{"id":2000,"date":"2016-12-23T20:01:52","date_gmt":"2016-12-24T01:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/?p=2000"},"modified":"2016-12-23T20:02:11","modified_gmt":"2016-12-24T01:02:11","slug":"2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/?p=2000","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"truck-attack\"<\/a>As a number of pundits have predicted, there was a terrorist attack in Berlin, at a Christmas festival, with a multi-ton ‘lorry’ smashing full speed into a stall selling mulled wine. Eleven people were killed by the truck, with scores wounded, some severely, and a twelfth victim, the operator of the truck, killed by an Islamic hijacker, who careened it into the market. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Just today, we heard that the alleged perpetrator was shot and killed by police in Milan, after a random street check at 3 am. The terrorist, pulling a gun from his backpack, managed to shoot one of the officers in the shoulder before the other office, a trainee, shot him dead. \u00a0God rest his soul, and the souls of his victims. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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On that note, here is what I had to write last year, after the massacres in Paris, and the principles, to my mind, still hold sound. Editor.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Our first response in a terrorist attack like this is to pray for the victims and their families, but there must also be a practical, this-side-of-eternity response also.\u00a0 Mr. Hollande’s promise to ‘wage a war without compromise’ sort of misses the point:\u00a0 This is not a ‘war’ in any traditional sense of the word, for there is no ‘nation’ attacking France, unless one includes the vague and indeterminate ‘nation of Islam’.\u00a0 But that is just the point:\u00a0 The enemy himself is ‘vague and indeterminate’.\u00a0 He does not wear a uniform, he may be from any nation, indeed, he may be born on the very soil of France, he may even swear allegiance to all that France (or name your country) holds dear.\u00a0 For in Islam, lying to the infidel is no crime or sin at all (at least, we may presume, in the ideological interpretation of ISIS).<\/p>\n

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Whom does Mr. Hollande plan to capture and jail?\u00a0 It is illegal in France to take a census\u00a0 based on religious affiliation, but the estimates are that 5-7% of France identifies as Muslim, which translates to about 3-5 million people.\u00a0 Of these, one poll estimates that one in six supports the aims of the ‘Islamic State’, otherwise known as ISIS:\u00a0 Here is the Washington Post<\/a> earlier this year:<\/p>\n

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And when it comes to levels of extremism within France’s Islamic community, attitudes are again hard to ascertain. One recent poll suggested that 1 in 6 French citizens supported the Islamic State militant organization<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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If true, that is about 640,000, more than half a million, Muslims who may be supporters of the radical, no-holds-barred, torture-as-you-may, throat-cutting barbarians of ISIS.\u00a0 As the articles warns, we must take all such polls with a large grain of salt, and very few Muslims are terrorists, but a number of them seem to sympathize, and are open to ‘radicalization’.\u00a0 Even if it is only 1%, that amounts to thousands of would-be terrorists in your very midst<\/em>, who are already citizens and have full rights thereof. How many unemployed, disaffected, even angry, young Muslims are there in the vast, bleak, impoverished, concrete wasteland bainlieues<\/em> of the Parisian suburb just waiting for some ideology to guide their lives, to give them a purpose, a plan?<\/p>\n

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Even the majority of ‘moderate’ Muslims who disdain any connection with terrorism and live quiet lives as good citizens still venerate their founder, a man who spread his religion by sword and by coercion, whatever the Qur’an might advocate of modern ‘jihad’ one way or the other.<\/p>\n

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If this is a war, it is a war of ideology, of culture and ultimately of religion, and can only be won on those grounds.\u00a0 But France, once the ‘eldest daughter of the Church’ has by and large lost her faith.\u00a0 In a curious irony, the concertgoers who comprised most of the dead and wounded were there to hear the band ‘Eagles of Death Metal’.\u00a0 Likely the ISIS terrorists (presuming it was indeed them) knew and planned this, as part of their war against the ‘Great Satan’ of what they perceive to be decadent Western culture.\u00a0 So much, at least, for ‘death metal’ culture in France; who is going to attend one of their concerts now?<\/p>\n

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What really is<\/em> holding France (or Germany, or Canada) together?\u00a0 For what is she fighting, and what is she defending?\u00a0 French cuisine and art?\u00a0 The ‘freedom’ to do whatever it is one wants?\u00a0 Who is at war with whom?\u00a0 Back in the days of Charles Martel, who defeated the Islamic hordes invading from the south in the great battle of Tours in October of 732, France was a united country under the Catholic faith and the cohesive culture to which that faith gave rise.\u00a0 She knew for what she fought.<\/p>\n

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But now, in November of 2015?\u00a0 France, along with most of Europe, is in a demographic and cultural death spiral, and has allowed Islam, in its multifold forms, to fill the vacuum. \u00a0Germany is even further down the road to dissolution, as Chancellor Merkel seems intent on allowing an unending stream of vigorous, young male ‘refugees’ through the borders with scarcely a security check.\u00a0 At least one of the suicide bombers in France was found with a Syrian passport on his mangled body.<\/p>\n

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I know not what the future holds, but, from the looks of things today, not good for France, nor for Europe.\u00a0 On a minor but significant note, the Irish band U2 has already cancelled a planned concert in France, and Paris, the number one tourist destination in the world (up until now) will likely see many more such ‘cancellations’ in the near future.\u00a0 France has closed her borders, imposed a curfew, and is under martial law, with ten thousand army troops deployed to ‘walk the streets’, an unprecedented move since the darkest days of World War II.\u00a0 The terrorists have already won by fear.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, we pray for the dead, the wounded and their families and, yes, for the perpetrators of this carnage.\u00a0 May God have mercy on all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a number of pundits have predicted, there was a terrorist attack in Berlin, at a Christmas festival, with a multi-ton ‘lorry’ smashing full speed into a stall selling mulled wine. Eleven people were killed by the truck, with scores wounded, some severely, and a twelfth victim, the operator of the truck, killed by an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2000"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2003,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions\/2003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}