Recently in European Union Category

At long last, a sense of urgency and of what is at stake has set in with regard to Iran's nuclear program. If Iran were really in it for the electricity, why would it waste time and money bending over backwards in secrecy and subterfuge? They would not commit economic suicide just to mess with Washington and Brussels. "EU bans Iran oil imports," by Laura Rozen for The Envoy, January 23:

The 27-member European Union voted Monday to ban imports of Iranian oil, and to sanction some transactions with Iran's Central Bank.

The action, passed at a foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels, immediately bans EU member states from signing any new oil contracts with Iran, and orders the phasing out of existing contracts by July 1. The EU-bloc previously constituted the second largest customer for Iranian oil after China.

"Given the EU's serious and deepening concerns over the Iranian nuclear programme, the Council today broadened the EU's restrictive measures against that country," the European Union said in a statement (.pdf) announcing the action. "Today's decisions target the sources of finance for the nuclear programme, complementing already existing sanctions."

EU officials "also agreed to freeze the assets of Iran's central bank and ban trade in gold and other precious metals with the bank and state bodies," Reuters reported.

The development came days after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Iran to respond to a proposal for new international talks on curbing its nuclear program.

"We all are seeking clarity about the meaning behind Iran's public statements that they are willing to engage, but we have to see a seriousness and sincerity of purpose coming from them," Clinton said at a news conference with her German counterpart Guido Westerwelle at the State Department Friday.

Iran "can come back to the table, as we have consistently made clear to them, and address the nuclear program concerns that the international community rightly has or face increasing pressure and isolation," she said, adding: "I want to underscore we do not seek conflict."

A U.S. official briefed on the effort to execute the Iran oil sanctions told Yahoo News Sunday that the measures are being implemented as world demand for oil is going down, and thus should be able to be phased in without a spike in oil prices. But markets do not always act logically, he noted...

No, they pretty much act like a particularly easily alarmed squirrel.

On one hand, he's an ambassador in an interview with an Egyptian newspaper. Habits of decorum prevent him from saying "Well, frankly, I think it's all going to be a train wreck" if that were his opinion. That, and, saying the wrong thing could summon a potentially unstable gaggle of protesters to the British embassy.

On the other hand, there was a mostly missed opportunity (save for the mention of the EU's position on capital punishment) here to send a message that Britain's relationship with the new regime depends on its handling of human rights. The end of the report mentions that Britain and other EU countries plan to extend financial assistance to Egypt in the near future.

In extending aid, we in the West have leverage that we are not currently using. Any future aid to Egypt must be made contingent on substantive, verifiable, and continuous improvements in:

- The treatment and legal rights of non-Muslims, the right to build churches, and reciprocal rights of conversion and visibility in public life.
- Women's rights.
- The eradication of female genital mutilation.
- Transparency and good government, due process, and rights in custody for anyone detained by the police or army.

"Hope is not a method," as the military adage goes, and it is well worth insisting on these points now, rather than waiting for another thug regime to get entrenched and comfortable. "British ambassador: Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary majority not worrying," from Al Masry Al Youm, January 14:

The Muslim Brotherhood's majority in Egypt's next parliament is not a source of worry for Britian, said British Ambassador to Egypt James Watt.

In an interview with Akhbar al-Youm, Watt said the results of the parliamentary elections reflect the choice of Egyptians and Britain will have to deal with these results.

He added that he has met with several Brotherhood leaders and the meetings have left a good impression on him. He added that he is optimistic about the future of Egypt and the formulation of policies that will achieve freedom and development.

Asked about whether Britain will hand over former Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali to Egypt, he said that Egypt has submitted a request for Boutros-Ghali, but there is no extradition treaty between Egypt and Britain. Ghali's status is being examined by the Home Office, though, he said.

Asked about funds former President Hosni Mubarak holds in Britain and the possibility of returning them to Egypt, he said that Britain has received requests, but the lack of accurate account information has impeded progress in this regard.

Mubarak's trial is an internal Egyptian affair, he said, but as a member of the EU, Britain is against capital punishment because it is considered a violation of human rights. If Mubarak is sentenced to death, that may cause disagreement between the two countries, he said.

Watt also said that Britain intends to provide financial assistance to Egypt in the near future, through its membership in the EU, the G8 and other donor institutions.

Egypt needs investments rather than assistance in this stage, he said.

You can't buy good government by throwing money at it. You can buy plenty of the opposite that way.

Britain is the biggest foreign investor in Egypt, with US$30 billion investments over the past five years.

It is ironic, but perhaps not unforseeable, that societies which are increasingly obsessed with "feelings," both as an inviolable matter of respect and as a motivation to act or believe, have at the same time become increasingly brutish and crass. Perhaps it is because everything is a bigger deal and in need of a reaction. It is fashionable to be "traumatized" by this or that and wear it as a badge of honor, at once puffing oneself up with pride for the arduous climb to the summit of the mountain one has made out of a molehill, and demanding "respect" and restitution for the trouble.

Combining that complex with a supremacist political agenda creates an explosive mix.

The other major consideration here is that Turkey's entrance into the EU has not been relegated to its proper place, in a priority spot in the "round file." This is how Turkey is behaving even without full membership in the EU. If it joins the EU, it will continue to attempt to make the EU's protections a suicide pact toward its own purposes.

There are more red flags than a May Day parade, but will the EU heed them? "Turkish court accepts online blasphemy case, ECtHR ruling precedent," from Today's Zaman, December 27:

A Turkish court has accepted an indictment filed against a man who allegedly insulted Islamic values online by a prosecutor who cited an earlier ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

The lawsuit was filed against A.M.S. over his remarks allegedly insulting Islamic beliefs on Ekşi Sözlük (Sour Times), a website on which contributors share their comments on various issues and incidents in Turkey. In the indictment she prepared over a criminal complaint filed against A.M.S. by an individual, İstanbul prosecutor Nurten Altınok referred to a 1994 decision of the ECtHR in the Otto-Preminger-Institut v. Austria case. The case concerns an application by the Austria-based Otto-Preminger-Institut at the European court over the ban of a movie by the Austrian government in 1985, on the grounds that it insulted the Christian religion.

The applicant claimed a violation of their freedom of speech under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides the right to freedom of expression. The court, however, found no violation of the convention and said the interference with the applicant association's freedom of expression was prescribed by law but the seizure and forfeiture of the film were aimed at “the protection of the rights of others” -- namely, the right to respect for one's religious feelings, and at ensuring religious peace. The court assessed the conflicting interests of the exercise of two fundamental freedoms guaranteed under the convention and concluded that the Austrian authorities did not overstep their margin of appreciation.

Prosecutor Altınok, who says the suspect went beyond the limits of freedom of speech by ridiculing Muslim prayer rituals and the Islamic belief that the universe was created by God, seeks up to one-and-a-half years in jail for A.M.S., who said in his testimony that he did not intend to commit a crime nor to target a group or individual with his comments.

The plight of the woman in this report, Gulnaz, first came up in this story, in connection with an EU documentary that was at the time deemed too dangerous to the women featured in it (or perhaps too politically damaging) to be shown. That story also revealed the fact that half of the women in Afghan jails are there for "moral crimes."

Gulnaz herself is a victim of Sharia, and particularly of the demand for four witnesses to support the allegation of a sexual crime, as stipulated in Qur'an 24:13. A woman alleging rape must produce four witnesses, or invite charges of adultery.

Sharia is enshrined in the Afghan constitution as the highest law of the land, thereby hard-wiring the entire society against reform: any proposed legal reforms will go against Sharia as it has been practiced for centuries. And so, here we are. And there is Gulnaz.

"Afghan woman's choice: 12 years in jail or marry her rapist and risk death," by Nick Paton Walsh and Masoud Popalza for CNN, November 22:

Kabul (CNN) -- The ordeal of Gulnaz did not simply begin and end with the physical attack of her rape. The rape began a years-long nightmare of further pain, culminating in an awful choice she must now make.

Even two years later, Gulnaz remembers the smell and state of her rapist's clothes when he came into the house when her mother left for a brief visit to the hospital.

"He had filthy clothes on as he does metal and construction work. When my mother went out, he came into my house and he closed doors and windows. I started screaming, but he shut me up by putting his hands on my mouth," she said.

The rapist was her cousin's husband.

After the attack, she hid what happened as long as she could. But soon she began vomiting in the mornings and showing signs of pregnancy. It was her attacker's child.

In Afghanistan, this brought her not sympathy, but prosecution. Aged just 19, she was found guilty by the courts of sex outside of marriage -- adultery -- and sentenced to twelve years in jail.

Now inside Kabul's Badam Bagh jail, she and her child are serving her sentence together.

Sitting with the baby in her lap, her face carefully covered, she explains the only choice she has that would end her incarceration.

The only way around the dishonor of rape, or adultery in the eyes of Afghans, is to marry her attacker. This will, in the eyes of some, give her child a family and restore her honor.

Incredibly, this is something that Gulnaz is willing to do.

"I was asked if I wanted to start a new life by getting released, by marrying this man", she told CNN in an exclusive interview. "My answer was that one man dishonored me, and I want to stay with that man."

Tending to her daughter in the jail's cold, she added: "My daughter is a little innocent child. Who knew I would have a child in this way. A lot of people told me that after your daughter's born give it to someone else, but my aunt told me to keep her as proof of my innocence."

Gulnaz's choice is stark. Women in her situation are often killed for the shame their ordeal has brought the community. She is at risk, some say, from her attacker's family.

We found Gulnaz's convicted rapist in a jail across town. While he denied raping her, he agreed that she would likely be killed if she gets out of jail. But he insists that it will be her family, not his, that will kill her, "out of shame."

Whether threatened by his family or hers, for now, jail may be the safest place for her.

Shockingly, Gulnaz's case is common in Afghanistan.

CNN asked a spokesman for the prosecutor to comment on the case. The reply was that there were hundreds such cases and the office would need time to look into it.

But Gulnaz's plight has found international attention because of a dispute between the European Union and a team of documentary makers hired to report on women's rights in Afghanistan.

The documentary makers filmed a lengthy report on Gulnaz and other women, showing her talking openly about her fate. They showed the film to the EU, who were paying for it as part of a project on female rights here. After viewing it, the EU decided to spike the project.

The EU said it was concerned about the safety of the women in the film: they could be identified and might face reprisals. The filmmakers however suspect -- citing an email leaked from the EU delegation -- that the EU might also be motivated by its sensitive relationship with Afghan justice institutions, since he film shows the Afghan justice system in a very unflattering light.

The leaked email says: "The delegation also has to consider its relations with [Afghan] Justice institutions in connection with the other work that it is doing in the sector."...

Turkey has decided that now is the time to play hardball over Cyprus; inclusion in the E.U. would mean having to deal with Cyprus as a fellow member state and complicate efforts to legitimize the Turkish land grab and occupation. And so Ankara is attempting to blackmail the E.U. by threatening to deprive the union of its presence. The only problem is, plenty of Europeans don't think that would really be such a bad thing.

"Turkey says EU ties will freeze if no Cyprus solution," by Tulay Karadeniz for Reuters, July 13:

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish relations with the European Union "will freeze" if Cyprus takes over the EU presidency in July 2012 without a solution to the divided island's future, Turkey's foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Ahmet Davutoglu made his comments as the European Union's enlargement chief said in a visit to Ankara that he wanted to see "a new momentum" in Turkey's membership process now that Turkish parliamentary elections were over.

Muslim Turkey started accession talks in 2005 but progress has been slow, largely because of a conflict with Cyprus over a breakaway state on the island recognized only by Turkey.

U.N.-sponsored peace talks between the two communities on Cyprus have stumbled since they were relaunched in 2008.

"If the Greek Cypriot side stalls negotiations and takes over the presidency of the European Union in July 2012, this means not only a deadlock on the island, but also a blockage, a freezing point in Turkey-European Union relations," Davutoglu told a news conference.

"Unfortunately there is one thing standing between me and that property: the rightful owners." - Hedy Headley Lamarr, Blazing Saddles

EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele, in an apparent response to Davutoglu, said all sides should remain focused on a long-term solution to the Cyprus dispute.

"This is not the moment to speculate on any other outcome than a comprehensive settlement," Fuele told reporters, adding that it was time for Turkey to focus on its relations with the EU and reforms needed before it can join.

Cyprus was divided by a Turkish invasion in 1974 that was triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup. Its Greek Cypriots represent the island internationally and in the European Union, while Turkey is the only country to recognize the Turkish Cypriot state.

The Cyprus dispute is a major obstacle for Turkey's EU bid, in addition to opposition from EU heavyweights France and Germany.

Greek Cypriots say Turkey cannot join the bloc until the Cyprus conflict is resolved.

"We should take measures now to prevent this blockage," Davutoglu said, adding that such measures should be taken before the end of this year.

The EU says Ankara must meet a pledge to open up traffic from the Greek Cypriot part of the island under a deal known as the Ankara protocol. Turkey says the EU should end its blockade of the Turkish Cypriot enclave.

"We want to see a new momentum in Turkey's EU membership process now that the Turkish elections are over," Fuele told a news conference with Turkey's EU Minister Egemen Bagis....

This should be taken as an instructive preview of how Turkey would behave within the E.U.

In Human Events this morning I discuss the latest bit of fantasy-based policymaking coming from the capitals of the U.S. and Europe:

The suicidal side of the Western elites’ pervasive tendency toward fantasy-based policy making was on full display last week when the U.S. and the European Union both announced that they were opening formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group dedicated, in its own words, to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house.”

“We believe, given the changing political landscape in Egypt,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “that it is in the interests of the United States to engage with all parties that are peaceful and committed to nonviolence, that intend to compete for the parliament and the presidency. And we welcome, therefore, dialogue with those Muslim Brotherhood members who wish to talk with us.”

“Peaceful and committed to nonviolence”—this is the basis in both America and Europe for the legitimization of the Muslim Brotherhood. For following quickly after the Obama administration’s announcement came a similar one from the European Union. Michael Mann, a spokesperson for European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, explained: “We are always open to dialogue with anyone who is interested in democracy.”

Clinton and Ashton thus join the long line of Western officials who have confused democracy with the practice of voting itself, and taken the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is not committing terrorist acts in Egypt as an indication that it shares Western values, ignoring the obvious fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated to ideals that all free societies should oppose.

The Muslim Brotherhood, contrary to “intelligence” chief James Clapper’s laughable claim that it is “largely secular,” is dedicated to establishing an Islamic state in Egypt and implementing the Islamic law that has no room for democratic principles, does indeed employ violence against dissenters and miscreants, and tramples upon minority rights and women’s rights.

Obama and the EU should take careful note of all that, but given their own hard-line anti-Israel stances, they’re less likely to be concerned about the movement’s inveterate anti-Semitism. Yet not only does the jihad terrorist group Hamas style itself as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, but recently the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie said: “Allah has warned us the tricks of the Jews, and their role in igniting the fire of wars … and they labor hard to spread corruption on Earth. And Allah does not love the spreaders of corruption.”...

There is more.

When will the European Union allow European countries to defend themselves against the Islamic immigrant influx?

The EU works hard to stop its member states from reinstating control of their national borders. Several countries have been working hard to find loopholes in the directives from Brussels -- and Norway has found one. From a Norwegian news report:

The Norwegian Justice minister wants more police officers to patrol along the country's border, and claims that more border controls will reduce asylum growth further. Last year there was a reduction in the number of arrivals by 42 percent compared with the year before. Østfold Police District's commitment to cross-border controls should be given a lot of credit for this, said Justice Minister Knut Stortberget to TV 2. ... After Norway joined the Schengen Agreement, the checking of EU citizens at the borders came to an end. But the police are allowed to carry out checks near the border to enforce immigration rules. In the first half of this year the border team at Østfold Police District 344 arrested asylum seekers. Most were illegal immigrants. Border police also uncovered 24n attempts at human trafficking in the same six months.

In FrontPage this morning I discuss the headlong rush to open talks with the Muslim Brotherhood:

Following quickly after the revelation that the Obama administration had resolved to establish contact with the Muslim Brotherhood, the European Union has announced that it, too, is interested in talking with the group. Michael Mann, a spokesperson for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, explained: “We are always open to dialogue with anyone who is interested in democracy.” Ashton thus becomes the latest in a long line of Western officials who have confused democracy with the practice of voting itself, and ignored the manifest fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated to ideals that all free societies should oppose.

Among those officials also are a great many at the highest levels in Washington, where wishful thinking about the Brotherhood (and other matters Islamic) not only prevails, but is the guiding force in formulating Middle East policy. After all, it was the spectacularly clueless intelligence chief James Clapper who labeled the group “largely secular,” demonstrating abject ignorance not only of the meaning of the word “Muslim” in the group’s name, but of its own stated goals and agenda, which have been consistent since it was founded.

Contrary to claims that it is a moderate organization, the Muslim Brotherhood is actually the prototypical Islamic supremacist, pro-Sharia group of the modern age. [...]

And just weeks ago Dr. Kamal Al-Helbawy, former Muslim Brotherhood spokesman in the West, declared: “Our thinking and our affiliation are to the exalted Allah. Our affiliation is to Islam. The global state of Islam is our ideal…How will countries like Bahrain or Qatar defend themselves? Why shouldn’t we have a country called ‘The United States of Islam’?”...

There is more.

These guys were "served with deportation orders after being convicted of burglary, threats to kill, robbery and dealing in class A drugs." But to send them back to Somalia would violate the "prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Do the British people have any right to be protected from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment?

"Somali criminals must stay in UK, rules European Court," from the BBC, June 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The UK must not deport two Somalis convicted of serious crimes because to do so would endanger their lives, the European Court of Human Rights says.

The Strasbourg judges said the UK's duty to protect the two from torture or inhumane treatment was "absolute".

The pair, aged 24 and 42, were served with deportation orders after being convicted of burglary, threats to kill, robbery and dealing in class A drugs.

The ruling sets a legal precedent for 214 similar UK cases involving Somalis.

Abdisamad Adow Sufi (24) and Abdiaziz Ibrahim Elmi (42) are being held at immigration detention centres in the UK.

In 2007 they appealed to the Strasbourg court, arguing that they would face death or serious injury if the UK deported them to the war-ravaged capital Mogadishu.

The seven judges accepted that there would be a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights if the pair were sent back to Mogadishu.

The court ruling said the judges "reiterated that the prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment was absolute, irrespective of the victims' conduct".

"Consequently, the applicants' behaviour, however undesirable or dangerous, could not be taken into account."

The court told the UK to pay Mr Sufi 14,500 euros (£13,000) and Mr Elmi 7,500 euros (£6,716) for costs and expenses....

1ère Rencontre Wilders Freysinger à la Haye le 9... by enquete-debat

Pamela Geller has background:

Perhaps we are witnessing a new political movement of international Western-allied nations to preserve our hard-won freedoms. Here Geert Wilders, the Dutch MP and extraordinary defender of Western values, meets for the first time with Oskar Freysinger, a politician of the Swiss People's Party, the largest party of the Swiss parliament. Oskar, an outspoken critic of Islamic supremacism, is best known as the architect behind the ban of Swiss minarets (symbol of Islamic domination). A true hero. His courageous stand on many issues ("The Muslim Brotherhood is far more dangerous than Al Qaeda") has made him a target for death and violence. He was the victim of an arson attack; his enemies tried to burn down his house.

Of course this is what is most needed, an international movement in Western countries fighting against Islamic supremacism, domination and cultural annihilation. What American politician will align with these men of valor?

I don't know what politician will, but I am very happy to say that I'm scheduled to speak in Berlin on September 3 at an event at which Wilders and Freysinger will also appear; it is being organized by their German counterpart, the courageous René Stadtkewitz. I hope that Wilders, Freysinger, and Stadtkewitz are just the beginning of a new political movement that will ultimately sweep Europe and America as well.

Most of the time in these pages when I have the melancholy duty of rebuking my fellow Christians for suicidal, irresponsible idiocy, conducted in the name of self-serving sentimentality or idiotic post-Christian ideology, I have at least the comfort that I am talking about liberal Protestants. This time I face the necessity of taking a large, live fish and slapping it in the face of the Vatican. Ah well, at least I read the story on a Friday in Lent, so it doesn't violate the abstinence regulations. Those of you who have particularly strong stomachs, please read the following:

Europe Is Disappointing Holy See on Immigration
Cardinal Bertone Laments Closing Borders to North Africans

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 15, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The closing of Europe's borders, given the wave of immigrants and refugees resulting from the conflicts and social crisis in several countries of North Africa, has disappointed the Holy See.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Benedict XVI's secretary of state, expressed this disappointment on Tuesday, reports the semi-official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.

"There is no doubt that Europe has disappointed profoundly" in this emergency, said the Italian cardinal. "Europe has lost its profound spirit, a spirit of great solidarity first of all among the peoples of Europe and then among other peoples. Let us think of Africa, which it has abused so much: it seems that Europe has turned its back on it."

The air attacks against Libya's regime, led by European nations, have caused the flight by land from that country of 500,000 people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Tens of thousands of people have taken to the sea to arrive in Italy or Malta.

According to UNHCR, it is feared that in the crossing from Africa to Europe over the past two weeks, 800 emigrants have lost their lives. In addition to the 250 who died in the shipwreck April 6 in the Sicilian Channel, nothing is known of the 560 people who took to the sea in three barges that never arrived at their destination.

Despite this emergency, France and other European countries have prevented the passage of these refugees and immigrants from Italy, leaving to the latter the management of the crisis.

"We wish to raise our voice so that this Europe will find its soul again," said Cardinal Bertone, "a soul of great solidarity and generosity with these peoples who face an emergency and great needs."

The Catholic Church is not an instrument of Kantian humanitarianism, but the guardian of the orthodox Christian faith, and the civilization which sustains it. How can the Vatican on the one hand complain when secularized Europeans reject the hanging of crucifixes in schools in Italy, and on the other demand that European nations admit hundreds of thousands of refugees who will soon be organizing radical mosques, outbreeding the natives, forming “no-go” zones in historically Christian cities, and demanding (as Italian Muslims already have in Bologna) that artworks in Christian cathedrals be bowdlerized to suit their sensibilities? How will a Holy See that insists that the European welfare state be harnessed to fund the reproductive habits of orthodox Muslims respond to the haughty demand of Islamic believers that they be given use of “underutilized” churches in places like Paris?

There are no legitimate arguments or precedents grounded in Christian history for demanding that one country promiscuously admit every refugee from another, regardless of the effects such an influx would have on the native citizens. The entire Germanic invasion of the Christian Roman empire in the fifth century consisted of tribes fleeing economic and political disadvantage, in search of a land of opportunity. Did St. Augustine insist that the Vandal tribes be admitted wholesale into Hippo? Did St. John Chrysostom demand that the Byzantine emperor open the gates to the Persians? Of course they didn't. They knew that the duty of secular rulers was to defend public order, preserve the liberties and property rights of their citizens, and protect their peoples from foreign colonization. Indeed, the central claim in Augustine's The City of God was that Christians would prove better citizens of the empire for their faith—not that their “higher” principles would render them civilizational traitors. If the Holy See wishes to make good the principle claimed by Abp. Tauran, it could avoid the charge of hypocrisy by a simple step: It could open the gates of the Vatican city-state to every Muslim living in Rome, and grant each of them full citizenship, along with democratic voting rights that allowed them to change its system of government. The Holy See would have to accept the inescapable outcome: a vote to remove the pope as head of state and replace him with an elected demagogue, whose first act would be to auction off all the artworks of the Church, followed by the transformation of St. Peter's Basilica into a mosque. Until and unless the Holy See is willing to put its money where its mouth is, its representatives ought to shut their mouths about the (fleeting, failing) attempts of Christian nations to defend their identities against invasion.

I think it's time for the laity to prescribe some lectio divina to the clergy: In the waning days of Lent, every prelate at the Vatican ought to spend his time meditating on the novel The Camp of the Saints.

You might not have given much thought to it—perhaps no one you know suffers from this addiction—but the most dangerous mind-altering substance afflicting Americans today is a drug called Interventitron. Developed in 1917 by the Princeton researcher (and American President) Woodrow Wilson, Interventitron is better known by street names applied to various brands by different dealers: “War to End All Wars," "Just Cause,” “Enduring Freedom,” and most recently “Odyssey Dawn.” This drug was once confined to certain subcultures in Washington, D.C., and parts of Manhattan, and it has been shown to have legitimate use in treating diseases—for instance, its application from 1941-1945 proved to be life-saving. But the drug proved highly addictive, and was frequently over-prescribed in subsequent decades for phantom illnesses, or conditions where its medical benefits were clearly outweighed by its potent side effects. Among these side-effects, clinicians have identified the following as the most serious:

• Massive, uncontrolled pauperization, especially through metastasizing military and foreign aid expenditures—which once induced by a heavy dose of “Interventh,” have proven almost impossible for policymakers to stabilize, much less halt. Debilitating outcomes have included the U.S. occupation of Iraq and of Afghanistan.


• Hyperactivity of the military gland, which in moderate to severe cases can cause morbidity in otherwise healthy young men, especially between ages 18-25. This phenomenon often proves crippling or fatal; between 1963 and 1975, some 58,209 Americans died as a direct result of Interventitron abuse.


• Debilitating hallucinations, which result in violent behavior that proves destructive to self or others. The best-documented example of this phenomenon afflicted the nation of Yugoslavia in 1999, when Interventitron-induced delusions led NATO and the U.S. to conclude that a vast, one-sided campaign of genocide was underway against Bosnian Muslims—whom the drug further led Westerners to perceive as tolerant and secular. While few NATO lives were claimed, hundreds of thousands of Christian Serbs were displaced from their homes, and thousands of them killed, by soldiers of the new Kosovo Albanian regime. Solid evidence of the “genocide” which NATO had claimed was occurring could never be adduced, leading some researchers to claim that it was merely a phantom produced by near-toxic doses of Interventitron, which has been the drug of choice among American policymakers from the late 1990s onward. Heavy users of the drug, many of them prominent in government and media subcultures, continue to insist that evidence for their claims will prove forthcoming—and have conducted enormously expensive, inconclusive “war crimes” trials in the vain attempt to justify their behavior while intoxicated.


• The failure of self-protective autonomic instincts. Here, medical observers have pointed to the seemingly inexplicable decisions of prominent addicts such as Donald Rumsfeld, who while “juiced up” on the drug disbanded the Iraqi Army and outlawed its once-dominant Ba'ath Party—leaving an entire country to descend into civil war, and to slide into de facto military alliance with America's enemy, Iran. Other cases of morbidity include the long French involvement with Algeria—begun as an anti-piracy measure in 1830—which resulted in the mass colonization of the host by hostile, parasitic Muslims.


• Severe memory loss. Long-time abusers of Interventitron have shown that they are virtually incapable of remembering or learning from past events, leading them to indulge in repeated instances of counterproductive, repetitive and compulsive behavior, in the full expectation of different results. Hence, when faced with the evidence that small doses of Interventitron almost invariably escalate into long-term, debilitating addiction, heavy users insist that “this time” their proposed application of the drug will be a “quick, surgical strike” that will not, they promise, “turn into a quagmire.” Assurances that they can “stop any time they want” invariably prove hollow. Evidence for this sad medical conclusion can be seen in the large American military establishments still present in such bizarre, entirely peaceful outposts as Okinowa and Germany—suggesting that the aftereffects even of medically indicated doses of Interventitron (as in 1941-45) can prove costly in the long run.


• Serious, sometimes crippling lapses in judgment, which can lead Interventitron addicts to perceive strangers who either wish or can do them no harm as deadly enemies—and implacably hostile forces as friends or natural allies. The current NATO and American effort to depose the defanged dictator Muammar Qaddafi and replace him with an unknown coalition of forces based in the deeply Islamist, anti-American eastern region of Libya, is a clear instance of advanced Interventitron poisoning. Attempts to organize an “intervention” that would confront American users with the consequences of their disease have proven futile, thanks to the final, and perhaps the gravest side-effect of this mind-altering substance:


• Drug-induced mania, whose symptoms include grandiosity, an impregnable self-righteousness and hostility to critics, and a debilitating preoccupation with the “verdict of history.” Once an Interventitron user displays these “third-stage” effects, any treatment is generally contraindicated as it tends to injure the patient without diminishing the symptoms. As fiscal systems strain and finally fail, self-protective mechanisms become hyperactive and indiscriminately attack healthy organs, and undetected pathogenic organisms (falsely identified as native or friendly) replicate themselves unchecked within the host. After such a fatal prognosis is reached, the focus of caregivers in tertiary Interventitron dependency is harm-reduction and pain management. Some activists have called for the use of doctor-assisted suicide in such cases, claiming that terminal patients such as the European Union have the right to “death with dignity,” but civilizational ethicists are still conflicted over such proposals, and others argue for hospice care as the most compassionate alternative to offer nations in their last few decades of life.

In so doing, the EU joins the mainstream media and the White House of trying to portray both sides more equally as perpetrators and victims when they bother to denounce the Muslim persecution of non-Muslims in the name of establishing and maintaining the dominance of Islamic law.

The European Union could commit to a substantive defense of human rights here (even for less fashionable groups like Christians), but by issuing such a timid document, it only signals that its hands are tied in fear of enraging the Islamic supremacists within.

"Europe’s stuttering timidity in denouncing the persecution of Christians," by Bernardo Cevellera for Asia News, February 27:

Rome (AsiaNews) - After more than three weeks of debate, the EU has managed to produce a text that explicitly mentions Christians as victims of persecution and the object of violent attacks. An earlier text had been prepared in January, after the terrorist attack on the Church in Baghdad and the massacre at the Church in Alexandria, but was it rejected because of the lack of references to Christians, since the EU preferred to use generic term "religious minorities".

The new text approved yesterday explicitly mentions "Christians and their places of worship" victims of "acts of religious intolerance and discrimination," but now hastens to include among the victims of such acts "Muslim pilgrims and other religious communities" as well.

The Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, one of the promoters of the text, had condemned the draft as a sign of 'excessive secularism "present in the EU, but expressed satisfaction with the text adopted yesterday. Moreover, recalling that the European Constitution does not mention the Christian roots among the historic foundations of Europe, yesterday’s statement really is a gigantic departure.

Yet even this text does not satisfy in full. It seeks to balance the anti-Christian violence with those against other religious communities, in an "excess" of balance and equidistance, not taking into account that at least 70% of persecution in today’s world is carried out against Christians. Yet these impressive figures are the result of statistics (from the World Christian Encyclopedia to the Pew Research Centre) and not partisan reports, so much so that Pope Benedict XVI used the word "Christianophobia" for the first time in a papal speech....

Above all, the text approved by the EU does not go beyond some general exhortation on the defense of religious freedom as a universal human right that must be defended everywhere and for all. " [...]

Europe’s stuttering timidity on religious freedom is underscored by the continents approximation and inanity faced with the riots taking place in North Africa and the Middle East. As an epochal change unfolds before our very eyes - with non-violent demands for justice, equality and democracy - the EU is ineptly concealing its remorse, calling for a "transition" while it secretly sheds tears over all the fabulous economic contracts drawn up with fallen dictators, null and void or hanging in the balance.

It is said that the world and Europe have been taken by surprise by the riots in Tunisia, Egypt, etc. .. We think that this blindness is due to the fact that in all these years, the sole motivation for our Europe’s relationship with these countries was its own its narrow economic interests and thus "stability", not a shared communication of values, attentiveness to social questions, dialogue between cultures and religions. In practice, Europe’s identity was its wallet: and little more....

Zenit News, a Rome-based international Catholic news agency, reports on the latest example of Turkey sliding away from its secular constitution, back toward the intolerance that characterized the Ottoman Empire. No, the Turks aren’t kidnapping first-born boys to serve as janissaries… yet. Here’s what is happening:

Not even the Mongols of the 14th century, when they killed 40 monks and some 400 faithful, succeeded in making one of the most ancient Christian convents in the world disappear, but perhaps Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, can.

Now the Islamic supremacists who are inexorably taking power in Turkey (thanks to democratic “reforms”) want to seize and liquidate what little is left of this ancient Christian community. Zenit cites a concerted campaign against Mor Gabriel “initiated in 2008 by the leaders of three Kurdish villages dominated by a tribe supported in Parliament by one of their leaders, Suleyman Celebi, who is a Parliamentarian with the pro-Islamic ruling party of Erdogan.” The Kurds are accusing the monks of:

• Trying to convert Muslims to Christianity (so much for religious freedom in this aspiring EU member state), a charge the monks deny.


• Residing on a site where a mosque once stood, “an unfounded and even absurd accusation, given that Mor Gabriel well precedes the birth of Islam.” Not that such considerations of logic or history ever cut much ice with Muslims before. The “history” in question is part of the jahiliyya, in any case, so what is the point of studying it?


• Stealing Turkish public land to use for farming.

Are citizens of European countries—who might soon be stuck with Turkey as the EU's largest, most populous member—objecting to this act of historical cleansing? Hardly, Zenit reports. Only in Germany have any politicians raised the alarm. There, “several parties, including the Social Democratic fraction in the Bundestag (Lower Chamber) and even Die Linke (the Left), denounced [the decision].... Erika Steinbach, spokeswoman of the German parliamentary group for Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid... [said] it symbolizes 'the repression of Christianity in Turkey....The negative trend in religious freedom in Turkey is incompatible with human rights,' said Steinbach, according to the Assyrian International News Agency.”

In Turkey, Zenit noted:

For now, representatives of many religions prefer to stay silent. They fear -- as the case of Mor Gabriel demonstrates -- attracting the hostility of the authorities and having to face long and above all costly legal battles, only to lose their "de facto" liberty.... [T]he only solution to undo this knot that is "completely incompatible" with the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, is a change in the Constitution and criminal code of Turkey.

This was also admitted last October by the then head of the "Diyanet" (Directorate for Religious Affairs), professor Ali Bardakoglu. "The solution is to allow a religious institution to be autonomous. Turkey is ready for this," he said, according to the daily Radikal. The following month, Bardakoglu lost his post.

For the monks of Mor Gabriel, the only way not to lose their land is, therefore, to follow the example of the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople and turn to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Metropolitan Samuel Aktas told the Economist that is just what he's going to do: “I have remained silent in the face of these injustices; but no longer so."

"The purpose of the threats and the lawsuit seems to be to repress this minority and expel it from Turkey, as if it were a foreign object," the head of the Aramaic Federation, David Gelen, told AsiaNews back in 2009. "Turkey must decide whether it wants to preserve a 1,600-year-old culture, or annihilate the last remains of a non-Muslim tradition. What is at stake is the multiculturalism that has always characterized this nation, since the time of the Ottoman Empire."

The lesson for Europe is clear: Turkey does not belong in the European Union. The case of Mor Gabriel should become one of the talking points of European politicians who are trying to stop this final, most threatening Turkish invasion. They should add the restoration of all such religious property to dispossessed ethnic groups (why not include historic synagogues, even where the local Jews have been driven out?) to the list of non-negotiable conditions Turkey must meet before it is even considered for membership. The more Islamic Turkey becomes, the more intransigent its politicians will be on such issues. Let the cycle of recriminations grow worse and worse, and the gap between Europe and Turkey become so wide that it cannot be patched up by what Turkey-skeptics rightly call A Bridge Too Far.

It's always hard to choose a gold medalist. If we were compiling a list of the bravest men or women in the world, most of those who really deserved the title would be people unknown to us—South Sudanese soldiers, Pakistani Christian evangelists, daughters of Muslim families who risk honor killings by refusing to follow their parents' grim cultural script... there are so many people who really deserve our recognition whom we will never know this side of the grave. Perhaps I can stipulate that I honor all of them implicitly when today I praise Geert Wilders—a man who speaks out on all of their behalfs, who has dedicated his life to and courted death by exposing the ugly, barely concealed underside of Islamic supremacism. It's not as if our enemies have made a real effort to hide it—it's more like we've chosen to turn our faces away, as one might from the hairy plumber's crack of a machete-wielding kidnapper.

It warmed my heart today to see that paragon of mainstream respectability, the Wall Street Journal, print in its entirety an Op-Ed by Mr. Wilders, in which he informed Americans of the state of free speech in the polity he termed (quoting Vladimir Bukovsky) the EUSSR. Indeed, those of us who have spent the years since 1989 doing little victory dances over the Cold War might like to step back and wonder: Which side really won? Is Western Europe freer and safer today than it was in 1988? Or have the subsequent 23 years pushed the region further toward bureaucratic tyranny than any of us imagined was possible short of a successful Soviet conquest? I remember marching in support of Ronald Reagan's attempt to place tactical nuclear weapons in Europe precisely so that the peoples of my mother continent would not face suffocating restrictions on their free speech, the prospect of religious persecution, or stultifying laws controlling the culture. I thought that in bringing down the commissars we'd consigned such fears to the past. I was wrong.

As Wilders explains to a reading audience that might never have heard his name, he and other Europeans face criminal trials for expressing fact-based opinions about Islam and its political ambitions—trials where truth is no defense. As Wilders asks:

How can all this be possible in supposedly liberal Europe? The Dutch penal code states that anyone who either "publicly, verbally or in writing or image, deliberately expresses himself in any way that incites hatred against a group or people" or "in any way that insults a group of people because of their race, their religion or belief, their hetero- or homosexual inclination or their physical, psychological or mental handicap, will be punished."

Early in 2008, a number of leftist and Islamic organizations took me to court, claiming that by expressing my views on Islam I had deliberately "insulted" and "incited hatred" against Muslims. I argued then, as I will again in my forthcoming book, that Islam is primarily a totalitarian ideology aiming for world domination.

If you (who are surely better informed) need to explain the situation in Europe to others, I suggest you use this metaphor: Imagine that sexual harassment law, in its most egregious form, were applied to the whole of society—the kind of laws that penalize “unwelcome” romantic attentions, of the sort which it is impossible to determine will be unwelcome in advance. Or as the prophetic Chris Rock once said of Clarence Thomas:

Anita Hill started this whole thing. It's all about looks, you know? Because if Clarence Thomas looked like Denzel Washington, this would have never happened! She'd be all, "Oh, stop it, Clarence, you nasty! Your fine self!" So, what's sexual harrassment, when an ugly man wants some? "Oh, he ugly! Call the police! Call the authority!"

Truth doesn't matter—get it? It doesn't matter (as European courts have ruled) whether every word Geert Wilders is saying is true. It wouldn't make any difference if all he'd done was to read aloud, without commentary, the most offensive passages from the Qur'an and supporting hadiths. Objective reality, what people are actually saying, makes absolutely no difference. The future that European Muslims really do, admittedly, have in mind for non-believers, women, gays, and Jews... none of that is relevant. All that matters is whether the truth he is speaking is somehow offensive.

As Wilders writes in the Journal, “in 2008 the EU approved its so-called 'Council Framework Decision on combating Racism and Xenophobia,' and the EU's 27 nations have since had to incorporate it into their national legislation. The decision orders that 'racist or xenophobic behavior must constitute an offence in all Member States and be punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties.' It defines 'racism and xenophobia' so broadly that every statement that an individual might perceive as insulting to a group to which he belongs becomes punishable by law.”

“The perverse result is that in Europe it is now all but impossible to have a debate about the nature of Islam, or about the effects of immigration of Islam's adherents.”

The magnificent irony is that if such laws were consistently applied, the Qur'an itself and much of its supporting literature ought actually to be illegal to distribute anywhere in Europe—not that we ought to support such an oppressive outcome. Indeed, if I were the sort of person who wanted the government to create official reading lists that every student had to master, one of the first books I would require is the Qur'an. It ought to be taught alongside Mein Kampf and Lenin's What Is To Be Done?, and the commentary that ought to accompany them should be works by Geert Wilders, Viktor Frankl, and Alexander Solzshenitsyn.

As we try to convince our fellow-citizens that it's time to wake up from their media-induced slumber on the danger of Islamic expansion in the West, our most infuriating barrier is the lockstep unanimity of major media. Yes, it's very nice that the Internet offers outlets for dissenters; without it, Jihadwatch would be some mimeographed newsletter we'd have to hand out in the parking lot outside gun shows. But there's major credibility difference between material vetted by well-known journalists and broadcast with flashy graphics--regardless of its truthfulness or intellectual quality--and that which guerrilla investigators like us put out over the Web. This gap has narrowed some over the years, to the point where a really outrageous lie promulgated by the networks can be debunked by prominent websites. But that only happens on individual stories, when reporters make assertions that can be swiftly and soundly refuted by smoking guns, whose ballistics reports are readily available online. When you're trying to convince someone on larger issues, to move him on a subject of the moment and weight entailed in designating a world religion a threat to peace, there's still an in-built debility you must face if all your information is confined to the worldwide Web. Because of the sheer quantity of crankery available online, your listener is all too apt to ask: "Oh yeah? So why are the only people who agree with you a bunch of anonymous bloggers? Why isn't anyone on television saying this?"

This seems to be truer in Europe than in America; on this side of the pond, we treasure a deep-seated suspicion of authority figures that often serves us well. (Though it sometimes encourages us to put faith in anti-vaccination crusaders, revisionists who insist that World War II never happened, and "truthers" who claim that the World Trade Towers still stand--but are merely being occluded by a Zionist hologram.) Sadly, while many Europeans are somewhat more vulnerable to official propaganda (and their political systems are less democratic, thanks to the oligarchic power of the European Union), they are also the very people most in danger from Muslim aggression. That is why it is so refreshing to see a news report like this one:

Christians are "fair game" for insults at the BBC whilst Muslims must not be offended, one of the broadcaster's veteran news anchors has warned.

Peter Sissons, whose memoirs are being serialised in the Daily Mail, slammed the BBC for its bias.

Mr Sissons said: "Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended."

...

The veteran presenter, who fronted news and current affairs programmes at the BBC, also said that staff damage their careers if they don't follow the BBC's mindest.

He said: "In my view, 'bias' is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the pervading culture. The better word is a 'mindset'."

He added that "the one thing guaranteed to damage your career prospects at the BBC is letting it be known that you are at odds with the prevailing and deep-rooted BBC attitude towards Life, the Universe and Everything."

If you want a clear insight into the "BBC attitude," the best place to find it is in Peter Hitchens' moving memoir/polemic The Rage Against God, written partly in answer to his brother Christopher Hitchens' God is not Great. In it, P. Hitchens analyzes the emotional and cultural roots of the jejeune secularism now regnant in Britain--which in theory ought to be far more hostile to Islamic aggression (by far the more potent threat to the freedom of freethinkers) than it is to the hoary, harmless expressions of nostalgic Anglican piety. But in fact this is not the case. As Peter Hitchens explains, the rejection of mildly Christian cultural forms is much more emotionally important to New Atheists than any efforts might be to resist sharia, misogyny, violent anti-gay attitudes or even pro-terrorist efforts.

On the surface, this seems an amazingly irrational attitude for rationalists, but Hitchens bursts their bubble. Recounting his own decades spent as a shallowly leftist secular journalist, Hitchens unpacks his own old motives. We were, he explains, differentiating ourselves from our parents--the denizens of a worn-down, seemingly defeated post-war generation, a crumbling empire, burdened with ancient and unexamined premises, weighed down by old songs and bored with ancient psalms, eager to cast off the dreary dross we associated with the glum burdens of adulthood. By rejecting our parents' half-hearted beliefs, and refusing ourselves to be parents, we were staving off in our own minds the march of time, the fact of aging, the grim biological fact of our own mortality. By remaining forever rebellious adolescents, we imagined that we need never grow old and die. Having children in itself is in some sense an admission that we must replace ourselves--because we were replaceable. And that is something our narcissistic generation could not admit. And so we didn't.

If those were the stakes involved in biasing news reports against Christians, and putting a blandly happy face on the violence of Muslim immigrants, no wonder that BBC adopted the bias Sissons found there. No wonder our own efforts hit so fierce a resistance; by telling people that they are endangering future generations, we are reminding them that those generations will exist--that they will sooner or later be shoved by the Grim Reaper off the stage. We are the dreaded memento mori, the ghost of Banquo at the feast. It's no surprise then when they repress us, ignore us, despise us. We are the warning on the side of the pack of cigarettes, while their Muslims friends are merely the match.

A running theme in my recent commentaries has been the need to secure the safety of Western countries by limiting who enters them. I think most Jihadwatch readers are already convinced that the admission of millions of Muslims into Europe was a catastrophe on the order of... well, what historical incident equals it? The final outcome remains to be seen, so let me lay out a range of possibilities.

If the influx is stopped in the next few years, and Western societies overcome the self-gelding political correctness and hysterical scrupulosity that drives them to hold their own societies to an inhuman standard of Kantian selflessness--while endlessly indulging the sins of newcomers--it's possible that we will keep our freedoms intact without a major violent confrontation. For that to happen, we'd need to slam shut our borders, cut welfare programs that allow recent immigrants to breed irresponsibly on the taxpayers' dime, rigorously enforce laws suppressing sedition, infiltrate and expose terror networks already in our midst, and push back hard against attempts to force an alien religion into our cultural mainstream. If all that were to happen, there would be significant unrest among Muslim communities lasting several decades, but in general the level of violence would be low. We'd essentially have to reduce Islamic enclaves to the condition of the Basques--midsized, deeply disgruntled minorities treasuring claims against our territory, without the power to do much more than disrupt the peace, and occasionally murder some policemen. (Of course, the Basques have old, and in some ways legitimate grievances, since they really were here first--while the Muslims have none--but that's not really the issue.) If all those happy events were to come about, perhaps through the secret release of massive doses of testosterone into the water supply, then the decision of wretched socialists like Francois Mitterand to flood their motherlands with Saracens might be comparable to some mid-level historical blunder--like Napoleon's attack on Russia.

A less hopeful, but much more likely scenario is that the "awakening" of Westerners will happen only fitfully, and the forces opposing jihad will arrive on the scene piecemeal, so that each nation, as it rallies itself, can be isolated and defeated by the others still sunk in denial. In other words, as countries reach the critical level of Muslim population, sharia activism, and jihad violence (these three, I maintain, are inherently inseparable) each at different times, and their native populations respond with varying degrees of firmness, the oligarchies that currently favor Islamic colonization will be able to crush each one in turn. In effect, any country like the Netherlands or Switzerland that woke up would suffer the fate (at best) of Austria after it elected the detestable Kurt Waldheim--and (at worst) that of Yugoslavia when it tried to hold onto its historical heartland, Kosovo. In this case, we would see a range of responses, from the EU and US sanctions against the offending" nation, to the use of NATO and U.S. troops to forcibly counteract the policies that nation was taking in its self-defense. If the combination of sanctions and domestic rebellion could bring down a nation as tough, endangered, and morally tone-deaf as white-ruled South Africa, I wonder which European nation could make a tougher stand. (Please note that I hold no brief for the apartheid system, which white colonists imposed on black natives; indeed, I've written before that it is precisely such a system of religion, not race-based, oppression that Muslim colonists have in mind for the rest of us.) If this is the fruit of Muslim immigration, we will have to compare their arrival to something more like the Mongol invasion of Russia--which ushered in centuries of subjection by tough, highly organized alien rulers, who used local elites to cow the subject populations. Real dhimmitude, of the sort chronicled by Bat Ye'or, will come to the West comparatively peacefully; we will have committed suicide using a penknife.

But that's not even the worst conceivable outcome of the demographic treason committed by Western leaders who admitted so many Muslims. From a humanitarian point of view, it might be even worse if some European countries woke up to the Muslim threat while others did not--and the governments of those countries on either side of the divide formed into regional blocs. The divide between dhimmi and anti-dhimmi countries would become every bit as sharp as that which sundered Europe during the Cold War. Imagine a "Silk Curtain" dividing an Islamicized France from a resurrected Germany, or a dhimmified Germany from a proud, resurgent Poland. Within the Islamicized nations, the rights of Christians to free speech and worship would be quickly torn away, and millions of refugees would (if they were lucky) try to move to freer lands. Meanwhile, in anti-jihadist countries, peaceful Muslims living within them would no doubt be caught up in the net when those governments tried to "clean house" of jihadi subversives. Would we face a bloody "population transfer," like those that marked Greece and Turkey after the First World War? Would we face, on the soil of Europe, with nations that had 21st century military technology (and some of them nuclear weapons) a Third World War? And in such a war, would America take the right side? We might once again see massive assaults against the rights of unarmed civilians, such as marked the First and the Second World Wars. It's hard to imagine the kind of civilization that would be left in the wake of such a conflict. Surely the transformation, and destruction, would be at least on the order of both those conflicts.

Does this sound like crazy alarmism? The reckless fantasies of someone who has played too many computer wargames and read too many "alternative history" novels? Let me ask you this: What would a sane, sober person in 1913--who lived in what was still the London of Sherlock Holmes--have thought if you told him that within six years 20 million Europeans would lie dead, four out of five of the major monarchies reigning in Europe would be deposed, and Communist revolutionary armies would be streaming from a Jacobin-ruled Russia into Poland, aiming to conquer all of Western Europe? If you'd told all this to Dr. Watson, he would have referred you to an "alienist," and gone back to Baker Street to chuckle with Holmes about the poor, self-appointed prophet he'd encountered in Hyde Park.

Situations that cannot continue...don't. The strings that knit together peaceful coexistence among communities are straining under the pressure of millions of resident aliens who should never have been admitted, who can only be tolerated when they are as sure as we that compared to us they are helpless. Islam is a religion of fear and force, and its adherents can only be at your feet or at your throat. We had better decide which posture we prefer. The time is short.

At last, someone is talking sense. However, it is extraordinarily unlikely that such a measure will ever be adopted. "'Tie EU aid to rights for Christians' says Frattini," from ANSA, January 3 (thanks to Insubria):

Rome, January 3 - European Union aid should be tied to respect for human rights in countries where Christian minorities are under attack, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Monday after a New Year's Day church bombing in the Egyptian city of Alexandria that killed 21 Coptic Christians.

EU aid "should be reduced if not eliminated" for "those countries that do not collaborate" in protecting Christians, Frattini said.

"We have to move from monitoring to action," said the foreign minister, stressing that Italy could not remain "isolated" in the battle for Christians' rights around the world.

The EU "should work with those countries that collaborate and encourage them," he said....

On December 22 Frattini blasted the European Union for not doing more to combat Christian persecutions in Iraq and other Middle Eastern Countries....

''Frankly, it is a little sad that Europe isn't reacting on this issue as it should'', he said.

Italy is set to present a resolution to the United Nations on religious freedom which aims to stop this persecution and it has the backing of the EU, while several non-EU countries have expressed ''great interest''....

Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria are among the other countries where there have been anti-Christian campaigns and attacks. More than 80 people were killed in bombings in the central Nigerian city of Jos on Christmas Eve, sparking clashes between Muslim and Christian youths....

Turkey in the EU: A gun to Europe's head

Turkey would immediately become the largest state in the EU. Rapidly Islamizing Ankara would be calling the shots for people in Berlin, London, Paris, and Rome. 70 million Muslims or more, including an untold number of active Islamic jihadists, would be able to enter Europe easily and travel around it freely. European Death Watch Alert: "Belgian EU presidency would support enlargement," from the Telegraph, June 28 (thanks to Lazybuddha):

Belgium will support the enlargement of the European Union to include Croatia, Iceland and Turkey during its forthcoming presidency of the bloc.

Olivier Chastel, the Belgian secretary of state for EU affairs, in a joint news conference with Spanish counterpart Diego Lopez Garrido, raised the possibility of the opening of a new chapter in negotiations with Turkey in the coming months after Spain, which currently holds the EU presidency, backed Ankara's bid despite resistance from France and Germany.

Belgium takes over the six-month rotating EU presidency from Spain on July 1.

The EU began membership talks with Turkey in 2005 but the process has made slow progress. Only 12 of the 35 policy chapters, which all EU candidate countries must successfully negotiate prior to membership, are open....

But "he has to report to police twice a week." What could possibly go wrong? An update on this story. "Kosovo terror suspect wanted in U.S. released," by Fatos Bytyci for Reuters, June 18 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

A European Union judge in Kosovo has released from detention a Kosovo Albanian man wanted on U.S. terrorism charges but he must report to police twice a week, an EU mission spokeswoman said on Friday.

Bajram Asllani, 29, was arrested on Thursday by Kosovo and EU police after U.S. prosecutors in North Carolina accused him of providing material support to terrorism suspects and conspiring to kill and hurt people abroad.

"He has to report to police twice a week," Kristiina Herodes, a spokeswoman from the EU police and justice mission (EULEX) said. "The prosecutor will have a close look at the written decision by the judge and then will decide to appeal against the decision or not."

Two years after declaring independence, Kosovo's fragile peace is still maintained by some 10,000 NATO troops and 2,000 police, judges and prosecutors from the EU.

Despite the decision from the EU judge, Herodes said that now it is up to the Kosovo government whether Asllani will be extradited to the United States or not.

Asllani was accused of soliciting money from a group of men in North Carolina who were arrested last year for an alleged plot to attack a U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, according to U.S. prosecutors.

The seven men arrested in North Carolina were also charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and for conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure people overseas, including in Kosovo, Jordan and the Gaza Strip.

"I personally have asked to be extradited to the United States because I am not afraid of U.S. justice, I believe in justice because I am innocent," Asllani told local media in his town in Mitrovica after he was released.

He said that Americans are good people and he has nothing against them....

Actions speak louder than words.

The European Union and "Beautiful" Minarets
by Fjordman

Inspired by Bat Ye'or's groundbreaking work Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, I wrote my own book Defeating Eurabia in 2008. My conclusion back then, which still stands today, was that the European Union constitutes a threat to the entire European continent and needs to be dismantled:

"The EU has accepted that the Union should be enlarged to include the Muslim Middle East and North Africa. The EU has accepted that tens of millions of immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries in northern Africa should be allowed to settle in Europe in the years ahead. This is supposedly 'good for the economy.' It is planning to implement sharia laws for the millions of Muslims it is inviting to settle in Europe. It has passed stronger anti-racism laws while making it clear that 'Islamophobia' constitutes a form of racism, and is cooperating with Islamic countries on rewriting school textbooks to provide a 'positive' image of Islam to European children. Finally, the EU is developing an Arrest Warrant which stipulates that those charged with serious crimes, for instance racism, can be arrested without undue interference of the nation state they happen to live in. In essence, the EU is formally surrendering an entire continent to Islam while destroying established national cultures, and is prepared to harass those who disagree with this policy. This constitutes the greatest organized betrayal in Western history, yet is hailed as a victory for 'tolerance.'"

Those who still believe that Eurabia is a merely "conspiracy theory" should take a closer look at how European authorities handled the Swiss ban on the building of minarets, which constitute a visible symbol of Islamic supremacy. For example, the Ottoman Turks used the minaret as one of the elements to visually appropriate conquered Byzantine churches and convert them to mosques. The ancient Bulgarian town of Nessebar was a part of the First and Second Bulgarian Empires from the seventh to the fourteenth century AD and saw the creation of numerous medieval churches. Yet like the rest of the Balkans it experienced centuries of steep cultural and economic decline following the Turkish Muslim conquests.

Trying to put an end to the courtroom jihad against free speech. "Denmark wants Brussels to stop UK Mohammed cartoon lawsuit," by Leigh Phillips for the EUObserver, March 16 (thanks to John):

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The Danish minister of justice has called on the European Commission to put a stop to a lawsuit by a Saudi lawyer who is using the UK's famously libel-happy courts to go after Danish newspapers for their publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

"It's fundamentally reasonable that judgments in the EU can often be exercised across borders," the minister, Lars Barfoed, said according to the Berlingske Tidende newspaper.

"But it would be taking it to the extreme if a UK court could rule against the Danish media and then require compensation and court costs to be paid." [...]

And there is that small matter of free speech:

The British government for its part recognises there is a problem.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "The government is concerned about any potential chilling effect that our libel laws are having on freedom of speech. In response to the concerns that have been expressed, the justice secretary has set up a working group to examine a range of issues around the substantive law on libel."

In addition, three weeks ago the country's Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee published the report of its inquiry into libel, which criticised the current situation.

"The government is considering this report and the recommendations that it makes very carefully," the spokesperson said.

How will official Europe and the State Department react to news that Zarqawi has a network in Europe? Judging from the understanding of and response to jihadist infiltration and intimidation in some quarters, I would guess that they will say that they're glad he's taking an interest in something besides violence, and that broadcasting is such a rewarding field. From the Telegraph, with thanks to Daryl:

A wave of arrests across Europe has thrown new light on a European terrorist network being developed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most prominent insurgent in Iraq.

A growing number of terrorism investigations in Britain, Germany, Bosnia, Denmark and most recently Spain and France are linked to the man who has masterminded countless suicide bombings in Iraq, personally beheaded hostages and bombed three hotels in his native Jordan.

Some of the suspected networks appear to be involved only in supporting his operations in Iraq. But counter-terrorism officials are worried that Zarqawi could be planning to use his base in Iraq to start attacking Europe.

Security officials are particularly worried by indications that he wants to recruit white extremists who will be more difficult to detect than Arabs or Asians.

"Zarqawi thinks he is bigger than Iraq," a British source said. "He is spreading his tentacles in Europe. There is a sense that attacks are inevitable.

"Even before the invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi had a network in Europe that provided funds and recruits. The same pipeline will sooner or later pump the other way, from Iraq to Europe."

The perspicacious Nidra Poller assesses the prospects for Europe as dhimmitude appears to be dawning for France:

PARIS -- As the Eurabian Nights' dream starts exploding in the face of France, mainstream media are counting the number of torched cars and explaining that the rioters suffer from poverty and discrimination. It would seem that Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy ignited this unprecedented wave of violence by calling the rioters "la racaille" and promising to clean up the lost territories of the Republic. "Racaille" (pronounced rack-eye'-eh) is almost too good to translate. It means everything from bully to two-bit Mafioso, with connotations of thuggery, thievery, racketeering, and sleaze. La racaille is a gangsta class of knife-wielding bad guys who steal from their classmates, prey on their neighbors in the 'hood, and victimize honest citizens everywhere. Junior racaille work protection rackets in their schools, steal cars and motorcycles, and rape girls to keep them in line, Islamically speaking. Senior racaille pimp, deal drugs, and carry guns. As it turns out, the guerilla troops that are trying to burn down the Republic are something more dangerous than the racaille they've enlisted in their battle.

A reporter interviews a man standing in front of a mosque in full Islamist regalia and politely relays his complaints. Do readers know that these offended Islamists are calling for the de-Zionization of France? And the defeat of the United States of America? No offense meant there! Do readers understand that the banlieues are being shaped into a foreign and hostile nation?

Many commentators prefer to focus on testimony of discrimination. A man on the street named Mohamed swears that even if you have a college degree, you can't get a decent job if your name is Mohamed. But Azouz Begag, who grew up in a bidonville, a real shanty town outside of Lyon, has a doctorate in sociology. And he is not working as a delivery boy. He is a minister in the French government or, to be exact, an "assistant" minister… in charge of "the promotion of equal opportunity." And he agrees with a lot of other Mohameds that the problems are unemployment, discrimination, and the harsh words of Sarkozy. The same Azouz Begag saw no harm in the creation of a virulently anti-Semitic fifth-column political party called France-Palestine. According to our eminent sociologist, who has fully benefited from equal opportunity, this was a healthy outlet for "immigrants" to express their grievances and aspirations. Nothing to get upset about.

Whatever Begag says, the enraged mobs are not listening to him. He is discredited by the very fact of being in the government. So much for integration. He was already discredited when he got good grades in school, wrote popular children's books, dressed in a suit and tie…and, don't forget, Azouz is not named Mohamed. He is Kabyl.

Read it all.

According to this report from The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, there is much Europe could learn from Turkey if only Turkey were allowed into the EU.

Turkey offers the EU two remedies for alleviating the twin problems of the demographic demise of its native population and growing radicalism among young immigrant Muslims.

• With 72 million Muslims who share the European values of democracy, the rule of law, secularism, and women’s rights (the October 2005 study, Turkey and the EU: Differences, Similarities, and Impact, quantifies the similarity between Turkish and European attitudes on those issues), Turkey is Europe’s ideal partner for growth, especially since the populations of other candidates or prospective candidates for EU membership, such as Bulgaria and Ukraine, are shrinking more quickly than the current EU average.

• As a secular country, Turkey provides Europe with lessons for how to deal with—and perhaps even modernize—Islam. The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, drew inspiration from nineteenth century European thinking in establishing the republic. Just as Turkey learned from Europe in the past, the EU can now turn to Turkey for lessons on dealing with Islam. There has already been some progress in this regard: in February, for instance, the Dutch Ministry of Education approved a plan for the Free University in Amsterdam to offer a master’s degree program for training imams. And the rising French politician Nicolas Sarkozy, who opposes Turkey’s EU membership, has suggested government funding for the construction of mosques.

With even Sarkozy turning to Turkey for lessons, it would help to distinguish between a “Muslim problem” and an “Islamic radicalization problem” in Europe. Were it to do so, the EU would find out that it has much to learn and little to fear from Turkey.

Read it all.

This article from the Yemen Times celebrates Islam's influential role in Western society, in particular that of Great Britain.

When mentioning Ramadhan, most attention is focused on Muslims of the Middle East or Southeast Asia. What is forgotten is how the millions of Muslims in the western world spend this holy month of Ramadhan. Here, we will put the light on Britain and the beauty of Islam during this precious month.

The major Muslim migration to Britain began from the mid-nineteenth century. Yemeni’s were the first group of migrants who arrived in the ports of Cardiff, Liverpool, and London. At the beginning of the migration a language barrier existed and was a serious issue that Yemeni’s faced. Therefore many misunderstandings between Yemeni and British citizens existed. Nowadays Muslims from over 75 countries live in Britain, most of which are from the sub-continent of India and Pakistan. Many places in Britain are also loaded with the presence of Muslims from Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and many other countries. The Muslim population is estimated to reach over 5 million in the present day. Cities with the biggest Muslim population are London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester, and Bradford.

The fast growth of Muslims in Britain has created a greater chance for British people to learn more about Islam. In the early days of migration, Muslims had to call foreign Imams (Muslim scholars) to run local mosques, and teach their children basic Islamic education. These days native Muslims are replacing many foreign Imams for this post.

People from all age groups flock local mosques to learn more about Islam. Special classes for Quranic recitation are available in almost every mosque. Lessons in Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) are also given during the afternoon period of the day. For those who want to learn more about Arabic, classes are also available. Many mosques open their doors to Non-Muslims who would like to learn more about the beauty of Islam from within, and the love and brotherhood it calls for. Many British citizens embrace Islam during this great month of Ramadhan, for they see the reality of Islam and what it teaches. An estimated 16% of Muslims in Britain are English (native Britain’s).

Most of Britain’s Arabs live around Edgware Road, in the heart of London. This street is filled with Arab culture as many Arab restaurants and cafes are available. Most shops on this street are open 24hrs a day. When walking on this Arab culture rich street of London, you will feel that you are spending Ramadhan in a Middle Eastern country and not in Europe.

There is more so please read it all.

Daniel Pipes ably traces Europe's ongoing descent into Eurabia in FrontPage:

Two recent stories dramatically illustrate Europe’s looming immigration problem.

One concerns a gang estimated to have smuggled 100,000 illegal immigrants, mainly Turkish Kurds, into Great Britain. These economic migrants paid between £3,000 and £5,000 to be transported via an elaborate and dangerous route. The Independent explains: “Their journeys lasted several weeks and involved safe houses, lorries with secret compartments and, in some cases, clandestine flights to airfields in the South-east.”

A senior British police source commented that “It’s a tortuous journey, full of discomfort and danger, but they are determined to get here, given the particular attraction of London’s established Turkish community.”

Although the PA has shown no ability (and little or no genuine desire) to rein in Hamas, and despite the fact that both Abbas and Hamas leaders attributed the Gaza withdrawal to suicide bombings, and although Palestinian Arabs celebrated that withdrawal with blood, looting, and threats, the dhimmi EU is ever-ready to appease, promising the Palestinian Arabs as much as $360 million. No hint of holding the Palestinians to account in any way. "EU announces strategy to help build Palestinian state," from AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Commission announced ambitious plans to help build a politically and economically viable Palestinian state, including injecting hundreds of millions of euros in extra aid.

The aim is to use the opportunity created by Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and put in place a comprehensive medium-term assistance strategy, external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said.

"We intend to be a major partner in a viable Palestinian state," she told reporters in Brussels. "We should not let the chance provided by the Gaza withdrawal slip through our fingers."

She said that if the withdrawal led to implementation of the roadmap peace plan and other donors also came forward, she would urge EU states to earmark the Palestinians a further 200-300 million euros (240-360 million dollars).

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern wants to send a signal to "Islam and moderate countries" that the EU is not just a "Christian club." Because, horror of horrors, the worst thing one could possibly do is form a Christian club, or even one dedicated in a broader sense to Western civilization and values. Islamic clubs -- the Arab League, the OIC -- those are OK. But a Christian club? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?

"Ahern Welcomes Turkey," from Irish Abroad, with thanks to Jihad Watch News Editor Eric Schwappach:

Foreign Minister, Dermot Ahern has welcomed the deal reached in Luxembourg this week which will see the start of negotiations with Turkey to allow the predominantly Muslim country to join the European Union.

The negotiations, which will take at least 10 years to conclude, could see Turkey with its population of 70 million people becoming the largest state in the EU.

But there has been widespread skepticism about the move, and it was only after 30 hours of intense negotiations that foreign ministers finally overcome objections to start the negotiation process.

Ahern said he welcomed the deal to start talks with Turkey.

“Turkey is a bridge between the Middle East and Europe,” he said.

“This will send a strong signal to Islam and moderate countries and people (that) the EU is not just a Christian club.”

Here is the fourth in European writer Wolfgang Bruno's new series of essays.

Everybody experiences ups and downs. The mood swings of people suffering from manic depression are far more extreme than those experienced by average people. Europe is probably the only case where an entire continent suffers from this condition. At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe was the most influential civilization in human history. It had the most dynamic economies on the planet, and had self-confidence sometimes reaching levels of extreme arrogance. At the beginning of the 21st century, Europe is in serious economic decline, its populations are being replaced in its own major cities, it is the most pessimistic region in the world, and its media, universities and intellectuals keep reminding their countrymen that their culture is worthless and evil. In part, this reads like the story of the rise and fall of any civilization, but there is something special about Europe, something almost pathological. Europe is a continent of extremes, sometimes changing in rapid succession. Unless this pattern changes, the pendulum could soon swing back towards aggressive Fascism, partly triggered by Muslim immigration.

Anthony Browne asks why Britain became "the first country in the developed world to produce its own suicide bombers." The answer is that Britain hates itself. Schools refuse to teach history that risks making pupils proud, and use history instead as a means of instilling liberal guilt. London's internationalism is the only thing Brits are allowed to be proud of -- in other words, something that is hardly British at all.

We need to find a middle way and regain some of our cultural confidence. Being arrogant is definitely a character flaw, but self-loathing doesn't make you good, it just makes you seem weak and pathetic. A certain amount of self-confidence is a necessary precondition to achieve anything in life. That goes for nations as well as individuals. If you don't respect yourself, then nobody else is going to respect you either. Those who do not have some pride in their own culture will sooner or later end up being proud of somebody else's. Yes, Europe has a sometimes dark and violent history, but that is hardly unique to us. Yes, Europe was engaged in slavery, as have been most other cultures throughout human history. However, Europe also gave rise to the abolitionist movement, pushing to end slavery on an international basis, not the least in the Islamic world. Move on! Our culture is worth keeping, despite the incessant claims to the contrary from parts of our intelligentsia. Non-Europeans who visit our lands come to visit our great cathedrals, see our arts and enjoy some of the quaint little quirks and bad habits we have acquired over the centuries. If they want to see burkas and sharia they go to Baghdad or Karachi, not to Rome, Amsterdam or Dublin. Should Europe be reduced to an appendix of the Arab world, this would be a tragedy for world cultural heritage, not just for Europe.

Austria has dropped its objections. While this is likely to be a done deal from the outset, there is still some hope that Turkey will be rejected, and Europe saved. But that hope is slim. We have spotlighted here since the beginning of Jihad Watch two years ago the many cogent objections to Turkey's entry into the EU, and Turkey's many, many transgressions of Western human rights norms and other ostensible standards for entry into the EU. But this evidence, as mountainous as it is (do a search at this site and you will see), that Turkey does not belong in the EU and that its entry could destroy Europe, has evidently turned no heads among the European intelligentsia. From the Washington Post, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

PARIS, Oct. 4 -- The European Union formally opened membership talks with Turkey early Tuesday morning, but only after bitter opposition by Austria had exposed deep apprehensions about the future of the 25-country group and the prospects of admitting a large, poor, Muslim country to its ranks.

The last-minute discord forced postponement of the scheduled 5 p.m. Monday start of negotiations in Luxembourg. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul refused to leave Ankara, Turkey's capital, for the talks until E.U. members reached a final consensus to work toward full membership for his country.

"We have reached a historic point," Gul said in Ankara after receiving word of that accord. He boarded a plane for Luxembourg, and an official opening ceremony took place shortly after midnight.

The accord moves Turkey an important step closer to its four-decade-old goal of joining the community of European nations. It is widely predicted that the membership talks, in which the bloc will set benchmarks for Turkey to meet in areas such as human rights and economic and democratic reform, will last 10 to 15 years. At the end, there is no guarantee that Turkey will be admitted.

The E.U. countries unanimously agreed last year to open talks with Turkey on Oct. 3. But in recent days, Austrian officials reversed themselves and said Turkey should be offered a "privileged partnership" rather than full membership....

Opposition has stirred emotions in Turkey as well. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told lawmakers in his party on Sunday that Turkey was part of "a project for the alliance of civilizations," according to the Associated Press. He said he hoped the European Union would "show political maturity and become a global power." If it did not, he said, it would "end up a Christian club."...

Erdogan is not on record as objecting to the Islamic character of the Arab League or OIC.

In a July survey by the German Marshall Fund, only 22 percent of people polled in nine of the European Union's biggest countries said Turkish membership would be "a good thing," while 29 percent said it would be "a bad thing" and 42 percent said it would be "neither good nor bad."

The opening of talks with Turkey also coincides with anxiety in Europe about the rise of radical Islam, terrorist bombings in Madrid and London, increasing immigration and sluggish European economies. Turkey has 70 million people, 99 percent of whom are Muslim, and a per-capita GDP of $6,772, leading many Europeans to argue that the would-be member -- which has more people than any E.U. country except Germany -- is too big, too poor and too Muslim to join their union.

Turkey could siphon billions in agricultural and infrastructure subsidies from other nations or send waves of impoverished Turks to their countries, some Europeans fear. Turkey shares 1,040 miles of border with Iran, Iraq and Syria, and its membership would bring Islamic fundamentalism to Europe's doorstep, these critics argue.

A key stumbling block for Turkey has been its refusal to recognize Cyprus, now an E.U. member, which Turkey invaded in 1974 after an attempted coup by Greek Cypriots. Turkey continues to control the northern part of the island. Some Europeans also criticize Turkey's checkered human rights record, particularly its treatment of ethnic Kurds.

Supporters of Turkey argue that it has been a member of NATO since 1952, that it is a member of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe and that it was a bulwark against communism during the Cold War. Now, they say, Turkey can be an important bridge between Islam and the West.

The country adheres to a strict separation of mosque and state. Many European political leaders call Turkey the model of a modern, democratic Muslim country that Europe should embrace as an example to the world. And while poor, they say, its large population offers a rich opportunity for investment and trade.

In a speech last month, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Turkish membership would "demonstrate that Western and Islamic cultures can thrive together as partners in the modern world."

Partners? Will the Islamic culture allow for that? What evidence does Jack Straw have that Islam has set aside or will set aside its supremacist imperative? None whatsoever, of course.

Here is another new piece by European writer Wolfgang Bruno.

In our clash with Islam, our opponents have at least one major advantage over us: At the beginning of the 21st century, the West has indeed lost its way and sense of purpose. We want to defend "Western civilization", but are we even sure what that is anymore, or was it lost in the multicultural fog somewhere? Is the West primarily defined by its Judeo-Christian religious heritage, or is it something else?

The Western Left has a clear goal: The destruction of the society that vanquished its dreams fifteen years ago. But it does not have, as in the old days of the Soviet Union, the hard power to accomplish this by itself. Their bets are now on Islam. Religious people in the West tend to view secularists as anti-Christian hypocrites, and not without some justification. Devout Catholic Italian Rocco Buttiglione was rejected as the European Union's justice commissioner because of his conservative, religious views. At the same time, the EU has extensive relations with the brutal theocracy in Iran, and few Islamic organizations, not even terrorist group Hamas, ever seem to be too extremist for the EU to cooperate with them. In the USA, the ACLU makes sure that prayer in public schools is just fine for Muslims, but banned for everybody else.

Even though left-wingers may usually be the worst offenders in appeasing Islam, that does not mean that right-wingers are blameless in this either. Economic liberalists are frequently naïve when it comes to cultural and religious differences. Theirs is the blind belief that immigration will always be "good for the economy", ignoring the troubling aspects of Muslim immigration. More pronounced is the fact that many members of the religious Right are even more skeptical of the secular Left than they are of Islam. Quite a few of them tend to view Islam as a potential ally against secularists, and want to cooperate with Muslims in a misguided attempt to revive "religious values" in their own societies. This line of thinking may be the Achilles heel of the Bush Administration.

Apparently as a reward for continuing to declare that the destruction of Israel is their ultimate goal, and that Gaza was a major victory along the way. From AP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

The European Union announced details of new aid for the Palestinians, raising the 2005 total to $342.8 million on Monday - a day before talks between the four parties that drive the Mideast peace process.

If assistance from the 25 EU governments is added, Europe's total annual aid to the Palestinians amounts to some $612.15 million.

"Only Israel and Palestine can make peace, but Europe is playing its part in the international Quartet to create the environment in which peace can take root," EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement.

Dream on, Benita.

A Let-Them-Into-The-EU update from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

The National Security Council's counterterrorism unit issued a travel warning Monday urging Israelis to refrain from visiting the popular southern coast of Turkey, between Alanya and Kemer, due to a "concrete terrorist threat." The strip includes the city of Antalya, a favorite destination for Israeli tourists. Israeli officials estimated there are presently thousands of Israelis in the area.

The travel advisory comes just three days after Transportation Minister Meir Sheetrit ordered four cruise ships with some 3,500 vacationers heading to Alanya to change course and dock in Cyprus because of terror warnings. He diverted another cruise ship on Monday.

Ambassador to Turkey Pinhas Avivi told The Jerusalem Post he would recommend that Israelis in the area covered by the warning spend their vacation in other parts of of the country, such as the Aegean Coast, the Black Sea or Central Turkey.

He said the warning, which he added was drawn up with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Turkish authorities, was very specific and would likely only last for a short period.

"The nature of this warning is that you know what you are looking for, and if you know what you are looking for, you have a good chance of finding it," he said.

Here is Part II of Oriana Fallaci's latest (part I is here), again from the Mystery Achievement blog (thanks to JS):

Will the massacre touch us too?--will it really touch us the next time? Oh, yes. I haven’t the slightest doubt. I’ve never had the slightest doubt. I’ve been saying this, too, for the last four years. And I add: They have not yet attacked us [only] because of their need for a landing zone, a bridgehead, a handy outpost named “Italy.“ Geographically handy because it is the closest one to both the Middle East and Africa; that is, to the countries that supply the greatest number of troops. Strategically handy because we offer succor and collaboration to those troops.

But soon, they will go on a rampage. Bin Laden himself has promised it--explicitly, clearly, precisely. More than once. His lieutenants (or rivals) have done likewise. The Corriere itself demonstrates this with its interview with Saak Al-Faqih, the exiled Saudi who became friends with Bin Laden during the conflict with the Russians in Afghanistan and who, according to the American secret services, a financer of Al Qaeda. “It is only a question of time. Al Qaeda will strike you soon,“ said Al Faqih, adding that the attack upon Italy is the most logical thing in the world. Is not Italy the weak link in the chain of allies in Iraq? A link comes soon after Spain and was preceded by London only out of pure convenience. Then [he said]: “Bin Laden well remembers the words of the Prophet: “You will force the Romans to surrender. And he wants to force Italy to abandon its alliance with America.“ In sum, [and] emphasizing that similar operations will not be carried out [by Muslims] who have just arrived at Lampedusa or Malpensa; but instead after having achieved a mature familiarity with the country, after having penetrated its social fabric: “[The only problem with] recruiting the needed manpower will be the embarrassment of riches.“

Many Italians still don’t believe this. Notwithstanding the declarations of the Minister of the Interior, Rome and Milan are at risk; and look out--so are Turin, Naples, Trieste, and Treviso; not to mention the cities of art like Florence and Venice. [But] the Italians carry on like children for whom the word “death” has no meaning. Or like the scatterbrained to whom death seems to be a stroke of bad luck that only happens to other people. In the worst case, a stroke of bad luck that will save them for last. Worse: they believe that to avoid it they only need to be clever; that is, to kiss butt. Vittorio Feltri was right when he wrote at “Libero” that the decadence of Westerners is to be identified with their illusion of being able to deal amiably with the Enemy, and even less with their fear. A fear that induces them to meekly host the enemy, to attempt to conquer him with sympathy, hoping that he will allow himself to be absorbed; while [the enemy] is the one who wants to absorb.

Read it all.

Wake up! Wake up! From the Mystery Achievement blog (thanks to Andy) comes this translation of a column by Oriana Fallaci that ran in Corriere della Sera:

Now, I ask myself: “What do you say, what do you have to say, about what happened in London?” They ask me face-to-face, via fax and email; often scolding me because up until now I have remained silent. Almost as if my silence were a betrayal. And each time I shake my head and murmur to myself: what else should I say?!? I’ve been saying it for four years--that I fight against the Monster that has decided to eliminate us physically and, along with our bodies, to destroy our principles and values. Our civilization. For four years I’ve been talking about Islamic Nazism; about the war against the West; about the death cult; about European suicide. About a Europe that is no longer Europe, but Eurabia, and that with its feebleness, its inertia, its blindness, its servitude to the enemy is digging its own grave. For four years, like another Cassandra, I’ve been shouting until I’m hoarse “Troy is burning! Troy is burning!” and I despair of the Danaids for whom, like Virgil in the Aeneid I weep for a city entombed in its torpor. [A city] that, through its wide-open doors receives fresh troops and joins complicit parties [inside]. For four years I’ve been repeating to the wind the truth about the Monster and its accomplices; that is, the accomplices of the Monster who, in good or bad faith, open wide the doors--who, like [those] in the Apocalypse of John the Evangelist, throw themselves at his feet and allow themselves to be stamped with the mark of shame.

I began with “The Rage and the Pride.“ I continued with “The Force of Reason.“ I followed [those] with “Oriana Fallaci Interviews Oriana Fallaci,” and “The Apocalypse.” And in each one I preached, “Wake up, West! Wake up!“ The books, the ideas, for which in France they tried me in 2002, accusing me of religious racism and xenophobia. For which Switzerland asked our Minister of Justice to extradite me in handcuffs. For which in Italy I will be tried for vilifying Islam; that is, for an offense of opinion. (An offense that carries a sentence of three years in prison; none of which will be served by the Islamist caught with explosives in his cantina). Books, ideas, for which the “Caviar” left, the “Fois Gras” right, and even the “Prosciutto” Center have denigrated and vilified me, putting me in the stocks together with all who think as I do. That is, together with the sensible and unprotected people who are defined by the radical-chic in their frivolous talk as “the riff-raff of the Right."

Read it all. Read it all. Read it all.

From IranMania:

LONDON - European nations negotiating with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme may be ready to help build nuclear reactors and supply them with fuel, Iranian negotiator Hossein Moussavian said.

He told the official IRNA agency that a proposal promised by Britain, France and Germany by August and aimed at resolving the crisis could include such an offer, as well as a several-month delay before Iran's nuclear ambitions are referred to the UN Security Council.

The EU proposal could make or break the lengthy diplomatic process aimed at easing widespread fears Iran is seeking nuclear weapons technology.

In contrast to the United States which suspects Tehran of wanting to build nuclear bombs, the EU-3 is seeking to engage the Islamic state, using a carrot of possible trade and other benefits to persuade it to curb its nuclear plans.

However, the official IRNA agency quoted Moussavian as saying that Iran could resume sensitive uranium enrichment activities if the EU-3 insisted on prolonging a voluntary enrichment suspension currently in effect.

"We will continue negotiations because we are very close to a solution," he said.

"But continuing the suspension under current conditions is not possible, and if the Europeans don't accept this, we will resume (uranium enrichment) activities at Isfahan," a nuclear plant in central Iran, he warned.

Washington accuses Tehran of using a civilian atomic energy programme as a cover for weapons development and seeks a permanent halt to uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing activities that could be used in an arms programme...

From the Wall Street Journal, "Prophet of Decline: An interview with Oriana Fallaci"

NEW YORK--Oriana Fallaci faces jail. In her mid-70s, stricken with a cancer that, for the moment, permits only the consumption of liquids--so yes, we drank champagne in the course of a three-hour interview--one of the most renowned journalists of the modern era has been indicted by a judge in her native Italy under provisions of the Italian Penal Code which proscribe the "vilipendio," or "vilification," of "any religion admitted by the state."

In her case, the religion deemed vilified is Islam, and the vilification was perpetrated, apparently, in a book she wrote last year--and which has sold many more than a million copies all over Europe--called "The Force of Reason." Its astringent thesis is that the Old Continent is on the verge of becoming a dominion of Islam, and that the people of the West have surrendered themselves fecklessly to the "sons of Allah." So in a nutshell, Oriana Fallaci faces up to two years' imprisonment for her beliefs--which is one reason why she has chosen to stay put in New York. Let us give thanks for the First Amendment...

"When I was given the news," Ms. Fallaci says of her recent indictment, "I laughed. Bitterly, of course, but I laughed. No amusement, no surprise, because the trial is nothing else but a demonstration that everything I've written is true." An activist judge in Bergamo, in northern Italy, took it upon himself to admit a complaint against Ms. Fallaci that even the local prosecutors would not touch. The complainant, one Adel Smith--who, despite his name, is Muslim, and an incendiary public provocateur to boot--has a history of anti-Fallaci crankiness, and is widely believed to be behind the publication of a pamphlet, "Islam Punishes Oriana Fallaci," which exhorts Muslims to "eliminate" her. (Ironically, Mr. Smith, too, faces the peculiar charge of vilipendio against religion--Roman Catholicism in his case--after he described the Catholic Church as "a criminal organization" on television. Two years ago, he made news in Italy by filing suit for the removal of crucifixes from the walls of all public-school classrooms, and also, allegedly, for flinging a crucifix out of the window of a hospital room where his mother was being treated. "My mother will not die in a room where there is a crucifix," he said, according to hospital officials.)
Ms. Fallaci speaks in a passionate growl: "Europe is no longer Europe, it is 'Eurabia,' a colony of Islam, where the Islamic invasion does not proceed only in a physical sense, but also in a mental and cultural sense. Servility to the invaders has poisoned democracy, with obvious consequences for the freedom of thought, and for the concept itself of liberty." Such words--"invaders," "invasion," "colony," "Eurabia"--are deeply, immensely, Politically Incorrect; and one is tempted to believe that it is her tone, her vocabulary, and not necessarily her substance or basic message, that has attracted the ire of the judge in Bergamo (and has made her so radioactive in the eyes of Europe's cultural elites).

"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder," the historian Arnold Toynbee wrote, and these words could certainly be Ms. Fallaci's. She is in a black gloom about Europe and its future: "The increased presence of Muslims in Italy, and in Europe, is directly proportional to our loss of freedom." There is about her a touch of Oswald Spengler, the German philosopher and prophet of decline, as well as a flavor of Samuel Huntington and his clash of civilizations. But above all there is pessimism, pure and unashamed. When I ask her what "solution" there might be to prevent the European collapse of which she speaks, Ms. Fallaci flares up like a lit match. "How do you dare to ask me for a solution? It's like asking Seneca for a solution. You remember what he did?" She then says "Phwah, phwah," and gestures at slashing her wrists. "He committed suicide!" Seneca was accused of being involved in a plot to murder the emperor Nero. Without a trial, he was ordered by Nero to kill himself. One senses that Ms. Fallaci sees in Islam the shadow of Nero. "What could Seneca do?" she asks, with a discernible shudder. "He knew it would end that way--with the fall of the Roman Empire. But he could do nothing."...

"I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger." I had asked Ms. Fallaci whether there was any contemporary leader she admired, and Pope Benedict XVI was evidently a man in whom she reposed some trust. "I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion."...

Read it all.

From the Dutch Expatica, with thanks to Dutch Cares.

AMSTERDAM — Moroccan and Turkish groups in the Netherlands have set up a new action committee named "Genoeg is genoeg" (enough is enough) to organise a campaign against the Dutch government's tough immigration and integration policies.

The organisers are calling for a national demonstration on 17 September in Amsterdam. Two spokesmen for the new organisation outlined the plans for the demonstration during a press conference in the Moroccan capital of Rabat on Monday.

Dutch Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk arrived in Rabat for an official visit on Monday. She toured the Dutch embassy where modifications have been made to house the new integration tests that are to be introduced for would-be immigrants to the Netherlands.

While there was news on Monday that other European countries are interested in the immigration policies being pioneered by Verdonk, the spokesmen for the new action committee described her policies as discriminatory and racist...

One of those policies is to change the practice of retaining duel citizenship for THIRD generation Moroccan immigrants. Morocco is not cooperating. See Expatica here.

Bat Ye'or speaks about her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, her other books, and more with John W. Whitehead at the Rutherford Institute (thanks to EPG):

“I wrote these books,” said Bat Ye’or, “because I had witnessed the destruction, in a few short years, of a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years and which had existed from the time of Jeremiah the Prophet. I saw the disintegration and flight of families, dispossessed and humiliated, the destruction of their synagogues, the bombing of the Jewish quarters and the terrorizing of a peaceful population. I have personally experienced the hardships of exile, the misery of statelessness−and I wanted to get to the root cause of all this. I wanted to understand why the Jews from Arab countries, nearly a million, had shared my experience.”

Bat Ye’or’s wide historical research details the inferior condition accorded to Jews and Christian “dhimmis” (non-Muslim subjugated people) in Muslim lands, where they have survived through hardships and persecution ever since the rise of Islam in the 7th century. She pioneered the study of “dhimmitude” and the history and conditions of life of non-Muslims in their own lands, conquered by jihad and Islamized. According to Ye’or, “The conditions of Jews varied, but in general it was one of insecurity, humiliation and degradation for over 1,300 years, particularly in their own country, the Land of Israel.”

In 1997, Ye’or testified at a U.S. Congressional Hearing and the Human Rights Caucus on the subject “Past is Prologue: The Challenge of Islamism Today−An Historical Overview of the Persecution of Christians Under Islam.” “I discovered in my research that the Christian condition under Islam is similar and remarkably parallel to that of the Jews,” said Ye’or. “A historical tragedy has been going on for both religious groups. I realized that the fight for freedom from jihad and dhimmitude concerns us all, especially now in the 21st century. My research demonstrates that this is a very old problem, and it must be confronted now.”

Bat Ye’or has written three books on the jihad, Islam and dhimmitude. Her latest book is Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005). In it, she details the cooperation and collaboration between European countries and Arab League countries in every area, from foreign policy, economy, culture, media and immigration. She examines the economic, political and ideological factors that are leading a whole continent to choose dhimmitude and gradually abandon its culture and freedom. This choice and the increase of Muslim immigration, as well as the pressure of Islamic terrorism, Ye’or argues, have concurred to widen the rift between America and a sinking Europe. Eurabia is Europe’s future, Ye’or believes, and it is the agent of the extension of dhimmitude worldwide.

Read it all, please.