western Europe: “If there’s any place where there’s hope, it’s got to be this country.” But Hedegaard didn’t hold out much hope even for Denmark. “Unless they build up a cadre of intellectuals in Europe who can think,” he said, America “can kiss Europe good-bye.” The Continent’s future, he predicted, “is going to be vastly different than we imagine.. It’s going to be war. Like Lebanon,” with some enclaves dominated by Christians and others by Muslims. There will be “permanent strife,” and no one will have the “power to mollify or mediate… It will be more gruesome than we can imagine.” When the horror comes, he warned, the journalists who helped to bring it about will “wag their heads and flee – and leave it to those who can’t flee to fight it out.”

The population movements we are witnessing now are the largest and fastest in human history. In Europe, they can only be compared to the period often referred to as the Migration Period, following the disintegration of the Roman Empire. However, during the 4th and 5th centuries, the total human population of the world was in the order of 200 million. Today, it is 30 times larger than that, and still growing fast. We also have communications that can transport people anywhere on earth within hours, and media that show ordinary people how much better life is in other countries. On top of that, the Romans didn’t have human rights lawyers advocating that millions of barbarians be let into their lands. Is it a coincidence that the last time we had migrations like this was when large parts of the European continent suffered a complete civilizational breakdown? Is that what we are witnessing now? The second fall of Rome?

Both Thailand and the Philippines, countries where the Muslim population is not much larger than it is in some Western European countries, are facing war. Countries such as France, Holland and Sweden could soon reach a point where the Muslim population will create something akin to civil war, as it already has in the above-mentioned nations. The Islamic world is now at war with most of the major powers on the planet at the same time, from the USA to India and from Russia to Western Europe. It is a real possibility that we will get a full-blown world war because of these events. If so, I don’t think this will happen 50 years from now, but within the coming generation.

There are several possible scenarios:

1. Eurabia

The EU continues its transformation into a continent-wide organization with clear totalitarian leanings, and a very pro-Islamic stance. Europe’s fate is sealed when Turkey is allowed into the Union, and becomes its largest member. Historian Bat Ye’or, who first coined the term “Eurabia”, thinks that Europe’s ties with the Arab-Islamic world are now so firmly entrenched and established that Eurabia is an irreversible fact. Europe will cease to be a Western, democratic continent, and will become an appendix to the Arab world. Eurabia will become a global center for Jihad activities, as the dhimmi taxpayers and infidel Western technology give a boost to the Ummah. Muslims will be heavily concentrated in the major cities, and the dhimmi native population will retreat into the countryside. The old nation states will thus slowly die, as their major cities, which constitute the brain and “head” of its culture, are cut off from the rest of the body. Europe’s decline into Eurabia will be speeded up by the fact that millions of educated natives with the means to it will move to the USA or other nations. There will be no major war in Western Europe, as its civilization is already dead and very few will bother fighting for it.

The only violence will be sporadic Islamic terror attacks to induce fear, and occasional Muslim mob assaults in European streets to remind the dhimmis who is boss. It is conceivable that the center of European civilization will move from Western Europe to Eastern Europe, but even Eastern Europe will be put under severe pressure from Muslims, both in the Middle East and in the West. The basic rule is that the areas Muslims have taken into possession remain in Islamic hands, while the native population and culture is slowly eradicated. If this holds true for us today, then parts of Western Europe are already lost, and will indeed become Eurabia as Bat Ye’or predicts. There are not too many instances I know of where areas once under the sway of Islam have been reclaimed by infidels. The most obvious is of course Spain and the Iberian Peninsula, where the Reconquista took quite a few centuries. I know the Sikhs have kicked Muslims out of Punjab, India. Parts of present-day Israel could be counted, although Arabs and Muslims are trying very hard to wipe Israel off the map. And maybe some of China’s Western provinces could be included. Islam has not been eradicated there, but it is visibly retreating as Chinese authorities are suppressing any signs of rebellion.

What these examples have in common is that both the Christians in Spain, the Sikhs in India and the Jews in Israel were fighting Islam with powerful religious convictions of their own. The Chinese are not usually very religious, but they have an equally strong, even ruthless nationalism and belief in their own civilization. If history is any guide, today’s decadent, bored, post-religious and post-nationalist Europe will be no match for Islam, unless it rediscovers a belief in its own culture and a will to defend it. This will have to happen soon, or the Islamic demographic conquest of much of the continent will be an irreversible fact, anyway. The result of this will then either be Eurabia or a Pakistanization of Europe, the way we have already seen for generations in the Balkans.

2. War

Personally, I think this alternative is at least as likely as the above “Eurabia” scenario. It also contains several sub-scenarios, partly depending upon when the eventual war starts, and partly on whether there is still some Western pride and resistance left in Europe underneath the self-loathing and Multiculturalism:

The Pakistanization of Europe

Muslims aren’t numerous enough to control the entire continent. In the event of war, there will be mutual ethnic cleansing and Muslims will seize parts of Western Europe. For instance, a belt stretching from parts of Germany via Belgium and Holland to France, but maybe even regions within certain nation states. All of Europe will not be lost, but some parts will, and many others will be deeply damaged by the fighting. Many of our cultural treasures will burn. How things will go from there is difficult to predict. Perhaps this new “Pakistan” in the heart of Europe will be the source of constant instability and the staging ground for Jihad incursions into infidel areas, just as Pakistan is to India now. Perhaps we will see a slow reconquest of this area, possibly taking generations or even centuries. Muslim de facto control of hundreds of French nuclear warheads will make the situation a lot more dangerous.

Of course, it could be more than one Muslim region. Kosovo and in part Bosnia are functioning as Islamic bridgeheads in Europe at this moment. There could be several mini-Pakistans created all over the place. In fact present day Kosovo walks, talks and looks like a mini-Pakistan. The “zones” in France sound suspiciously like Muslim “mohallas” in India although the situation is not as bad as in France.

Reconquista - The Second Expulsion of the Moors

Muslims strike too early, before they are ready to seize control over major chunks of Europe. They overestimate their own power, and underestimate the strength that is still left in Europe. It will start, as these things always do, before anyone is ready. Everyone, the Islamists, the proto-dhimmis, the neo-nationalists, the sleepwalking middle class, thinks they have more time than they do. It may start more or less by accident, like WWI, through the act of a fringe player unaware of the forces involved or the stakes of the game. Once a full-blown civil war starts in one country, it can, and probably will, spread to other countries. Given the European Union’s borderless nature, it is unlikely that war will be limited to one nation only. This will create a domino effect, and Muslims will be expelled from Europe yet again, after major bloodshed and millions of dead across the continent. This will result in the collapse of the EU. The Arab world will support the Muslims and will prolong the war, but they won’t win it.

Cultures collide: Muslim immigrants will be expelled from Europe unless they reverse the growing perception of them as a social threat

The Muslims refused to assimilate. They were expelled. This was the story in Europe 400 years ago. We are watching the sequel today. In the clash of cultures between secular Europeans and extremist Muslims, there can ultimately be no compatibility or compromise, only loss by one side or the other of the absolute values it holds dear. European capitulation on European soil, where they remain the dominant majority, is unlikely.

Global Civil War

Europe has been the primary staging ground for one cold and two hot world wars. It could become a major battlefield in an Islamic or Multicultural world war, too. A world war is already simmering, with Muslims clashes against Russia, Europe, Israel, China, India, the USA and Southeast Asia. Once the fighting starts in Europe, it could spread outside the continent and ignite a world war. This is the scenario of “global civil war”.

3. Western Rebirth in Europe

We should discuss the possibility of whether the Islamic threat will force the West to rethink its values and regain its strength. Can this be done, and how would this take place? Is it possible to avoid both major war and Eurabia or is this wishful thinking by now? The growth of Eurabia is closely tied to the growth of the EU. Perhaps we could derail Eurabia by dismantling the EU? This would require that Europe regain her old, cultural and religious dynamic and repel Islam. Just as Islam isn’t the cause of Europe’s current weakness, but rather a secondary infection, it could have the unforeseen and ironic effect of saving Europe from herself. By quite literally putting a dagger at Europe’s throat, the Islamic world will force Europeans to renew themselves or die. Europe will go through a turbulent period of painful, but necessary revival, and will arrive chastened on the other side.