No, there are many parallels. As with the Nazis, the main focus of hatred with the Islamists is the jews. History is repeating itself, and this is truly a continuation of the conflict that was initiated in the 7th century...all of it, WWI, WWII, the cold war, and the conflict now, can be traced back to the muslim expansion.

Some bad news: the technology to make nuclear weapons is now fifty years old. By today's first-world technological standard, making them is not even particularly difficult anymore.

Over the course of this century, many more nations will achieve the kind of economic growth and technological empowerment that enables them to build nuclear weapons. Some will do so. I agree that we should do everything reasonable to reduce proliferation, but anyone who doesn't realize that we will soon have a much larger number of nuclear powers is, frankly, living in a fantasy land.

This isn't a parallel to WWII. This is entirely new territory.

I wasn't 'scared' by 9-11. 9-11 happened in NYC, and like the famous salsa commercials, NYC was never anywhere I particularly wanted to be or cared about.

Actually, amidst all the tragedy, one of the real changes in my attitude for the better brought about by 9-11, is that I realized at an emotional level that not every New Yorker was like the characters of Seinfeld, but that there were in fact 'real Americans' in New York. Looking around the South, for me it was the first time I can remember Southerners looking at Yankees with admiration and thinking about them not as strange and dispicable characters but equals. I think it ended alot of the silly hostility to the North that the South had, and which I had but didn't realize it.

In fact, the 2000 elections scared me worse than 9-11.

But, I disgress. The important point being that 9-11 was a limited event which happened elsewhere and which if it was to be repeated was clearly going to keep happening elsewhere because the terrorists were clearly a) stupid, and b) motivated primarily by the desire to create symbols and media images. That didn't in the slightest change how I felt we should respond to 9-11, but for my part I never felt any of the fear that I've heard so many people (at least in the press) talk about feeling after 9-11. Fear was, as far as I can tell, something that was (for good reasons) limited to big city dwellers and the easily upset.

But, the last week's events have made me feel something that can only be properly described as fear. The emerging European intifada, combined with the major escalation in war rhetoric by Iran, the fact that the Iraqi 'insurgency' is basically over EXCEPT most critically for the fact that 90+ Americans just died in large part to command detonation mines (its no longer IMO accurate to call them 'improvised') manufactured either directly in Iran or with Iranian technical assistance, and the general state of political paralyzation experienced by the West since oh about 2 weeks after 9-11 have got me for the first time worried. I literally feel as if we are only a few weeks or months from the outbreak of what can only be described as a third World War (depending on how you count such things).

None of the things that have happened in the last week are intellectually unexpected for me. I've been predicting them for years. But predicting an event as an intellectual exercise is entirely different than seeing that same event beginning to unfold.

Does anyone else have this same sense, or am I merely being paranoid?

Reading this makes me realize first of all Iran has to be stopped. Even if this means ultimatum or war. Some countries just can't be allowd to have Nukes.
Secondly, what a lapse of responsibility and judgement on Bush's part to not be pursuing non proliferation. Set the example buddy! And not securing or buying up ex Soviet nukes but at the snail's pace we're doing it.

Looking around the South, for me it was the first time I can remember Southerners looking at Yankees with admiration and thinking about them not as strange and dispicable characters but equals.

!!! I almost fell out of my chair. If you Southerners, slavers and racists, look at Yankees with anything but the respect due your moral and physical superiors then I'm left with the conclusion we did't whip you hard enough in 1865. You're lucky in rightous vengence your forefathers were not sold to Africans to atone for their crimes.

You are forgetting the increasing transgressions of Mugabe, and the UN wrist-slap of Assad, not to mention the wholly ignored Dafur (Rwanda Redux), AQ Kahn still walks around a free man, and many many other worldwide transgressions.

The one country that steps up to take on a murdering tyrant (Saddam) is castigated and vilified by spineless terrorist-coddling Eurotrash daily.

Who is going to have the spine to step up and confront this evil? It most certainly will not come from Europe or Asia. It will most certainly land at the feet of the US, who for the greater good of the world will continue to confront these inhuman scum, all the while being attacked for it.

Cicero,

The next thread is pretty well-timed...

The problem with recognizing the tipping point in what has been happening in Europe, as well as Iran, is that it is rarely if ever seen, except in hindsight.

As for Europe and its largely muslim immigrant population, their policies of multicultural appeasement (but definitely not assimilation) are probably well past the tipping point, and we are finally seeing the fruits of bad policy. And I don't see anything to suggest that the resolution of Europe's problem will be anything like the relatively non-violent progress of the American Civil Rights movement. For one thing, unlike America's black population, the militant European immigrants are not asking for equal rights... they seem to be asking for status as a separate society (with all the priviliges of citizenship, but the ability as well to operate almost as a separate society with their own special laws and regulations).

Iran, I think, could still go either way (as far as atomic bombs are concerned)... but has probably passed the tipping point of eventual regime change. Either another country will take them on, or their will be another internal revolution. I just hope the change takes place sooner, rather than later... The longer it goes, the more likely the change will be terribly violent.

Just my $.02
DRK

"And I don't see anything to suggest that the resolution of Europe's problem will be anything like the relatively non-violent progress of the American Civil Rights movement. For one thing, unlike America's black population, the militant European immigrants are not asking for equal rights... they seem to be asking for status as a separate society (with all the priviliges of citizenship, but the ability as well to operate almost as a separate society with their own special laws and regulations)."

I agree, but there is even a more important reason to suggest that thier is not a non-violent solution to the problem. The American Civil Rights movement did not have important ties to well funded foriegn groups with their own agendas. You never saw American blacks identify themselves in large numbers with a foreign country and suggest that there identity was defined by that foreign country. What started in Paris may have started as a simple underclass riot by members of an ethnic group that percieved that they have been victimized, but its almost impossible for me to see it staying that way. If the scale of the violence escalates, it will acquire more and more of an insurgency nature. Human nature being what it is, the rioters may have started out with loosely defined collective identities, but the forge of shared violence will create a stronger collective identification and I don't see that the rioters have anywhere to turn for that collective identification but Islam. Once that happens, the riot becomes 'the jihad' at least in the minds of jihadists and the familiar but powerful myth narratives of Muhajideen and jihad will insert themselves. The riot becomes a movement, and the current state of Islam being what it is, it becomes a movement with a natural ally in international terrorism.

Consider that even in the wake of the American civil rights movement there was a brief flirtation with the notion of 'being African' amongst black Americans. Learning Swahili (even though almost certainly no American blacks were Swahili) and adopting what was percieved as 'African' dress, adopting African names, and even adopting Islam under the false assumption that this was somehow more of an African religion than Christianity were all briefly popular fads. If even well assimilated American blacks find the notion of getting back to thier roots attractive during (and following) a conflict with the larger culture, how much more so is this going to be a problem amongst the largely unassimilated immigrant population of Europe?

The question becomes how long can this go on before bombs start going off in buses in France, and when that happens how will the shock of it effect all parties involved in the conflict. Somehow I doubt it will cause the same sort of reassessments made by the Militia movement in the US after the OKC bombing. For years the French press/elites have glorified the Intifada, and excused the bus bomb so long as Jews were dying. They are about I'm afraid to reap what they sowed.

Good post.

I think appeasement has just begun, actually. The bourgeoisie of France in particular, but let's be honest, virtually all of Europe bought into solving its inverted Gaussian problem (low births, few incentives for even the modestly 'ordinary' citizens to take up grunt work) by allowing and in fact encouraging peoples of the Middle East, Far East and India to populate its cities - in trade for their labor.

The Proletariat "Reloaded" is only now realizing it is, well a Proletariat, that it has numinous majority in pockets, and in fact is the 'working underbelly' that is powering virtually the whole of Europe's Grand Way Of Civilisation.

And they're realizing they're still getting paid peanuts. Oh, the free medical is nice, and no one is starving, and there's always a little-too-little dole check to keep one's need for opiates and nicotines sated. But the employment opportunities essentially guarantee that the immigrant can NEVER rise above his station and squalor. Couple that with under-education, socialized acceptance of cast-about youth and their perennial shiftlessness, the hatred of splinter factions of the faith... and you have problems astew.

In America, we gave the cops guns, bullets and orders: break up the Watts riots at any and all costs. Force is justified, necessary and authorized. Now, get 'er done.

Wasn't pretty, but it worked.

I'm wondering how long the tree-huggers of Europe will refrain from admitting the severity of their problem, and reacting not like "nukes" (which the French in particular seem to have a penchant for: doing as little as possible to upset the apple cart, then torching it in disgust when their appeasement doesn't work), but rather in a controlled, measured, escalating fashion against the rioters. THAT is what gets their attention. Not threat of a nuke that never comes.

=GoatGuy=

As I wrote in my blog this morning:

The analogy between the so called Global War on Terror (GWOT) and WW II continues. I think the analogy, while as imperfect as all analogies tend to be, is useful.

To answer Cicero's question; I would say NO this isn't March 1939, but rather this is 1940, prior to the blitzkrieg of France. The USA is at war (as Britain and France were in 1940) but much of the rest of the world is not fully involved, even though the enemy is known. The present day France and Germany remain frustratingly on the sidelines, as the USA did until Dec 7th 1941.

I believe there will be several horrific future events that will bring various countries and constituencies into the struggle against Islamo-fascism. I shudder to think what else needs to take place beyond what has happened already: 9/11, Beslan, 3/11, 7/7 ad nauseum.

Celebrim: You forget the civil rights movement connection to the American Communist Party which was funded from overseas. Even Rosa Parks attended training sessions put on by the communists.

The Europeans have past the point of no return. the numbers of muslims in each country is so great that if even one percent are radicals then there are too many to do anything about.

Only exteme policing will work and it is clear that the French will not do this. Other countries in Europe have the same problems.

In the UK Blair will be ousted from his own party before they will allow him to impliment new terrorism laws.

Check out what's happening in Australia. They're warp-speeding new laws through to jail and/or throw out their radical Muslims. I'm thinking that once the Brits see that happening in Oz, they may gird their loins and do likewise.

One often overlooked part of the outcome of the Czechoslovakian invasion was the Soviet Union's choice to reach out to Hitler. Up to 1939, Stalin had sought, quietly and behind the scenes, to reach some kind of security agreement with Britain and France to hem in Hitler. Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia, Stalin concluded that Britain and France would not stand firm, and so he cut his Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which had both countries promising not to invade the other.

So the real question to raise is this: if you want to draw parallels between now and March 1939, who is the Soviet Union, and had it cut its deal yet--and if not, can we still keep them on our side?

This is something I discovered last night. Very interesting.

Islam's 12 Steps to Destroy Dar al-Harb

#14 Armitage

'Who is the Soviet Union?'

I've been wondering about this. On some basic level, though the analogy is loose, I think it could be China. China is conspicuously absent from the debate about Iran. Given the Islamofascists declared intentions to destroy the infidel, it seems clear to me that China is somewhere on their list. But for now they might be useful allies, leveraging the frictions between China and the US.

But I really don't know. China is busy chasing chickens right now. It's not the same as Molotov-Riddentrop.

I would agree with Cicero: China of today is the analog to Russia of WWII. China has important ties to Iran and Sudan and they wish to secure access to oil resources and they don't mind doing it by making deals with fanatics.

Hitler was dumb enough to invade Russia in WWII. Are the Islamo-fascists dumb enough to attack the Chinese?

Misguided policies always reach a point of no return.

Not always. When a society loses the will to survive, it generally doesn't. France used to be Gaul.

"Hitler was dumb enough to invade Russia in WWII. Are the Islamo-fascists dumb enough to attack the Chinese?"

They've been attacking the Chinese, but the Chinese do not consider terrorism to be a major threat. The Chinese view is that terrorism is an ill which can only seriously threaten democratic societies. They feel that they are more than capable of cracking down on any terrorist organization which gets large enough to become a major threat to the government, and they are more than capable of controlling the press and preventing reports about the attack from getting out. The feel - with some justification - that terrorists when deprived of press coverage will simply go some place else, and that small scale terrorist attacks killing a few dozen Chinese a year or of no particular economic consequence.

So the question is, what would the jihadist have to do to make China see them as a threat which is severe enough, that by fighting it they would help themselves more than they would help the Americans?

I don't believe Europeans (Britain in particular) believed that appeasement would work. Instead, they felt that a more aggressive posture to Germany would lead to war and destruction as a world power even if victorious. More specifically, they knew ultimately they would have to choose between succumbing to German militarism or becoming a US dependent. Appeasement wasn't a plan, it was delay.

Today, Europeans do have a plan, the European Union project. The plan may not be working, but I don't think it can be equated with appeasement. The current issues though reveal weaknesses in the plan. And if these weaknesses are not addressed, particularly the status of non-Europeans, then the EU project will become an empty suit and Europe will just be biding time until it either comes up with a new plan or becomes irrelevant.

"I don't believe Europeans (Britain in particular) believed that appeasement would work. Instead, they felt that a more aggressive posture to Germany would lead to war and destruction as a world power even if victorious. More specifically, they knew ultimately they would have to choose between succumbing to German militarism or becoming a US dependent. Appeasement wasn't a plan, it was delay."

Would you care to site some sources for that take on history?

Interesting parallel on the WWII Hitler comparison. For sure Iran has all but declared war on the West. Look at their actions. They are doing everything they can to sour relations and taunt the world. The new leadership of Iran is trying to create a conflict and will continue to do this until they succeed.

There are reasons for this.

1) The Iranian power structure is blinded by their dangerous and failed "islamic" ideology.

2) The Iranian power structure doesn't want to lose power. They can't afford to see a successful democratic Iraq next door because that will destabilize and overthrow their regime.

3) The muslim tyrants have an uncanny ability to miscalculate their own power and ability. (Saddam's trying to take on the USA was only the most recent example of such terrible miscalcualtions.) Because of this and 1) and 2) above, the Iranian leadership has actually convinced themselves that they can win against the West. That's not even in the cards.

Even if Iran gets to the point where they have a nuke, and yes, they would probably be dumb enough to use it, it wouldn't be long before the West (a.k.a. USA) would anniahlate Iran. George W. doesn't want a conflict with Iran. He'd rather see revolution from within to change the leadership and direction of Iran, but these hopes get dimmer by the day. His hopes are likely to be overtaken by events forcing a military confrontation before too long.

Love him or hate him, Bush is a warrior. If Condi follows after him in 2006, she will stand firm also.

Make no mistake, the major conflicts will be with the USA. Europe has largely been emasculated. They got fat, dumb and happy after WWII with the USA protecting them. But if the Europeans wake up one morning and find out they have newfound courage they will have to take some politically difficult positions to deal with their internal muslim problems waiting to explode. There is some indications they are being forced to pull their heads out of the sand. Paris burning will help this awareness. The sooner the better.

Most of western civlization doesn't seem realize the extent to which the muslim world doesn't think the same way as the westerners. Their langauge doesn't even have a word for peace that describes peace the way we understand it. They have several words that are translated as "peace" in English, but it doesn't mean peaceful co-existence as we understand it. Depending on the word, it means "cease fire until another day when I regroup then the conflict is back on", or something like "we can co-exist only when we have completely subdued you".

How do you deal with a people like that? It aint pretty.

Many billions of dollars (I suspect this is a vast undercalculation) have been withdrawn from Iran in recent months. Over 200 new businesses have re-established in Dubai.

Iranian overtures to the West have been seriously damaged by 40 representatives of Iran that had championed better relationships being withdrawn.

The emotional overtones of 'appeasement' are cheapened by being applied in an analogy that seeks to make some one a Hitler, and some one a Stalin. Anyone want to point to the surrogate Churchill and the surrogate FDR? Please.

Yep, Iran is doing a big number. More on itself than on anyone else, and if it did try to put together a nuclear launch do any sane people need to point out how many counterlaunches would occur? Would that the U.S. were in a better position of strength.

No doubt France will give the uprisen Muslim dissidents every chance to leave the premises. The many millions of their kin who are trying to better their own lot will do more to keep them from destroying everything those sane elements have accomplished over many decades than anyone else.

Israel was not established as a nation in WWII. Hopefully, its strength will be its intensely loyal citizenry, as ever. Divisive elements in this nation might do well to learn a few lessons.

There will not be a way to stop Iran from getting the Nuke. If Israel didn't have a nuke, maybe it would be different. Maybe. But the threat from Israel makes them dream of safety in mutually-assured destruction. Afterall there's many 'christian' bombs, and now there's the 'hindu' bomb, and the 'jewish' bomb, why not another 'muslim' bomb...

Of course there's many reasons, instability being the greatest threat, but they don't see it that way. They want it even more because they're told they can't have it. And because it's the great equalizer. The last bargaining chip against a 'rogue' USA. We have the nuke, and if you invade...

But post #2 is right. The nuke is out. College students can build it in their basements. Anyone who wants one (and has the money to spend) is going to get it. Blame Pakistan for opening the door to the black market, but it was inetiable. We have to seriously rethink our prevention policy, because the world is about to change.

whoops... that word is inevitable

Would you care to site some sources for that take on history?

P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism 1688-2000. You're mileage may vary. Here's a taste:

If appeasement means that a trading nation recognizes its dependence on the world economy and tries to prevent the economic disruption arising from war by conciliating its potential enemies, then the British had been asppeasers for generations. But in the 1930s exceptionally heavy pressures were pushing the British in this direction to a much greater extent than in the past. It was widely recognized, in government and among the armed services, that Britain was 'overstretched' in the 1930s. She had a huge burden of imperial defense commitments which had to be met from an economy relatively less powerful than before 1914, a less secure currency and small reserves of gold and foreign currencies. At the same time, Britain's enemies were numerous -- Germany, Japan and Italy made a formidable list -- and she had few plausible allies. France was in a state of internal economic and political disorder, and the Soviet Union was perceived to be both unreliable and idealogically unpalatable. In the run-up to the war, too, the prospect of military support from the United States was non-existent while, as we shall see, Britain was loath to rely on the Americans financially for fear of losing her economic independence.

The gist of the chapter, titled "The Coming of the Pax Americana" is that British policy towards its enemies in the 1930s is best understood by its economic rivalry with America.

Old Europe is dying of Acquired Infant Deficit Syndrome. This week's fit of coughing is nothing, it will pass.

I'm sure this current round of rioting will blow over very quickly and without any serious result.

The demographic transformation of Europe on the other hand, will not blow over.

Riots represent a trivial amount of killing, though they do make a contribution to the balance of fear and intimidation that will determine which culture dominates which.

The values, culture and practices that lead to not much more than one live birth per woman go on shaping the future all the time, every day, week, month and season, year after year.

This is a truly colossal thing that is happening.

When it has progresses far enough - and we are nowhere near there yet - it will not be a question of trivial riots but of pogroms, proceeding on an old and inexorable pattern.

Even then, over and over there will be pauses, times when the pressure slackens (but the damage that has been done cannot be restored), and many seasons of false hope. This is the way of Islamic social conversion, as seen in Egypt.

I think all comparisons of struggles between Western peoples fail, because Islam is a whole different thing, and you have to look at the history of Islam and dhimmitude and how it works as a culture-cruncher in the long run.

I also think the history of struggles between peoples that habitually renewed their generations with adequate numbers of live births fail us as guides. Unless you have a defence plan that historically worked well for cultures that wiped out or never conceived around half or more of their children, you do not have a defence plan with any kind of historical, proven, practical basis that applies to the struggles of today.

It should be noted that even after Chamberlain went to Munich and got his scrap of paper, Britain earnestly prepared for war. Between Munich and 9/39 the first Spitfires were deployed, and coastal radars were completed. Britain was much better prepared than they would have been if the war had been undertaken in 1938.

Europe today is not preparing for the threat of Nuclear Jihad. They are not even appeasing it. They've just been sitting very still hoping that it will hit the US and Israel, not them.

Lest We Forget: Tehran Nov 4, 1979
I posted this last year on Nov 4, 2004 this day Nov 4, 2005 marks the 26th year in the Jihad against the West.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the day the jihadis declared war on America. On Nov. 4, 1979 Islamist students in Tehran overan the U.S. embassy and took 66 Americans hostage. The hostages were held for 444 days. They were released on Jan. 20, 1981--the day Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.

"Link here:"http://www.angelfire.com/ky/kentuckydan/CommitteesofCorrespondence/index.blog?entry_id=1111420

If Israel didn't have a nuke, maybe it would be different. Maybe. But the threat from Israel makes them dream of safety in mutually-assured destruction.

You wouldn't know that the U.S. is the Great Satan, and Israel the Little Satan, would you?

To go back to the original question my gut says that the Paris riots wont be seen as a critical turning point in the short term They may come to be seen that way later when we know more, but there is too much denial in western people to see that they are really under threat. It is gratifying to see that so many WOC readers who have spoken out on this tread do believe the treat is very real. Folks are getting it, but I think there is a great deal of what I think of as Stockholm Syndrome about. That is there are way too many people who semi consciously identify with, support indirectly, or romanticize, the enemy out of belief that it somehow will make them safer. Seen through the lens of Stockholm syndrome the Paris riots have been caused by the US fighting back against 9/11. Or at least made it worse. Terror terrorizes and it is working. Recently Brit banks 'disappeared' piggy banks for fear of offending Muslims, yet a virulently anti-Semitic piece was included in a group of student writings as an example of good technical writing. Will the Euros wake up? Maybe - certainly the Dutch have shown signs. But not just yet. It will take more.

There is no appeasement. The West is waking up to issues of our own making.
One, the immigration of Turkish workers into West Germany in the 70's was due to the success of Western Germany's growing economies. Other countries have different ports of origin but the influx came seeking work.
Two, the societies ignored the fact most of the immigrant's did not assimiliate into the cultures of Western Europe. Nor was much effort made to have them do so.
Three, the culture of many of the immigrants was a rural patricarchal culture underpinned by a religious intolerance. This whip hand of father was a feature of the political culture whom whence they came as well. Jihadism sought to take advantage of our freedom, i.e. open fractious political culture.
As a result of these factors, the relative decline of the economy and the toleration of intolerance the Jihadist movement took root in the West. Sept 11 2001 was the wake up call. Slowly but surely the West has begun implementing policies to end intolerance and grow their economies. The result which will be slow but steady will provide money in people's pocket, an intolerance of anyone taking it away(terrorist acts against the economy) and a call to integrate into the socio-economic and political fabric of the West and expectation one will do so or GOOD BYE

I have read (Luckacs I think) that up until 1936 appeasement was a war prevention policy.

After that it was delay to prepare for war.

Robert M.,

The problem for Europe is that its societies are based on national origin and culture rather than the simpler American model of shared values.

America had a real advantage by starting with a blank sheet of paper and a few good ideas.

Many of the American founders saw the American experiment as the beginning of a world citizenry. Our famous Admiral J.P. Jones was a (misguided) exemplar of that mode of thought.