Friday, January 09, 2015

The Atlantic: Europe is Under Seige


Yesterday, the venerable publication, The New Yorker, came out as anti-Jihadist, and today it is The Atlantic.

Europe Is Under Siege 

The European Parliament complex in Brussels, where I happen to be sitting at the moment, is meant to be a monument to post-World War II continental ideals of peaceable integration, tolerance, free speech, and openness. All of these notions seem to be under attack at once, and what is striking to me, as a relatively frequent visitor to Europe over the past year, is that not many people—until a few hours ago, at least—seem to believe that their union, and their basic freedoms, are under threat.
The massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo falls into the category of events that are shocking in their intensity and brutality, but not at all surprising. This attack, which killed at least 12 people, including journalists and two police officers, was utterly, completely predictable. The brittle, peevish, and often-violent campaign to defend the honor of Allah and his prophet (both of whom, one might think, are capable of defending themselves with lightning bolts and cataclysmic floods and such, should they choose to be offended by cartoons) has been pursued in earnest since the 1989 Iranian-led crusade (I use the word advisedly) to have Salman Rushdie murdered for writing a book. In 2011, of course, the offices of Charlie Hebdo were firebombed—the equivalent of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, an attack that should have told us more about long-term jihadist intentions than it unfortunately did.
GO READ THE WHOLE THING. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

His conclusion sux

Epaminondas said...

It's not Europe that's under siege.
I hear all the time that an idea or a religion cannot be stamped out, so we need to avoid a war with Islam.

The ascendant, physically and ideologically UNCHALLENGED form of Islam is proud to announce they NEED to stamp out OUR ideas, and OUR religions.

It's a war of ideas, which HAS BECOME a war of the peoples. These kinds of attacks, if they go on will make it impossible for Muslims to do ANYTHING but choose sides. ACTIVE SIDES.

Failure to be against intolerance of other religions, and secular govt and freedoms is APPROVAL by function.

I have no hope whatsoever this present admin will recognize what to do since they ideologically are incapable of objective observation of the world. But with every act by these evil scorpions, and every failure to actually commit acts by this admin it guarantees the election of a right wing republican.

Just imagine if this attack had been at the WTC Memorial, and while that was going on, World Chabad (Lubavitch) HQ was invaded and the folks there made hostage by those willing to die.

An attack like that is what is their dream.

Failure to act in leadership with a cogent an unyielding strategy GUARANTEES this kind of attack will be attempted every bit as much as the attacks on the embassies and the Cole in the 90's told Al Qaeda to go ahead and PLAN.

And that's what is going on RIGHT NOW.

A PLAN.

and ... now?