About that terrorist attack on the NW/Delta plane from Amsterdam to Detroit.
I have been on that route many times.
And on that aircraft, the Airbus 330, I always sit in that area of the craft when I am not in business class.
This is pretty annoying.
UPDATE: 26 Dec 1452:
From The Wall Street Journal – Routine Turned to Mayhem on Terror Flight via Homeland Security:
Seconds after passengers spotted flames climbing above the back of a window seat midway down the left side of Northwest Flight 253, Friday’s routine descent toward Detroit’s main airport turned into horror, mayhem and instant heroism.
Just as the wide-body Airbus A330 made a rumbling sound as the landing gear started down, horrified travelers in seats around the young Nigerian later detained as a terrorism suspect started screaming, according to eyewitness reports by passengers. Flight attendants quickly joined the hubbub around the man in seat 19A, repeatedly screaming “What are you doing?”
There was a pop and then smoke wafted through the cabin. A passenger then climbed over several seats, lunged across the aisle and managed to subdue the suspect, the eyewitnesses said. The Nigerian man was placed in a headlock before being dragged up to the first class cabin. Passenger Zeina Seagal told CNN that after the suspect was collared and parts of his burning pants were removed, flight attendants quickly grabbed fire extinguishers and doused the fire at his seat.
“We saw the fear in the flight attendants eyes” when they ran in the aisles and “grabbed the fire extinguishers,” Michelle Keepman, a passenger who had been seated near the back of the plane, recalled.
Many of those seated further back didn’t initially understand the reason for all the commotion. Roey Rosenblith, a director of a solar-power start up in Uganda, was in seat 38J, near the rear exits, when he heard the sounds of a struggle coming from many rows ahead. “People were yelling and screaming,” he recalled hours later in an interview, sipping a bottle of water at a hotel near the airport.
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We are as much victims of political correctness as anything else. As a pilot, I don’t expect things to improve.
Cunard uses Chaplains for their Transatlatic crossings.
I see two solutions. The best solution is to have a couple air marshals on every flight to/from/in the US. However, that would cost way too much money so we will never see that happen. The second option is to arm one flight attendant in addition to any pilot that might be armed.
Just *don’t* send them to midnight Mass at St. Peter’s! Chaplains and air marshals are both good ideas.
wait. an arab? maybe profiling would be good!
I have been through the Amsterdam airport many times, a couple of times via Detroit, and, quite honestly, I find it quite hard to believe that this clown got through security in Amsterdam. This is not just annoying; it is terrifying.
An anecdote from my experience: I practically got strip searched in my religious habit coming into Amsterdam from Mpls/St. Paul going to Rome.
I guess I looked more dangerous than someone who might actually fit a “profile” of some terrorist organization…but wait, isn’t the Catholic Church a terrorist organization in the Netherlands???Just askin’?!?!
As a nation we no longer possess what it takes to win wars or take security seriously. Everything is driven by political correctness rather than common sense and truth. We reap what we sow. The idiot today may have been a loaner and not part of an organized terrorist group. But it served as an example to organized terrorists how easy it still is to engage in terrorist acts on U S aircraft.
It isn’t rocket science to figure out what group fosters the greatest number of real terrorists. Any other country with an ounce of common sense would focus on such a group. Here we decry it as “racial profiling” and not only ban it but prosecute those who utilize it as a tool. The USA is no longer a world leader in much of anything and certainly not in terrorism prevention.
“wait. an arab? maybe profiling would be good!”
Actually, the suspect (innocent until proven guilty, after all, but he’s the likely culprit for a reason) was Nigerian. If you were looking for Mideastern people, he’d have gone through like a sieve.
That is not to say we shouldn’t be alert to things like this. But Al-Qaeda has members of almost every ethnicity. Since they ovbiously recruit among Muslims, and Muslims are pretty racially and ethnically diverse (witness Malcolm Little’s shock on arriving in Mecca), stopping the Arab won’t really do much. It’s a stereotype, nothing more.
There is nothing more we can do, frankly. As long as cabin doors are secure and basic security is in place.
Nor should there be much more.
The concern with keeping terrorists off planes…is just an expression of many people’s subconscious fear of flying, and the idea that death in the air would for some reason be worse than death on the ground.
But you could put all sorts of money into having an air marshal on every flight, etc…and then the next terrorists would bring a building down by driving TRUCK bombs into the four corners or something like that.
Attempts to try to find a fail-safe (and nothing is) for AIRPLANES specifically…is really just an attempt to try to feel like we have some control, when we really dont.
There is no way to monitor everyone everywhere, and the cons would outweigh the pros even if we could. But we can’t monitor everyone or put the nation on permanent lock-down. Some guy could just walk into a mall with a bomb, or a school, or they could pour big drums of poison in a water-tower, etc. So concentrating our worry and fear on airplanes specifically, just because that’s how it’s happened a few times in the past…reminds me of that Simpson’s episode where after one bear attack…they spend all this money on a ridiculously over-kill “Bear Patrol”…
Ultimately, a lot of the security is just to make us FEEL safe and to try to act as a deterrent. It’s really hard to stop lone wolf individuals.
I sure hope this guy wasn’t carrying containers with more than 1 oz of liquid. But seriously, how many little old ladies were randomly profiled, while he (a. known.terrorist.) strolled by.
What shall we do about terrorists on airplanes?
1. Have armed marshals or flight attendants trained in the use of weapons on every flight (per JohnMa’s suggestion)
2. The heck with trying to be PC, if someone looks or acts suspicious in any way, have them checked out and never mind what CAIR or the ACLU says about it.
3. If possible, and in case all else fails, make a good confession before every flight :-)
Armed marshals would not have prevented this they are only effective in preventing hijackings they wouldn’t stop a passenger calmly sitting in his seat taking something out of his pocket or carry on and making it go boom.
Secondly profiling just Arabs would not have stopped this, this man was an African Muslim from Nigeria and there are some European Muslims now also thanks to the complete failure of Christianity in combating Islam or even to try to so.
Thirdly the USA can do very little as liberal countries like Holland would never implement the kind of measures that would possibly provide some protection, which would be the banning of all Muslims from flying with American citizens, this can easily done simply my name profiling as most Muslims have Muslim names even converts for example ban people with names such as Abdul Mudallad, this guys name.
Saying that a guy named Barrack Hussein Obama would never implement that policy either.
The best defense is to live a saintly life. We all know how the presence of St. Paul protected those on the ship during his travels.
Being a politically incorrect outside the box kind of thinker, I often ask my self, “wwdvd?, What would de Valette do?”
During the seige of Malta when it became nown the Turks were butchering Christian prisoners, deValatte had all the Muslim prisoners beheaded then they stuffed the heads into cannons and shot them into the Turkish camp.
I’m thinking we kill them, cut them up, feed them to pigs then kill and butcher the pigs and force feed the ham to any relitive of the terrorist that we can round up to the third degree.
That may get some results.
Eric–ouch! Let’s calm down a little.
However, I think the death penality for conviction in an attempt to bring down an Airbus w. plus 250 souls on board completely just.
To quote an American General after a visit to Iraq post Surge–“we need to take the fun out of jihad”.
Bravo to the heroic passengers! They took matters into their own hands!
If I was on that flight-and kept my head-I would have jumped on that turkey and pounded the crap out of him!
Hey Eric-I like your solution too! Let’s ‘deValette ’em’!
Eric the Red,
C’mon, don’t hold back — tell us how you really feel!
I tend in the same direction, my first inclination is to jump in and start pounding heads. Must be the Irish in me. Then the English in me says we ought to be incremental and see if it’s REALLY necessary to do that to them ALL just to get their attention . . . .
But regardless of the degree of action that’s necessary, we need to be doing something more than we’re doing. But I’m afraid political correctness is standing in the way. Remember the bunch of guys in Arab dress that got on a flight and started acting strangely, and were put off — and CAIR sued the blazes out of the airline and got a fat settlement.
Would it be unChristian to suggest that we actively bar ALL foreign-born Moslem men from entering this country? Some intelligent profiling such as the Israelis do at their airports would pretty consistently detect a Moslem regardless of race or country of origin. Our foolish political correctness will be the death of us. That’s got to end.
Bar Muslims from entering America and deport every single one of them now living here.
If America does not do that, we will, eventually, be forced to nuke Millions of them in the ME when we bomb Mecca.
As with many of our present day problems the solution is found in the man on the street.
Note the actions of the passengers, they put the hurt on this guy and subdued him. Same with the “shoe-bomber” Richard Reid. The passengers of Flight 93 on 9/11/01 also come to mind.
The terrorists of the world, no matter what their “religion” or political beliefs, will think twice about tackling a tough target. As other comments on this post note, all the air marshalls and official security measures do no good except as feel good measures.
In this as in other areas our cultural mindset has to change. As a people we need to learn to take charge and rattle what cages are necessary. Think you see a terrorist? Take some sort of action, even if that only involves keeping tabs on the fool until he’s no longer in your vicinity. When he starts to act up, respond accordingly. Maybe that’ll result in a CAIR generated lawsuit as An American Mother noted, but they can’t sue everybody. As a further note, the lawsuit she cites originally was written to include an unspecified number of passengers who had complained about the actions of those “guys in Arab dress”. The resulting furor had CAIR & Co. amend their suit. Seems they didn’t want to grab that particular tiger by it’s tail.
Let’s not be sheep waiting for slaughter, be prepared to kick butt and take names. If the going gets too rough then forget about taking names.
We’re either a part of the problem or a part of the solution.
I’m with subvet, I’d take a lawsuit over death any day and so would most people. And the standards for civilian actions are a lot lower than for law enforcement or navy seals for that matter. We can be expected to fear for our lives more readily than a trained individual. I think there’d be lawyers willing to represent pro bono as well.
After Flight 93, I don’t think that any American Airline will be used for terror. Notice that now the passengers are willing to take out the terrorists before they can bring their plans to fruition. It seems that the horror of 11 Sept 2001 was a fluke and won’t be repeated. But the terrorists will find other ways to attack this country. (Not that we still shouldn’t be vigilant when flying. I remember on a flight back from L.A. to St. Louis a woman in a full burqa with only laced eye slits got on the plane and I was a bit nervous.)
Why don’t they use some common sense and screen the right people?
point: Females rarely attack planes so why do they screen so many of them, including me, every darned time I get on a plane?
point: Older people rarely attack planes, so why do they screen so many of them, outside of the fact it makes the employees feel safer?
The right people would be largely:
MALE
YOUNG
FROM THE MIDDLE EAST OR AFRICA
So how come they’re missing so many of them??????
However….
Luckily people with the money to afford a plane ticket usually have enough common sense to keep an eye on people who look like this, so recent attempts have all been stopped by civilians–ever notice? Some brave guy with an operating brain jumps on the terrorist-to-be and beats him up, and that’s how these things end. The government no longer protects us regardless of the fact that’s a good part of what we’re paying it for.
catholicmidwest wrote; “The government no longer protects us…”
Seriously, when did they ever truly protect the public? Remember, when seconds count the police are just minutes away. FWIW, I got that one from a retired homocide cop.
But the same mindset applies to potential terrorist acts. The only one looking out for number one is number one.
There were always holes in coverage, Subvet, but they used to at least try. Now they are more interested in political correctness and politics than doing their jobs. That’s the difference.
It seems that when the cost is compared, if you’re a flight company, the cost (which is now politically driven in our society) is higher to be “the one that profiles” rather than “the one that loses an airplane.”
“Now they are more interested in political correctness and politics than doing their jobs.”
Well we can definetly agree on THAT one!
De Valette spent his whole life protecting Christians from the Muslims would that we had his like again.
The feast of St Steven’s Liturgy of the Hours morning prayer seems appropriate after this particularly:
Let the faithful celebrate his glory, rejoice even in their beds,
the praise of God in their throats; and swords ready in their hands,
to exact vengeance upon the nations, impose punishment on the peoples,
to bind their kings in fetters and their nobles in manacles of iron,
to carry out the sentence that has been passed: this is the glory prepared for all his faithful.
(from Psalm 149)
Sadly, our culture focuses on how wrong it is to judge, how wrong it is to be intransigent, how wrong it is to defend oneself with force, and how wrong it is to BE less poor than someone else.
Well, “Judge not lest ye be judged” said nothing about telling someone who was wrong that he was in fact WRONG.
St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that intransigence can be a form of charity. In recent years, Barry Goldwater paraphrased that sentiment to say that extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice.
And defending one’s self and one’s way of life — Barry also said that there was no virtue in moderation in the pursuit of justice, or tolerance in the face of tyranny.
And the fact that some people have and others have not — some cultures are richer and some are poorer. I think anyone grounded in catholic philosophy would recall that there is a hierarchy in nature, in the created order of natural and spiritual beings, and so it is only natural that there should be hierarchy in societies as well — and a society that is more peaceful and wealthy than one that seeks to enslave half its population and destroy or subjugate its neighbors does not have anything to be sorry for, unless it be weakness in their efforts to spread Christ’s message of peace, of individual worth, and of love for one’s fellows. Does the Church’s recent focus on “preferential option to the poor” neuter or undo our understanding of this truth? Does it promote, even indirectly, the folks who would drive us to socialism? Why do I even have to ask the question …
No, we are sadly at the same point as 5th-century Rome, or Pyrrhus’s Greece — the decline has been going for some time, and is now accelerating. All of our institutions support this tepidity of spirit, schools, churches, governments at every level. It will take 2 or 3 generations of concerted effort to undo this decay.
Catholicmidwest,
That profile would fit a good twelve or so percent of American citizens, if you go by appearance alone. Besides, one has seen lately in places like Iraq that the terrorists often use people they know would not fit the profile to carry out their acts – for example, a young woman in Western clothin. What’s to stop them from doing that here, knowing that we’ll only pay attention to the Middle-Eastern or Malay young man there?
If you want to do profiling (which is not in itself discriminatory), suspicious BEHAVIOR is what you should look at as well – they Israelis may pay close attention to Arabs, but they’re more concerned with actual behavior and body language – are they suspiciously reaching for something, are they acting extremely nervous and standoffish, etc., which is what police in gang neighborhoods do all the time. Relying on appearance alone is not going to do you much good.
As for the calls to deport Muslims, remember that a good deal of those who live here – I know several personally as former classmates and coworkers – have no homeland other than the United States, and came to America to flee Islamic fascism in the first place. I think it ridiculous to imagine my dentist massacring people in a mall, or my greengrocer blowing himself up. Then there’s the whole First Amendment problem – I may know the Muslim religion is wrong a priori, but, provided they obey the laws, they have as much right to be here as I do. Let’s disabuse ourselves of the notion that the majority of Muslims in this country are concerned about anything more than raising families, working, the occasional sports game, and getting a good bargain at Ross. We’d do much better preaching the Gospel to them than breaching their thoracic cavities.
“I may know the Muslim religion is wrong a priori, but, provided they obey the laws, they have as much right to be here as I do.”
Not to mention that if our government were to start forbidding Muslims to immigrate or expel them from the country PURELY on the basis of their religion alone (NOT because of known terrorist or subversive activity or affiliations), what’s to prevent the same principle from being turned against Catholics, on the grounds that their religion is a “threat” to the “rights” of women who want to abort their children or be ordained priests, gay couples who want to marry, etc.
Don’t forget, there HAVE actually been people and groups in our history, such as the Know Nothing Party and the Ku Klux Klan, who argued that Catholics should be forbidden to emigrate to the U.S. and/or deported on the grounds that they professed loyalty to a “foreign potentate,” i.e., the pope.
Abraham Lincoln once famously said of the Know Nothings that if they got control of the country, the Declaration of Independence would have to be altered to read “all men are created equal, except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” If that happened, he added, he’d just as soon emigrate to Russia (then ruled by the czars) or some other country where they “make no pretense of loving liberty.”
bookworm: Excellent insights.
But unless the “common wisdom” (the major media) knock off the attacks against the Church, we WILL be considered “terrorists”, if we aren’t already, ‘de facto’, not yet ‘de jure.’
I’m far from being a conspiracy theorist or totally paranoid, but the attitude from the “golden ones” in the media, politics, entertainment, etc. is definately against the Catholic Church.
Like I said in another post, just read the obscenities, calumnies and venomous hatred against our Holy Father when he was attacked by that woman. Yes, there are people from all over the world commenting here, but it is frightening and eye-opening, just the same.
Rather than punishing travelers, the airlines ought to offer a bounty for disabling a terrorist on board, by whatever means necessary. What they’re trying to do instead is not going to work.
Trust me, people understand after 911 that if you wait, you lose. The airlines and their PC security cannot be trusted to get there before disaster happens. Getting there is up to the bright and aggressive men on board, and they know that in their guts. They won’t be stopped in situations like the Christmas day incident in Detroit, nor should they be.
Bookworm,
I’m afraid you are correct. We have lived in a very settled situation for many years here in the states, where things were predictable and homogenous. Now, however, that situation no longer pertains, and we fall back to coping techniques known in former days, when the unexpected could occur and did. People are going to have to get a bunch tougher or they’re going to kick the bucket regularly, I’m afraid. We haven’t, as a country, gotten up to speed with that very well yet, but we will.
Francisco,
And yet this man who tried to set off a bomb on Christmas day was the son of a wealthy businessman, and an engineer. He lived in a swank area of London. They don’t look like bums, Francisco. Studious and above-board is part of the M.O. Guys who can’t afford a plane ticket to be trained need not apply.
I leave you to figure out the new rules of engagement, as I know no more than you do, but it’s something we, in the entire West (Europe included) are having to come to terms with. What we’re doing is obviously not working. Probably because we’re so busy trying to make the phenomenon fit into our own mental categories–and it doesn’t–AT. ALL.
If my understanding is correct, the screening focuses on objects, items, paraphernalia and the like, but averts its eyes from ‘young Muslim men between the ages of 20 to 45’. This is the inverse of the little boy looking for his lost quarter where it was not lost, simply because the light is better. One suspects thousands of assaults on the cockpits and flight attendants with nail clippers have been averted… In this case, it appears the detonator was, to use the crude vernacular, up the butt. While this ironically might generate an entire industry for government snooping, the better option is focusing on particular indicators of attitude and behavior. This might immediately exclude what, 99% of all flyers? (I suspect the most likely white-haired Grandma terrorist would have been stopped immediately when she stood up and shouted, “Where’s the beef?”)
But I am not sanguine, and doubt this will change without some horrific incident though. It is one thing to say, “They are angry at us and this is the only way they have to fight back, and if only we would leave them alone..blah,blah, blah” when it was a bomb in Qatar or terrorists in Mumbai. But Cleveland… “IHS”
One more thing, who here believes it is a good idea, and excellent for the future of the country to have lawyers from Eric Holder’s law firm providing Pro Bono work for GITMO terrorists? And that the Justice Dept. has lawyers more interested in protecting terrorist rights than the rights of Americans.
Kerry (on the last post; I am of two minds of the first):
Even the most despicable of criminals deserve a competent defense at trial – that’s the underpinning of the court system. Will the terrorist’s rights be protected? Yes, but they are criminal defendants, and if we deny them the right to counsel (whether private or state-appointed) because they are terrorists, what’s to stop them in future from denying you or me the right to legal counsel, based on the fact that the prosecution or the majority (remember, us Catholics are not in the majority, and God forbid someone worse than Obama comes along) says we are guilty of heinous crimes real or imagined?
Besides, are we really so shell-shocked as to forget the Bill of Rights simply because we hate what they did? So yeah, if preserving our civil liberties means that we protect the rights of even heinous terrorists at trial, then I am for it. Because you never know when you next turn up in court.
How about getting rid of Airforce One and have the president fly on everyday flights. We would for sure see some changes!
Kimberly: good idea.
Unfortunately, B.O. has more important things to do.
Like nothing.
Except you do, Francisco, if you don’t blow up planes. I don’t blow up planes….
nazareth priest,
Not so. He played his umpteenth round of presidential golf yesterday. (more than any other president, which appears so far to be his only claim to fame)
catholicmidwest: Good for him! Good for him!
So glad to hear that the crisis in the world/the USA did not keep him from enjoying his-royal=self!
Yawhzaaar!
His visa should have been cancelled after his father went to the US Embassy and explained his concerns.
The US should be stricter about who gets visas.
As a Nigerian, I am very disappointed. Perhaps more of the disappointment is how the news is being spun. Why aren’t we hearing that the Nigerian is a a radical Muslim in the very same sentence?
Secondly, when I travel, are people going to identify me as a Nigerian who is a potential terrorist regardless of my religious affiliation?
I would like them to ask me if I am Muslim or Christian before they tell me to step aside because I’ve been “randomly selected” to be searched.
After all, I do think this method would be most effective in singling out just the Muslims because I don’t think a Muslim will ever deny that he is a Muslim.
Is this bad? perhaps it’s a lot better than singling out people based on what country they are flying to or flying from.
Not to mention that if our government were to start forbidding Muslims to immigrate or expel them from the country PURELY on the basis of their religion alone
You have distilled the Liberal Principle of Non-Discrimination down to its suicidal essence.
Of course America – and every single country in the west – should forbid Muslims from moving into their countries. The Koran Commands them to kill the unbelievers.
The idea a country can not defend itself from a religion that teaches its followers such an evil doctrine is an idea that could only come from Liberalism.
That Catholics have become so corrupted by Liberalism as to actually adopt its suicidal ideology is testament to the failure of the Church to teach its children history.
For over Thirteen Centuries Islam has been an implacable and deadly enemy of Christianity, Judaism, Liberty, and Civilisation yet now we have our own brethren publicly promoting/defending the suicidal idea we let them move into America.
The Old Catholic Encyclopedia had this to say about Mohammedism:
In matters political Islam is a system of despotism at home and aggression abroad. The Prophet commanded absolute submission to the imâm. In no case was the sword to be raised against him. The rights of non-Moslem subjects are of the vaguest and most limited kind, and a religious war is a sacred duty whenever there is a chance of success against the “Infidel”. Medieval and modern Mohammedan, especially Turkish, persecutions of both Jews and Christians are perhaps the best illustration of this fanatical religious and political spirit.
Islam has always been, and will always remain, a totalitarian ideology invented by a man Serge Trifkovic, rightly, described as part David Koresh, part John Gotti.
There is simply no excuse for Catholics not to know the facts.
Robert Spencer, Catholic, has his written several wonderful books about Islam (and now about Mohammed), he has his own website, Jihad Watch (with many useful links) Bat Ye’or has written several definitive studies/books about the evil wrought by that malign and malignant ideology; Serge Trifkovic (Orthodox) has books and audio tapes about Islam, and on the internet (such as The Univ of So. Cal) one can read The Koran, Hadiths, and Siras about Islam.
Please take some time to do some research and whatever you do do not adopt the innumerable idiocies of Liberalism.
Liberalism is a Death Cult
Abraham Lincoln once famously said of the Know Nothings that if they got control of the country, the Declaration of Independence would have to be altered to read “all men are created equal, except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” If that happened, he added, he’d just as soon emigrate to Russia (then ruled by the czars) or some other country where they “make no pretense of loving liberty.”
Comment by bookworm
Is this the same Lincoln who suspended habeas corpus, then ignored the court order to end that suspension?
1. There already is profiling of passengers. Those who are obviously not terrorists, like my 84 yr old mother, always get a thorough going over to obscure the profiling.
2. Most airport security is intended for little else than making passengers feel safe. Now that has become the can’t leave the seat in the last hour of the flight and nothing on the lap rules.
3. Most of the real security comes from tracking potential terrorists.
Various ideas have been put forward here and I certainly agree with the poster who suggested making a good confession before flying!
However I am surprised at how many suggest banning anyone with a moslem name from flying. If you transfer this to say the period of the IRA attacks it could have been suggested at the time that anyone with an Irish name should be banned from flying. That would have included me although I am not even Irish but my late husband was. It is a dangerous path to blanket ban any particular race or religion from anything – Catholics could be next.
Robtbrown mentions the new rule about not leaving your seat on a plane for the last hour before landing. What on earth (or in the air) do passengers do if they suffer from weak bladders?
It is a dangerous path to blanket ban any particular race or religion from anything –
Far from being a dangerous path to follow, it is the only safe one to follow.
Please. Stop and think about what you are suggesting. Can anyone even imagine the America of 1950 letting large numbers of Muslims immigrate into America?
Is America worth defending? If you do not think it is worth defending, then say so. And then move to a country you do think is worth defending.
There is no Supernatural, Natural, or Positive Law that commands Americans to accept into their midst members of a religion whose Doctrines teach they must kill or subjugate us and make us pay the Jizya.
Islam is the mortal enemy of Christians and Jews and they are, once again, at war with us. The first time they went to was against Christians it took us nearly FOUR CENTURIES to respond.
Please read-up on Islam and what it teaches.
And consider Catholic Prophecy (I’d recommend Desmond a Birch’s, Trial, Tribulation, & Triumph) and what it has to say about The Minor Chastisement, civil wars in France and Italy breaking-out at about the the same time, followed by England (Gee, what religion is it that is sending its assimilable adherents into those countries in great numbers?) Russia invading the West, The Pope fleeing Rome and being murdered?
IF the west, especially America, does not wake-up to the reality that Islam IS at war against it, it will continue to treat Muslims as no different than Christians and Jews.
It is madness. Preventable madness.
As Enoch Powell said in his famous speech:
The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles which are deeply rooted in human nature.
One is that by the very order of things such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: at each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary. By the same token, they attract little attention in comparison with current troubles, which are both indisputable and pressing: whence the besetting temptation of all politics to concern itself with the immediate present at the expense of the future.
Unless America stops Muslim Immigration it WILL, at some time in the future, be forced into an extreme military response that will result in the deaths of millions of Muslims, and who-knows-how-many Christians on the Arabian Peninsula.
It is ineluctable. The past is prologue with Islam and pretending all religions are the same is evil and will result in an untold number of unnecessary deaths.
Keep Islam bottled-up in the ME. Keep it bottled-up inside its own borders. Keep it weak, humiliated, and bereft of WMDs.
In the meantime,because you do not have to:
Wear a Burka, thank a Catholic;
Pray on a mat facing Mecca, thank a Catholic;
Pay the Jizya, thank a Catholic;
Make the Hajj, thank a Catholic;
Speak Arabic, thank a Catholic.
assimilable should read unassimilable