There have always been rumours circulating that more than an apologist for Islam, Charles is actually a "revert" to Islam.

It would explain a lot.

Posted by: Charles Martel at October 29, 2005 7:09 PM

Pillock.

Posted by: Interested at October 29, 2005 7:14 PM

What a pathetic excuse for a 'future' king? I think he is a Muslim but doesn't want anyone to know yet. It's not time. But surely he sees himself as a figurehead for the much more Islamic England rapidly being constructed. Figurehead, useful idiot, what's the difference?

Posted by: John Sobieski at October 29, 2005 7:19 PM

Bugger off.

Posted by: Lisa at October 29, 2005 7:19 PM

He is said to have converted in Turkey (according to, if my memory serves me correctly, the Turkish ambassador). On the other hand he is also said to have had the Princess of Wales murdered because of her associations with Moslem men, Dodi al Fayed being the most recent and final.
What is certain is his expressed desire to be known as Defender of Faiths, rather than the specific Defensor Fides.
Camilla will never be queen.
Because he will never be king.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 29, 2005 7:21 PM

Let's start with Charley's heir, Prince Harry. This is the one who wore a Nazi costume to a party. Neither Harry nor anyone in the royal family apologized to the British Jews or the UK veterans of WW2 for the costume. There was some sort of lame explanation but not a real apology. Does the apple fall far from the tree?

Then Charley's grandfather, George VI, opposed allowing Jewish refugees from Hitler get into the internationally established Jewish National Home, which was then under British control as the Palestine mandate. [for a document on this, see William Perl, Holocaust Conspiracy].

More recently, Charley wrote a preface to a very expensively produced two volume book called "Ottoman Jerusalem," which was produced by the British School of Archeology in Jerusalem in cooperation with the Muslim Waqf [in the book called the Auqaf]. It contains articles by such experts as Karen Armstrong. One of the benefactors cited as contributing money to publication of this book was the late Lebanese Muslim billionaire, Rafiq Hariri, done in by fellow Muslims earlier this year. Charley's political activities do indeed arouse suspicion.

Posted by: Eliyahu at October 29, 2005 7:32 PM

Charlie loves the Arabs because they actually treat him like a king in Saudi Arabia.

He doesn't get any respect at home. Last week, he moaned that we will all miss him when he is gone.

He is going to a real headache for the Church of England in the near future.

Posted by: 1630r at October 29, 2005 7:32 PM

The Prince of Wales will try to persuade George W Bush and Americans of the merits of Islam this week because he thinks the United States has been too intolerant of the religion since September 11.
http://www.sacredcowburgers.com/side_orders/showpics.cgi?lesson_learned

Posted by: Carolyn2 at October 29, 2005 7:33 PM

Google: Prince Charles a Muslim?

Posted by: Carolyn2 at October 29, 2005 7:36 PM

The next in line after Charles is actually William - not quite such a pratt as Harry his younger brother. That's not saying much however.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 29, 2005 7:40 PM

The intro to this article is very harsh.

Prince Charles has done a lot of work for many charities, this is rarely mentioned.

"As well as 16 "core" charities, including the Prince's Trust, he is patron or president of 352 other organisations, according to the second annual review of the activities of the prince's household"

I don't know why people bash the Royal family, they waste alot of money??? How many tourists does the 'monarchy' bring in to the UK. Come down Windsor anytime and you will see plenty of Chinese, European and American tourists. How many people across the World associate the UK with the Royal Family, I think they are very good for the country. The two young Princes show a lot of promise.

He (Prince Charles) sounds like a reasonable person. Fairly relaxed and smooth. Has any one got those links suggesting he has converted, I've heard people talking, but he still drinks etc.

Posted by: ia786 at October 29, 2005 7:44 PM

From Scotland's Muslim newspaper last month.

"A biography of the Prince of Wales has revealed that Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, was concerned that the Prince of Wales's passion for Islam was hindering his development as a Christian."

http://www.iwitness.co.uk/uk/0905u-07.htm

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 29, 2005 7:44 PM

Eliyahu:

The royals aren't veddy British, they are Germans, Hanover's the name.

Posted by: Lisa at October 29, 2005 7:47 PM

When not disgracing his nation and his family through his various peccadilloes...

It would be an unusual, and rather suspect Prince of Wales who didn't have a few peccadilloes. But I'm not all that bothered about this. Charles is never going to be King. He's just a leftover hippy who talks to plants.

Posted by: Interested at October 29, 2005 7:47 PM

He (Prince Charles) sounds like a reasonable person. Fairly relaxed and smooth

His public advocacy of Islam appears to go back to 1989, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued an edict (fatwa) against Salman Rushdie, a British citizen, for blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad in his novel The Satanic Verses.6 Rather than defend Rushdie's freedom of speech, Charles reacted to the death decree by reflecting on the positive features that Islam has to offer the spiritually empty lives of his countrymen.

http://www.meforum.org/article/356

Smooth, all right.

Posted by: Charles Martel at October 29, 2005 7:48 PM

Camilla might actually look good in a burka. It would rid her of the obligation to appear in all those dreadful hats.

Posted by: scaramouoche at October 29, 2005 7:50 PM

Prince Charles has a long history of being impressed with Islam and with Muslims. Of course he liked the "plucky little king" Hussein of Jordan, and spoke at a London memoorial service for King Hussein. He also liked Oman, which is the most acceptable and dignified of Arab states. But he consistently misunderstands; Sultan Qaboos is quite unlike in bearing and manner any of the other Arabs; the Omanis actually try to retain some of their local traditions, and the place has much more folkloristic value (of the National Geographic or Explorers' Club variety) but tells us nothing about Islam.

Charles's complete misunderstanding of Islam is particularly disturbing because he has repeatedly shown that he is unable to keep his misunderstanding to himself, and his willing, even eager, to use his position to mislead the English, and now it seems the Americans as well (but even Bush is smarter, one hopes, than Charles). Here are his remarks after the London bombing on July 7, 2005:

"Some may think this cause is Islam. It is anything but. It is a perversion of traditional Islam," Prince Charles said.

The prince said Muslim leaders were right to point out the attacks had no link to "true faith".

"Those who claim to have murdered in the name of Islam have no care for the lives they have so brutally destroyed.

"Offended by the good relations between faiths and cultures, the extremists seek to break up the communities that make up our modern, multi-cultural society," the prince wrote.

Or think back further, to that meeting (see Dec. 19, 2004 JW), as described in an article in The Telegraph:

"Prince Charles is brokering efforts to end the Muslim death penalty on converts to other faiths, it emerged yesterday. He held a private summit of Christian and Muslim leaders at Clarence House this month to explore the centuries-old Islamic law under which apostates face persecution and even death.

His intervention follows mounting anger at the treatment in a number of Islamic states of Muslims who have converted to Christianity.

As an advocate of inter-faith dialogue, the Prince has come under pressure to criticise the religious law that, campaigners say, has resulted in hundreds of executions in countries from Iran to Sudan.

Among the Christians at the confidential meeting was an Anglican archbishop from a part of Nigeria where Islamic Sharia law is enforced.

Others included the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres, and the Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali.

It is believed the Muslim group, which included the Islamic scholar Zaki Badawi, cautioned the Prince and other non-Muslims against speaking publicly on the issue.

It argued that Islamic moderates could have more influence on the traditional position if the debate remained largely internal.

A member of the Christian group said on Friday that he was "very, very unhappy" about the outcome. Patrick Sookhdeo, the international director of the Barnabus Fund, which campaigns on behalf of persecuted Christians abroad, stressed that he was speaking on the record only because details of the meeting had already leaked.

He urged the Prince and Muslim leaders in Britain to criticise openly the traditional Islamic law on apostasy, calling for it to be abolished throughout the world.

"My view, and I think the other Christians shared it, is that when something is wrong it must be stated as a wrong."

Charles said nothing publicly, and it is believed he said, and did, nothing privately.

Ibn Warraq, who follows these things, and has a keen sense of which Infidels are likely to be ripe for the reverting, long ago told me that he would not be surprised to learn that Prince Charles had converted to Islam.

He is not in the tradition of the psychically or economically marginal. But he is stupid -- stupid as so many of those who have had everything, while doing nothing, can often turn out to be.

Meanwhile, those who have to endure the slow islamization of their country, of all the countries of Europe, do not have the cushion or the comfort to dilate upon the wonders and beauties and inner essential goodness of Islam, the way Charles does. The proper response to him is ridicule -- and disgust.

Meanwhile, if there is a playwright who wants a timely topic, why not prepare for the Old Vic a play with the title "E. R., or The Lady's Not for Reverting" about an aging queen who clings to life because her son's ascension would spell disaster, she knows but cannot reveal, to her kingdom. The initial initials that begin the title have nothing to do, of course, with the American television show of the same name.

Posted by: Hugh at October 29, 2005 7:59 PM

If Camilla doesn't don a burka soon, perhaps she can take some beauty advice from Donna Sachet when she is in San Francisco.

Posted by: Lisa at October 29, 2005 8:01 PM

yeh....

Posted by: ia786 at October 29, 2005 8:01 PM

Thanks to that link from Charles Martel to the Middle East Forum article I can correct the source I attributed the information about Turkey being the place of the alleged conversion. It was not the Turkish ambassador but the Grand Mufti of Cyprus, as quoted in the Evening Standard (a London paper)on 15 October 1996. Nearly a year before Diana's death, but after their divorce.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 29, 2005 8:04 PM

"He urged the West to overcome its "unthinkable prejudices " about Islam and customs and law." Shouldn't Charles be urging muslims to overcome their unthinkable prejudices about the infidel,the Jews,Hindus,Christians and Buddhist etc?

Posted by: RED at October 29, 2005 8:22 PM

ia786 - "I don't know why people bash the Royal family, they waste a lot of money??? How many tourists does the 'monarchy' bring in to the UK. Come down Windsor anytime and you will see plenty of Chinese, European and American tourists"

If you go to Paris, Rome, Berlin or any other capitals/countries, you will find Chinese, European and American Tourists, these countries do not have royal families. Even if the UK had a president elected by the people (the royals are not elected by the people) tourists will still go to London.
Its questionable how much money the royal family brings into the economy when one thinks of the large sums it takes to maintain this non-productive institution in the 21st century. In any case Charles in an embarrassment.

Posted by: faqi at October 29, 2005 8:37 PM

So if Prince Charles ever ascends to the throne, will he be a king or a caliph?

Posted by: markjames at October 29, 2005 9:01 PM

Lay off Harry!

We all made cruel, barbaric, pigheaded errors at his age and benefit tremendously from not having had them serve as tabloid fodder.

He's no angel, but Harry may well wind up exchanging fire with the very jihadists so eloquently denounced from the dry, warm safety of the comments section.

Anybody seen American surrogate royalty stepping into line recently? You won't hear a Bush, Kennedy, Sulzberger or Jackson saying this anytime soon:

"I hope I would not drag my sorry arse through Sandhurst . . . I would not have joined if they had said I could not be in the front line. The last thing I would want to do is for my soldiers to be sent away to Iraq and have me held back at home twiddling my thumbs."

It's easy to jeer at a 20-year-old growing up in public. And, yes, it's all well and good to point out that defeating jihad is 95% non-military (check back in a decade)--but that means there's 5% that's live and in color. And if we don't have men--even miserable, flawed, boorish ones--who will fight the ugly fight, then we're lost already: a gray husk of a civilization waiting for a stiff sirocco to push us over so we can die.

Stand up guys are increasingly hard come by. Imagine that: Harry might just be one of them.

Give 'em hell, Harry: somewhere, Winston is smiling.

-----
Fjordman: Your resignation is denied.

Posted by: Mad_Jack at October 29, 2005 9:19 PM

So if Prince Charles ever ascends to the throne, will he be a king or a caliph?

If we shall believe some persistent gossips about the guy - he may be a queen.
In any case, he will be Ueber-Dhimmi.

Posted by: thomas. h at October 29, 2005 9:20 PM

Perhaps the news from India will lead him to rethink, a bit, his views. Not because he understands, or cares, about India or its civilization or people. But only because he may be hesitant if all the examples of non-Western people at the mercy of Islam are brought to his attention. Don't, whatever you do, raise the subject of what the Lesser Jihad has done to Israel, or that other Lesser Jihad threatened by Izetbegovic which so frightened and maddened people even unto supporting Milosevic. Charles is a creature not of reality but of slogans, prefabricated notions that do not rise to the level of ideas, idols of the age. Bandung Conference members good, advanced white Western world always bad. Okay, d'accord. Then present him with the example of India, or Thailand, give him the Philippines, give him the persecution and murders of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan and Bangladesh and even deep within India itself.

If Charles were ever to become king, he would be Charles III. As it happens, all English schoolboys, and all those who wanted to be or were taught as if they were, English schoolboys, from Lucknow and Delhi to Witwatersrand and Mafeking, had to learn those two dates. The first was 1215, the year of the Magna Charta (even Americans know that one). The second was January 30, 1649. On that day Charles I went to the scaffold. Charles II, who arrived after Cromwell and the Roundheads, was famous for his many amours and mistresses. Most have heard of at least one of them -- Nell Gwyn, by whom he had a child who became the Duke of St. Albans. (Camilla is not a patch on Nell Gwyn, with her civil oranges.) Perhaps President Bush can take Prince Charles down to the celebrated Episcopal church of that same name in Washington, and from the cathedral close together they can look up at the gargoyles with briefcases -- some of which look remarkably like Charles and, come to think of it, like Bush.

The corruption of morals, the political obstinacy, the weakness of every kind, the obliviousness to the real needs and desires of those he ruled, characterized the reign of Charles I. And so it may be of Charles the Possible Third, or of Bush the Certain Second.

But before that day comes for Prince to metamorphose into King, Charles might start thinking about how misrule of various kinds led in the one case to the scaffold, in another case to that kind of easy licentiousness, that corruption of morals that feeds, and feeds off of, other kinds of corruption, which a forthcoming movie, about John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester and his period, starring Johnny Depp and of course the incomparable John Malkovich, will soon remind us. And thinking of Charles Number One, he might also consider how others are made to lose their heads nowadays, and by whom.

But he won't. He's stupid and spoiled and deeply irresponsible, and his mind is made up. Don't confuse him with the evidence, or logic, or both. Don't attempt to tamper with the brain of this animated tampax. He's got other things to think about. And besides, all this talk of Hadith and Sira and dhimmis and 60-70 million Hindus killed, and the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the more than 1300 yeas in which non-Muslims were forced to endure a status of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity, punctuated by murder at the hands of Muslim overlords, here and there and everywhere that Islam prevailed -- oh, don't bother him with all that. It's so tiresome.

Posted by: Hugh at October 29, 2005 9:22 PM

Charles confessed to adultery. I wonder how he would be treated under sharia?

Lashes or death? Or would he get off because no one would witness against him because of his position? Or would Camilla be retroactively made wife number two?

Posted by: Borg at October 29, 2005 10:03 PM

No witnesses needed since he confessed. Death.

Posted by: Borg at October 29, 2005 10:04 PM

For Camilla, presumably, it would be death by lapidation. But why should Charles bother to think about those deadly stones being flung, one after the other, at her or at anyone else, when it is so much more fun to think about that inspiring example of millions of pilgrims, at Mecca, a site for sore eyes, excitedly stoning not a person but a certain pillar, or circling seven-times widdershins the Ka'aba-encased meteorite or Magic Wonderstone. What is the Christmas choir of St. John's, and what the King James version of the Bible, and what the Book of Common Prayer, compared to that?

Posted by: Hugh at October 29, 2005 10:11 PM

IA786:Prince Charles has done a lot of work for many charities, this is rarely mentioned.
"As well as 16 "core" charities, including the Prince's Trust, he is patron or president of 352 other organisations, according to the second annual review of the activities of the prince's household"

yep and in spite of all that, he's still full of crap...

Posted by: duh_swami at October 29, 2005 10:15 PM

I can't wait to hear Charlie teach me about 'islam's strengths.' I do hope at least one of the MSM networks picks up whatever he has to say on the subject. It would be a shame if he doesn't share his insights with us ignorant Americans.

Posted by: 3812Michelle at October 29, 2005 11:26 PM

Perhaps Charles is campaigning for the post of Antichrist?

Posted by: jsla at October 29, 2005 11:59 PM

I would have thought Bush would have had more important things to do than to receive this poor excuse of a prince and hear him harp on about how we need to be nicer to those poor misunderstood muslims. Give me a bloody break!

Let him be nicer to them. Europe has made it's bed and will now have to pay for it's mistakes. I don't want him and the rest of Europe trying to take America down with them in the process.

Until Islam reforms itself, muslims can stay the hell out of America. They just aren't worth the trouble.

Posted by: William The Crusader at October 30, 2005 12:00 AM

Charles, G-d forbid, if he ever becomes king will end up like the Saudis -- paying off the Jihadis to leave him alone and take the slaughter elsewhere..

Posted by: Kemaste at October 30, 2005 12:54 AM

Gordon Bennett !!!!

As an Ex Englishman, If the choice was between Prince Charles & Mr Bean for King of England, I think I would have to go for the latter !

PS : Carolyn2, nice link !!

Posted by: Pom Pom at October 30, 2005 1:07 AM

what is Charles email address he needs to learn about Sudan Armenia and the constant threats to the Copts in Egypt.

Posted by: mark52 at October 30, 2005 1:08 AM

"Prince Charles has done a lot of work for many charities, this is rarely mentioned.

"As well as 16 "core" charities, including the Prince's Trust, he is patron or president of 352 other organisations, according to the second annual review of the activities of the prince's household"

Personally I don't give a rats ass? Why should it matter what charities he contributes to? Do I care if he holds doors open for old ladies or says please and thank you He's a poster boy for dhimmitude and wants to lead us down the road of the damned with him.

This is life and death!

We can be nice, sure, but we have to tell him in no uncertain terms we're NOT on the same page. We are not apologists for Islam. We WILL NOT BOW TO TERROR or those who feign moderation in the quest for domination in the bloody name of Islam.

No thank you Charles.

Posted by: Kemaste at October 30, 2005 1:09 AM

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/119

Posted by: Kemaste at October 30, 2005 1:25 AM

ia786: Prince Charles has done a lot of work for many charities, this is rarely mentioned.

Posted by: Shy Guy at October 30, 2005 1:31 AM

Charles The Dhimmi-hearted?
Charles the Gutless?
Charles the Weakminded?
Charles the ...oh, nevermind...

Posted by: kevin at October 30, 2005 1:33 AM

Maybe MI6 murdered the wrong royal....

Posted by: SCV at October 30, 2005 3:08 AM

Am i Pissed.

As an organic enthusiast and a 'save what's left of our environment' type, Charles seemed ok to me, if a bit bizarre in some other facets such as his pretensions in the field of architecture.

I was even pleased to see him finally end up with Camilla, though he earned no points getting there.

Charles support for islam is so ignorant, and so dangerous, that, organic or not, he's a fool who must not sit on the throne.

So it is William, Harry, or a republic, but never, never, Abu.twitboy chucky.

Posted by: dby at October 30, 2005 3:09 AM

Yes indeed, bring back Richard the Lion Heart. And Churchill. Big Ears should abdicate if he intends becoming Defender of Death Cults. Future King of Australia? Off with his head!

Posted by: islamophobic pride at October 30, 2005 3:28 AM

I'm quivering with rage! For a long time now, this irresponsible twit has indulged himself with his plants, organic farm and water colours and forgotten that he is supposed to be a head of state one day and Head of the Church of England - that is his official role. He couldn't even manage to hang on to his wife when she was alive, let alone assume anything representing a responsible role in British society. The Royal Family treated her disgracefully using her as a sacrificial lamb to beget those two boys, one of whom is a retarded monster, and then dumping her when the cow had calved. Camilla is deeply unpopular and no-one wants her to be Queen. The best thing the Royals can do if they want to keep any credibility at all is to ditch Charlie and get the son on board - William - who looks like his mother and seems to have her talent for connecting with the "proles." This is one occasion where a "beheading" (metaphysically of course) might be useful. All those soldiers who laid down their lives in WW2 must be spinning in their graves.

Posted by: londongirl at October 30, 2005 3:50 AM

Charles stayed at Mount Athos again last summer as he has been doing for the last few years. There is some speculation that he has converted to Greek Orthodoxy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1214522,00.html

http://www.mpa.gr/article.html?doc_id=526985

Posted by: Silvester at October 30, 2005 3:54 AM

OT

For UK JW'ers, don't forget to tune in tonight:

C4 8.00pm Great British Islam

In the wake of the London bombings, Sun columnist Anila Baig embarks on a personal quest to find out how deeply Islam is rooted in the UK. She discovers the 1,000-year history of the religion in Britain, and asks if the relationship between its followers and their adopted country has always been mistrustful — before considering whether the two cultures can ever be reconciled.

You see, Islam has always been present in Britain! In fact some of the greatest British institutions have their origins in that noble faith; indeed, there is evidence that Shakespeare himself was a Muslim...etc. etc. etc.

Posted by: Effractor at October 30, 2005 4:09 AM

"When not busy disgracing his nation and his family through his various peccadilloes, the future king of England, Prince Charles, has regularly assumed the position of lead European missionary in the service of the Islamic faith."

Patrick, what an absolutely idiotic statement. I would have expected some better, intelligent commentary coming from DW.

He certainly may be a bit misguided, but no more misguided than 95% of American leaders. I suppose all of the good things Prince Charles has done in terms of charitable work, is nothing.

Also, Prince Charles has campaigned, very hard, against Islam's brutal apostacy laws.

Next time, how about some proper analysis, instead of some half baked, insults, that detract from the hard work being done at JW/DW.

Posted by: Haidon at October 30, 2005 5:35 AM

Good can come of this, and evil. The evil is that some will allow themselves to be taken in during Charles's visit, and allow themselves to believe that the American government has been unnecessarily "confrontational" with Islam. That the American government has gone out of its way to avoid offending Muslim sensibilities, that it hastens to apologize for any offense its soldiers might possibly have given, that the man Taking the Leadership Role in Washington, while he no longer prates about Islam as a "religion of peace and tolerance" without having the faintest idea what that Islamic "peace" and that Islamic "tolerance" may mean, that his Secretary of State continues to use false analogies on every occasion ("Iraq is like post-war Japan and Germany, and everyone said those occupations wouldn't work, either"; "everyone yearns for freedom and here in Birmingham, Alabama, I'm living proof that freedom can come to everyone" -- these, in essence, are her messages). The jizyah is dutifully paid to Egypt, to Jordan, and even doubled or tripled to the malevolent and hideous "Palestinian" Authority which exists alongside various openly terrorist groups that will take care of the hot war while the civilian side, the "Palestinian" Authority side, conducts the Lesser Jihad against Israel with all the other instruments of Jihad aside from qital, or combat.

But the self-evident absurdity of a policy that in Iraq has Americans fight and die in order to assure the arrival of a pseudo and most temporary and most irrelevant (to the matter of constraining Islam) political change, which is to say a Sunni despot exchanged for a Shi'a-ruled state. The "democracy" in question is merely one of head-counting, with some slippery guarantees for minorities, but none of the deep-set attitudes that are required wherever rights are based on a document (this "constitution") that experience suggests can be ignored or dismissed or not taken seriously.

In real democracies people think of themselves as citizens, making up their own minds. In Iraq, it was Shi'a following the strictures of their ayatollah, their imams, their party heads; it was the Kurds voting Yes in order to ensure one thing -- autonomy in the new order, and if that proves unattainable or insufficient or is betrayed by the Arabs, then the unchanging goal of independence; in the Sunni areas, it was Sunnis being told either to vote No or not to vote at all. 99% in the Kurdish provinceds, 90% in the Shi'a provinces, for Yes, 90% of those voting in the two Sunni provinces for No, and only in Baghdad, and in 1 or 2 other provinces, is thee anything like a mixed vote, which reflected exactly the ethnic or sectarian mix of the people in that province, who otherwise voted exactly as their fellows did in other less mixed provinces.

There are two results from the Iraq War. Outside Iraq, the two countries that were most threatened by Saddam Hussein's regime, Iran and Saudi Arabia, no longer have to worry about that threat. They can, if American policy continues to be driven by Bush's truly crazy inability to look carefully both at Iraq and at Islam, his obstinacy that reflects not resolution but stupidity and misplaced pride, turn their attention to pursuing their own versions of promoting Muslim power. Iran can concentrate on its nuclear project, and buying time by now threatening, and now seeming to yield to, the Western powers. Saudi Arabia, with between $80-$150 billion more this year than it took in last year, can do whatever it wants, can buy up more land in the West for mosques, build more madrasas in Muslim countries and the West, pay for more propaganda, more professors, more ex-diplomats, more centers of this and that, more "dialogues of civilisation" to be held in plausible Morocco or Jordan, more economic pressure on Western Europe to appease its local Muslim population and continue to undo its own political, social, and cultural inheritance.

And domestically, within Iraq, a Sunni despotism that rendered Kurds and Shi'a powerless is replaced by a largely Shi'a "democratic" despotism that has rendered the Sunnis -- who certainly had it coming -- largely powerless. The Shi'a don't care, the way the Sunnis do, if the Kurds leave Iraq. And the Kurds, in turn, while the most secular group (as non-Arabs, they would be, for "Uruba" or Arabness reinforces Islam at every point) in Iraq, are willing to concede to the Shi'a in that area as long as they obtain the autonomy they seek, and the possibility of even more.

Unfortunately, because so many other issues have been confused with, intermingled with, the matter of Iraq, some of those, the noisiest some, who oppose the continued American presence in Iraq do so for the wrong reasons. They hate Bush, or they hate "Conservatives" or "Neo-Conservatives" or they think there is nothing wrong with Islam and we should stop being "aggressive" and so on. And then there are enantiomorphs of this among those who like to identify themselves as "Conservatives" (and the extent to which people love labels, and the rapidity with which they repair to them, for themselves and others, place them lower down, on the phylogenetic scale)and for whom Bush Can Do No Wrong and We Can't Cut and Run and Stay the Course and so on and so forth, while if they stopped to think instead of cheerleading for Bush because they are consumed with hate for those who hate Bush, and tried to think clearly about Islam, they would see that it makes sense to stop continuing to misallocate resources in Iraq (and damaging the morale of the men, and the amount and quality of the materiel, available to the American military now and in the grim future), and makes more sense to use whatever money is being spent there on energy and conservation projects of all kind, and exploiting, rather than doing everything to repair, the internal fissures, sectarian and ethnic, within Iraq.

Charles is a different matter, but his little tour of America may work out -- though not in the way he thinks. The English-Speaking Union loyalties of yore no longer exist in this country, or where they do exist, it is among those least likely to overlook the damage that Muslims are doing within Great Britain, and threaten to do all over the Bilad al-kufr. Charles may be counting on getting some respect, but he fails to understand how important looks have become for our celebrities -- and he is no more than that, a mere celebrity. Neither he nor his new wife make the grade, so they are not entitled to much of a hearing.

And in fact, his "defense of Islam" stuff may well backfire, and help those who have so far refused to see Islam for what it is, but may find his advocacy disturbing, and a warning -- about what is happening in Europe, and to some of its rulers and elites, those whose duty it is to instruct and protect, but who are doing little of either.

Let him come. Let him pontificate. Greet him unwarmly. Show your contempt. Show your dismay. Soomehow get beyond the categories of Bush-hatred or Bush-undying-support, and think only about the reality of Islam, its conents, why it is a world-wide problem, and how not to achieve "total victory" (in the idiotic phrase used by Bush the other day) but rather to constrain and contain, demoralize and divide, the forces of Islam, to show the Infidels, and perhaps Muslims themselves, the threat of Islam to art, science, and every individual freedom. Of course, if your taste runs to the Community, to the Mass or the Mob or the Nuremberg Rally, to the "brothers," to the division of the world between Believers and Infidels, if you love the idea of a Complete Regulation of Life where, if you have forgotten or never knew a rule, you can consult an imam, if the Total Explanation of the Universe soothes you in a complicated world you never made -- then of course Islam's for you. Go right ahead.

Adult-onset Islam -- a disease that can spread, and that even in the highest ranks of some Western governments, has its votaries and its defenders.

Posted by: Hugh at October 30, 2005 6:16 AM

Who elected that moron to speak for us, or for Islam?

Does he not realise how disrespectful he is being to the British victims of 7/7?

Has he really no brain & no shame?

Is this all about the guilt he carries for "The Firm" allegedly having his wife murdered for planning to marry a Muslim?

Every time he opens his mouth the Crown he seeks gets further away.

This hippie without a job, a terminal scrounger, an abolute hypocrit bar none can never & should never be King of the English.

The family of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha can expect nothing from the English except a one way ticket back to Bavaria & Mykonos where they can reign over the Eurabian Dhimmi Collective at their leisure.

English Republican Democracy Now.

Posted by: albion at October 30, 2005 7:19 AM

IF Charles becomes King, and he does his "boxes" as the Queen calls it, then would his love of Islam mean that he would act as a 5th column by forbidding any government policy that opposes Islam?

Posted by: Voltaire at October 30, 2005 7:40 AM

English Republican Democracy Now.

No way. Tony Blair for President? He'd be insufferable. And John Prescott riding in the gold coach instead of his Jaguar? No, we need a monarchy but the sovereign has to have no opinions at all on anything, just like our own dear Queen.

Prince Charles will almost certainly renounce his claim to the throne, knowing that the monarchy has to be popular to survive. The royal corgis - unclean under Islam - are safe for now.

A Bad King, if I recall my Sellers and Yeatman correctly 'foams at the mouth and has favourites' before dying 'of a surfeit in the usual way'. William won't do either of these things, I'm sure of that, and will be 'a Good King and C of E'.

Posted by: Interested at October 30, 2005 7:51 AM

Prince Charles is the epitomy of arrogance in that he is the so-called expert in architecture, politics and religion.

In reality, he is the close-minded one.

Posted by: learjet0450 at October 30, 2005 8:39 AM

I think Charles is a wonderful prop for any repuplican movement in Commonwealth countries - e.g. Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

Posted by: johnb at October 30, 2005 8:56 AM

Here is a link to an interesting, well documented article on this topic from The Middle East Quarterly titled "Prince Charles of Arabia"

http://www.meforum.org/article/356

Posted by: johnb at October 30, 2005 9:06 AM

johnb

I agree. Someone who talks to plants shoudln't be my country's head of state in the future. Carrots don't talk back, atleast that is what I am lead to beleive.

Posted by: obl r us at October 30, 2005 9:07 AM

From the prospective of a non-British observer, Charles appears to be arrogant, selfish, shallow and an all around dullard. However, there could be one dim light bulb working in his head. He might really know a bit about the real history and practices of Islam. In other words, he may realize which side his bread is buttered on. By the time he ascends the throne, his Muslim subjects will be more numerous and more dangerous. He will have to make peace with the British followers of the ROP if he is to survive what will probably be a very short reign anyway. Ban the liquor, put the new Duchess in hajab, built a huge mosque next to Windsor Castle, and he might be able to rule for a few years as Europe's Muslim king. Of course, it won't last; but, then Charles has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Posted by: maryrose at October 30, 2005 9:13 AM

Kings can be accepted when they have intelligent interests and some, but not too much, money. Those Scandinavian monarchs, for example, with their interests in all sorts of things -- marine biology, botany, conchology -- do it the right way. And if the existence of monarchs can help to soak up some of the free-floating mass-market need for hero-worship or gossip or thrills and chills better a modestly-paid monarch with a sense of humor than Britney Spears or Mick Jagger.

Monarchical messiness at this point means simply that the commoners are not getting their money's worth. They already have the Sex Lives of Celebrities to Contend With, from the groupies making those casts of the Rolling Stones to the pirated home-videos of assorted parises and pamelas, not a single one reminding us of Samuel Richardson. That Monagesque clan, for example, might as well be Hollywood celebrities; they are covered in the same way, providing a story a week to the popular magazines in Italy ("Gente") and France ("Paris-Match" and "Point de vue"). So we don't need them -- nor does the Societe des bains de mer.

And the same is true of this generation of the House of Saxe-Coburg. Or whatever it is -- I've lost my tiny Almanach de Gotha. Charles is not modestly paid, is at least as scandalous as any Lowe or Nicholson, and is humorless. He isn't earning his keep.

Even Emperor Hirohito of Japan, who got off rather too easily for his pre-war and wartime sins, being carefully depicted after the war (with some willing assistance from the Americans) as more innocent and unaware than he really was, managed to keep the Japanese post-war monarchy low-key. No one would have mistaken him for a celebrity. He had an interest in marine biology. He also kept things Kodo-less. He did nothing to keep alive a national soft spot for Tojo, or Admiral Yamamoto, either.

His tastes ran to the innocently adolescent; fortunately this was in the pre-Manga and pre-pachinko days of Japan's existence. No Murasaki Shikibu or the Pillow-Book of Sei Shonagon for him. But what do you expect nowadays? Hirohito loved Disneyland and, I have been told, specified that he wanted to be buried wearing his Mickey Mouse watch. I think he was.

Posted by: Hugh at October 30, 2005 9:29 AM

Note to Prince Chucky,
As an American, all I can say is, you're darn tootin' I'm confrontational toward Islam. Real Americans tend to be confrontational and intolerant toward people who want to kill us. We're funny that way.

Posted by: Balrog at October 30, 2005 10:10 AM

>...He certainly may be a bit misguided

He's, IMHO, an utter buffoon, and no greater exemplar of the adage 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.

Like many of the scions of the House of Saxe-Coburg, he has come to really believe that his tenure at various of the more elite learning establishments of the UK was entirely on merit, and that he has something worthwhile to say, beyond 'I declare this car park, open'. Witness his entirely witless, moronic intrusions into public debate about architecture in the UK.

Posted by: thomas ato at October 30, 2005 10:11 AM

Kings can be accepted when they have intelligent interests...

No, we don't want clever buggers on the throne. The whole point of posh people is that they are meant to be a bit dim to even things out.

And as for being 'humourless', kings and queens are not supposed to make jokes, at least not on purpose. They are supposed to sit there looking dignified while lots of silly Maori dancers cavort in front of them and while their family and country goes to the dogs. Our Queen - gawd bless 'er - is really good at this. The same cannot be said of the Duke of Edinburgh who makes us laugh by putting his foot in it. My favourite example of this was on the occasion of the visit of Dr Canaan Banana, President of Zimbabwe. Dr Banana was so sensitive about his name that he passed a law in 1982 forbidding jokes about it. However, when he visited England Prince Philip asked him, "Did you come on your own or are there a bunch of you?"

Posted by: Interested at October 30, 2005 10:13 AM

The Duke has long been lampooned here for his crass remarks and supposed xenophobia; the Queen on the other hand is the 'nice one'. So it was interesting to recently read an anecdote about her in an autobiography by one of Japan's most famous geisha. She recalled sitting next to Liz at a state banquet and being totally ignored for the entire meal; 'her maj' also wouldn't touch any of the food set before her. Philip on the other hand spoke to her afterwards and was apparently very interested in the training of the geisha and the dances they performed.

That said, the author did not reveal whether or not he had his hand on her knee when making these enquiries.

Posted by: Effractor at October 30, 2005 10:47 AM

Interested, Sellers and Yeatman also said that the duties of the Baron included -
To be armed to the teeth.
To extract from the Villein Saccage and Soccage, tollage and tallage, pillage and ullage and all other banorial amenities such as umbrage and porrage (collectively defined as the banorial rites of carnage and wreckage)
To hasten the King's death, deposition, insanity etc., and to make sure there were always at least three false claimants to the throne.
Any Baron who wished to be considered King was allowed to apply at Warwick the Kingmakers.

I keep thinking of the last scene of the Millenium Blackadder special, the one where Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder goes back in time from the year 1999 and changes history so that he ascends the throne as King Edmund in the year 2000 with Kate Moss playing his Queen.

As the chorus sings "At last a King who looks the part
At last a Queen who looks good naked, Blackadder, Blackadder, di da, di da, di da etc"

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 30, 2005 11:11 AM

Granny W - Craig Brown (v funny, writes in the Telegraph) has written a sequel 1966 and All That.

I haven't read it yet, but people tell me it is a Good Thing.

Posted by: Interested at October 30, 2005 11:21 AM

I've got to see the Millenium Blackadder special, I am a big Blackadder fan. (Red Dwarf fan too)

Posted by: Carolyn2 at October 30, 2005 11:23 AM

I think "interested" says it best; Charles is an old left-over hippie who talks to plants. Nor will the poor fellow ever be king, for the simple reason that he's just not the brightest jewel in the crown.

Elizabeth will hang on ( god bless her!) until her grandson can succeed her.

And as for Charles' "conversion"? If it were true he'd be a Sufi because that's what's considered trendy islam in older age groups like his. Attractive because Sufism is sufficiently "Hindu" in appearance and tone. 60's "a go-go" Islam....right down to the hashich

Posted by: John Palubiski at October 30, 2005 11:28 AM

It is suggested that dim wits best fit crowned heads. But that is only if they are universally recognized as such, like the more hopeless of Hapsburgs, and not taken seriously. Charles for some reason is not seen by enough people as that Regency-era figure, Sir Witling Wantwit, that he is; he can get attention, and apparently is not dismissed out of hand. One wonders if he still goes to Roger Scruton for lessons in aesthetics and, if so, whether the roughnecks from the Salisbury Review have yet gone in to give Charles a thorough going-over on the subject of Islam.

Posted by: Hugh at October 30, 2005 11:31 AM

"Extremism is no more the monopoly of Islam than it is the monopoly of other religions, including Christianity," he said.

as much as i like and want to like prince charles, i do not agree with making islam equal to christianity. i see islam as an unabashed aggressor that presumes a superior piety on the basis of which islam slays perfectly innocent people. christianity does not have a terrorist network but islam does. christianity is based on the law of love but islam is based on punishment and the unreasonable laws of sharia, as witnessed by the burning down of christian churches and the genocide against christians worldwide by jihadists. i believe prince charles is being deceived by islam and has bought into the various islamic lies.

the disruptive tactic of islam is that moderate and radical islam do not have to approve of each other or even know about of each other in order for islam to advance against the west. the right hand does not have to know what the left hand is doing. in fact, moderate islam's indignant denial of complicity in terrorism is very important for the advance of jihad, and so the radicals are careful not to insult moderate islam in any way. however, moderate islam is defending and shielding terrorism, even if passively and unintentionally. this passive protection of jihadists is what makes islam so survivable. i submit that this is negligence on the part of moderate islam. if moderate islam cannot or will not police itself, then the west will have to do it for them. for moderate islam to deny involvement with terrorism is not enough. moderate islam must stop all terrorism originating on islamic soil or be viewed as complicit or inept and subject to takeover by the west. until this is resolved, i do not want to know about the redeeming qualities of islam because that is how one gets seduced by islam.

please mark my words, those of you who do not already know: jesus christ is going to rule the world and there is nothing anyone is going to be able to do about it, including the antichrist, the u.n., satan or the militaries of the world. jesus christ will rule and islam will not like it.

in the fascinating book of daniel chapter 2: verses 31-45, the bible speaks about the final world kingdom before christ's return. it is made up of ten toes, part iron and part "miry earthenware clay".
maybe islam will infiltrate the whole earth and be the clay component. the iron part might be the roman component. at any rate, jesus christ returns and destroys this final kingdom and sets up his eternal kingdom. so if the merger of islam and the rest of the world takes place, it will be an uneasy, divided alliance like we are now seeing with islam's notorious refusal to assimilate into the west.
everybody, put your faith in the ultimate winner, jesus christ.

"you, o king, saw, and behold, a great image. this image which was mighty and of exceedingly great brightness, stood before you, and the appearance of it was frightening and terrible.
as for this image, it's head was of fine gold, it's breast and it's arms of silver, it's belly and it's thighs of bronze,
it's legs of iron, it's feet part of iron and part of (burned potter's) clay.
as you looked a stone [(jesus christ)] was cut out without human hands, which smote the image on it's feet that were of iron and clay - the burned clay of the potter - and broke them to pieces.
then was the iron, the (burned potter's) clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, broken and crushed together and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. and the stone [(jesus christ)] that smote the image became a great mountain or rock and filled the whole earth.
this was the dream, and we will tell the interpretation of it to the king.
you, o king, are king of the (earthly) kings, to whom the god of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory.
and wherever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens he has given into your hand and has made you to rule over them all. you (king of babylon) are the head of gold.
and after you shall rise another kingdom (the medo-persian), inferior to and earthward from you, and still a third kingdom of bronze (greece under alexander the great), which shall bear rule over all the earth.
and the fourth kingdome (rome) shall be as strong as iron, since iron breaks to pieces and subdues all things; and like iron which crushes, it shall break and crush all these.
and as you saw the feet and toes, part of potters' (burned) clay and part of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but there shall be in it some of the firmness and strength of iron, just as you saw the iron mixed with miry (earthenware) clay.
and as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of (burned, potter's) clay, so the kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle and broken.
and as you saw the iron mixed with miry and earthenware clay, so they shall mingle themselves in the seed of men (in marriage bonds); but they will not hold together (for two such elements or ideologies can never harmonize), even as iron does not mingle itself with clay.
and in the days of these (final ten) kings shall the god of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall it's sovereignty be left to another people, but it shall break and crush and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
just as you saw that the stone [(jesus christ)] was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great god has made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter. the dream is certain, and the interpretation of it is sure."
daniel 2: 31-45
the amplified bible
zondervan

note: the assumption that jesus christ is the "stone" made without human hands is made by many interpretors and commentators but christ is not named by name in this chapter of daniel, but i think it is fairly obvious that the "stone" is indeed jesus christ.

Posted by: listen to realanswers.net at October 30, 2005 11:45 AM

Islam....right down to the hashich

More stoned than stoning.

Posted by: Interested at October 30, 2005 11:45 AM

I know why Prince Charles converted over to the Islam. He read that sexy surah entitled The Mountain and it got to him.

What with a sex-room lined with reclining thrones, full of boys like hidden pearls, large-eyed beautiful ones, and being aided with the fruit and the flesh, all advancing towards one another...

With smoldering homo-eroticism like that, the only question poor Prince Charles could ask is where can a prince sign up, where is the local Mosque?

PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH

"[52.20] Reclining on thrones set in lines, and We will unite them to large-eyed beautiful ones.
[52.21] And (as for) those who believe and their offspring follow them in faith, We will unite with them their offspring and We will not diminish to them aught of their work; every man is responsible for what he shall have wrought.
[52.22] And We will aid them with fruit and flesh such as they desire.
[52.23] They shall pass therein from one to another a cup wherein there shall be nothing vain nor any sin.
[52.24] And round them shall go boys of theirs as if they were hidden pearls.
[52.25] And some of them shall advance towards others questioning each other.

Posted by: Chaz MarteL 732 at October 30, 2005 11:54 AM

And some of them shall advance towards others questioning each other.

Perhaps the questions will be deeply probing.

Posted by: Interested at October 30, 2005 12:03 PM

"Extremism is no more the monopoly of Islam than it is the monopoly of other religions, including Christianity."
-- Prince Charles

Extreme? Mopolizing a religion? Huh?

Could the pompous Prince Charles please point out the one religion that expressly calls for monopoly, domination, and subjugation?

PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH

When Allah gave permission to his Apostle to fight, the second Aqaba contained conditions involving war which were not in the first act of submission. Now we bound themselves to war against all mankind for Allah and His Apostle.
-- Ishaq:208

‘Men, do you know what you are pledging yourselves to in swearing allegiance to this man?’ ‘Yes. In swearing allegiance to him we are pledging to wage war against all mankind.’
-- Ishaq:204

The unbelieving infidels should not think that they can bypass Islam; surely they cannot escape.
-- Koran 8:58

PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH

These Moslems are nothing if not thoroughly discouraging.

Do you suppose Prince Charles simply gave up the fight? Or is he actually that much of a moron?

Posted by: Chaz MarteL 732 at October 30, 2005 12:11 PM

The man talks to plants for FFS, who is going to listen to this inbred, lug eared feckwit ?

Posted by: TooBad at October 30, 2005 1:15 PM

Perhaps the questions will be deeply probing.
Penetrating even?

I don't actually mind Prince Charles talking to trees, its when he talks to Mad Mullahs that I get worried. Then when he listens to the Mad Mullahs I get very worried. I was looking for some song lyrics to see if I remembered them correctly and in a nice bit of serendipity found this sermon.
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:osDRVBZzjbwJ:www.johndavies.org/sermons/gs_04_10_03.html+i+talk+to+the+trees+&hl=en

From which I quote
"Prince Charles and hippies everywhere who happily talk to trees and plants and flowers are usually laughed at or scorned.

Yet Jesus talked to the trees. The mulberry tree in the story we just heard. The fig tree on the road to Jerusalem which he famously withered. Jesus talked to the wind, talked to the waves - which obeyed him.

He was only following his Father, who, at the very beginning of time, spoke to the light - and there was light, who spoke to the waters, and the waters appeared, who spoke to the earth, and the earth formed, who spoke to the plants and the creatures, and the plants and the creatures appeared in all their variety and all their beauty.

If we only had a tiny bit of faith we would be able to see that there is something very good, something very right, something God-like in being so close to nature that we can talk with it."
I don't get the impression that Islam is very nature friendly. To see God in the beauty of a tree is a bit shirk for them I feel.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 30, 2005 1:27 PM

I still like his taste in architecture. I would take a Quinlan Terry over a Sir Norman Foster any day.

Posted by: spencerd at October 30, 2005 1:45 PM

Jesus talked to the wind, talked to the waves - which obeyed him.

But Jesus was cheating. For your common or garden King, especially of the 'inbred jug-eared feckwit' kind, it is not a good idea. From '1066 and All That':

Canute began by being a Bad King on the advice of his Courtiers who informed him (owing to a misunderstanding of the Rule Britannia) that the King of England was entitled to sit on the sea without getting wet. But finding that they were wrong he gave up this policy and decided to take his own advice in future - thus originating the memorable proverb, "Paddle your own Canute".

I may be horribly wrong, but if Charles is a Muslim, I'm a Dutchman. Tea time now. Fancy an appelgebak met slagroom.

Posted by: Interested at October 30, 2005 1:49 PM

I'd prefer some Oranjeboom.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 30, 2005 1:51 PM

"I still like his taste in architecture."
-- from a posting above

Charles is supposed to dislike the architecturally new, the and wants the old preserved, and even slavishly copied, preferably those in the manner of old Adam (Robert, not the even older one who was off and on with Eve). Surely on his visits to Saudi Arabia -- eight or nine of them -- he has noticed or been told by Sami Angawi, that the old Ottoman fort in Mecca had been knocked down, and the Hejaz Railway Bridge (not that old, but what does Saudi Arabia have), and that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf statelets are garish and modern, and that the noble Bedouin of the desert, if he still exists or indeed ever existed, will have to be found somewhere around the Empty Quarter.

What could be more dangerous for those who want old monuments preserved than Islam, which sets no store by non-Muslim sites that are regarded as historically, religiously, or esthetically significant? The gulf between what Prince Charles wants to believe of Islam, and what Islam is, amazes. It amazes because his ability to ignore the reality -- why not whisper in his ear a hundred times "Bamiyan Buddhas" and see what he replies -- of Islam, and to offer up his own private Islam, is so common. A number of former Infidels do not have, as Charles does, merely the form fruste of the disease, but rather the full-blown adult-onset Islam. There is no known cure, but daily preventive doses of nosce-teipsum (an all-purpose nostrum) and of study and discussion of Islam's theory and practice as it relates to Infidels, is said to work wonders. The clinic here at JW is open round the clock. No referrals necessary from your primary-care physician. Feel free. Tips, of course, welcome.

Posted by: Hugh at October 30, 2005 3:20 PM

"Charles is supposed to dislike the architecturally new, the and wants the old preserved, and even slavishly copied, preferably those in the manner of old Adam "

Actually, the blandly acceptable Paternoster Square (the office development next to St Paul's Cathedral) would not have been built without Charles's inane comments about modern architecture. But I am glad he didn't stop the erotic Gherkin.

Posted by: 1630r at October 30, 2005 4:34 PM

Silly royals. He too hasn't learned the lesson of 1776. George III could tell him a thing or two.

Posted by: Mr. Christian at October 30, 2005 6:09 PM

From
http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/
----------------------------------------
Finally, we have a solution to the threat of Islamic Jihad.

Just shy of a year after the Jihadist murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and only weeks past the four-year anniversary of 9/11, that fateful day when the world discovered such a war even existed, Holland's Princess Irene, sister to Queen Beatrix, offers up a strategy for world peace: "Let's talk."

In a full-page interview in the weekend edition of the national daily, de Volkskrant, the princess voiced support for the idea of a peace talk between Western and Al Qaeda leaders, to be mediated by an impartial party (is there anyone who qualifies as an "impartial party" in this debate?). Western leaders, she said, should take the initiative: "Talk to Al Qaeda and show that you can break through the 'enemy' paradigm with real, open discussion."

Really?

Ironically, the last words Theo van Gogh was known to speak, he imparted to his killer, Mohammed Bouyeri. "Don't do it," he said. "We can still talk." But Bouyeri only looked at him and silently drove a Kukri knife across van Gogh's throat.

It is not because she is sister to the Queen that I find the princess's pronouncement so distressing: as the 'black sheep' of the family, she forfeited her right to the crown years ago. Besides, few Dutch take her seriously, citing amusedly a book she authored about communing with the trees. What troubles me more is this notion "that we can talk our way through this" seems to be circulating with greater frequency within certain ideological circles. Troublesome, too, is the basis for the idea itself: that somehow Islamic jihad is rooted in economic divides or, as the princess described it, "imbalances and trade barriers."

----------------------------------

There it is again - communing with plant life and empathy with islam. Her proposals are not too different from ones by Prince Charles.

What the hell? Has the plant kingdom converted to islam and are engaging in silent dawa.

Posted by: DP111 at October 30, 2005 6:11 PM

Does America really care about what Prince Charles has to say to President Bush? Prince Charles is not admired here. I would rather see Prince Charles carry on his conversations about Islam with his plants than with our American people. Can someone send him a Venus Flytrap plant that hasn't eaten in a long time?

Posted by: Johnathan at October 30, 2005 6:31 PM

I haven't yet seen the obvious comparison of Charles with his great uncle Edward The Abdicator, who also had a penchant for praising authoritarian regimes and beliefs.
Edward gave a lot of comfort to the Nazis in the 30s, and now Charles is giving comfort to the same type of anti-semitic dictators. The verbal parallels are quite sinister: WE don't appreciate THEM. Both are naive at best, and both dangerous if let loose outside their palaces.

You might say Charles only backs the Islamic religion, but can he show us where it is not fascist or semi-fascist in any country where it reigns, or any Moslem country that defends the Jewish religion today??

Posted by: Barri at October 30, 2005 7:12 PM

The UK without the royals? Eeek! Another English-speaking republic full of immigrants? How will the Brits, Canucks, Aussies, and Enzedders distinguish themselves from us Yanks?

Posted by: Kepha at October 30, 2005 7:32 PM

"Edward The Abdicator". Quite so. Perhaps the Prince of Wales will take on the name "Charles Moore".

"Storm in a teacup" doesn't even begin to cover this.

Posted by: Interested at October 30, 2005 7:36 PM

Years ago (circa 1978) Newsweek carried a gushing cover story on this fraud. In it when asked about his choice for a bride, he went on about how his sense of duty meant that he'd settle for one chosen by the queen in the interests of the state. After saying all this, this liar carried on with Camilla. Now I grant that the other fraud his icy wife Diana - she of the 3 O levels - was no Ceasar's wife. But it must have been tiresome for her to be married to such a monumental fraud who has single-handedly managed to dissipate whatever respect the British monarchy had. So it is no surprise to me that he has now turned apologist for Islam, since its mealy-mouthed hypocrisy suits his nature better. Those Anglicans who can't wrap their head around such a successor to the Virgin Queen had better cross the Tiber to Pope Benny soon.

And BTW ia786 give me a million pounds a year from the public kitty and I will head any number charities and architectural foundations for free.

Posted by: ivan at October 30, 2005 7:52 PM

Prince Charles was most disgraceful when he shook the hand of President Mugawi of Zimbawe at Pope John Paul II's funeral.

Posted by: Johnathan at October 30, 2005 8:10 PM

she of the 3 O levels

Come off it. Diana never got any O levels. None. She was as thick as two short planks, but photogenic, virginal (so there is no doubt about the bloodline) and fertile. This is what women of the upper classes are supposed to be like. The males are not obliged to be virginal, but they are supposed to be virile, a 'good sort', stiff upper wherever. Between them they are supposed to produce an heir and a spare. After that, they can please themselves. That is the deal. Whatever they do after that, they keep quiet. That is also the deal.

By voicing his opinions, Charles has broken the rules. He will never be King.

3 O levels? Now that is a laugh. Our education system has dummed down so much that the O levels of Diana's day would get you a degree now. But that is a big subject, and one that gets me all of a doo da.

Posted by: Interested at October 30, 2005 8:28 PM

i wonder if charles will have time for a get together with his lookalike cindy sheehan? it seems as though they have more in common than just looks.

Posted by: dms at October 30, 2005 9:54 PM

Interested; I hope you are right about Charles not becoming king, because you guys still need a respectable monarchy and the Lords to prevent the UK from being bulldozed into Euroland by the social engineers on the left.

Posted by: ivan at October 31, 2005 12:16 AM

We need to restore the Saxon institution of the Witanegmot. In the early years of the Kingdom (in England at least, I don't know enough about the Scots Kings and Welsh princes of this period and Ireland is something else) a band of wise elders, warriors and all round shrewdies chose the next King from the most suitable among the blood Royal. There was a bit of internecine skullduggery of course, but generally we got the last King's best brother not his baby son. The best nephew not the idiot oldest. Or in the case of Aethedreda, Lady of the Mercians and daughter of Alfred the Great, the best offspring. You get the idea.
Vivat Regina! God bless Queen Anne II

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 31, 2005 2:56 AM

Quite a lot of comments.

Not surprisingly, many of them are the poisonous abuse that the Prince of Wales seems to attract from the mentally disturbed "lunatic fringe"

The comments at the head of the page set the tone, with a ludicrous piece of hyperbole which includes the phrase "When not busy disgracing his nation and his family through his various peccadilloes"

May I draw the writer's attention to the fact that the dictionary definition of "peccadillo" is "A trifling offence" I'm sure we've all of us been guilty of quite few trifling offences at some point in our lives, even the Prince's critics.

The Prince is very definitely not a bad man. He is as aware as any that we, in the United Kingdom, have millions of ethic and religious minority communities. He is concerned that all these men and women should be made to feel at home and share a common sense of nationhood. Since we cannot possible expel millions of people (many of whom were born here), he is surely right. His concern for minorities and their problems over the last twenty and more years has been nothing short of admirable.

I agree that he (along with Bush abd Blair) has far too rosy eyed a view of Islam, and as an Anglican myself, I view the attitude, both of the heir to the throne and much of the Anglcan hierarchy, to Islam as feeble in the extreme. But these are the faults of decent people who simply cannot grasp that others do not share their decency. Rather than hurling vulgar abuse, I feel that praying that their eyes might be opened might be more useful!

One piece of pedantry to end with! I do get annoyed when "lead" the metal is confused with "led" the past tense of the verb "to lead"!

Posted by: david at October 31, 2005 6:16 AM

"Since we cannot possible expel millions of people (many of whom were born here)..."
--- from a posting above

There are a thousand ways to make a country Muslim-hostile rather than so exceedingly Muslim-friendly, so that those who want to conduct a Muslim life will find it difficult to do so.

The most tolerant and advanced state in Central or Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia, in 1946 expelled "millions of people" who had been born in the country, and whose behavior before the war, and during the war (not of all, but of a significant number) led the Czech leaders to conclude that for the security of the nation, it made sense to expel thee more than 3 million ethnic Germans. The Benes Decree was not perfect. It was too broad in its application because some who did not pose the same kind of threat (ethnic Hungarians) were also included; its execution was not always and everywhere above criticism.

But what at the time was above criticism was the principle. Not a single European statesman of the period, and certainly a single Czech, criticized the decision. And though, in previous mentions here of the Benes Decree (google "Benes Decree" and "Jihad Watch") there have been attempts to deny the truth of the statement that no Czech leader since has ever denounced the Benes Decree, and that indeed similar steps were taken in Poland and other countries to expel Volksdeutsche, they too were not, and are not, subject to criticism on the principle that a state has a right to expel a population that, with good reason, it believes poses a permanent threat to the wellbeing, to the laws and customs and manners, to the physical survial of the nation.

Do you find the Benes Decree of 1946 morally unacceptable? Certainly there are revanchist circles in Germany that do. But few would criticize it. And those Sudeten Germans were not recent arrivals; ethnic Germans had first settled in the area some 600 years before.

Why one should so quickly assume that certain things simply "cannot be done" or "cannot be contemplated" is curious. Have we made moral progress beyond Tomas Masaryk and Eduard Benes and the men who took power in the countries of Europe just after World War II -- or did they, and did that period, perhaps represent the height of clarity, political and moral, and it has been downhill all the way, ever since?

Posted by: Hugh at October 31, 2005 8:07 AM

Head of State by birth is wrong on oh so many levels.

Interested.

So you would not like the chance to vote for a Head of State?

If no, then in my humble English opinion you are consigning yourself to the intellectual dustbin of the Monarchists.

The World is too scary a place now for in bred fuckwits to be Head of Anything.

Charles & his latest bollocks with regards to Islam shows us this quite clearly.

Posted by: albion at October 31, 2005 8:17 AM

We need to restore the Saxon institution of the Witanegmot

Granny W, what a good idea.

"Sing a song of Saxon
The wapentake of Rye
Four and twenty Ealdormen
Too Eold to die"

Wasn't a bill introduced not long ago to abolish male primogeniture? I've not heard anything recently, but Princess Anne would be a better bet than Charles.

Posted by: Interested at October 31, 2005 8:20 AM

So you would not like the chance to vote for a Head of State?

No, not really. We'd just have two Tony Blairs instead of one. Or worse still, a Tony Blair and a Gordon Brown.

If no, then in my humble English opinion you are consigning yourself to the intellectual dustbin of the Monarchists.

Don't knock dustbins. Top Cat lived in one and he was really clever.

And don't talk to me about intellectual dustbins. It takes me back to my student days when my then boyfriend insisted on dragging me to those tedious Beckett plays where people sat around in dustbins or in piles of sand or waiting for something that never happened. Twice.

Posted by: Interested at October 31, 2005 8:28 AM

The future king proves he is a real blonde.

Posted by: Bohemond_1069 at October 31, 2005 8:38 AM

On the subject of dustbins and Prince Charles I am showing my age being able to remember this from the prince's student years.

http://www.alamy.com/image-details.asp?imageid=%7B14D6A9AE-A525-4FE8-9AAB-87F2952D2DFB%7D

Did the boyfriend last long after that Interested? In my student years I persevered far too long with a man whose idea of a good date was a free showing of a Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party film about the H-blocks.

There is talk on the BBC today to similarly change the rules of royal sucession in Spain as their princess has just given birth to a daughter. In the UK that would give Princess Anne precedent over Andrew and Edward and their children, but not over William and Harry as sucession would still, by primogeniture, go down the generations and only go sideways if it came to a halt. Hence my suggestion about the Witan.

Whan Cnut Cyne the Witan wold enfeoff,
Of infangthief and outfangtheif...

As you well know, Outfangthief is Damgudthyng!

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 31, 2005 8:52 AM

Did the boyfriend last long after that Interested?

No, I ditched him very shortly after the Beckett dates. I thought about standing him up for a performance of 'Waiting for Godot', as he might have appreciated the irony, but decided that would be too cruel.

In my student years I persevered far too long with a man whose idea of a good date was a free showing of a Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party film about the H-blocks.

Why do men do this kind of thing? Is it to make themselves seem interesting in comparison with the film?

Posted by: Interested at October 31, 2005 9:00 AM

Partly.
And in his case he was VERY tight.

(For US posters that means a skinflint.)

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 31, 2005 9:15 AM

"I don't want him and the rest of Europe trying to take America down with them in the process."

William the Croc

Don't worry, Will. Mother Nature, a level of gun crime with a casualty rate that most civilized countries would call "civil war", plus a mentally retarded foreign policy, is dragging your country down just fine - you don't need Europeans.

American leaders are always calling Islam a "great religion" and other such piffle. They do this because it's called "diplomacy". To call Islam "evil and twisted" would be undiplomatic on the world stage. It’s fine for plebs like us, and for the likes of Spencer & Co. but it’s a different ball game if you are representing a nation, such as HRH Prince Charles does. Yes, to say Islam is wicked is honest and truthful - but completely counterproductive if your job is to try to convince the Saudis (etc. etc.) to sell oil and cooperate militarily. Prince Charles is also being "diplomatic" (I hope).

You Americans fought for your Republic, and you got it - which gave you carte blanche to take half of Mexico, attack Canada (leading to a redecoration of the White House), keeping slavery for an extra half century, and for the almost complete annihilation of your indigenous inhabitants. If you're proud of that, great! - that's your national delusion and I will leave you to it. Being proud of our Royal Family may -or may not- be our national delusion - please leave us to it.

We've had a King of England since the Dark Ages. And, if it's OK with you uppity Colonials, we'll have them for another 1000+ years, thankyou very much.

You Americans are culturally shallow, talking about a thousand years of social continuity goes way above an American's cultural parameters and racial understanding. So I am not even going to bother.

In short, don't knock what you don't understand.

If you despise the monarchy - despise your flag. The 13 stripes being originally symbolic of American fealty to the Crown. The red and white stripes were originally designed by the British as being representative of the Union Jack!

interested :

"...while their family and country goes to the dogs."

Yeah, well if being one of the world's top five wealthiest countries is "going to the dogs" I would very much like to "go to the dogs" as well.

You’re an Aussie are you not? If you're into a Republic, go and check out the Lebs, Muzzies and Greens in your district - they will fully agree with you. They might even convince you to convert to Islam - you bloody traitor!

If the British had not got to Australia – what would it be? A giant Papua New Guinea? A vast arid southern province of Indonesia? Or perhaps another Hispanic socio-political-economic failure? Yet NO, we live in a First World nation with a quality of life that the UN rates above that of the USA’s. Be grateful to British political institutions, you cretin!

Ia786

Well I never, a Muslim, and I agree! I don't know how much of your knew found patriotism is genuine. I somehow feel that neither you nor any of your mates will be rushing down to the nearest Army recruiting office or even supporting the English cricket team for that matter.

Anyway, whilst these Americans were hiding underneath their tables in 1939, 1940 & throughout most of 1941... (until the Japanese gently persuaded them to join in) the Pakistani Muslim League was enthusiastically supporting the Crown, & British war effort. So I do partially and begrudgingly agree with you that Americans can’t always take the moral high ground over Pakistanis. But sorry mate, I still think your community is an unbecoming and deeply hostile addition to the English social landscape - the root cause being Islam’s predilection for war and conflict.

You are welcome to your Muslim lands. I agree the Americans have no right to occupy or liberate Muslim lands. Afghanistan was an exception perhaps – but even so, they should have left years ago. Likewise Muslims have no right to build population bases within the West. We should respect each other by mutual isolation.

Posted by: Timbo at October 31, 2005 9:16 AM

Re; the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia (as it then was).

Hugh might also have mentioned the expulsions from the Oder/Neisse territories!

Germany had just been very comprehensively defeated, thank to be to God, and was in no position to complain when millions of expellees arrived after being thrown out of Poland and Czechoslovakia.

To which compliant land (s) do we expel our millions of ethnic minorities? Just take a bit of time out, apply a bit of sensible thought and - think about it!

We are in absolutely NO position to dump these guys on anyone. Apart from the fact that most of them do no harm and are an asset to the country.

I agree that it would have been better not to have let even one tenth the number in to our country that we did.

But they are here now and with us for keeps. It is a fait accompli and we must try to make the best of a bad job. Our future King is well aware of this. When I look at my own sometimes xenophobic thoughts and compare them to his enlightened approach I feel ashamed.

God bless the Prince of Wales. I hope I live long enough to be able to say of the same good man, "God Save the King!"

Posted by: david at October 31, 2005 9:19 AM

You’re an Aussie are you not? If you're into a Republic, go and check out the Lebs, Muzzies and Greens in your district - they will fully agree with you. They might even convince you to convert to Islam - you bloody traitor!

No, sport, I'm British, and I've no idea what you're on about. (That's the second time I've been called an Aussie, the first time I've been called a traitor and the trillionth time someone has failed to notice that I was joking.)

Granny W - love that pic of Charles in a dustbin. Looking at him there, you can see he's a Muslim in the making.

Posted by: Interested at October 31, 2005 9:23 AM