It is gratifying to receive emails from women in Europe who are sympathetic to what Gates of Vienna is saying about the plight of Islam’s women. Since I haven’t obtained their permission to thank them by name, my gratitude is limited to a group thank-you.

When the prime minister of the Netherlands takes Ayaan Hirsi Ali to task:

Premier Balkenende said Friday he wondered “whether this (Hirsi Ali’s speech) helps enhance the debate in the Netherlands”. He did not wish to say more because he is seeking “de-escalation”. Balkenende did say that Hirsi Ali’s plan for a sequel to her short film Submission is “her own responsibility”.

…you can’t help but compare him to the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his outspoken monarch, Queen Margrethe II.

Which brings us to a comparison between the plight of Islamic girls — vulnerable to gang rape, honor killings, acid-in-the-face retaliation, and severely circumscribed options (including forced marriage to cousins) — with the situation of American girls. “Trivial” doesn’t begin to describe the travails endured by adolescent American girls.

Here’s an example: recently, CNN featured an approving story about several young women who have formed an anti-abuse group for teenage girls, since purportedly they are the group “most vulnerable” to “relationship violence.” Translated from MediaSpeak to English, this means there are a number of girls being shoved around and intimidated by their boyfriends.

First, a description of one “victim’s” experience:

Shaina Weisbrot says she was 13 when she got into her first bad relationship. Some of the things her boyfriend would do: “Pulling my hair, shoving me, shaking me, covering my mouth with his hands, screaming at me in my face, driving so fast — like a hundred miles an hour — until I was crying and telling him to stop.”

She says it was a relationship based on fear: “I was taught to fear him.”

And here’s what her friend has to say:

…Carrie Speiser, 14 at the time, says her boyfriend was “controlling what I wore, who I spoke to, what I was doing. The phone calls became so constant that they were checking up on me.”

It then escalated from control to manipulation to physical abuse, she says. On one occasion, her boyfriend tried choking her with a T-shirt.

One mother’s account excuses herself in this way:

Carrie’s mother, Susan Schankler, tried to limit the amount of time her daughter spent with her boyfriend.

The strange thing is, she says, “Carrie at the time was getting straight A’s … I couldn’t say, ‘Well I’m blaming your bad grades on the boyfriend.’”

The mother of another teenager, Katie Falco, says she was hurt but not surprised by her daughter’s choice.

“I raised my daughter to have a good heart,” says Lora Speiser. “I feel that’s what made her more vulnerable and more susceptible to someone. She didn’t understand that people really were trying to hurt her.”

So, you’re thinking, where are the parents of these children? Why is a 13-year-old in a car being driven a hundred miles an hour? When a mother says, “I raised my daughter to have a good heart,” you want to ask her, why did she raise a wimp? Sure, we need to teach our children compassion, and mothers often do that well. But we also need to teach them strength. Compassion by itself ends up as spinelessness. Strength by itself merely produces a bully.

If you read this sympathetically-written article, you will not see one father mentioned. Where are the fathers of these girls? Where are the fathers of these boys who confuse controlling behaviors with caring relationships?

Because the parents have abdicated their moral authority, these girls have founded a group called TEAR — Teens Experiencing Abusive Relationships. Though they have since gone on to college, the girls travel to schools in their area to “teach others how to avoid dating violence.”

I ask again, Where are the parents? The legislators, in particular Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), have solved the problem by sponsoring a resolution to make the second week in February “National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Week.”

Wonderful. First the kids have to take care of themselves. Then the government steps into the breach with busy-mouth work. Government solves social problems with high-minded resolutions.

How about this? How about we bring back the parents, especially the fathers, whom we seem to have shoved aside in the stampede for some grotesque “equality”?

What we need is: SPARN — Stop Parental Abdication Right Now.

And Sen. Crapo could propose a better resolution: “Bring Back Parental Authority Month.”

Perhaps our readers can supply even more cogent resolutions or acronyms.

This is what it looked like at the baronial estate of Gates of Vienna at dawn this morning.

I hear that New England has it much worse.

 
9-11 has wrought tremendous change in the thinking of average Americans, and in how they parse events they had previously ignored. 9-11 permanently revolutionized the conversation in the United States, exposing and deepening the fault lines which, prior to the Fall of the Towers, could be safely papered over.

That world is gone. We currently live in transition and concern. The future is not at all clear.

During this transition, there will occur many conversations about what constitutes the “reality” of this conflict and its future. This is just one of them.

I feel fortunate to have Eteraz as my interlocutor.

eteraz.wordpress.com said…

anne is the voice of the holocaust. to suggest that hitler ‘had’ her means that the jews were somehow complicit in the holocaust. or rather, ‘wanted it’ like anne does hitler. get it now?

this is one of the most disgusting pieces of ‘art’ i have seen in my life. wow, i’m actually having a physical reaction. don’t know why b/c i never even really read the diary of anne frank.

Dymphna said…

eteraz: If you were a practicing Christian you might have the same visceral reaction to “Piss Christ” as you describe here. For me, *any* bad art — say, a rusted car bumper mounted on a piece of lucite and given a *deep* and meaningful title — has that same visceral effect.

That’s why I put that ‘cartoon’ up: we were meant to respond to it and then to examine our responses…I keep thinking about Anne Frank’s book and how much courage it gave me as a young girl. To have both those people together is like matter and anti-matter.

It makes you wonder about the cartoonist’s mind, too.

[…]

Dymphna said…

I did not post that cartoon lightly. But it’s important to see because anti-semitism is on the rise in Europe and this time we *must* be prepared.

[…]

eteraz.wordpress.com said…

dymph,

you say that anti-semitism is on the rise, but you have to also admit that islamophobia is also on the rise. i’m talking about specifically in europe.

a good number of muslims in europe are good people, who don’t deserve to be treated as europe once treated its jews.

Dymphna said…

eteraz, when you compare anti-semitism and Islamophobia in Europe you’re talking about two different phenomena.

1. Jewish schools in Britain now have structural protection against bombers. Is this true also for Islamic schools?

2. Jewish cemeteries are being desecrated in France and England. Do you have reports of desecration of Muslim cemeteries also? Some of these graveyards are historical places, and the destruction is savagely done.

3. Jewish girls are at more risk of rape in France. This may be also true of Muslim girls, but it is Muslim youths who invented the [gang-rape] game of retourné, not native French or Brits.

4. Synagogues in both places have been torched, covered with graffiti and have needed police protection on Holy Days. Is this true for Muslims during, say, Ramadan? Are the Christians, Jews, and atheists out hassling the Muslims?

5. It is hard to imagine Burger King apologizing to Jews because one of them complained that their ice cream cup vaguely resembled a sacred Hebrew letter. It is hard to imagine a Jew complaining about it in the first place.

Islamophobia is on the rise because Islamists are volatile, supremacist, and very much loose cannons in the public sphere. Islamophobia is the result of Muslim behavior. It wasn’t a bunch of yeshiva students who set off bombs in London or Madrid.

Unless Islam can shed its present violent acting-out, Islamophobia will continue to rise. Bombs, hate talk, demands for special treatment, and contempt for the country in which they live will endear them [Muslims] to no one.

As you said, there are two choices for Muslims: passivity and arrogance. Until they find some tertium quid, things will continue to deteriorate.

One more: the Danish imam (who is a Danish citizen) who toured the Middle East stirring up trouble with the cartoons of Mohammed (plus a few really ugly ones that he made up and included with the others to aid the incitement) is a traitor to his country, Denmark. He betrayed his people. But he doesn’t see it that way. Denmark is simply where he lives. His people are those he incited to riot and boycott.

Denmark feels hurt and betrayed by this man, and their hurt is translated into Islamophobia. [From the Muslim point of view, this imam was simply practicing taqiyya.]

And I’ll be darned if I can think of a Jew who has done what he did, either now or in the past millennium.

The funny thing about Israel is that even though it’s a theocracy, many of its citizens are atheists. And some of them are Arabs. Meanwhile, the Muslims are killing off the infidels who infest their country. In Iraq there are two Jews left. In Yemen, a thousand year old Jewish culture was obliterated and the remnant moved to Israel.

Now the Middle East says their final solution to the Jews is to either kill them all or make Europe take them.

For me, anti-semitism and islamophobia are not on the same order of injustice at all. The Jews are hated and feared because they exist; the Muslims are hated and feared because they kill people at will and do not seem bound to the rule of law that the rest of us take for granted. That cartoon of Hitler and Anne Frank was drawn and posted by European Muslims. Think about it.

A Hindu ashram moved into our area 20 years ago. I’ve never worried about them coming to do me harm. But if an equal number of Wahhabist Muslims moved in down the road, I’d sell my house.

That makes me Islamophobic, but it’s a recently acquired phobia which began to fester on 9/11/2001. So far I haven’t found a way to cure it.

eteraz.wordpress.com said…

Dymphna,

Fair response. Just two points.

1 – The Europeans who were massacring the Jewry didn’t subjectively think that the Jews had not done anything. They had laundry lists of ‘reasons’ for their anti-semitism. In hindsight, its clear that most of their reasons were at worst, bull, and at best, hyperbole. So, simply because you give me a lot of reasons for why your phobia is justified, doesn’t mean that your phobia is justified. Why? See point 2.

2 – Just as with historical anti-semitism in Europe by Europeans, they could not distinguish between one Jew and another, so your “reasons” do not distinguish between one Muslim and another. Oh, sure, you might in your heart think that not all Muslims are complicit in destructive activities, but for a moment look at how you convey your message. You do it by lumping all Muslims together. “The Muslims are hated and feared because they kill people at will and do not seem bound to the rule of law that the rest of us take for granted.” It’s rhetoric like that which once led to Europeans killing Jews. That’s a very destructive “the.” I absolutely agree with you that there are destructive Muslims in Europe (and in other parts of the world including America). However, you seem to forget that at one point, there *were* Jews in Europe who were charging exorbitant interest and using their ability to extend interest in predatory activity. Also, Jews of that time were guilty (in the eyes of europeans) of another crime: of choosing to be Jewish over and above being European or French or German. (Something Muslims are also accused of). Not being an anti-semite, I obviously don’t believe that the European reprisal to such allegations was justified. No, it was inhuman. *However* just as the European reprisals against Jews simply because a handful of jews were unethical and did not consider themselves French enough were not ethical, so any European reprisal against “the Muslims” should be considered unethical. It’s a matter of consistency. I consider myself a component of the Western civilization. I believe that it should be consistent.

3 – With regards to Algerian rape and other evidences of specific crimes in Europe, I believe the solution is to take constructive action which will bring these people into the ambit of the mainstream. Economic stimulation might be a start. You may have heard today of Abu Hamza in Britain being indicted. I’m all in favor of using rational and judicial means to bring all Muslim perpetrators to justice. However, let’s leave the islamophobic rhetoric out of it. It makes you sound like a bigot. I think you’d concur that bigotry is what we’re fighting against and trying to remedy. Why should you fall to the level of people whose behavior should *not* be emulated.

Dymph: civilizational and social conflicts in a million ways. Before I got involved in trying to assist the Muslim-West divide, I was deeply involved in assisting the black-white divide in the U.S. Especially since I come from the deep south and have seen and lived some of the abject conditions that create it. I met many white american in this time who were simply unwilling to let go of their ‘phobia’ of black people. The cure, I’m afraid, I don’t have to give. The cure, actually, is our own soul; which asks us to be better than who we are. To strive to be a force of good in the world.

Ask yourself this: do you want to assimilate Muslims in the west because you wish to share with them the beauty of your society? if the answer is yes, then phobia will have to be remedied. If the answer is no, then might I ask you to have a bit more hope. I know it’s hard. But we’re in it together.

eteraz.wordpress.com said…

i realize that was far more than ‘just two points.’

Eteraz, I was delayed by illness in my response to your last two points. I have thought about them, and they are important. However, I don’t think you read me carefully, and I want to answer you, belated though my response may be.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Eteraz, you tell me, “…look at how you convey your message. You do it by lumping all Muslims together. ‘The Muslims are hated and feared because they kill people at will and do not seem bound to the rule of law that the rest of us take for granted.’”

I have not “lumped all Muslims together.” I did say, specifically, “A Hindu ashram moved into our area 20 years ago. I’ve never worried about them coming to do me harm. But if an equal number of Wahhabist Muslims moved in down the road, I’d sell my house.”

Perhaps I should have been even more specific: the lumpen Muslims I object to, and the ones which cause such harm, are the Salafists, Wahhabists, Deobandis, Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah, Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami, Jamaat ul-Fuqra, Abu Sayyaf, Ansar Al-Islam, Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Mujahedin-e Khalq, and, of course, Al Qaeda. I would include here any other murderous, supremacist, utopian sects whose ultimate aim is the destruction of Western Civilization and its replacement by the Caliphate.

I also object to the third generation Muslim yahoos in Britain and France who are parasites on the welfare state and resent, even attempt to mangle, the hand that feeds them. I do not believe that Britain has systematically isolated its Muslim young. Perhaps that is not true in other parts of Europe. However, Britain has a fairly good record of assimilating its immigrant population. This assimilation has been less troublesome for other ethnic populations because they do not hang on to their differences and their grievances as have the third-generation Muslim youths. This Badge of Grievance, worn so proudly and so angrily, has some parallels with a sub-culture of aggrieved American blacks.

You spoke of “civilizational and social conflicts” and your role in ameliorating the racial divide in America. I will save that for a further dialogue.

I repeat: Islamophobia is a growing problem because of the easily-led and aggressively violent crowds of Muslims. Muslims are burning embassies, causing Europeans to flee the Middle East, and engaging in kidnapping, extortion, rape, murder, and general mayhem — all of it performed for an audience of appalled and frightened Westerners. As long as large groups of Muslims march, carrying signs that proclaim “Death to Liberty”, I will be an Islamophobe.

However, I reserve the right to pick and choose which Muslims make me paranoid. You’re not one of them.

 
Watch out for breaking news on Jamaat ul-Fuqra.

The Politics of CP has teamed up with the Northeast Intelligence Network for a special investigation of the main JF compound near Deposit, NY, between Hancock and Binghamton.

Members of the Northeast Intelligence Network have conducted a covert field investigation of the encampment, and there are some sample photos up on the teaser pages at both websites.

We’ll let you know when the big story breaks.

For more information, see my earlier posts on the Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound in Red House, Virginia, parts one, two, and three.

 
Yesterday Gates of Vienna received an email from one of the soldiers at CENTCOM charged with communicating with bloggers:

Greetings Baron Bodissey,

My name is SPC Gehlen and I work with the US Central Command public affairs office. I found a link to your site while I was perusing war blogs, and I saw that your site deals with issues concerning the Central Command area of responsibility. I wanted to invite you to check out our website at http://www.centcom.mil.

We provide news/press releases, images, casualty reports and more for anyone interested in the CENTCOM area of responsibility. I want to invite you to place a link to our site on your page if you think that [it]is something your readers would be interested in… You can also sign up for our newsletter here.

Let me know what you think. If you have any additional questions or would like more info, please let me know and I will do what I can to help…

On a personal note, I like history and your tie of modern political landscapes and historical ones is fascinating. Keep up the good work.

We were delighted to hear from this soldier and are glad to fulfill his request. I’ll add a smaller CENTCOM logo and link to the sidebar the next time I update our template.

Being a chickenhawk with no military experience, I am reluctant to write detailed accounts of military matters. But I admire the US military greatly, and commend the milbloggers who have performed a dedicated, crucial service in countering the kinds of “news” that our seditious media refuse to let the American public know. Despite the attempts of those who manipulate news information, milbloggers have prevented them from creating Vietnam Redux and having to suffer the fate of their fathers’ war efforts. Their initiative takes courage.

I recommend that our readers browse on over to CENTCOM and take a look around.

The Danish cartoon controversy had me googling images yesterday, looking for Nazi and Arab depictions of their common Zionist enemy to compare to the blasphemous images of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) published last year in Jyllands-Posten. The German cartoons from the 1930s and the Arab cartoons of recent years are remarkably similar, and there is no shortage of examples.

But the above cartoon particularly caught my eye (click on it to see the larger image). I found it on an Al-Jazeerah cartoon page from 2004, and the caption reads:

Israel seeks more immigrants, from Ethiopia this time: Fallasa Jews running away from poverty in Ethiopia to the conflict with the Palestinian people. (Amjad Rasmi, Arab News, 1/13/04)

Notice that “conflict with the Palestinian people” means being blown up by a grinning suicide bomber lying in wait. Very subtle. There are other things to notice about the cartoon: the Sambo-like caricature of the African, the inclusion of armpit hair in the drawing (is that some kind of Arab insult? Or simple verisimilitude?), and the casual acceptance of the iconic suicide bomber as a normal part of Palestinian “resistance”.

What Al-Jazeerah refers to as “Fallasa” Jews are more commonly known as Falasha. They migrated to Ethiopia so long ago that their exact relation to Israel is not known. Some accounts have them as descendants of one of King Solomon’s sons; others name them the lost tribe of Dan.

A useful article about them, The History of Ethiopian Jews, can be found in the Jewish Virtual Library.

“Once they were kings. A half million strong, they matched their faith with fervor and out-matched the Moslem and Christian tribesmen around them to rule the mountain highlands around Lake Tana. They called themselves Beta Israel—the house of Israel—and used the Torah to guide their prayers and memories of the heights of Jerusalem as they lived in their thatched huts in Ethiopia.

“But their neighbors called them Falashas—the alien ones, the invaders. And even three hundred years of rule, even the black features that matched those of all the people around them did not make the Jews of Ethiopia secure governors of their destiny in Africa” (“Falashas: The Forgotten Jews,” Baltimore Jewish Times, 9 November 1979).

For centuries the Falashas ruled and prospered in Ethiopia as Christianity spread through North Africa. The 7th century, however, brought Islam in conquest to the continent, and the region was thrown into turmoil and violence.

But it was not the legions of the Prophet that devastated the Ethiopian Jews. The surrounding Christian kingdoms fought with them continually, and in the 17th century they were finally reduced, brought into slavery and subjugation, their holy books burned and their chronicles lost.

But they kept alive an oral tradition, continuing to practice their variant of Judaism down to modern times. Then, in the 20th century, the arrival of the new ideological barbarism threatened the Falasha Jews again. With the invasion of Italian Fascists in 1935,

…their stability was greatly threatened as the Italian army marched into Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s ruler, Emperor Haile Selassie fled his country and actually took refuge in Jerusalem for a short time. Selassie returned to power in 1941, but the situation for the Beta Israel improved little.

But with the establishment of Israel after the Second World War, the Jews in Ethiopia had an advocate and source of aid.

In the 1970s Selassie was overthrown in a coup, and Communism came to Ethiopia. The new dictator, Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, began the inevitable collectivization process, and the Jewish communities were ripped open and exposed to the depredations of their ethnically distinct neighbors.

Soon Mariam instituted a policy of “villagization,” relocating millions of peasant farmers onto state-run cooperatives which greatly harmed the Beta Israel by forcing them to “share” their villages—though they were denied the right to own the land—with non-Jewish farmers, resulting in increased levels of anti-Semitism throughout the Gondar Province. According to the Ethiopian government, over 30% of the population had been moved from privately owned farms to cooperatives as of 1989.

Throughout the 1980s a concerted effort was made to evacuate the Falasha Jews and relocate them in Israel before they were completely destroyed by the Mengistu regime. Two large groups were evacuated during the ’8os, but the big opportunity came in 1991, when Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam was overthrown by rebels and fled the country.

There was then a brief window of opportunity for the rescue of the Falasha Jews, before the new rulers in Addis Ababa began their own extermination, or took the Jews hostage.

Rebels claimed control of the capital Addis Ababa shortly thereafter, and the situation of the Beta Israel took top priority in Israel. The Likud government of Yitzhak Shamir authorized a special permit for the Israeli airline, El Al, to fly on the Jewish Sabbath. On Friday, May 24, and continuing non-stop for 36 hours, a total of 34 El Al jumbo jets and Hercules C-130s—seats removed to accommodate the maximum number of Ethiopians—began a new chapter in the struggle for the freedom of Ethiopian Jewry.

Operation Solomon, named for the king from whom one of the theories suggest that the Beta Israel draw their lineage, ended almost as quickly as it began. Timing was crucial, since any delay by Israel could have allowed the rebels to hold the Jews as bargaining chips with Israel or the United States. A total of 14,324 Ethiopian Jews were rescued and resettled in Israel, a modern exodus of the grandest design. Operation Solomon rescued twice the number of Jews in Operation Moses and Joshua, in a mere fraction of the time. Though it is too early to predict their impact on Israeli society, the 36,000 Ethiopian Jews now living in Israel (rescue efforts are under way to transport the remaining 2,100 Ethiopians who wish to emigrate to Israel) will play an important role in Israel for generations to come.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

So there’s the Falasha Jew, fleeing poverty in Ethiopia and running to the demonic welcome awaiting him at the hands of the Paletinians. Why was he significant enough then, 13 years after the last major evacuation from Ethiopia? Why did he rate a nasty Arab News cartoon?

Arabs hold African blacks in low esteem, even if they are Muslim; embracing Islam does not make a black equal to his Arab betters. For centuries they have been brutalized and enslaved by Arab Muslims. So a black African Jew must be the lowest of the low — a Zionist and racial inferior, all rolled into one.

Perhaps that’s the reason for the cartoon. In any case, enjoy the iconography of those who would teach the people of Denmark a thing or two about respectful images.

Update — a reader writes:

It occurs to me that they show the armpit hair as a way of demeaning the Jew. According to various on-line fatwa resources, Muslims are obliged to remove most of their body hair, including pits and privates. I’m guessing that showing body hair that Muslims remove would be demeaning to the Jewish figure in their eyes.

Oddly enough, Ask The Imam says plucking one’s eyebrows as a huge no-no, demonstrating once again that the whole religion is based on Mohammed’s taste. One description of Mohammed seemed to say he had a uni-brow…

 
Here’s the latest news from Yemen:

U.S. Navy ships are helping patrol the international waters off Yemen to try to recapture al Qaeda prison escapees if they try to flee by sea, the Pentagon said in a statement on Thursday.

You’ll recall that this massive military effort is necessary because of a jailbreak in Sanaa last Friday. That was when the mastermind of the Cole bombing and 22 other terrorists tunnelled their way to freedom. According to this UPI story,

Yemeni security officials said Saturday the authorities were searching for twenty-three al-Qaida prisoners who escaped from a detention center in Sanaa.

An official security source said the ministry of defense ordered an immediate investigation into the incident to discover who helped the prisoners escape from the high-security jail supervised by the Yemeni intelligence service.

And the effect this debacle? CNN reports that:

If the fugitives are not caught in the next month, the United States may have to reconsider its presence in Yemen, which includes an embassy and small military contingent in Sanaa, according to the senior sources.

The longer they remain at large, the greater the security risk to Americans inside Yemen, the sources said.

In my post on Tuesday I recommended that we reconsider our strategic alliances with “moderate” Islamic regimes.

I haven’t changed my mind yet.

Consider these facts:

• 23 dangerous high profile al-Qaeda prisoners escaped.
• They dug a tunnel out of a high-security prison.
• Yemen acknowledges that prison officials may have been involved.
• Yemen’s intelligence service was in charge of the prison.
• Americans may no longer be safe in Yemen.

As a result of all this, an expensive and resource-consuming operation has to be mounted by the US Navy, when there are other important strategic tasks it could be performing.

And these people are our allies.

Oh, I’m sure they’re “reliable partners in the war against terror.” I’m certain they throw us an intelligence bone from time to time, and corral some terrorist flunkies to take the fall for Al Qaeda when required.

But it’s hard for me to believe that we’re really getting an adequate bang for our buck.

 
An email from K in New Mexico linked some images which will be of interest to Gates’ readers, fellow travelers, and lurkers-on.

The first is a photo shopped image from ¡No Pasaran! I won’t put it up since it’s very large. However, you will want to see it, and the text which follows the doctored image. Here is the start of his post:

Danish cartoonists are forcing the media to test its own limits, to ask itself what their values really are, if they’ll become aware of their own liberties, as ask themselves why they’re selling granny for a multicultural nickel.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Natalie and Co. at Biased-BBC points out something repetitive inculcation into the buzz have taught me to not notice: while the Beeb refers readily to Mohammed as the “Prophet Mohammed,” I have never once outside of the religious service broadcasts (which disappeared with a smart sounding rationalization more than a decade ago) called Jesus “Lord Jesus Christ”.

No kidding. The journalists here can say “insurgents” until they turn purple with self-satisfaction at their objectivity, but the words “Jesus Lord Christ” on their tele-prompter would reduce them to aphasia.

Now the original painting used by ¡No Pasaran! actually resides here in the states. The Monty Whitley Gallery in Pennsylvania is offering it for sale. Here is a detail from the larger work:

The description reads:

17TH CENTURY PAINTING: “DEFEAT OF THE TURKS AT THE GATES OF VIENNA”
Price: $4950.00
Inventory Number: 14494

The intense battle scene depicts the final defeat of the Turks in 1683 at the gates of Vienna, Austria. The supreme commander of the allied army, General John Sobieski is depicted at the top of the scene directing his troops to victory. Overall size 28″x31″ in a gilt wood frame. Circa 1690. Very nice condition.

Notice the date of the painting. Less than a decade after the battle. For the times, that must have seemed to be like a current news briefing.

And notice that some of the Muslims are black, others appear almost other-worldly.

Darn. Wish I had $4,950.00. Unlike many of those old paintings, this one is a decent size: 28”x31” — not the usual dimensions you find in today’s mass-produced components for making canvasses.

If a person — oh, any old average kind of person — wanted to make a pilgrimage visit the painting, the gallery is in Pennsylvania. Hmmm…at the very least we could go look at it.

I remember standing for hours in line to see the van Gogh collection when it toured the U.S. years ago. And I remember the Baron drooling over v.g.’s lavish use of paint. Gobs of expensive tubes of oil paints had been lavished on his canvasses. But as the Baron reminded me wistfully, Vincent’s brother Theo (a much more successful person than either Vincent or his own 20th century namesake) had the wherewithal to supply Vincent’s paints and materials.

Ah, well. Should you decide you can’t live without this lovely gem, here’s the gallery information, much as it pains me to share it:

MONTY WHITLEY INC
PO Box 107, 6 West Main Street, WAYNESBORO, PA 17268
Phone: (717) 765-4333; Fax: (717) 765-0131
E-Mail: info@montywhitley.com

If you live nearby, consider a pilgrimage visit to study it in person.

What a piece of history. And priced less than some “collector” comic books…never mind, don’t get me started…

At least two that I know of do.

Seamus, a commenter on Theodore Dalrymple Looks at Old Europe left some remarks about (the Republic of) Ireland’s good fortune in not having followed the EU down its socialist, statist dark hole. Of course, he has only to look at Northern Ireland to know just how lucky they are in the south. The once-proud rebels of the IRA have deteriorated into a group of common thugs and terrorists who consort with mobsters and Hamas. And the evidence of such allegiances shows in Northern Ireland’s poor economy and fragile religious peace. But then, who did Northern Ireland have to lead them but the British who so ruinously used them over the centuries. As they would have continued to do to us had we not be strong enough, and far away enough, to break free.

The other supporter of the Danes is one of my Dublin cousins, who happens to have a blog (since before there were blogs) and is not only pro-American and libertarian, but he has a veritable wealth of information on libertarian and freedomist topics. I suggest you visit the website’s home page to see what’s on offer. There is always some enlightening essay.

Today I went to his Moderate Islam page. As is usually the case, he has lots of links to pertinent sub-topics, but I’ll give you a flavor of his content and style:

For me, Islamic fundamentalism is under siege in its home countries, and will eventually lose out to democracy and freedom. The idea that Islamic fundamentalist immigrants could come to the West and eventually threaten our freedoms I find a bit far-fetched.

My instinct is totally pro-immigration, for many reasons:

I believe human rights and western freedoms are universal, and all races can participate.

Around the world, millions of people who live in tyrannies long for freedom and democracy. We have a duty to give pro-democracy activists, anti-communist dissidents, anti-Islamist dissidents and western freedom-lovers a haven. The west is the natural place for them to set up their opposition parties, newspapers, websites and governments-in-exile, which we should support.

We have a duty to give a haven to people fleeing genocide and persecution.

I believe free movement of people, like free trade, is good for the economy. Skilled people move where the work is. Attempts to stop this are like protectionism, and restrict the economy.

I despise anti-immigration movements that are based on ethnic purity. Some of the paleo-conservatives seem to be in or near this territory. I think the desire for ethnic purity is one of the single worst ideas in human history. My country, the Republic of Ireland, is far too ethnically pure already, having lost most of its ancient Protestant and Anglo-Irish population. In general, ethnic purity is a sign of failure. Immigration is a sign of success.

Having said all that, there is one troubling issue:

How about letting in people who hate you and threaten you? To oppose immigration per se (or be against all immigrants once they are in) seems racist to me. But the western left ignores the fact that immigrants may hate western freedoms, and want to end them, and force their primitive, barbarous ideas on me. Obviously, not all immigrants have been threatening like this, so we must be careful to focus on the ones who have issued such threats. At the moment this category consists almost entirely of Islamists who openly want to destroy our freedom and some day set up sharia law in Europe.

My response to the existence of such appalling people is as follows:

Let in freedom-lovers, exclude freedom-haters. – Yes, I agree that people who hate western freedoms should not be allowed in. Islamist activists should not be let in, even if they are being persecuted. West-haters can be hard to identify on arrival, though. You need to be careful that your rules and checks do not exclude democracy-loving Muslims who are fleeing Islamist religious states. These are exactly the people you want to let in.

I’ve never met Mark, or any of my Irish relatives. My mother was born in Dublin, and my father was born in Limerick. But the tales of my family are too sad to carry back and forth across the Atlantic. So I know my cousin only through his work, which I much admire.

For sure all my libertarian friends will find his intellectual leanings congenial. Perhaps they could visit Dublin University and chat him up while they’re busy dropping tourist dollars on Eire.

Oh…by the way, what Mark said about “racial purity” is spot on. When I married the Baron, my mother remarked dryly that it was about time we widened the genetic pool. He’s Anglo-Saxo-German-French with a bit of Scots-Irish thrown in for good measure.

 
Okay, everybody, we have official kosher halal support for buying Danish and here’s the proof.

Actually, I tried to buy some tinned food from a Danish site (I love paté). I ordered thirty dollars worth of things, but when I got to the checkout line they needed sixty dollars in shipping fees. Supporting the post office just isn’t the same.

Anybody wanna send me some Danish cookies? The butter kind, s’il vous plait. Of course, if you see any Danish paté, skip the cookies..

Hat tip: The Pink Flamingo Bar and Grill

A kind reader, Eamon, sent this screen capture. This is what you get if you go to The Study of Revenge.

Somehow, I think that other webpage designers are going to find themselves with new customers.

 
Want to see something interesting? Visit The Study of Revenge. The first time you click on to the site you’ll get a warning page from Google that the site is “questionable.”

You can decide for yourself whether or not it’s a dangerous place. Perhaps, if your name is Mohammed, you may find his art work offensive.

I can’t remember the exact wording. Had I known you only get it the FIRST time, I’d have done a screen capture for your edification.

The censors are coming…

Never mind….they’re already here.

 
Dymphna is down with bronchitis or something similar, and I have to take her to the doctor this morning.

We’re not sure when anyone will be here manning the Gates, but keep checking back. Or read some of the comments: Mussolini and El Jefe Maximo had some interesting conversations last night.

Or check some of our blogroll. For military affairs, see
Air Force Family, The Adventures of Chester, and ThreatsWatch.

For anti-jihad, see Counterterrorism Blog, CDR Salamander, Cuanas, Always on Watch, Infidel Bloggers Alliance, Liberty and Culture , and Northern Virginiastan.

Neo-neocon is always worth a visit.

For shrinks, see Shrinkwrapped, Sigmund, Carl and Alfred, and Dr. Sanity.

And for the real news, see Florida Cracker.

I won’t argue with Wretchard.

I don’t generally argue with Wretchard, because a close reading of any Belmont Club post shows that Wretchard is almost always right. So anything I say here will be mainly a shift in emphasis.

In his post on Saturday, Wretchard compared the period between 9-11 and the Mohammed Cartoon Crisis with the “Phoney War”, the period between Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September of 1939 and the onset of actual warfare in May of the following year. The appeasement that led up to the war was a strategic calculation by the West, designed to push Hitler eastward and cause the two great dictators to destroy each other. The failure of this French and British strategy left the West relatively undefended, and brought on the great conflagration that followed.

It is an old and familiar story which bears repeating because it illustrates how far leaders can be trapped by webs of their own making. Like the politicians of the 1930s the leaders of the West after September 11 each made their own calculation. In America’s case it took the shape of thinking that it could make common cause with the most enlightened elements of Islamic civilization against fundamentalist extremists who were vying for Islam’s soul. The strategy for achieving this goal, though reviled as simplistic, was anything but: America would not pick a fight with Islam itself. Rather it would make itself Islam’s friend, ally with its most moderate elements, overthrow its worst oppressors and enlist the aid of the Muslim everyman against the Osama Bin Ladens of the world. In practice it would build a web of relationships with intelligence services, soldiers, intellectuals and politicians in Islamic countries who would provide the information and in cases the manpower to hunt down fundamentalist villains. The War on Terror would be to wars what Smart Bombs were to bombs. It would destroy the miscreants while leaving the surrounding structure untouched. It may be that Europe’s calculation was more cynical. But it was equally sophisticated. It would pursue a policy of Appeasement which like Chamberlain’s was calculated to drive one nuisance against another, pitting America against Islamic fundamentalism in the hopes that one would wear the other out. And the key to Europe’s establishing its bona fides with Islamic countries was to make nice at every opportunity; avoid giving offense; be lavish with aid; open to immigration and obstructive to America at every turn. Like the appeasers of the 1930s it paid for its diplomatic strategy by systematically weakening itself.

The crisis over the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed has ironically struck the weakest point of both strategies. At present the crisis is not a danger to the grand strategies of either. But as the days pass the danger grows that it may get out of hand; that some Islamic cell may detonate a bomb in Europe or some skinhead burn a mosque. And then the consequences may incalculable. For America an open antipathy between the West and Islam would destroy its carefully crafted attempt to ally itself with the Muslim street. It would place Washington in the intolerable position of having to choose between its old European allies and its newfound friends in the Middle East and Central Asia. For Europe the consequences would be no less disastrous because in following the policy of Appeasement its leaders have risked falling so far behind their publics that they now find themselves unable to steer the course of popular events. Europe is angry and Chirac, like Chamberlain after the Sudeten crisis, is too far behind the curve of popular opinion to seize its leadership. Chamberlain understood it and brought Churchill into his cabinet to bolster his credentials when he himself had none.

If you read closely, you’ll notice that Wretchard describes the American strategy, but he does not venture an opinion on the wisdom of it. So I’ll go out on a limb and venture one myself.

The American strategy – to make alliances with “moderate” Islamic states and organizations against the extremist ones – was an absolute necessity at the start of this war. Even if our leaders were willing to take action over the objections of all the other nations of the West, our operations would have been impaired by our lack of actionable intelligence. With almost no speakers of Arabic or Pashtun in our intelligence stable, the two landmark victories in Afghanistan in Iraq would have taken years longer, and cost many more American lives. Thus it was necessary to co-opt the locals in the initial phase of the “Long War”.

But we may have already reached the point of diminishing returns. People in Iraq and Afghanistan, egged on by their religious leaders, are rioting against freedom of speech in Denmark. Is it really possible to make common cause with these countries for any length of time?

We can hope that the democratic institutions we have planted there will take root and grow, and that someday, maybe in our great-grandchildren’s time, Iraq and Afghanistan may join the civilized world.

But in the meantime, it behooves us to consider the people we’re dealing with. Iran, sandwiched between Iraq and Afghanistan, is undeterred by the presence of the American military on two of its borders. Its leader is a madman acting under the mandate of Allah, charged by the Divine to foment violence and increase chaos on this earth so as to immanentize the eschaton.

Hitler was a madman, too, but his deranged appetite longed for satisfaction in this world, not the next. Ahmadinejad is of a different breed – when our enemy cannot be counted on to act rationally in his own interests, the conflict we face is indeed apocalyptic.

But never mind our enemies – what about our allies?

Until the Danish cartoons created the current crisis, it was not clear how closely the religious ideology of the “moderates” matched that of the “extremists”. Now the glass has lost some of its darkness. The “moderates” have taken to the streets to proclaim their duties against the defamers of Islam, no matter their location. If these are our friends…

All right then, forget the Arab street. What about its palaces? When we look to our “friends” the Saudis, we find one of the most repressive and dictatorial regimes on the face of this Earth.

And can it truly be said of King Abdullah that “he may be a thug, but at least he’s our thug”? Like the late Yasser Arafat, the king has one thing to say in English when he talks to the Western press and holds hands with our President, and another in Arabic when he’s at home making nice with his imams and keeping the women down. Of how much utility is this kind of “friendship”?

And then there are the Palestinian “moderates” with whom Secretary Rice is so avid to engage in the “dialogue of peace”. How many of them can you find? And when you do, how many of those will survive the first six months of a Hamas government?

It’s time to assess realistically the strategic calculation of our current policies.

Our enemies may be comparable to Hitler, but then our allies would have to be compared with Stalin. Communism was an insane ideology, and Stalin was ruthless, cruel, calculating, and evil, but his eye was always for the main chance.

The Millennium announced by the Communists was to be realized right here in this world, here in the “old chaos of the sun”. When it came down to it, the Soviet leader, the Soviet soldier, and the Soviet peasant all wanted to live.

I’m not so sure the same can be said for all our current allies. How many of them share the same dream of entering the afterlife while killing as many infidels as possible?

And how much are we prepared to risk in order to maintain this alliance? Do we want the Danes to back down and surrender a portion of their freedom of speech to appease the Umma? And will we ask the same of Americans?

That would be the equivalent of throwing Poland off the boat in 1939, of saying to Hitler, “Go on, you can have it. Those Poles mean nothing to us.”

Will we surrender what we’re fighting for to appease the millenialists of Islam?

What kind of strategy would that be?