[Townhall] When Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the Byzantine Empire and its capital had up to that point survived for 1,000 years beyond the fall of the Western Empire at Rome.
Always outnumbered in a sea of enemies, the Byzantines' survival had depended on its realist diplomacy of dividing its enemies, avoiding military quagmires, and ensuring constant deterrence.
Generations of self-sacrifice ensured ample investment for infrastructure. Each generation inherited and improved on singular aqueducts and cisterns, sewer systems, and the most complex and formidable city fortifications in the world.
Brilliant scientific advancement and engineering gave the empire advantages like swift galleys and flamethrowers - an ancient precursor to napalm.
The law reigned supreme for nearly a millennium after the emperor Justinian codified a prior 1,000 years of Roman jurisprudence.
Yet this millennium-old crown jewel of the ancient world that once was home to 800,000 citizens had only 50,000 inhabitants left when it fell.
There were only 7,000 defenders on the walls to hold back a huge Turkish army of over 150,000 attackers.
The Islamic winners took over the once magical city of Constantine and renamed it Istanbul. It had been the home of the renowned Santa Sophia, the largest Christian church in the world for over 900 years. Almost immediately, this "Church of the Holy Wisdom" was converted into the then largest mosque in the Islamic world, with minarets to follow.
So what happened to the once indomitable city fortress and its empire?
Christendom had cannibalized itself. Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy fought endlessly. Westerners often hated each other more than they did their common enemy.
In the final days of Constantinople, almost no help was sent from Western Europe to the besieged city.
In fact 250 years earlier, the Western Franks of the Fourth Crusade had detoured from the Holy Land to storm the supposedly allied Christian City of Constantinople. Then they ransacked it and hijacked the Byzantine Empire for a half-century. Constantinople never quite recovered.
The 14th-century Black Plague killed tens of thousands of Byzantines and scared thousands more into moving out of the cramped city.
But the aging and dying empire battled more than the challenges of internal divisions, or an unforeseen but deadly pandemic and the empire's disastrous responses to it.
The last generations of Byzantines had inherited a global reputation and standard of living that they themselves no longer earned.
They neglected their former civic values and fought endless battles over obscure religious texts, doctrines, and vocabulary.
They did not expand their anemic army and navy. They did not reunite their scattered Greek-speaking empire. They did not properly maintain their once life-giving walls.
Instead of earning money through their accustomed nonstop trade, they inflated their currency and were forced to melt down the city's inherited gold and silver fixtures.
Rantburg’s own Fred Pruitt addresses the question of what to do as a citizen of a decaying empire in his freestanding science fiction novel Karl Redhand.
#1
The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
Dylan Mulvaney is an American actress and transgender rights activist known for detailing her gender transition in daily videos on TikTok. She has over 10 million followers on TikTok, while her video series, Days of Girlhood, has received over one billion views.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/17/2023 6:48 Comments ||
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#3
Funny you say that. I was enjoying an adult beverage the other evening when it occurred to me it seems leftist policies are exactly the warning stories in The Bible.
Sexual deviancy destroys communities? Put groomers in grade schools.
Save for the lean during times of fat? Knock down the dams.
People en masse communicating with each other? Destroy language.
Posted by: Chris ||
03/17/2023 15:43 Comments ||
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#5
The umpteenth commandment: Thou shalt not commit adulthood.
Posted by: Thramp Smiter of the Brontosaurs9656 ||
03/17/2023 22:11 Comments ||
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#6
Meshugenah Peggy's Shenanigan
"Protect your trans kids," rants Ms. Flanagan,
"Cutting trivial bits
Like their nuts or their tits
So they can't be a woman or man again!"
Posted by: Thramp Smiter of the Brontosaurs9656 ||
03/17/2023 23:28 Comments ||
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[KhaamaPress] The Islamic State militants in Afghanistan will have the potential to attack American or Western interests outside the country in less than six months, the top commander for US forces in the Middle East said on Thursday.
Army General Michael Kurilla, who leads US Central Command, told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that Islamic State’s Khorasan Province, commonly known as ISIS-K, is rapidly growing in Afghanistan, with the potential to launch “overseas operations” in Europe and Asia.
The terrorist group will not be able to attack the US homeland in the near future, however, hundreds of Americans outside the country will face immediate threats from the insurgent group, according to Michael Kurilla.
Following the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, civil and military American officials said that the United States has the ability to target terrorist groups in Afghanistan from a distance.
The killing of Al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a counter-terrorism operation by the CIA in the Afghan capital city of Kabul in August 2021, justifies the US’s ability to target terrorist groups in Afghanistan and beyond.
Kurilla acknowledged that the quality of US intelligence has degraded since the pullout from Afghanistan, and conducting counterterrorism operations has become difficult but not impossible. He said his command is working to close the intelligence gap using sophisticated technologies that can stay in the air for days and weeks to enhance gathering accurate intelligence on terror groups.
Since the return of the Taliban to power in August 2021, ISIS-K is responsible for killing and injuring at least 700 people in Afghanistan, according to Human Rights Watch. The terrorist group carried out four high-profile attacks from December-January 2022, hitting Afghanistan’s foreign ministry, the military section of Kabul’s airport, the Pakistani embassy, and a hotel housing Chinese guests, according to the nonprofit Counter Extremism Project.
Security remains a significant challenge for Afghanistan’s de facto authorities among other critical issues, such as poverty, unemployment, and economic challenges. The Islamic State militants in Afghanistan will have the potential to attack American or Western interests outside the country in less than six months, the top commander for US forces in the Middle East said on Thursday.
Army General Michael Kurilla, who leads US Central Command, told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that Islamic State’s Khorasan Province, commonly known as ISIS-K, is rapidly growing in Afghanistan, with the potential to launch “overseas operations” in Europe and Asia.
The terrorist group will not be able to attack the US homeland in the near future, however, hundreds of Americans outside the country will face immediate threats from the insurgent group, according to Michael Kurilla.
Following the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, civil and military American officials said that the United States has the ability to target terrorist groups in Afghanistan from a distance.
The killing of Al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a counter-terrorism operation by the CIA in the Afghan capital city of Kabul in August 2021, justifies the US’s ability to target terrorist groups in Afghanistan and beyond.
Kurilla acknowledged that the quality of US intelligence has degraded since the pullout from Afghanistan, and conducting counterterrorism operations has become difficult but not impossible. He said his command is working to close the intelligence gap using sophisticated technologies that can stay in the air for days and weeks to enhance gathering accurate intelligence on terror groups.
Since the return of the Taliban to power in August 2021, ISIS-K is responsible for killing and injuring at least 700 people in Afghanistan, according to Human Rights Watch. The terrorist group carried out four high-profile attacks from December-January 2022, hitting Afghanistan’s foreign ministry, the military section of Kabul’s airport, the Pakistani embassy, and a hotel housing Chinese guests, according to the nonprofit Counter Extremism Project.
Security remains a significant challenge for Afghanistan’s de facto authorities among other critical issues, such as poverty, unemployment, and economic challenges.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/17/2023 02:57 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[12 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Army General Michael Kurilla, who leads US Central Command
#3
He was awarded a Bronze Star with "V" device after a battle in Mosul in which he "was shot three times but continued to fire back at insurgents while directing his troops"
I think he was using his middle name then - LTC Erik Kurilla - and the Mosul story was documented by Michael Yon as Gates of Fire.
It had me on the edge of my seat.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/17/2023 15:09 Comments ||
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#4
I guess we better go back then. Fuckin idiots, I don't even know why I read the news anymore.
Posted by: Chris ||
03/17/2023 15:42 Comments ||
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#1
Because the woke left destroys and corrupts everything it touches into their hive mind Borg like assimilation.
The whole point is to overload and capsize the system, they call it: Cloward-Piven Strategy. And if anyone doubts me, if they werent trying to bankrupt the system, what and how would they do anything different.
And these banks and other financials, this is how the fund their social change projects, how they fund and bankroll their thought leaders.
If these institutions spend obsessive amounts of money on social impact project while not making a dime, they are okay with that. Bailouts are fine. Because the end justifies the means and they dont take over these institutions for profit and to make a better product, they are taken over to centrally plan societal change. And I hope I live to see this change immolated.
#2
I never get tired of telling people I know who are dems "you voted for this."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/17/2023 13:24 Comments ||
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#3
Zuckerberg organizations dumped $400 million into largely Dem areas to install Biden as POTUS. So far no one has answered for any of this. Now, we the taxpayers are going to end up financing these failed big tech banks and possibly the CCP who had money in these banks.
#6
JohnQC Janet Yellen said this morning that CCP depositors WILL be paid in the bailout.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/17/2023 16:29 Comments ||
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#7
we the taxpayers are going to end up financing these failed big tech banks "Taxpayers" are a dying breed in a country with a national debt in the trillions which will never be paid off by them (or anyone). Instead, call them "bagholders" or "chumps"
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Did Nord Stream attackers in hired yacht take late-night delivery of explosives in scenic German harbor before dangerous dive mission to plant bombs? Theory emerges that also ties crew to suspicious oil rig
Investigators have zeroed in on Andromeda, a yacht that was hired in Germany by six mysterious individuals using fake passports Whether they did or did not do it, they won’t be pleased by the attention, I imagine.
The crew allegedly took delivery of the explosives in the dead of night before embarking on a dangerous dive mission in the Baltic Sea
An oil tanker than spent a week circling the blast area before the attacks has also come under scrutiny - raising speculation it's linked to the Andromeda
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.
