Revising revisionism

Have you heard the one about those horrid Puritans, the ones who initiated the witch trials The Crucible made famous? Yes, I know you have. Thank you, Arthur Miller. But did you know that the government sentenced the women and that the preachers of the day, led prominently by Cotton Mather, ended the lunacy? No, I didn't think so. We prefer a playwright's history.

And the Crusades. You have heard how those horrid Christians (a theme?) attempted to drive the peace-loving Arabs from their homeland, haven't you? Let's put a bit of focus on this most recently blurred of historic events.

Many thanks to my good friend, Jeff, for passing this on to me. Dr. Peter Hammond, the article's authoer, has spent 26 years as a Christian missionary among the Arab peoples of Africa and especially the Sudan. He has also researched, far more than I have, the Crusades.

Anyway, here's the article (here, really) titled "Jihad and Crusades." It's a lengthy read, but it's stuff that was common knowledge a few centuries ago. Thanks to the post-modern slop taught in 97% institutes of any learning, most of us don't get such information.

Let it ricochet around in your mind for a few days, then turn on the tube and see what Iran's up to in the eradication-of-Israel department.

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For further review on this topic, I've linked another article, "What were the Crusades all about?" here.

Comedy from a man named Mohammed

It seems that the UN has as tight a hold over its classified information as does our own National Archives. Isn't that right, Mr. Berger? A recently leaked "secret" (shhh) report contained the following tidbits about Iran's recent push for nuclear energy and its ironically timed testing of medium range ballistic missiles:

The Agency assesses that the development work to design a suitable chamber inside the re-entry vehicle is intended to accommodate a new warhead payload that is quite likely to be nuclear.

That would be troublesome except for the fact that we have been assured over and over again that despite one of the largest global oil reserves sitting beneath its sun-baked crust, Iran pursues nuclear technology to bolster its meager energy supply. Breath easy, right? Mahmoud has been as true-blue as a Boy Scout, right?

The Agency is concerned that Iran may have nuclear weapon design information which could be used in a specific nuclear package which would fit within the mass and volume constraints as seen in (that re-entry vehicle).

I do like the qualitative "may" used in the previous excerpt but there's more to indicate that Iran's possession of nuclear weapons is imminent. The report does end on this oddly happy note:

Overall the Agency does not believe that Iran has yet achieved the means of integrating a nuclear payload into the Shahab 3 missile with any confidence that it would work (whew!). Nonetheless (rats, knew that was coming), with further effort it is likely that Iran will overcome problems and confidence will be built up.

Doesn't it make you feel better that Iran's confidence will be built up, like old Mahmoud's been taking it on the international chin and needs a hug?

You think that was wry, try this on.

The president of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a group with as much moral fiber as the UN but tasked with the ho-hum job of tracking the nuclear exploits of nations round the world, announced today which country he believes to be the greatest nuclear threat to the Middle East. The envelop, please...

"Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses."

No, you're not seeing things. I typed that correctly. That's what he said. To my knowledge Israel has never threatened to annihilate another nation or threatened that said nation would soon be no more, but Mssr. Ahmadinejad threatens more than that by the time he finishes his Cous-Cous Puffs.

You might think IAEA president Mohammed ElBaradei was doing a little hashish to aver such anti-Israel propoganda (the complete article here). He does his moderate Egyptian roots no favor by not indiciting the Looney Toon, Ahmadinejad, but rather focusing his eyes upon Israel. Worse than that he makes an even greater mockery of his own IAEA, the organization that Han Blix headed when it couldn't figure out Iraq's nuclear temperature. With Iran giving the wrenches the final turn, the IAEA has its back to them, the greatest threat to actually use nuclear weapons, and is focusing on the nation with the bullseye on its chest, Israel.

Israel, the muscle of the Middle East, has shown incredible discretion over the last three decades. It could have destroyed any of its neighbors at any time. Because the neighbors understood that, they have caused no issues, but in light of Iran's idiocy, Israel may be left with little recourse but to use tactical nukes to neuter Iran's nuclear threat.

Should that Rubicon be crossed, I don't believe we have the imagination to comprehend the consequences.

Geert Wilders

Blame the Jews for the world financial crisis? Okey-dokey.

Put a crucifix in a beaker of urine? Art!

Make a film highlighting the dangers of Koran-adhering Islam? Bigot! Intolerant! Hate-inciting criminal!

Truly. Geert Wilders, a member of Dutch Parliament, made such a film and for it was indicted by his own country and not permitted to enter Great Britain to show his film to their parliament.

Civil rights outcry? As quiet as an English church on Sunday (or German or French...pick your Old World country).

Europe as we knew it is dead. Eurabia is metastisizing. Read all about it here.

BTW: Drudge, CNN, and Fox News have finally picked up on a wife's beheading in New York state by her husband, the founder of one of the first Islamic television stations in the US. That only took four days!

Anti-Semitism redux

I came across this today in Jay Nordlinger's always poignant Impromptus (here). Rather than paraphrase, I'll just let him and the article he cited do the talking (purple).

It’s hard to know when to panic. In other words, what is the right time to panic? A tricky question. Panic too soon, and you’re just foolish. Panic too late, and—well, it’s too late.

For several years now, we’ve been hearing rumbles about Europe, and they are getting louder. I was forcefully impressed by a piece by Douglas Davis in the current Spectator (subscription required, I’m afraid). It begins,

At my dinner table on Friday night, a holocaust survivor admits that she is trying to persuade her son to take his family out of Europe to America, Canada, Australia, Israel . . . ‘They say they can’t leave me, but I tell them: “Go, get out. My parents left my grandparents behind in Berlin and brought me to safety in England. Now I want you to leave so that my grandchildren will be safe.”’ There is an unbearable desperation in her plea. But she has a point.

As tens of thousands of demonstrators march through the streets of Europe, the chants are modified but the message remains substantially intact: ‘Hamas, Hamas, Hamas—Jews to the Gas’. Or, more simply: ‘Death to the Jews’. Many European Jews, even well-established, affluent Jews, have been checking the suitcase they keep packed under the bed. They have been here before and many are (albeit reluctantly) reading the writing on the wall.

Then Davis continues in a personal vein:

To some extent I thought I was inured. I grew up in postwar apartheid South Africa where a subtle undercurrent of anti-Semitism was a fact of everyday life. So while I was disturbed by manifestations of mob anti-Semitism, I was also less vulnerable to shock. That’s just how people are. Living in genteel, leafy Hampstead Garden Suburb provides an additional layer of protection from such crass outbursts.

But my sanguine state ends abruptly when I am out walking on Saturday. A hundred yards from my front door, I encounter the slogan, freshly painted in yellow, across the pavement: ‘Kill the Filthy Jews’. I am shocked. And shocked that I am shocked. The message is too close for comfort. The leafy gentility is, after all, an illusion.

Those who study these matters tell me that the current convulsion of anti-Semitism is the worst in a generation.

And so on. When is it too soon, if not to panic, to sound the alarm? Is now too soon?

At least Geert Wilders is under indictment. How long before the infection spreads overseas?