When the outcome of a tragedy is known in advance, it finds ways of occurring earlier than expected. In this case, the fate of 100,000 Serbian Christians who remain in Kosovo may pre-empt the debate over Europe's eventual absorption into the Muslim world.
A new book on the Islamification of Europe appears almost weekly, adding to the efforts of Ben Wattenberg, Oriana Fallaci, Bat Ye'or, George Weigel, Mark Steyn, Philip Jenkins and a host of others. Scholars debate whether the decline and fall of Europe will occur by mid-century, or might be postponed until 2100. The inconvenient Serbs may force the issue on Europe a great deal sooner.
If Serbia and Russia draw a line in the sand over the independence of Kosovo, we may observe the second occasion in history when a Muslim advance on Europe halted on Serbian soil. The first occurred in 1456, three years after the fall of Constantinople, when Sultan Mehmed II was thrown back from the walls of Belgrade, "The White City", by Hungarian and Serb defenders. The Siege of Belgrade "decided the fate of Christendom", wrote the then Pope Calixtus III. Not for nothing did J R R Tolkien name his fictional stronghold of Minas Tirith "The White City".
Continued on Page 49
#1
"But there are limits to what the Orthodox Christian world will tolerate"
Not so far, unfortunately.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/27/2007 12:52 Comments ||
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#2
Best thing I read all week. I will convert to whatever branch of Christianity is prepared to engage in a Crusade. Ethiopian, Serbian, etc. It's all good.
#3
Contrary to American propaganda at the time, no massacres had occurred;
Big claims should be accompanied by sources, or evidence and I believe that's a pretty freaking big claim.
Having said that after all the moral and physical support the Kosovo muslims have provided during the War on Terror I don't think they should count on Western help a second time. We should have pulled our troops out of the region on Sept 12 anyway. Let the Europeans handle it.
#4
To be honest I always felt Bush Sr/Clinton screwed the pooch on the whole Balkans thing. At the time you've got Russian troops in East Germany and a Russia without the money to pull them back immediately. You've got Russia trying to act like a big power as they slid into the third world. You've got a peacekeeping problem where one side cannot trust anyone in the world but Russia.
The US should have paid to move the Russian troops into the Balkans, painted their helmets blue, and made sure the world watched carefully so they could have their pride and not look the other way on Serbian atrocities. Should have made Russia an ally instead of sticking a thumb in their eye.
#5
No modern people have proven a greater inconvenience than the Serbs.
Yes, and thanks again for sparking off World War I, guys. I know they're bummed they couldn't spark off World War III somewhere in the remains of the former Yugoslavia, but thanks for trying, anyway.
Last summer, at the height of the Second Lebanon War, two intellectuals specializing in security affairs met for a conversation. For the Israeli of the pair, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya's Boaz Ganor, it was an opportunity to vent his frustration.
"We talked about the frustration we had over how the world was relating to the war, mainly the claim that Israel wasn't responding with 'proportionality,'" Ganor told The Jerusalem Post this week.
"I was saying that, in fact, the whole concept of asymmetrical warfare was reversed," he continued. "In Lebanon you had an organization with very great military power, thousands of Katyusha missiles, anti-tank and anti-aircraft capabilities, the direct assistance of at least two states, and able to fight without any norms, and using Israel's limitations in harming civilians as a multiplier of their capabilities."
How did the West misunderstand what Hizbullah represented in terms of the rules of war? For Ganor, the problem is that the rules of war - whether the Hague Convention of 1907 that regulates the conduct of battle or the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 that protects civilians caught in a war situation - were not crafted to deal with present-day insurgents who endanger civilians as a pillar of their strategy.
#2
"We talked about the frustration we had over how the world was relating to the war, mainly the claim that Israel wasn't responding with 'proportionality,'" Ganor told The Jerusalem Post this week.
A proportionate response would be for Israel to attempt to do to their enemies exactly what their enemies are attempting to do to them, i.e. wage a holy war of extermination. The fact Israel does not do so is a testament to their profound love of life and, perhaps, their misunderstanding of the existential threat that faces them.
#3
And I beg to differ. The laws of war were crafted precisely to deal with savages acting without regard to civilian life. The problem is nobody bothers to enforce the treaties to which they are signatories. All "terrorists" and "jihadis" should more properly be understood as the pirates they are; to be executed upon capture and their holdings confiscated.
#4
We are faced with fighting relgious nut terrorists who have no rules of war. If these SOBs are not shown terror in an overwhelming response, they are never going to quit doing what they are doing. You have to out terror the terrorists. Let them know the true magnitude of terror.
#5
It seems that some folks have gone so far as to assign a description to the current crop of non-uniformed enemy combatants such that they actually are uniformed members of a nation, that nation being Islam.
I think this is a completely wrong-headed reinterpretation of what the terrorists represent and I believe we should stick with what the Geneva Conventions state about terrorists and non-uniformed enemy combatants - they can and should be shot on the battlefield without fear of courts martial or being accused of committing a war crime by the uniformed soldiers undertaking the executions.
#7
The conventions clearly spell out what is forbidden and allowed, but deliberately steer clear from explicitly saying "Those who violate this treaty are to be punished as follows:" I think that was a loophole instilled in the treaty from the beginning by the bleeding heart liberals of the time in hopes that their voice would be taken as the authority for judging such reprisals. The subterfuge has worked.
#8
Its actually damaging to the GC to accord terrorists (or armed forces who do not abide by the GC) the same rights as uniformed soldiers of a nation who *does* abide by the GC.
For one there is then no incentive for others to abide by the GC for our captured soldiers or to protect civilians (and not hide behind them as in the case of Syria in Lebannon or Iran in Iraq). Why should Iran or China abode by the GC with our captured soldiers when it won't cost them anything not to.
The GC should be *enforced* - both sides, the treatment of lawful combatants and the treatment of unlawful combatants.
We should make this crystal clear to our enemies (including the Donks and Useless Nitwits) that we will abode but the full Geneva Conventions and then back it up by actually doing it and start executing terrorists and Iraninan officers (caught in Iran aiding terrorists) in the field.
We don't even need Congress to approve it - they already did by approving the GC.
#9
In a war for existence, such as the one being fought between Islam and the rest of the world, there should only one rule:
Win.
The alternative is extinction.
#10
The enforcement mechanism for the Geneva Convention is supposed to be mutuality. If one combatant executes POWs, for instance, the other is freed of the requirement to observe the convention with respect to the violator, and may even be permitted reprisals. The problem is that today's "International Law Industry" wants the Convention to apply strictly to the civilized world (us) no matter what our enemies do. Hence, the delicate concern for the poor dears at Guantanamo Bay.
The one thing I wish W had done early on would be to announce very clearly that since al-Qaida is not observing the laws of war, the Geneva Convention specifically permits the United States to execute all al-Qaida prisoners. If we choose not not to shoot them immediately, it is only because of our choice to exercise restraint. We can change our minds at any time.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/27/2007 12:55 Comments ||
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#11
"In Lebanon you had an organization with very great military power, thousands of Katyusha missiles, anti-tank and anti-aircraft capabilities, the direct assistance of at least two states, and able to fight without any norms, and using Israel's limitations in harming civilians as a multiplier of their capabilities."
To hell with the terrorists. It is the sponsors that require the real attention. Without their funding the terrorists become irrelevant.
Of equal importance to financial support is ideological support. This is why Islam's clerical aristocracy must be put in the crosshairs as well. They are just as responsible for the carnage and mayhem. Both forms of support must be met with a death sentence.
If these SOBs are not shown terror in an overwhelming response, they are never going to quit doing what they are doing. You have to out terror the terrorists. Let them know the true magnitude of terror.
This is the moral dilemma that confronts us and, should be prove unable to overcome our squeamishness, it will spell our doom.
With each terrorist atrocity, a major Muslim metropolis should be obliterated within the succeeding 24 hours. This must be such a routine response that whenever al-Jazeera trumpets about another terrorist attack, Muslims run screaming from their homes. We must continue this policy until each terrorist attack results in Muslims mobbing their local mosque to slit the imam's throat.
In a feat of prestidigitation worthy of a Houdini, Islam has foisted its housecleaning duties upon the West. We have ZERO obligation to sort out the jihadis from their midst. That is their own responsibility and NO ONE else's. Nowhere are we obliged to be so delicate in how we respond to Islam's continued predations. Should Islam refuse to eradicate its jihadist population, we must respond by doing it for them on a massive scale.
Only by dint of force will Muslims be made to understand the urgency of this task. They must be made to suffer dearly for any reluctance or delay. With each new terrorist atrocity Muslims must find whole clans wiped from the face of this earth. Eventually, those Muslims who wish to survive will finally respond by killing off the radical elements that threaten us all. The West must invert terrorism's asymmetrical threat by multiplying Muslim injuries to such an extent that jihadism becomes a threat to Islam's very existence.
#12
The one thing I wish W had done early on would be to announce very clearly that since al-Qaida is not observing the laws of war, the Geneva Convention specifically permits the United States to execute all al-Qaida prisoners. If we choose not not to shoot them immediately, it is only because of our choice to exercise restraint. We can change our minds at any time.
#13
Lots of spot-on comments here. The Israeli analyst is clearly a bright guy on top of the subject in general, but the Conventions are not the problem.
As Excalibur points out, and CrazyFool amplifies, the Conventions are in fact quite relevant, and yet attempts to accommodate the new situation posed by AQ-type criminals in fact weaken the Conventions by rendering their terms meaningless.
There is a need to update the Conventions (does anyone ever wonder why there are FOUR Conventions, each representing an update for new or unanticipated issues?), but there is a split in the US side as to whether - given the state of the world today, esp. its irrational anti-US animus - there is more potential for mayhem than benefit in convening another meeting. (at least this was the case the last time I spoke with someone from the relevant office, about a year ago)
One of my top pet-peeves (that's saying something!) for years has been yet another limp, inept administration response to counter-factual slander in the case of the Conventions. In fact the US is APPLYING the rules, taking their language seriously, in dealing with the outlaws of international terrorism, whose situation is NOT adequately addressed in Geneva 4 or elsewhere. The scum lie OUTSIDE existing rules, so the US has prudently and honorably extended whatever protections it judges do not hamper the righteous effort to snuff out this menace to humanity, while recognizing these are unilateral acts, not compelled by treaties that never anticipated and do not adequately cover the present situation.
Here's one way in which the administration's refusal to engage, to defend, to refute has damaged the country and probably for the medium term at least. The terms of discussion are now successfully distorted such that ripping up the Conventions by just making up what they mean (i.e., pretending that AQ qualifies as POWs, etc.) is the "morally respectable" and "internationally legitimate" option. In fact, as CrazyFool points out, the ones undermining the Conventions are those seeking to cram AQ within their obsolescent confines (to include, incredibly, the ICRC, which is all about safeguarding their "legal museum" as one commentator aptly put it, and not carrying out their core mission of promoting the Conventions).
This was not an impossible case to make, but it was never even attempted.
And let's not even start about the SCOTUS just making s**t up and imposing a preposterous definition of Common Article 3 on the US, not just going Orwellian in terms of language but nicely usurping executive and legislative power in one swoop by imposing commitments the constitutionally empowered branches had specifically rejected, with cause, in the course of their duties WRT the treaty power.
...Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.
Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.
...The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.
Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying."
...That is my idea of how it could be done. The desire to do so on the part of the American people is another question altogether, but one clearly raised again by the Blacksburg tragedy.
Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat, is a member of the editorial boards of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Scratch a liberal, sniff a totalitarian...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/27/2007 12:50 ||
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#1
This is one of the dumbest posts I've ever read.
Imagine the beaurocracy involved in getting everyone to hand over their guns. "Whoops, my guns were all stolen, I didn't report it because I didn't notice until I had to turn my gun in."
Well Officer Fred, seems that 98% of the list has had their weapons stolen recently.
#4
And before anyone starts to hyperventilate and think I'm a crazed liberal zealot wanting to take his gun from his cold, dead hands, let me share my experience of guns.
Actually, you sound like a Nazi disguised as a crazed liberal zealot wanting to take somebody's gun from his cold, dead hands.
Since I don't even own a gun, could I have a job on the home invasion squad, kicking down doors and rousting those pesky gun owning citizens. Shaking down granny and her walker sounds like fun too. Could I shoot her in the head with her own gun if I found one on her? That'll teach her...
#7
I'd bet that this guy has called a dozen different people "facists" this week, and all without a trace of irony.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
04/27/2007 15:27 Comments ||
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#8
And what's this idiot planning to do with all the lgeal concealed carry states and all the legal gun-toting citizens therein?
C'mon, you Nazi! Just try it. You want to start a war? 'Cause that's just what you'd be doing.
Americans wouldn't tolerate this for a second, but some of these weasels just don't seem to understand exactly what it is that would happen if they tried this kind of stupidity.
#9
Bring it on, Danny boy! I've got some 7.62 x 39 just waiting to ventilate you from hell to breakfast. What the sons of whores advocating this stuff don't understand is that the day this happens is the day that CWII starts. I'd fight to the death to keep my guns because I'd know that if they killed me in the fight, it would at least be a quick and relatively clean death. Once they take your right to defend yourself, you're living in a Clockwork Orange world, where you'll still die, but it will be slow and very horrible. Think of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. If I go, it won't be quietly. I promise I'll be taking some of the bastards with me.
Posted by: Mac ||
04/27/2007 18:19 Comments ||
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#10
This is a smokescreen. No records exist for too many guns, and a lot of those gunowners will bury Grandpa's Garand in the backyard before turning it over to anyone.
I suspect the way they'll actually go is through ammunition. No Second Amendment issues. Ease into it by imposing ever-increasing taxes - "to offset the medical costs of treating gunshot wounds." Eventually ban ammo (and powder) sales outright (corporations are lots easier to control than individuals.) It won't be long before shooters either run out or get out of practice. Criminalize black market like they do drugs - soon the good people will be in jail, or disarmed.
Watch this prediction. It's a sneaky tactic - just the sort of thing you would expect from the government. Fight it as you can, but expect sooner or later it will get ugly.
#11
An America in which the 2nd and 4th Amendments to the Constitution have been flushed down the shitter (along with, as an inevitable consequence, the 1st Amendment) would not be an America worth living in. If I have to die-- or kill-- to prevent it, I will.
It's as simple as that.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/27/2007 18:34 Comments ||
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#12
The Blade is a liberal rag. This article represents the wet dream of some gun grabbing liberal nitwit fuzz head who is not in touch with reality. At first I thought this was a Scrappleface but alas.
#13
Glenmore, your post reminds of a Chris Rock bit. He talked about $500 bullets. "Man, I'm gonna get a job and get some money and kill you!" That sort of thing.
#14
the poor cops would be the ones suffering the backlash, unless someone were to, say, ....actually notice and record who's behind it. "Making a list, checking it twice..."
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/27/2007 19:45 Comments ||
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#15
I'm arriving at the conclusion that this is a very broad satire. It just has to be. Isn't it....?
Posted by: Jonathan ||
04/27/2007 20:33 Comments ||
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#16
There is nothing on earth that motivates me more to buy guns and scads of ammunition than tripe like this.
For 50 years in America, whenever the subject has turned to what our culture presents, the bright response has been, "You don't like it? Change the channel." But there is no other channel to change to, no safe place to click to. Our culture is national. The terrorizing of children is all over.
Click. Smug and menacing rappers.
Click. "This is Bauer. He's got a nuke and he's going to take out Los Angeles."
Click. Rosie grabs her crotch. "Eat this." Ick.
Click. "Every day 2,000 children are reported missing . . ."
Click. Don Imus's face. Quick, go back to Rosie!
Click. "Eyewitnesses say the shooter then lined the students up . . ."
Click. An antismoking campaign on local New York television. A man growls out how he felt when they found his cancer. He removes a bib and shows us the rough red hole in his throat. He holds a microphone to it to deliver his message.
Don't smoke, he says.
This is what TV will be like in Purgatory. . . .
Children are both brave and fearful. They'll walk up to a stranger and say something true that a grown-up would fear to say. But they are also subject to terrors, some of them irrational, and to anxieties. They need a stable platform on which to stand. From it they will be likely to step forward into steady adulthood. Without it, they will struggle; they will be less daring in their lives because life, they know, is frightful and discouraging.
We are not giving the children of our country a stable platform. We are instead giving them a soul-shaking sense that life is unsafe, incoherent, full of random dread. And we are doing this, I think, for three reasons.
One is politics--our political views, our cultural views, so need to be expressed and are, God knows, so much more important than the peace of a child. Another is money--there's money in the sickness that is sold to us. Everyone who works at a TV network knew ratings would go up when the Cho tapes broke.
But another reason is that, for all our protestations about how sensitive we are, how interested in justice, how interested in the children, we are not. We are interested in politics. We are interested in money. We are interested in ourselves.
We are frightening our children to death, and I'll tell you what makes me angriest. I am not sure the makers of our culture fully notice what they are doing, what impact their work is having, because the makers of our culture are affluent. Affluence buys protection. You can afford to make your children safe. You can afford the constant vigilance needed to protect your children from the culture you produce, from the magazine and the TV and the CD and the radio. You can afford the doctors and tutors and nannies and mannies and therapists, the people who put off the TV and the Internet and offer conversation.
In many cases, the makers of our culture don't even have children.
If you have money in America, you can hire people who compose the human chrysalis that protect the butterflies of the upper classes as they grow. The lacking, the poor, the working and middle class--they have no protection. Their kids are on their own. And they're scared.
Too bad no one cares in this big sensitive country of ours.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/27/2007 05:33 ||
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Posted by: no mo uro ||
04/27/2007 7:16 Comments ||
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#3
She has a point. Although perhaps not the one she intends. The fearmongers target the children (and their adult equivalents) precisely because they are susceptible.
Global Warming is a classic example of we can't convince them with rational evidence based argument therefore we will get them them with irrational fears target at their general ignorance of the world.
Children == Liberals == Children
That's pretty much all you need to know to make sense of the modern world.
#8
The more sinister problem is not an over-abundance of fear used as a motivator. It is the constant indoctrination of victim-hood for the masses. All the examples that Noonan cites are packaged with someone or something to blame and the insinuation that there will be someone or something to provide a solution. A narcissistic loser sees vindication for his pathetic life by slaughtering scores of unarmed people. He believes that his wretched existence was unfairly thrust upon him. However irrational that may seem to others, he knows so-called experts willing to blame classicism or racism as the cause will openly dissect his narrative. Hundreds of Young Adults cower in fear as only one lunatic armed with only two handguns executes dozens of their classmates without any lifting a finger in an attempt of stopping him. They truly are victims of senseless violence and deserve sincere condolences. However offensive as this may be, many of them were programmed to be lemmings by a culture that has spoon-fed them from cradle to premature grave that someone will always be there to protect them. In the end they are added to the growing list of Victims of Victimization.
#13
eltoroverde, I new one of the victims. She was a lovely young lady looking forward to a carrier in chemical engineering. She was naive about the evil out there. She had no prior experience with violence, hence, she had no idea how to react. I feer we have sat idally by while the "hear no evil, see no evil, don't teach about evil" educational system has brainwashed our progeny. The mindset of "feeling" safe rather than being safe has triumphed in this instance.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/27/2007 19:47 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
