Beruit, Paris and the aftermath
 

Yes, ISIS is dangerous. But it is not dangerous because of Islam. It is dangerous because it is totalitarian, because it is an extremist ideology. It is dangerous like Nazism, like Communism, both of which highjacked an ideology, namely socialism, and perverted it by turning it into a cult, a religion.

There is far too much ranting by people who have small brains and short memories. It wasn't long ago that the congressional and medial air was full of hatred for the French because they didn't want an invasion of Iraq. It makes me sick to see the pious babbling, not least among the Republican presidential candidates who are falling all over one another over who loves France and God most.

It wasn't long ago that people were boycotting wine and cheese. You can find this on the Internet if you have forgotten:

I am an Obama fan, but his mention of France as "our oldest ally" was unfortunate and has set off a lot of ranting by pseudo-pious parrots.

The historic truth (if there is such a thing) is that France backed the US in the Revolutionary War in order to weaken their traditional enemy Britain. The French had just been defeated in the so-called French and Indian War and wanted to recoup their losses.

Democracy is no patent solution. Democracy will not work, as is evident in the United States today, unless it is borne up by a critical and informed populace. Democracy cannot force people to cooperate. Cooperation is a prerequisite for democracy.

Furthermore democracy cannot be imposed top down onto a population long subjected to an authoritarian government and with no or weak structures for self-rule. That opens the door to corruption. Furthermore even those who want democracy might not want the commercial trappings that seems to accompany it.

This is not to detract from the sorrow and pain left in the wake of the attack on Paris. Religion divides. Politics divides. Only our human state unites us

Less ranting, please, and less calling for a Supreme Parent, whoever he or she is, to step up to kiss the hurt and make it well by annihilating whoever we point at.

I would not be surprised if there weren't planned attacks on European soil every weekend until Christmas. This would turn many strong-hearted and weak-minded patriots against the unfortunate refugees looking for a haven. We should be aware that they are a pawn in the ISIS strategy because they have chosen to leave rather than become part of the so-called Caliphate. One of my fears is that European opinion will fall into that trap.

Warning for the faint-hearted. This may make you want to barf. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/par...cifics-n463611

Really good article at the Atlantic. Pretty long, but worth the read:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...-wants/384980/

My thought are with Paris, Brian Allgar et al.

Ian McEwan's take.

Duncan

PS I started this thread three years ago on the 13th November.

"One of my fears is that European opinion will fall into that trap."

I find that a very odd first-order fear, Janice. So, Europe has already fallen into the trap of allowing the perpetrators wthin its gates (and let's presume, many other murderers too). Nonetheless the prescription in your mind remains clear: Europeans must 'avoid the trap' of forestalling a continued stream of jihadists. Is there a cost so prohibitive in your mind that it would disabuse you of your vision of a borderless continent? Because it's killing people and will kill a whole lot more:

"Brothers believed to be involved hours after Omar Ismail Mostefai named as dead gunman as other suspected jihadist revealed to have entered France through Serbia, Greece and Macedonia."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ests-live.html

I'm imagining a bullet-proof, Pan-European flag flying high over a desolate, bombed-out landscape. Unperturbed, the flag-wavers claim...victory. It's like nihilism in its kumbaya permutation. Or is it that some people insist on seeing a Shangri-La where's there's only an abyss? Both can't be right. What side does this week's Paris argue for?

The cost of Pan-Europeanism is looking, sadly enough, like Europe itself --at least in something other than a militarized and surveilled armed camp. How many weekend assaults can the continent sustain as it continues in its role as a socially engineered hospice camp for unfortunate others? Surely what happened in Paris not a mere flesh wound to be sustained, week-in, week-out?

We could stem the flow of refugees, take away the root cause, by letting Syria be Syria again. However this might run counter to UN Commissioner Peter Sutherland's determination to discredit borders in all their permutations. ("I will ask the governments to cooperate, to recognise that sovereignty is an illusion – that sovereignty is an absolute illusion that has to be put behind us. The days of hiding behind borders and fences are long gone." --Oct 2015). So, love the jihadists in your midst. Hiding from mass carnage is a vestige of a bygone era. Thank you Dr. Strangelove.

The walk-back would be a bitch as it involves Western de-funding of covert regime-change activities (France is up to its ears in this) and allowing for free elections. The real sting at the moment is that Assad (to the envy of practically every other Western leader) enjoys 55% popularity. So there is a chance he might survive. There goes that democracy-thing getting up to the craziest things once again. That would make the fiasco complete --and I suspect completely untenable for the powers-that-be. Fortunately our G-20 leaders (meeting this week) will be saved from this walk-back (quite possibly) by NATO entry into the Syrian conflict. Hollande has declared the attacks an Act of War. Let's see if they kick in Article 5 this week and against whom (the CIA?):

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked.”

So, quite possibly a face-saving (for them) doubling-down --the fog of World War Three could yet prove to be their salvation. Hooray for them. Our salvation is less certain.

Steady on the taunts of nihilism, Norman; your own contribution would seem distinctly competitive in that area! I assume that Janice, who can certainly answer well enough for herself, was both warning that to abandon Europe's inclusivist stance and to join the hyping up (here you seem to agree) of making 'war' will only make matters worse - both by doing more recruitment-inducing damage in the Middle East and by further undermining the civilised values which the free culture of Europe is meant to enshrine. I agree with her.

The root causes, as I'm sure from past posts of yours you also believe, lie in the aggressive hyping up of Western wars and surrogate wars over a very long period of time - perhaps culminating in the illegal war of aggression against Iraq. Until the West changes its foreign policies and begins to attempt to apologise for and repair the damage caused by its past, the future does indeed look bleak. On our Channel 4 news this last week (Thursday or Wednesday evening, I think - and you can catch it up on the net) there was a remarkably blunt and clear-sighted commentary provided by a refugee worker on one of the refugee deluged Balkan frontiers. Speaking initially of the refugee situation, he said, "This" he gestured to the refugee crush on the frontier barrier, "is what we deserve." That is of course a long, long way from the appalling events in Paris - and the even worse ones perpetrated against fellow Muslims in the Middle East on an apparently unending basis - but they are words, belonging to their own context, that have been haunting me this weekend.

I think the situation is past the point where that would be much of a solution. I don't think this war is about the progression of the physical across a border as much as the progression of an idea crossing thresholds in individual psyches. The conversion point is not in combatant successfully arriving in the enemies territory but rather the conversion of the citizen into enemy, into self-sworn combatant in-situ.
I understand that it is becoming a bordered, physical division as well but how do you keep "them" out when "we" are the raw material of the "them". Maybe I miss your intention in this note. There is an appeal in this ideology that is beyond a simple reaction to hypocrisy or injustice or any action of the "Other". A subset of the population needs this, whatever it is. But it is not a subset that can be separated out by last name or last known residence, right? Or maybe not...

So, you don't live in Europe, but you know exactly what's going on because you google the tabloids. Should I laugh or cry?

Firstly, the refugees are FLEEING from ISIS. They are not a stream of terrorists.

Secondly, it is the considered opinion of analysts here that the Syrian passport trail was fake and intended to make people think exactly as you did. Are you so foolish as to believe that this terrorist spent months walking to France from Greece to join up with his cronies on a preset date so they could perpetrate mayhem? Talk about a whacko conspiracy.

You see, Norman, ISIS wants us to distrust the refugees and treat them badly. It is win-win for ISIS if that happens. They are already on the ISIS shit list because they fled rather than join the caliphate, many with children, with elderly relatives, with pregnant wives. So, reasons ISIS, if they are mistreated on the trek, they are getting their just deserts.

Secondly, if they are treated badly--as some inevitably will be and have been in the long journey--maybe they will be driven back to the arms of the waiting ISIS caliphate.

Thirdly, it is not a good idea to form a political opinion (or any other opinion) from tabloid news. Especially, the tabloids, but even the more trusted sites can get it wrong in the heat of the battle for a scoop.

When the attack was ongoing, I was following along in various ways. Checking the internet and sources in both the US, Britain and on the continent.

The Swedish death report on the national radio (a medium I trust more than any other, I totally revere them) continually reported the death toll under what the hysterical media elsewhere was reporting. Even the BBC had inflated figures.

And you know what, the Swedish radio, always cautious and always fair to give both sides of any story, were correct. When things began to stabilize, the other media had to backpedal from 150 and 153 etc. and it turned out that the lower figure, 120, presented by our radio and television reporters was correct. Sadly this later rose to 129 and I think it is now 132, but that isn't the point.

I really feel insulted by your warped pontificating. We have fewer murderers "within our gates" than you blithely assume.

Here are homicide rates for 2012. USA 4.7, Sweden 0.7, Norway 2.2, Finland 1.6. UK 1.0.

If it hadn't been for the terrorist attack by the white supremacist and so-called Christian Anders Behring Breivik , the homicide rate in Norway would be at 0.6.

Sweden has a long tradition of immigration from many war-torn countries including Iran, Iraq, Bosnia, The racial murders, assault and harassment have been by extremist white Christians and neo-Nazis and the victims were immigrants, gays, Jews, Muslims, Romani, and other minorities.

I think this from the Wall Street Journal speaks volumes. http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-pres...ees-1441396786

At a very low estimate of 1500 a day, Sweden alone has that many arriving at their borders in only 43 days. But the current figure for arrivals is higher than 1500.

Norman, you should be ashamed of yourself for spreading such crap.

Carthago delenda est.
 

For a hegemonic empire like America, identifying a threat can be a tricky business, particularly when it comes in the form of a somewhat amorphous terror group instead of an easily defined country with simple boundaries. For the Bush administration it was simply a matter of substituting the country of Iraq for bin Laden's Saudi Arabia, and then making Iraq a target for regime change and the institution of wonderful ideals like liberty and democracy. It was Saddam and his evil forces who had to be destroyed on the pretext that they had weapons of mass destruction, that the country served as a breeding ground for terrorists and might be a threat to us in the future. Iraq as a substitute for Saudi Arabia must be attacked; Saddam as a substitute for bin Laden must be destroyed.

This recalls to some degree the similar philosophy of the burgeoning Roman Republic and those haunting words of Cato the Elder, who would end every speech with a version of Carthago delenda est (Carthage must be destroyed). Then, it being one of those first recorded best and worst of times, with a red-hearted army ready to make history for Rome in the best way and for Carthage in the worst of all possible ways, the Roman general Scipio Aemelianus took his troops and made it so. Indeed, the Punic Wars of Rome seem to have served as a kind of harbinger for what Bush and the USA adopted as a primary tactical philosophy of pre-emption, since Carthage actually posed no threat to Rome just as Iraq posed no threat to the USA after the al-Qaeda attacks. Now ancient and recent history resonate once more as some of our more stiffbacked warmongers have been calling for Daesh to be destroyed. Daesh delenda est. And then, once it is dealt with, supposedly scorched earth and all, they might also start thinking like Scipio and want to salt the battlefield (in some modern form) for good measure.

I suppose I can be called to task for comparing Carthage to a relatively amorphous terror group, especially since Carthage was actually destroyed and Iraq -- as a substitute for al-Qaeda and Wahabbist Saudi Arabia – was irreparably damaged but not destroyed in the same scorched earth/salted battlefield sense, with the result that al-Qaeda or some branch of it transmogrified or morphed into Daesh. In a more direct sense, perhaps, Gaza might be seen as a closer correlative to Carthage, an indirectly cautionary exemplum for the USA as an ally of Israel. But, more cautionary for the USA and Europe is using the pretense of imminent threat as an excuse for attacking countries who pose no actual threat or for bombing regions where terrorists are located, when the actual problem is more of a question of economic hegemony and mercenary profiteering, a matter of cynical cui bono and never one of preserving and protecting the higher aims of liberty, equality, or democracy.

However, now that Daesh has proven to be more of an actual threat to Europe, the parallel with Rome is more apt than ever, although the idea of destroying an amorphous terrorist group that hides itself among various civilian populations seems rather irrational. Daesh must be destroyed; but the question is, where is it? And what will have to be destroyed in order to root it out? The entire Levant? The entire Middle East? Then what? All Muslims living in western countries? It gets to be a reductio ad absurdum of really sinister proportions.

Rome also exhibited too much arrogance, to the point of hubris, as over time it became an empire gradually declining, with each reign becoming more and more willful, eccentric, and decadent... until at last, Rome fell. Can we say that the warmongers, the profiteers, and western leaders are now also arrogant and willful because there are no real checks and balances to keep them in line?

I am also reminded of Nietzsche's cautionary words to this effect: beware of fighting monsters lest you become one. Sometimes I think we came out of the war with Nazi Germany and somehow turned into a neofascist monster state as a result of that engagement. Now it looks as though it has turned into a never-ending cycle, like morphed shades of a rather grotesque eternal recurrence of empire, crusade, torture, terrorism, and scorched-earth warfare against peoples living in countries we wish to exploit.

Enough.

Unfounded opinions go both ways, Janice, as this from the New York Times suggests this morning:

So, though it still needs to be verified, the evidence is mounting.

Besides, no one but xenophobic fanatics would say that most of the refugees are terrorists or would-be terrorists. The point is that anyone planning to join in terrorist acts in Western Europe could use the chaotic influx of people as a chance to enter undetected. It only takes a small number of people to devastate a city, as we saw the other night. The point is not to stop refugees, but that the flow has to be very carefully controlled, monitored, and registered. And this hasn't been happening.

This view seems accurate. http://www.danielpipes.org/16272/why...limited-impact

The trap that Europeans will fall into is believing their only choice is between jihadist massacres and an increasingly authoritarian EU federation, of which Hollande's vow to wage war against the perpetrators "sans pitié" is the first glimmer. Behind a façade of patriotic militarism, the EU partners will continue building Eurabia, outflanking the populist/nationalist parties, who do not have the governmental power to make a show of defending their populations.

The passport appears to be problematic:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a6735476.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a6735476.html

But certainly, when you have a huge influx of people with little to no controls, it would be easy to get someone in. On the other hand, there seem to be willing enough people in Europe already.

...an increasingly authoritarian EU federation, of which Hollande's vow to wage war against the perpetrators "sans pitié" is the first glimmer.

You mean like George Bush in 2003? The same guy who had America break from the Geneva Conventions and made of the U.S. a Khmer-Rouge-like torture state? Invading a country that helped ISIS gain power? Another failed American war in the hallowed tradition of Vietnam?

Talk about authoritarian.

Besides, Pipes is clearly anti-Muslim. I used to follow him but grew to know better. As the majority of Islamist victims are Muslim why would we say it is Islam that is the problem? Most Muslims don't like these creeps. That view in no way helps. Kind of like saying all Christians are Klansmen. So while I'm no fan of Howard Dean, surely the murders at Charlie Hebdo and last Friday are not typical of Muslims.

We will have to see if the Front National will not gain ascendancy by the attack on Paris. My hunch is that it will but I won't lay money on that yet....

Not Islam, but the ultra-reactionary form of Islam known as Wahhabism is behind the insanity. Its roots go back to the nineteenth century, and it is the dominant ideology in Saudi Arabia, which results the misogny and the rest of it that everyone knows about there. If a million Mormons were migrating onto the Continent, people might be bored, but not scared. Why? Because there is nothing as severe, violent, and punishing as Wahhabism associated with it.

This article is a good account of ISIL along the lines of the long Atlantic article that Bill linked to.

As for the passport and Syria, it is definitely good to be cautious about what it all means, but the Guardian and others are reporting that the fingerprints of the terrorist where the passport was found match those of someone entering through Greece in October. Not conclusive, and maybe it's a hoax to freak people out, but . . .

Yes, Don, exactly like Bush in 2003. More governmental power, more money to the security state, diversion and suppression of democratic energies. You don't want them to suffer our fate, do you? Although the EU and Eurabia are to some extent a response to"American" power.

I was born in Europe of Europeans parents and lived there as a child. I have countless family members there. But by all means, let’s denigrate my standing to comment and focus back on the ‘Europeans’ who arrived last week as they so clearly command the depths of you compassion. But I hear you. We mustn’t let jihadist incidents impede the larger goal of a refugee torrent. This covert social engineering project under cover of an exceeding concern for millions of refugees is to proceed unabated.

http://russia-insider.com/en/politic...empire/ri10025

You see, Norman, ISIS wants us to distrust the refugees and treat them badly.

There are a number of Parisians who, were they still here, would attest to having being treated rather badly. Sadly, they are Europe's dead forerunners, fodder for the grand social experiment of integrating jihadism within the continent's social structure. ISIS wants us all dead so that our level of trustfulness becomes an historical artifact. Their objectives are existential. Whereas your preeminent concern seems to be avoiding the appearance of inhospitality to the (no doubt) vast majority of peaceable refugees.

I really feel insulted by your warped pontificating. We have fewer murderers "within our gates" than you blithely assume.

I meant prospective murderers, Janice. No one, certainly not you nor I, knows how many of those have been ushered in of late. The events in Paris don’t augur well, nor do your misgivings that we could face more events in the run-up to the holidays (and let us all pray your fears don't come to pass).

Your generosity towards the influx of Muslims is abundant and well-evidenced. But how did ‘white supremacism’ suddenly get a dog in this hunt? And it’s kind of you to note that Breivik is a ‘so-called’ Christian. He was a paranoid schizophrenic too, and as such does not rise to the level of ideological practitioner. There's enough antipathy towards Christianity without lashing a demonstrable psychopath to its mast; so, while a very interesting comment from you, a non sequitur for this discussion.

Finally, two myths:

Myth 1: Rejecting the current disastrous brand of globalism immediately brands one a xenophobe. In fact there are two ‘globalist world-views’ to which Pope Francis offers a pretty decent synopsis:

“I would like to translate the theme into an image: the sphere and the polyhedron. Take the sphere to represent homologation, as a kind of globalization: it is smooth, without facets, and equal to itself in all its parts. The polyhedron has a form similar to the sphere, but it is multifaceted. I like to imagine humanity as a polyhedron, in which the multiple forms, in expressing themselves, constitute the elements that compose the one human family in a plurality. And this is true globalization. The other globalization — that of the sphere — is an homologation” (Dec 6th, 2013).

Homologation, in essence, is a prelude to the panopticon where every individual is equidistant from the observation platform; an indeterminate flatland ruled by God-knows-who from above. This is borderless, global totalitarianism presided over in essence by multinational corporations and financial institutions of which the PTT is but one of its early ‘enticements’. National sovereignty is the last bulwark against this flatland. Francis’ polyhedron recognizes the discrete features of viable nations and peoples (as opposed to glorified financial districts) and is at odds with the UN’s (Peter Sutherland’s) dismissive view of the nation-state as being “…an absolute illusion that has to be put behind us.”

Myth 2: There is this notion that, if the blight of national sovereignty can only be diluted and eradicated (partly through socially destabilizing, shambolic immigration), alienation will ensue and a sort of stultifying peace will break out over the land. Forgive me, but I cannot believe you believe that. Unless power is withering away, sovereignty (control) is simply ‘migrating upward’ and consolidating into a few supranational hands. Look at the repudiated Portuguese elections for a glimpse of the future. What did the Portuguese President say? “This is the worst moment for a radical change to the foundations of our democracy.” If I read this correctly, he’s saying democracy is in danger of undermining democracy. I’m glad that's cleared up.

Hey Norm. I like that guy-with-a-funny-hat analogy. The key issue for sovereignty is that change in size is a change in species. Decentralization back to entities where true representation is possible, where everyone can get in the room (arendt) is the only salvation of the polyhedron.

An article about the connections between two facets of the polyhedron.

http://roarmag.org/2015/02/chiapas-r...patista-kurds/

Bill,

How is Holland's declaration for France to be impitoyable the same as the Decider in Chief's complete defying of international law? How is France wanting to defend itself a mark of authoritarianism? I don't see it.

If anything it will be the U.S. holding the bag (natch!) when NATO's Article 5 is invoked. But I don't see Holland's understandable call to war a sign of EU authoritarianism. What am I missing? If anything it's back to the old-fashioned ideal of state sovereignty. Which of course is not true either.

Maybe not a possible Grexit or Brexit, but Islamism will spell the doom of the EU. Who knows at this point?

"The key issue for sovereignty is that change in size is a change in species."

Yes sir, size matters. Good luck getting a guy on the line in Bonn to fix your pothole in Paducha. Localism, tiny polyhedrons, is the only way to starve the hegemonic beast. Reprising Mt. Olympus is a casting call for the gods in our midst.

Don, you're not missing anything yet, unless you're being willfully obtuse about the possibility that Hollande et cie. will find ways to draw political advantage from the attack. It's early yet.

Signs of democratic activism in France:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ30JnjgxuU

I see there has been a lot of activity while I was thinking. Anyway, here's me thoughts prior to those new posts.

I have already lost one highly regarded FB friend so I shall try to choose my words with care. Maybe the strong emotions in everyone's heart and mind serve as a filter that won't let some thoughts come through intact.

Bill, my response to any text is always to try to ascertain WHO said it and WHERE did they say it and WHY. I was not familiar with the author of the link you posted but I've (quickly, albeit not thoroughly), looked at his creds. I get the feeling that he is rehashing an old mind set.

I started searching for his creds when I got to this:

Well, if I had to choose between putting my future in the hands of Angela Merkel or Viktor Orbán it would not be a difficult choice.

In 2008 The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the EU and the World Bank granted Hungary a rescue package worth $25bn (£15.6bn). In 2015 Orbán erects a fence of razor wire in a spectacular show of selfishness.

As history plainly shows, demonizing any group as "the other" can quickly get out of hand and lead to unforeseen consequences. The aftermath of the French Revolution and the ensuing conflict between the Girondins and the Jacobins led to killing in the streets of Paris and mass executions including the guillotining of 16, 594 people.

In the Rwandan genocide the Hutu majority in around 100 days murdered between half a million and a million Rwandans.

A little over twenty years ago Bosnian Serbs slaughtered 80,000 neighbors in the course of the Yugoslav Wars. Eight thousand of these were men and boys from Srebrenica, a town supposedly under the protection of the United Nations.

It is surely not necessary to remind anyone that six million Jews throughout Europe were annihilated by their neighbors and other Christians.

In short, I am simply warning about demonizing fellow humans. The vast majority of the Muslim community in Europe are just like the vast majority of humans all over the world.

There are, of course, jihadists who want, as the media thrillingly put it, "to destroy our way of life".

Even without them, our global community includes home-grown madmen who want to destroy "our way of life" or segments of it; just as the jihadists do, these homeboys want to stone, to flay. (Warning. This is so disgusting you probably won't be able to watch until the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBDbGyv6SIQ )

Apart from the current influx of immigrants, the number of home-grown (a.k.a. native) psychopaths in our greater community make up about 1 percent of the general population and as much as 25 percent of male offenders in western correctional settings according to some studies.

Roughly that is about 1000 per 100,000 of our general population to be feared in varying degrees. Most of them won't cause major harm, but some do. One of our homegrown terrorists who targeted immigrants was known in the media as Lasermannen ("the Laser Man"), murderer, bank robber, and attempted serial killer. From August 1991 to January 1992 he shot eleven people in the Stockholm and Uppsala area, most of whom were immigrants, killing one and seriously injuring the others. He first used a rifle equipped with a laser sight (hence, his nickname), and later switched to a revolver. He was arrested in June 1992 and sentenced to life imprisonment in January 1994. His strategy was that no immigrant should feel safe, so he targeted them at bus stops, by aiming through the window of their homes, and other private sites.

What hope I have made clear is that danger is all around us. It is impossible to protect ourselves with higher walls, deeper moats, or by letting immigrant families freeze to death this coming winter because no one will allow them a safe haven.

All politicians draw advantages from circumstances, Bill. That's the nature of politics. Woe to the politician who doesn't. For example, Lincoln had to suspend habeas corpus in Maryland during our civil war. An ugly but necessary move as the nation's capital could not fall to the Confederates. Your arch-enemy FDR used WWII for his own purposes.

Thanks for your reply, Janice. Yes, Daniel Pipes is a long-time pundit on Western-Mid-Eastern relations. Self-repetition is an occupational hazard. However, early responses to the attacks have borne out his prediction. Still, I think my prediction that takes into account the threat posed to the UMPS by the FN is more accurate. There will be apparent change as the anti-nationalist establishment attempts to capitalize on nationalist feeling to fend off the FN.

Thanks for putting the interrelationships between finance and self-determination front and center. I doubt if Hungary's loan agreements with the IMF specified that accepting cash implied surrender of control over Hungary's borders and demographic and cultural self-determination, but the Hungarians were naive not to understand that was implied, as the other eastern EU countries were naive not to anticipate the scope of outside power they were accepting.

You seem to be advocating rule by benevolent elites as the only alternative to tribal slaughter, until such time as the people are sufficiently informed to rule through democratic institutions. That only works as long as the benevolent elites are actually delivering enough of what the people want to be satisfied with the arrangement. It is still working in the Far East, but it is starting to fray in the West. Prolonging economic growth by demographic engineering is not what the Western peoples want, though the elites might reasonably ask, OK, what's YOUR strategy for prolonging economic growth?

Old left and old right mythologies crumble as events show their irrelevance. Vive la polyèdre! Bill

The root cause is Islam, not this kind of Islam or that kind of Islam, but Islam.

Do you believe in freedom of speech?
Do you believe no man has the right to strike his wife?
Do you believe apostasy from the religion you were born into is permissable?
Do you believe a woman can marry the man she chooses?
Do you believe adulterous women should not be stoned to death?

If you believe these things you are not a follower of Islam.

So what should we call you now, John? As an expert in Islamic beliefs, are you an Imam or a Sheikh?

That's pretty much as ridiculous as my saying that if you are a woman who has used birth control, you are not Catholic. Let's leave aside the fact that 98% of Catholic women have used it.

And that part about stoning for adultery is also in the Old Testament, along with lots of other ridiculous commandments that hardly any Christian or Jew subscribes to today.

Let us not quarrel, Roger. What you and I think is of no account. I gave my opinion. What Catholics believe or do not believe is quite irrelevant.

Islam is a very simple religion. It is what believers say it is. And they cannot pick and choose as we Westerners can.

The simpleton has spoken.

Nemo

Sunnis and Shiites, to name two prominent factions, have been fighting over that 'simple religion' for centuries, John: there's a lot of "we" in how "they" go about things, it seems. IS has maybe 30,000 soldiers -- many times that number of Iraqi civilians were killed during the U.S. led invasion of their country, which was not even involved in 9/11. There are probably a billion or so Muslims who are saddened by what happened in Paris.

Best,

Ed

John, you are entitled to your opinion but you are not entitled to have it go unchallenged when you reject your own logic as applied to religions other than Islam. If you can't be a Muslim without believing that adulterers should be stoned, then by the exact same token you can't be a Jew or a Christian without that same belief. Why don't you just stop for a moment and try to honor your own logic by either taking back what you said or affirming it is true for Christians and Jews as well?

To Bill's point, Hollande is asking for more powers in appealing to articles 16 and 36 of the Constitution.

This is to be expected. Even welcomed if with some trepidation. A weak state cannot wage war. It is a trade-off.

I don't know what makes you extract those thoughts from my head, friend Bill. Was it perhaps this in my first post?

That is not an original thought hatched by me. It was said better by Francis Fukuyama in his "Political Order and Political Decay".


Further, Fukuyama makes the point that political development rests on a balance of three categories of institution: the state, rule of law (not to be confused with rule by law), and the mechanisms of accountability. The alternative is a failed state.

Yes, I do believe that the nation-state has passed its heyday. The current global response to the Paris attack seems to confirm that. Breaking down larger states into smaller ones based on religion or ethnicity with no overarching political deterrents (i.e. the EU) will make the individual state more vulnerable to warring neighbors. As we saw in the Yugoslav Wars, as we now see in the Ukraine.

Why should one be willing to regard the United States of America as a viable entity, or the former USSR, but not a future United States of Europe? Both of the former encompass a diversity of cultures and ethnicities. The USA has the advantage of a common language but certainly people in Texas or the Appalachians or New York City represent different cultures. Most European countries teach English as a second language because it is the lingua franca of politics, science and transcultural social communication. Add to that the globalization of culture via the Internet, television and smart phones. In Sweden children start learning English from the first grade. Two year olds (and not only here) used mobile media devices. The political atmosphere of the next generation will be nothing like the present one.

The reason that particular section of Paris was attacked is because it is known as a multi-culti center. ISIS cannot accept gray zones. They want us to be black or white, like their flag. It will get worse before it gets better, but we got through the Spanish Inquisition and we will get through this too. We must not succumb to hate.

I would caution Norman that your link to the Russian news source is that of a well-known propaganda site set up explicitly to influence. No intellectual in Europe would cite it as a trustworthy source. It is the Russian equivalent of Fox News. Designed to brainwash, changeable in content, now you see it, now you don't.

Roger has anticipated me in his reply to John. Thanks for saving me the trouble of quoting chapter and verse.

A bit of perspective about who kills who, here.

What Nemo said in Post #26.

Check this out. From Stockholm.

https://www.facebook.com/sthlmpanda/...47013/?fref=nf

"Jag litar på dig" means "I trust you".

Here is the translation of the sign.

I am a Muslim. Not the same thing as a terrorist. Do you trust me? I trust you.

Posted on FB.

Well if national borders have outlived their usefulness (and boy is that a mouthful worthy of a referendum or two), let's call off the G20 confab of national leaders. No matter how effectively it's been sold under more palatable auspices, ever-larger (and more bureaucratically remote) 'centralisms' simply won't deliver more democracy.

Capital wants a manageable flatland of seven billion ATM card carriers. Variegation, community character, ethnic distinction, borders, etc. impede optimal capital flows. Borders start wars, we keep hearing. Not so fast. Boom-bust cycles inflame people causing border frictions which start wars. War's an economic phenomenon, the last cycle in a secular trend when the planet finds itself gorged on unsustainable debt, precisely as it is now. The complication today is that we have existential warriors who view life as a niggling waystation. Anyway, those are your two in extremis factions: multinationals and jihadists. Neither camp is predisposed to idiosyncracy; one wants unwavering belief, the other, undifferentiated Return On Capital. The rest of us (99%?) are in the middle. It's a big middle.

By contrast, localism is thorny, unyielding, and all-too human. One neighborhood ends. Another begins. And you can feel the difference, the boundaries between sensibilites and communities. Human environs are chockful of starts and stops. This makes them both capital-inefficient and too heterogenous for radical monotheism. Perfect. I'll take it.

But don't believe me. Take a look at Nemo's NYC 'gentrification' pictures. That's a microcosm of the 'bad globalization' process. Chain stores. Dull gray economies of scale. Erased character. People don't live on an aggregated globe. They live in neighborhoods with weather, traffic jams, school referendums and corner stores. This whole globalism gig is catnip for megalomaniacs and completely excised of authentic human coordinates.

But I'm down with the Pope's polyhedron for which he clearly earns his hat.

This is the only sentence I understood in your post, Norman. So it is the only thought I can reply to.Of course they do.

I had heard of Sunnis and Shias, which is more than your late President had. Rather like Protestants and Catholics eh? Except that in general protestants and catholics don't kill each other any more. Islam believes in the theocratic state. Americans and Frenchmen do not.

I personally would be happier if there were fewer muslims in my country. Your country is your own business. French people are generally of my opinion.

As for Paris how many of you have been there? I have been to Paris at least a dozen times, not for a holiday but to work.

The EU has abandoned their idea of open borders. That is dead. Of course they don't say so, not yet.

Oh, and that foolish Merkel woman is finished.

I remember when London had no refuse bins on the sidewalk because (as a bobby explained to me) they were places bombs could be hid. I remember when I had to show my purse each time I entered a restaurant or public building and I'm sure you remember that too, John, the IRA. Those were hard times for Londoners. I hope they are gone for good.

Yes, I've been in Paris. I love that city. And London too. And Athens.

In the late nineties I was in Athens when a bomb went off. That would have been the Revolutionary Nuclei. I'm not sure what year it was, but it was a loud explosion.

Check out Ed's link above.

When it was announced on Thursday that the Italians had revealed a terrorist plot, and Norway was threatened it was understandable why the borders had been closed. The borders will open again. This is temporary.

I bet you ten pounds it is permanent, Janice.

Hi Janice,
Not trying to put words in your mouth, just attempting to infer first principles. It seems that a certain peaceful just, transnational order is the highest desideratum. This should be achievable on a democratic basis, but not until populations are sufficiently enlightened to know that this is best. As people are now, they will be at each other's throats without a higher power to keep them in line. The democracy at several removes of the EC seems to answer for now, with its ability to guide national governments. That is what I infer, not maliciously, from your various statements and I'm not making any judgments on it, just trying to clarify. The viability of a U.S. of Europe remains to be seen, as does the ongoing viability of the U.S.A. and Russia.

Don,
I was not referring to Eurabia as an imaginary dystopia to which I was passionately objecting, but as the name given to the long-term economic and legal integration of European, North African, and Middle Eastern nations. I don't think that description is inaccurate and I don't think people have objected much until relatively recently when conflicts have broken out over the occupation of cultural and physical space. Integration turns out to be more challenging than most people expected. Actually it is very easy at the top of the social ladder and virtually impossible at the bottom. People look at the problems from different altitudes. It even becomes a status symbol not to know about difficulties là bas.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm