Hating Infidels 24/7

By Alan Caruba

The Holocaust of the last century is remembered for the mass murder of Europe’s Jewish population, an estimated six million who perished. In total, an estimated eleven to seventeen million Europeans, Jews and Christians, died in the Nazi concentration and death camps or were murdered outright in their homelands.

Records were lost or didn’t list religion, but the lesser known story of the Holocaust was the death of millions of Christians, three million of whom were Poles, predominantly Catholics, killed by the Nazis for being Poles. They have a special place in Jewish history because many Poles, risking immediate execution if caught, were among the “righteous Gentiles” who were rescuers of Jews.

I cite this because there is a new Holocaust abroad in the world and it is directed at Christians, particularly in the Middle East and throughout Africa, wherever Islam is the dominant religion. Nor is this is a new phenomenon; Christians were widely persecuted under the Ottomans (Turks) when their empire encompassed much of the Middle East.

It is clearly manifesting itself again and to far too little notice.

Let it be said, too, that Islam is an equal opportunity enemy of all other faiths as was seen in the 2008 attack in Mumbai, India, that included India’s tiny Bene Israel Jewish community. The conflict between Islam and India’s Hindus goes back centuries and resulted in the creation of Pakistan as a separate Muslim state when India gained its independence.

Why has there been so little consistent coverage of the on-going attack on Christians? This is especially curious insofar as it is estimated that there are more than two billion Christians worldwide, about a third of the global population. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they are the victims, not the perpetrators of this horror.

Today thousands of Iraqi Christians are fleeing to the comparative safety of the Kurdish area and other countries. Indeed, many Americans are unaware that much of the U.S. Arab population is, in fact, Christian, not Muslim.

In mid-December, The Telegraph, a London daily, reported that “some 1,000 families, roughly 6,000 people, have arrived in the northern Kurdish areas from Baghdad, Mosul, and Nineveh” according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. “Several thousand have crossed into Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.”

Egypt is home to some twelve million Copts, otherwise known as the Coptic Orthodox Church. They have been in Egypt since 54 A.D. when St. Mark, a North African Jew, one of seventy apostles of the early church brought Christianity to that ancient land. The invasion of Muslims in 643 A.D created the inevitable adversity. On New Year’s Eve, there was a terrorist attack on the Coptic Church in Alexandria that killed 21 parishioners.

Copts have been routinely targeted for all manner of abuses and, unsurprisingly, Egypt is the epicenter for anti-Semitism in the Middle East. Officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, it has been ruled by President Hosni Mubarack since 1981. By contrast, the U.S. has had six presidents since then.

Boutros Boutros-Ghalli, a Copt and former secretary-general of the U.N., is president of the National Council of Human Rights in Cairo. In a Jan 21 article in the Wall Street Journal he cited Egypt as “a model of religious tolerance in the region” and noted that “thousands of Muslims gathered around churches across the country (on Jan 6, the eve of the Coptic Christmas) to act as human shields, protecting their Christian neighbors during their Mass.”

The exodus of Christians from the Middle East and incidents in African nations where an estimated 40% of the population are Christians speaks to the persecution that has spread everywhere before and since the rise of the Islamic Revolution, sparked by events in Iran in 1979. This has since led to the creation of Hezbollah and Hamas, two Iranian proxies. Al Qaeda, created to expel the Russians from Afghanistan, has been the tip of the Islamist sword, perpetrating 9/11 and other attacks worldwide.

The persecution historically directed against Judaism is now commonplace in its more lethal manifestations against Christians. Since the Old Testament is part of the Christian liturgy, an attack on Jews is an attack on Christians and vice-versa.

The post-war rise of secularism in Europe, along with demographic shifts in which large numbers of Muslims have taken up residence in European nations is having its affect on both Christian and Jewish communities there.

In America, the denigration of Christianity it is less visible and is not by definition persecution. A majority Christian nation, America has been experiencing a rise in efforts to diminish the acknowledgement of Christianity’s role in the nation’s history and by efforts to limit Christian symbols, prayers, and even the celebration of Christmas in public institutions and places.

Slowly, American, European and Christians worldwide are beginning to realize that they are locked in a religious war. It is a war that Christianity must engage. The silence of church leaders is no longer an option. It is a war between the 7th century and the 21st century.

It is a misnomer to call it a “war on terror.” Terror is a tactic, but this is a war against Islam because Islam has been at war with all other faiths since its inception.

In New York City, when Muslims seek to build a mosque within steps of Ground Zero, they are simply exalting the atrocity of 9/11. It begs the question why its confessed perpetrator, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has not, ten years later, been brought to trial.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Africa, the Awful Continent

By Alan Caruba

As long as I can remember, for seventy-plus years I have seen photos of sick and starving African children. Now that Africa is home to seventy percent of the world’s cases of AIDS that image applies as well to too many of its adult population. As far as I can tell, it is an awful continent.

That is a vast generalization, of course, but I suspect that a lot of Africans would agree. In 2005, Martin Meredith’s book, “The Fate of Africa”, was published. Its subtitle was “From the hopes of freedom to the heart of despair: A history of 50 years of independence.” It is as definitive as any book I have read about Africa and it is a horror story.

“Since independence,” Meredith wrote, “Africa has received more foreign aid than any other region of the world. More than $300 billion of Western aid has been sunk into Africa, but with little discernible result. Aid fatigue has become a permanent condition.”

I was reminded of this while reading a briefing paper by Greg Mills, the director of the Brenthurst Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa. Titled “Why is Africa Poor”, it was published by the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty & Prosperity.

While America and Europe struggle with economic problems of their own making, the general poverty of Africa defies the imagination. “Africa is not poor because its people do not work hard,” says Mills, “but because their productivity is too low. African states have resisted western innovations of large-scale farming, so too many Africans survive on subsistence agriculture.

“Nor is Africa poor because of it lacks natural resources,” says Mills. “Compared with Asia, it is a treasure-trove of natural resources from agricultural land and precious metals to wildlife and hydropower. Yet, with few exceptions (Botswana is one), those resources have been used only to enrich elites, spread corrupt practices, and divert development energy and focus.”

It is not a stretch to say that the best thing that happened to Africa was colonialization. It brought measure of development that Africans would never have achieved on their own. Following the end of World War II, the European colonial powers were confronted with indigenous demands for independence and fairly swiftly, if not happily, they abandoned their control of much of the continent from the Maghreb in the Northern tier to South Africa at the tip.

“In a half century of independence, Africa has not realized its potential,” says Mills, warning that Africa’s youth, “a huge source of talent” is widely regarded “as a destabilizing force because it is largely unemployed and uneducated. This is not only a threat to Africa’s security. By 2025, one in four young people worldwide will be from sub-Saharan Africa.”

Africa reeks of corruption by a few, oppression of the many, poverty, and the potential for enormous conflict because its so-called leaders are a horrid bunch of dictators and thieves. Few have shown any interest in improving the lives of those in their nations.

“African leaders have successfully managed, with the help of donors, to externalize their problems, making them the responsibility and fault of others,” says Mills. This condition is the result of “a relative lack of democracy (or to single-party dominance) in Africa.” In other words, socialism.

Not mentioned in his analysis is the role of Islam in much of Africa, a religion devoted to the complete submission of Muslims and resistance to anything that passes for modern governance or advancement. Another factor not discussed is tribalism. It was the cause of a terrible Rwandan genocide.

For this reason, more than a half century after independence arrived, “Getting to Africa is difficult. Moving around Africa is similarly onerous. It would take no donor money to keep borders open around the clock” notes Mills.

One thing is certain. All the money donated to African nations is largely stolen by its elites and the provision of aid for education and health exists only when donor nations and non-governmental organizations exercise close control over it.

The rot that exists in Africa in human terms, in the failure to modernize, in the vile corruption of a few, will persist and, fifty years hence, there will likely be more books and briefing papers that reflect those being written today.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

A Culture Clash with Islam

By Alan Caruba

The news out of Israel is that its air force has introduced a fleet of huge pilotless planes that can remain in the air for a full day. The Heron TP drones are said to be “primarily used for surveillance and carrying diverse payloads.” I love that last one, “diverse payloads.”

Once again the Israelis have demonstrated their ability and intent to remain on the defense in a Middle East that has resisted their existence since 1948 with wars and campaigns of terror.

Better than every other nation, the Israelis understand the culture of the Middle East and the nature of their enemies. They do not underestimate them. Six decades of seeking peace with the Palestinians, pawns of Iran and the other nations that refuse them citizenship, have taught that there is no way to negotiate peace with them. All past efforts such as the Oslo Accords, withdrawal from Gaza, et cetera, lay in tatters.

History records that the Jews lost their homeland in 70 AD, disbursed into a vast Diaspora, and were unable to reclaim it until 1948. Jews had declared Israel their homeland more than three thousand years ago. Jerusalem was and is their capitol, though holy to Christians and to Muslims.

The harsh reality is that you cannot negotiate with people who want to kill you. This is the lesson of the Holocaust that cost the lives of six million European Jews in the last century. It is a lesson that neither America, Europe, nor other nations around the world have absorbed.

Ever since the advent of Islam, the invention of Muhammad, in 622 A.D., this alleged religion has waged a war of conquest to impose a universal caliphate on the world.

Islam is not a religion of tolerance. It is not a religion of peace. It is opposed to all Western concepts of public and private conduct. It is incompatible with democracy. By all standards of modern thought and behavior it is barbaric.

America has been dealing out retribution to Muslims since the days of Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary pirates. In the modern era, Arabs and Persians have been nursing grudges going back to the Crusades, to being driven out of Spain in 1502. Thereafter in the last century the Middle East was subject to the colonialist designs of England and France after World War One.

The discovery of vast reserves of oil transformed the history of the Middle East, not so much that the lives of its people improved, nor that its monarchs and despots were any less brutal, but that the West had an essential stake there based on its need for oil.

Since 9/11 the United States has spent billions waging war in Iraq because Hussein Saddam threatened Kuwait as well as sharing a long border with Saudi Arabia. It did so in the term of George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. It was always about oil, essential to the U.S. and the West, and there is no good reason to think otherwise.

The irony of this and the current conflict in Afghanistan where no oil exists is that America has now set up an Islamic republic in Iraq and is striving to maintain the semblance of one in Afghanistan. So far the score is one less despot in Iraq and a score of mujahadin calling themselves Taliban or al Qaeda. We are engaged in “nation building” but we are simply rebuilding Islamic nations.

Despite this, the Arabs and the Persians continue to see themselves as the “victims” of America and the West. They would have no oil industry were it not for the West. They would not have the illusion of representative governments were it not for the West. They would have had no hope of joining the march of history were it not for the West.

These “victims” killed nearly 3,000 Americans who were not at war with them on September 11, 2001. They had been waging war against America and American interests from World War Two and all the years since then. They raised the level of bloodletting in the 1980s, in the 1990s, and in the first decade of the new century.

They have killed “infidels” in London, in Bali, in Beirut, in Mumbai, our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and they kill their fellow Muslims with abandon in Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Somalia, and elsewhere throughout the Middle East and Africa.

In 2007, Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton University said, “There are many religions in the world, but as far as I know there are only two that have claimed that their truths are not only universal—--all religions claim that—--but also exclusive; that they—the Christians in one case, the Muslims in the other—are the fortunate recipients of God’s final message to humanity, which is their duty not to keep selfishly to themselves—--like the Jews or the Hindus—--but to bring to the rest of humanity, removing whatever obstacles there may be on the way.”

“This self-perception, shared between Christendom and Islam, led to the long struggle that has been going on for more than fourteen centuries and which is now entering a new phase.”

If the escalating threat of an Iran with nuclear weapons worries you, remember, it is a new phase of a very long struggle. People who behead other people, who routinely take hostages, who send their children to die as suicide bombers, and who hold women in virtual bondage are not like us, despite the “diversity” rubbish taught in our schools and preached as political correct everywhere else.

Some cultures—-ours—-are manifestly superior to others. America is proof of that.

(c) Alan Caruba, 2010

A Map of Freedom or the Lack of It

By Alan Caruba

Every July, Freedom House, an organization that tracks the progress or the lack of freedom around the world, releases a map that identifies those nations where freedom exists and where it does not.

Find it here: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2008

A copy of this map should be sent to the incoming Obama administration, starting with the President, because it makes it instantly clear as to where the problems of the world exist and where the enemies of freedom live, scheme, and control the lives of billions.

All of the North American continent and much of the South American continent is free. That is to say its nations practice democracy and exercise the rule of law. Exceptions to the rule are all found south of the U.S. border. Venezuela, Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Paraguay, are deemed to be “partly free” along with a string of Latin American nations between Mexico and Panama. Cuba, of course, is not free at all.

As one casts one’s eyes over the map, it is abundantly clear that large sections of the world, primarily Russia and China, are deemed “not free.” The entire Middle East with the exception of Israel, Jordan and Turkey is considered “not free.” It will be interesting to see the July 2009 map and its judgment on Iraq. If it is deemed free or even partly free, it will be the first time in at least three decades or longer. Thank you Uncle Sam!

The continent of Africa is a patchwork quilt of nations that are free, partly free, and not free. Those across the northern part, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt are not free. Moving south, you can add the Sudan, Chad, the Congo, Angola, and the most accursed of all, Zimbabwe. Somalia barely passes for a nation these days. The most obvious factor uniting these freedom-hating nations is that all are Muslim.

The least prosperous nations, in terms of how their wealth is distributed among their population, are those under the rule of communism or Islam. Some nations, of course, are “oil rich” but Venezuela stands out as an example of how one can be both oil rich and still have a population rendered dirt poor by communism.

Cuba, once a thriving tourist destination, producer of sugar and fine cigars, could be a lot better off economically if it wasn’t communist. It is barely ninety miles off the coast of Florida. It began its descent in 1959 when Fidel Castro took over. It was previously run by another despot named Batista. With the exception of Haiti, most of the Caribbean nations are relatively free.

The European nations enjoy freedom. Great Britain, the home of the Magna Carta, is free and it is obvious that former British colonies, such as Australia, South Africa, and India, are free nations too. Japan is free because the U.S. conquered it and, after World War II, stuck around to ensure it had a constitution and learned how to apply democracy. We did the same with South Korea.

It took five years, but Iraq looks like it’s on its way to establishing a degree of freedom that does not exist in other Middle Eastern nations. Next door in Syria, the Baath Party is still in power under Bashar al-Asad, the son of the former dictator. Syria continues to threaten Lebanon, a nation that used to be run by a coalition of five powerful families that ensured peace and prosperity. Those days are long gone and Hezbollah, an Iranian puppet group of Palestinian terrorists, controls it today. Both now threaten Israel.

Americans today, who live in freedom because so many of their countrymen were willing to fight and die to preserve and protect it, are often criticized for sending their countrymen to far-off places like Iraq to spread freedom and for maintaining a military presence on the high seas and on bases around the world. It is obvious, though, if one looks at the map, that Americans are the world’s greatest hope of freedom.

It is only by extending freedom, creating and encouraging new functioning republics, aiding struggling, but real republics, and never failing to speak out against injustices in those nations that masquerade as being free, that we will ultimately protect our own freedom.

America is, astoundingly, the oldest functioning republic on Earth. We date our birth from the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, but the real birthday of America was June 21, 1788 when the Constitution became effective. It became a beacon of freedom when the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments, was ratified on December 15, 1791.

The first job of every American is to read, understand, and then demand that our elected leaders act within the limits imposed by the U.S. Constitution. It is not a blank check. It has, quite frankly, been chewed to bits by those we have sent to Congress since early in the last century. If or when it ceases to function as intended, Americans will cease to be free.