I Guess the Religion of Peace Didn’t Get the Memo

One of my dark pleasures is rubbing the faces of Liberals in the dirt of their own ignorance. We are constantly told that History Doesn’t Matter! or that traditional Muslims have always lived in peace with traditional Christians (Stan Drezhlo, call your office). The Neocon/Trotskyites peddle their own brand of this Progressivism in order to justify the importation of American Democratism to the Third World.

Over a year ago, I belittled the “Arab Spring” that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Flowers did not bloom, unicorns did not gallop, and rainbows didn’t burst forth on the horizon. Maybe someday the Interventionists among us will get the idea that Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law is an artifact of European peoples and that it won’t work outside the confines of Christendom. (I rather doubt it. They say a Neoconservative is a Liberal who was mugged by reality and a Neoliberal is a Liberal who was likewise mugged but refused to press charges.)

This nonsense of course is belied by the facts on the ground. Somewhere, our Founding Fathers –who warned us about foreign adventures–are smiling.

The attack on St. Mark Cathedral: Here are pictures the media won’t show you

st-mark-attack

Source: Human Events | Raymond Ibrahim

Egypt’s Coptic Christians frequently accuse state security, police, and the military of overlooking Muslim attacks on Christians and their places of worship, especially monasteries and churches. The Western mainstream media often ignores these accusations, or mentions them in passing as “unsubstantiated reports.” Last weekend’s assault on the St. Mark Cathedral — unprecedented in significance — was no different, except for the fact that there are many pictures demonstrating governmental complicity.

To recap: After last Sunday’s St. Mark Cathedral funeral service for Egypt’s most recent Christian victims of jihad — including one man set aflame by Muslims chanting “Allahu Akbar!” — more Muslims attacked the Christian mourners, resulting in the deaths of two more Copts, including one shot through the heart.

In response, hundreds of Christians retreated back into their cathedral — both to get out of harm’s way, and to protect their holiest site. They were trapped there all night, enduring projectile and firebomb attacks from the mob. State security also opened fire on the cathedral, including through tear-gas.

Several Egyptian media outlets and newspapers, especially the popular Youm7, recently published a variety of pictures showing these mobs, if not terrorists, attacking the cathedral in front of absolutely indifferent, possibly approving, security forces. The mainstream media has not shown any of these pictures.

Click here to view them, along with commentary.

Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians. He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Comments

  1. nit picker says

    I would not be at all surprised if within the next 2 years or less Turkey starts to mimic similar behavior against Cyprus and forms a coalition with other Middle Eastern countries to carry out a plan of aggression against Cyprus and to assist the Palestinian Muslims against the Israelis and Palestinian Christians who everybody has been systematically disenfranchising since the establishment of the “State of Israel.”

    • Ladder of Divine Ascent says

      “from sundays Chicago trib

      “Bishop Matthias resigns”

      Comment on Chicago Trib site:

      Priest Nikolai Breckenridge

      You must know nothing of this case. He didn’t abuse anyone, let alone a child. He said something in jest that was misunderstood. He’s being ousted because the clergy of his diocese don’t want a Bishop telling them they can’t do whatever they want. They are using the “scandal” as an excuse.

      ================

      Only thing that I know that +Matthias told our priest he couldn’t do anymore was Sunday baptisms (by shaving a little off Liturgy and little off baptism ceremony), which meant Saturday morning almost “private” baptisms. Not saying this was popular, but as far as I could tell the scandal was a scandal not just a pretext,

  2. Michael Bauman says

    George, I lean to a more malevolent understanding of what the support of the Arab uprisings is all about: I think it is absolutely intentional knowing that the indigeous Christians will be wiped out.

  3. George W. Bush and his “Neocon/Trotskyite” foreign policy team were products of the Conservative Movement. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were supported by conservatives across the board. Conservatives thrilled to the Arab Spring, and claimed it to be a vindication of their “Project for a New American Century.” Even now it is conservatives (McCain, Graham) who want the United States to send munitions to questionable parties in Syria. Even now it is conservatives (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle) who have recently regaled us with how great things turned out in Iraq and the entire Middle East as a result of their folly.

    But it’s a pleasure to rub Liberals noses in the dirt of their own ignorance and so here we see an Orwellian use of language; the term “Liberal” used in a way that actually means “Movement Conservative” or, more broadly, “Republican.”

    • George Michalopulos says

      Correction: George W Bush was part of the Consevative movement, this is true. The Neocons however are former Trotskyites who left the Left and migrated over to the Right, bringing their universalist principles with them.

      • You undermine yourself, George, when you post fanciful “corrections” like this.

        You say Dick Cheney was a man of the Left. When was that? While he was serving in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, as a Republican Congressman from Wyoming, when he was George H. W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense, or perhaps when he was the Vice President of the United States under George W. Bush?

        Similarly, when was Donald Rumsfeld in the Left? When he was Republican Congressman from Illinois, or when he served in the Nixon Administration, was US Ambassador to NATO, was Gerald Ford’s Chief of Staff or perhaps while he was Ford’s Secretary of Defense? Perhaps it was while he was making millions as a businessman outside of government, or when Reagan made him Special Envoy to the Middle East. Perhaps it was when he was named by George W. Bush to repeat as Secretary of Defense.

        There is not a shred of evidence that either Cheney or Rumsfeld were ever part of “the Left,” and a broad record that they were members of the Conservative Movement before Ronald Reagan was elected to office.

        • George Michalopulos says

          When did I say that Dick Cheney was a “man of the Left”? He was and is a Conservative as far as I know. However he plighted his troth with the Neocons in the belief that foreign adventurism is somehow “conservative” and of course he now believes in “marriage equality.”

          • historian says

            The only conservative you acknowledged was George W. Bush.

            You correctly identified Cheney and Rumsfeld as “Neocons” and asserted that Neocons “are former Trotskyites who left the Left and migrated over to the Right.”

            Thus you made the assertion about Cheney and Rumsfeld, who were cited by name in the post that you “corrected.”

            • George Michalopulos says

              If I did, then I stand corrected. For the record, neither Dick Cheney nor Donald Rumsfeld were then Neocons. That does not mean that they did not pursue a possibly misguided Neocon policy. Again for the record, when I say Neocon I mean those who in a previous incarnation were actually Trotskyites, Neoliberal, or Liberal but then migrated Rightward and landed in the Republican Party. While their Rightward migration at least as far as economics and social policy are concerned was welcome, their insistence that non-European/non-Christian peoples have the same hunger for Classical Liberalism and Republicanism (i.e. what our Founding Fathers believed) is comical. And their insistence that America embrace a Wilsonian Crusading spirit to foist our principles upon others is disastrous.

        • George Michalopulos says

          Again, I never said that either Cheney or Rumsfeld were “men of the Left.”

    • historian says

      If you actually read The American Conservative you’ll have perused the recent article The Untold Story of Antiwar Conservatives which speaks of how the entire conservative media conspired to silence the few anti-war conservatives, and how that publication got founded in part due to that conservative media blackout of anti-war voices.

      From the conservative movement flagship National Review down the drums for war were being beaten. Heck, even First Things got into the act, explaining how a “just war” against “rogue states” did not require aggression on their part.

      If we are to believe you, all these (not to mention the entire conservative electronic media) are liberals or Trotskyites, not to mention the members of the US Senate, including then majority leader Bill Frist and his whip, Mitch McConnell.

      My post is accurate, Fr. Hans. The facts speak for themselves.

  4. Michael Bauman says

    Journey to Orthodox has a piece on Fr Zakria Boutros, the Coptic priest with a $60 million price on his head by the religion of peace because he tells the truth about their “prophet”

    • Michael Bauman says

      Saunca, did you read the article on Journey to Orthodoxy? Do you know anything about Fr. Zakaria and his work? Fr. Zakaria does not preach against Islam, he uses Islam’s own scriptures, writings and interpretations and merely exposes them for what they are. He can do that because he has lived as a persecuted minority under Islam most of his life, he reads and understands Arabic and the entire Islamic culture in a way that you and I cannot.

      Christians who foment war, mysogyny, perverted sexuality and general brutality are in violation of the Scriptures and Holy Tradition. Fr. Zakaria points out with great clarity the fact that those in Islam who promote these things are following the teachings and practice of their founder. At the same time, depsite the torture and brutality he and his family have personally suffered at the hands of Islam, he loves Muslims who are truly pious God-seekers–they deserve the truth.

      He has been instrumental in thousands of faithful Mulims converting to Christianity, which is why he has a $60 million dollar bounty on his head; put there by respected leaders of the ‘religion of peace’.

      You are engaging in a common modern sophistry of eglitarianism, i.e, everything is equal to everything else.

      Read the article. I think you might begin to see that there is no moral or spiritual equality between Islam and Christianity. That does not excuse anyone who professes Christianity from brutal acts, quite the contrary, it means we must do even better.

      You do realize that the area to which you point as proof of your thesis was under the Islamic Turkish yoke for around 500 years during which most of the people left being Christian. Subsequently, very briefly a Catholic monarchy which was follwed by decades of Nazi and Soviet brutality.

      Only saints follow their faith in such conditions. To acutally attribute the political ideologies of any of the parties in that area to the faiths the claim, is naive and intellectually dishonest.

      Here is a story: In Kosovo there was (I pray it is still there) an ancient Orthodox monastary who guarded the healing relics of a local saint. During the time when the U.N. ‘Peacekeepers’ were standing around watching who killed who, there was a young Muslim father who’s daughter was wasting away. He had been to all the doctors he could find, all told him there was no hope. Out of both faith and desparation at a time when there was a lot of shooting going on in the town, he called the monastary requesting that he be allowed to bring his daughter before the relics of the saint. He was granted permission.

      At great risk, he took his daughter across town, the monks brought the child before the relics and prayed for her healing. She was healed.

      Historically in these lands, many faithful Mulsims look to the Orthodox Chrisitans when they seek peace and holiness, not their own tradtion. It is the same respose invoked by Fr. Zakaria, but from his words many are granted the courage to leave Islam despite the fact that they then become subject to death under Islamic law. They do so because their longing for truth and their horror at finding out what their faith actually teaches is greater than their fear of death or love for the world.

      Would that we pampered and rootless ‘mericans would come to the same point of repentance.

  5. Michael Bauman says

    Saunca,

    I have no disagreement with you regarding the horrible acts of many who call themselves Christians in the Balkans. Lots of proof. I have no disagreement with you that there have been almost countless acts of such brutality commited in the name of Christ in history.

    I don’t understand though with what do you disagree?

    Do you disagree that there are substantial and profound differences theologically between Islam and Christianity specifically on the nature of God and our interrelationship with Him?

    Do you disagree that there are substantial and profound differences between Jesus Christ and Mohammed?

    Do you disagree that there are substantial and profound differences between the anthroplogy of Christianity and Islam?

    Do you disagree with the fact that many Muslims in the Middle East turn to Orthodox Chrisitan holy sites for peace and healing?

    Do you disagree that Chrisitanity has a superior claim to truth than Islam? Keep in mind that Islam specifically rejects the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation and Resurrection while claiming that Mohammed is the Seal of the Prophets and thus superior to the teaching and life of the prophet Jesus, a man.

    Do you disagree that Fr. Zakaria is doing the work of God by, at substantial personal risk, speaking to Muslims about their own teachings and the truth of the Gospel? Do you disagree that he is speaking truthfully?

    Do you disagree that that not all folks who call themselves Christians and claim the faith actually are Christians and have any right to claim that name?

    Or do you just base your disagreement, whatever it is, on the failure of Christians to live fully, or even partially Christian lives and that such brutal failure excuses the brutality and lies of Islam or puts us the same moral and spiritual plane?

    • Michael Bauman says

      Saunca:

      OK. I don’t find what you say particularly relevant to discerning the truth. “We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” That is the very beginning of any Christian faith. I am not sure that it has any place at all in Islam.

      Here is what I hope you consider:

      Orthodoxy is not really about morality at all, we are called to a higher calling (which because it is higher includes moral acts). Islam is all about morality, the law in fact. It creates a very different context that is well outside the realm of even normal Christian behavior. The context of Islam encourages immorality in many many ways that Christianity does not.

      The question that should be asked, IMO, is not whether “Do we fail to live up to our calling?” (The answer to that will always be yes), but rather we should ask: What am I called to? Am I called to the Truth (i.e, union with Jesus Christ the Incarnate God)? Am I called to witness to the Truth? If so, what am I doing about it?

      I am not called to defend sin simply because another Christian (or me) did it.

      It is not profitable, IMO, to lump all the failure into one basket and pass it out equally. I am not responsible, nor are you for what our ancestors did. Although we bear the burden of their sin; we also reap the benefits of their holiness (quite a lot).

      You’d be really hard pressed to find anything approaching the holiness of Orthodox women down through the centuries in Islam. I dare say it is pretty much absent.

      Heresy and worshipping false gods is not without consequence to the people involved. For us to be good witnesses, we need to be clear and strong in the Truth.

  6. cyntha curran says

    chechen brotherhood.

  7. cynthia curran says

    Well, Nixon was far from a conservative maybe on things like law and order or against drugs. Support for the Vietnam war started with liberals in the Kennedy Adminstration .Nixon did the EPA And once wage and price controls. I lived in an area that was effcctive by the Vietnam War because thousands of Vietnamise Refugees fled out of Vietnam to avoid camps as funding for the war was reduce gave the North Victory, its all over now and it can’t be changed either way.