Gates of Vienna
February 25, 2008 Monday 1:18 PM EST
When did the United States become the Islamic Republic of America?
"The Repetition of History"
by TGK
We are very fortunate in our readers. They supply us with information
we wouldnt get easily in other forms. In this case, the essayist is
TGK and the subject is one he knows well: the roots of the current
crisis in Serbia and Kosovo.
But this post is much more than that. TGK opens the door to the long
history of the area, and the bloody borders created there by the
influx of Islam so long ago. He says:
I would like to express how much I like your website. I am a writer
coming from an Eastern Orthodox-Byzantine point of view and a Greek
American and would like to share such an assessment regarding the new
Islamist success in Kosovo over the past week.
And here is his provocative essay:
In November 1979, Iranian militants seized the American embassy and
took hostages for 444 days. Throughout the 1980s, the Iranians
launched a variety of attacks on American targets (as in Lebanon) and
sponsored terrorism. During the 1990s Al Qaeda attacked the United
States in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and bombed the American embassies in
Africa. On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacked the United States on
its own soil.
The reaction of the United States has been to destroy Yugoslavia.
Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Al Zawahri, and Al Qaeda remain at large. Al
Qaeda in fact, according to Youssef Bodansky, terrorism expert and
biographer of Osama Bin Laden established bases in Kosovo and Bosnia.
In 2006, Muslims from Kosovo were implicated in the plot to bomb Fort
Dix in New Jersey. The reaction of the United States is to ignore the
very spirit of the alleged war on terror and to approve the
establishment of a terrorist Islamic State in the Balkans at the
expense of the Serbs who were allies of the United States in both
World Wars.
When did the United States become the Islamic Republic of America? My
own idea is that the United States drifted toward pro-Islamic
sympathies when it became involved with the Turkish nationalists
between 1919 and 1922. Today, many of the Western backers of
independence for Kosovo were also those States who armed and
supported Mustafa Kemal and the Turkish nationalists in Asia Minor.
Italy, France, and Great Britain have extended immediate recognition
to Kosovo.
In 1919, the Italians were the first European power to arm Mustafa
Kemal in Asia Minor. According to Marjorie Housepian Dobkin in her
brilliantly researched Smyrna 1922 the Destruction of a City the
Greek Army might have destroyed Mustafa Kemals Army had it not been
for the intervention of the Italians and the British who according to
Dobkin, rescued Kemal from destruction. The connection between the
betrayal of the Greek cause in Asia Minor, and the betrayal of the
Serbs today reflects the continuing evolution of Western policy which
is in effect pro-Islamic.
The Greek-Serbian alliance in the Balkan Wars drove the Ottoman
Empire out of the Balkans. These achievements are being
systematically undermined today. Kosovo was liberated during the
Balkan Wars, and now the change of borders there challenges the
outcome for Greek achievements as well. The Ottomans who were
defeated by the Greeks and the Serbs get the last laugh! The
Ottomanization of the Balkans is under way.
Turkeys recognition of Kosovo was to be expected. The Turks are
reestablishing links with their former Muslim subjects and expanding
their influence in the region at the expense of Greece and Serbia. In
1922, in the aftermath of the Genocide and mass slaughter of Greeks
at the City of Smyrna, the Greeks wanted to make a last stand in
Eastern Thrace, and pondered the possibility of entering
Constantinople. The Greeks were told in no uncertain terms by the
three European Powers that if they entered Constantinople, they would
not be permitted to remain there. Ultimately, over 1,000,000 Greek
Orthodox Christians were ethnically cleansed from Asia Minor with the
full cooperation of the Americans and the three European Powers.
During the 1990s, the Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Krajinna by
the Nazi armies of Croatia and from Bosnia. They have also been
ethnically cleansed from Kosovo since 1999 with their Churches and
Monasteries being destroyed. In both Asia Minor and Yugoslavia, the
Western powers were present when the Christians were slaughtered by
the Muslims. Today, NATO and the European Union talk of protecting
the rights of Serbs in Kosovo, and of maintaining peacekeepers even
while Serbs have been lynched, murdered, beaten, and terrorized into
leaving under the auspices of the peacekeepers.
During the fall of 2007, a resolution in the House of Representatives
was introduced which would have recognized the Armenian Genocide. The
Bush administration lobbied against it, and intimidated many of the
Democrats who supported it, into withdrawing their support. The
extermination of a Christian people by an Islamic government was not
recognized in order to placate the Islamic successors of the
Genocidal regime! One would think that Islamists were dictating
American policies.
– – – – – – – – –
Over two million Christians in the Sudan have been slaughtered by the
Islamists. The Coptic Christians of Egypt have suffered relentless
discrimination and persecution by Islamic extremists. Saudi Arabia
prohibits the practice of Christianity. While Monasteries in Kosovo
are being destroyed, the Saudis are subsidizing the construction of
Mosques in Kosovo, which fly the Saudi flag. In the struggle between
Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, the West is backing the
Muslims.
Then there are the benefits of European multiculturalism. The
European Constitution does not mention Christianity (a fact which
outraged the Orthodox Church of Greece). Various feminists in the
European Parliament have suggested that the Monastic Republic of
Mount Athos should be compelled to lift its prohibition on the entry
of women onto its hallowed grounds. This Orthodox Monastic community
established on the Holy Mountain of Athos which is dedicated to the
Theotokos (Mother of God) does not allow women in order to
specifically honor the Theotokos. The Orthodox Church of Greece has
bitterly resisted the attempts by the European Union to undermine
Greek traditions and to impose secularism on Greek society.
Contrast these radical anti-Christian stances with the recent
statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury who suggested that Sharia
law should be allowed to coexist with Civil laws in Great Britain. It
is not ironic that the capitals of Europe are being thoroughly
Islamicized, or that they are being held hostages (the riots in
France 2005) by extremists, considering the extent to which Eastern
Christians have been sacrificed throughout the twentieth century.
Gone are the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which saved Europe
>From the Ottoman Empire in 1539 and 1683.
A Rock Concert in Croatia recently received a great deal of publicity
because the band in question proceeded to give the Nazi salute. The
wars that were waged against the Serbs during the 1990s were waged by
a government of Nazi sympathizers on the one hand, and two Islamic
governments in league with Al Qaeda on the other. The 800,000 Serbs
that were slaughtered by the pro-Nazi Croats and Muslims during the
Second World War were entirely ignored by western media.
The Republic of Cyprus is another Christian country struggling to
survive. Over 500 Greek Orthodox Churches have been destroyed or
converted into Mosques. From Cyprus to Kosovo, Christianity is being
eradicated and the destroyers in both cases are being embraced by
Europe and the United States. The Greek Orthodox in Constantinople
are on the verge of extinction. The betrayal of the Greek Christians
of Constantinople since the 1940s represents another heartbreaking
tragedy in the history of the Orthodox Church during the twentieth
century.
Turkey today is notoriously anti-American. Islamic fundamentalism is
faring quite well despite the assurance of American and European
officials that Turkey is a secular, democratic country. Ordinary
Turks have become enraged by American policies toward Iraq and the
Palestinians out of Islamic solidarity, but Ankaras public relations
people have successfully convinced many Americans that
Turkish-American relations were fine until Nancy Pelosi introduced
the Armenian Genocide Resolution in Congress. When the Iraq war was
launched in 2003, Turks cursed the United States for attacking a
Muslim country long before the Armenian Genocide Resolution was
introduced.
Western sacrifices of Christians preceded the pro-Turkish policies
undertaken between 1919 and 1922. During the nineteenth century,
Tsarist Russia took up the cause of the Christians of the Ottoman
Empire. In 1853, Great Britain and France occupied Greece to prevent
Athens from aligning with Moscow in the Crimean War. In 1878, the
Russians had Constantinople in their sights, but the Ottomans were
protected by London and Paris.
During the 1870s, the slaughter of the Bulgarians by the Ottoman
Turks was widely publicized. As the nineteenth century concluded, the
Armenians, Assyrians, and Asia Minor Greeks came under extreme
persecution by the Ottomans. International conferences were convened
by the three great powers of Great Britain, France, and Russia. Only
the Russians were interested in protecting the Christians, as in
Kosovo today. The strategic interest in the Ottoman Empire by London
and Paris prevented the Russians from interfering.
This essay is a response to the events being undertaken in Kosovo and
the Balkans today. It is extremely difficult to believe that in the
age of Al Qaeda, the Great Powers maintain an irrational hatred of
the Serbs and the Russians. The essay began by noting the various
terrorist attacks on the United States. The Serbs have done nothing
to the United States or the Europeans, and have found themselves
being mercilessly deprived of their ancestral homelands and holy
places.
The Western governments have chosen to restore the heritage of the
Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. Several years ago, then Assistant
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz praised Turkey for its treatment
of minorities! In 1204, the Knights of the Fourth Crusade destroyed
Constantinople and opened the door for the Ottomans. What the
Crusaders did physically to the Christian East, the Western powers
are doing intellectually by suppressing and rewriting the history of
the Christian East.
During the Seventh Century, the Emperor Constantine V of
Constantinople successfully defended his Capital from the onslaught
of Muslim invaders. He successfully defended the West as well as his
own Empire. During the tenth century, Emperor Nikephoras Phokas took
the offensive against the Arabs after three hundred and thirty years
of being on the defensive and liberated most of Syria! In 1453,
Emperor Constantinos Palaiologos died in battle defending his City
against the Ottomans.
How tragic that the legacy of Christian Byzantium whose Emperors took
up the fight against the forerunners of Osama Bin Laden has been cast
aside as the model for the Balkans in favor of the Ottoman Turks who
were the perpetrators of terrorism and Genocide. This is exactly what
the sacrifice of Orthodox Serbia represents. In our own day, the
Russians again represent the aspirations of Orthodox Christians, and
it is to be hoped they will help save Kosovo and the Balkans.