HUMILIATION OF MUSLIMS AND THE COMING SIEGE OF VIENNA
Blake Gartner
Global Politician, NY
April 11 2007
The "Zionist entity" is at the forefront of the clash between the
West and Islam. And yet, it is a tiny country, less than half the
size and population of Netherlands. World Jewry stands at just 13
million people, so it has never been a titan in global affairs. The
two dominant world religions in a constant clash with each other
since the 7th century have been Islam and Christianity. Today the
battle continues – whether against the Taliban in the mountains of
Afghanistan or against the rioters on the streets of Paris.
When Napoleon marched on Egypt, defeating the Arabs with extreme ease,
Christendom seemingly won. The Ottoman Empire fell as a result of
WWI and the West forgot about the Islamic threat. But Muslims did
not. Muslims felt humiliated.
The only thing people dislike more than being attacked is being
ignored. The West ignored the Middle East, seeing it as an
uncultured backwater useful only for its oil resources. But to
Muslims, everything from the defeat to Napoleon to the dismantling
of the Caliphate by Ataturk is "humiliation". At times it seems like
"humiliation" is the Muslims’ favorite word. They do not lose wars –
they get humiliated. They do not suffer from economic stagnation –
they get humiliated. They do not compromise on a UN resolution – they
get humiliated. Reading Islamic press one sees the word "humiliation"
with spectacular frequency.
What Muslims claim to want is "respect". But what is respect? The
Islamic vision of "respect" is to be the dominant global power. It is
to have the military power, the economic wealth and the international
prestige to get what they want, whenever they want. Any compromise
in any forum is immediately condemned as "humiliation" due to their
weakness – a humiliation that naturally should be countered by pressing
their political and military muscle.
But Islam was indeed a dominant power for much of its history. Today
it is hard to imagine Morocco defeating Spain, Tunisia conquering
Italy and Turkey marching up to Vienna, but it did happen in the
past. Muslims were the dominant power in the world for many centuries,
and it is that "Golden Age" that today’s generation, whether Islamists
or Nationalists, seek to re-capture.
The first millennium of its existence was an almost unmitigated success
for Islam. From its roots in the Arabian peninsula, it first spread its
wings to Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and North Africa – all of which were
then part of the Christian world, culturally closer to the West than
to the Arab states we see there today. Armenians, during the war of
640-652, were among the few able to stop the onrush of Islamic forces,
preserving Armenia and Georgia as Christian nations to this day.
With the Middle East under their control, Muslims proceeded to take
over Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and much of France, reaching 2/3 of the
way to Paris. In the first half of the 9th century, Rome and most of
what is now Italy fell to the newly dominant Religion of Submission
(islam means "submission").
Before the rise of water travel enabling countries along the Atlantic
Ocean, (England, Spain, Portugal, Holland, France) to set up empires,
the dominant military and economic powers were located in southern
Europe and Middle East – that being the trades routes where people
exchanged not only goods, but information and ideas. Northern and
western Europe was mired in what are commonly known as the Dark Ages.
These were not the powers that could stop the Islamic invasion.
The ever-shrinking Byzantine Empire struck back in the 840’s, but its
limited successes were soon turned back as Muslims sacked Messina in
842, Enna in 859, Syracuse in 878, Catania in 900.
In 904, Thessalonica, the second-largest Byzantine city, was taken
over by Arabs from Tunisia. Seven years later, the Byzantines suffered
another embarrassing defeat in Crete.
After a brief respite, Muslims sensed another opportunity to spread
their religion and civilization to the "darkness of barbarism and
unbelief", when the Byzantine rulers decided to disband most of their
military, preferring to pay mercenaries when troubles arouse. The
Byzantine army consisted largely of the elderly officers and untrained
young kids (for centuries after its destruction, the word "Byzantine"
was used to mean "effeminate decadence").
Faced with the decaying of what was arguably the only stable, viable
state in Europe, the West was again on the brink of annihilation. In
1095, Pope Urban II hoped to organize Christendom around a fight for
Jerusalem, a tactic frequently used before and after by Muslims. But
the first military engagement failed miserably, as the Turks
slaughtered almost every man sent into battle. The second battle was
much more successful and some of the lands previously lost to Muslims
were recovered.
The Crusaders established the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099. At
its height, the Crusader Kingdom was about the size of Israel and
West Bank. For more than a hundred years, Muslims could do little
about the new country, fighting occasional wars, mostly to contain
the Christians. But in the 12th century, a Jihad on Jerusalem was
organized. In 1187, settlers lost Jerusalem – it was now the Kingdom
of Jerusalem… without Jerusalem. A small strip of land along the
seaside of what is now Israel and the southern half of Lebanon was all
that remained. Subsequent Crusades recovered Jerusalem, but all was
lost when Sultan Khalil captured Acre, the new capital of the Kingdom,
and proceeded to either slaughter or enslave all remaining settlers.
The Crusades were a failure. Islam won, forever reinforcing its sense
of invincibility against the infidels. I’ve heard many Muslims say,
"It took us 200 years to defeat the Crusader Kingdom. Israel has
existed less than 60. We have another 140 to destroy it, and we will."
But Islam did not stop at the defeat of the Crusader Kingdom. In
the 15th century, the Turks finally destroyed the Byzantine Empire,
conquering its capital Constantinople.
At the other end of Europe, much of Spain and Portugal was under
Islamic rule for 781 years until 1492. Faced with Arab Muslims
threatening from the West and Turkish Muslims threatening from the
East, Europe struck back with a vengeance again. Spain and Portugal
were won back, pushing Islam back into North Africa. But just like
the first time when the West responded to Islamic aggression with
violent Crusades, the new European attempt to defend itself and even
the genocidal Inquisition fell short of taking back everything that
was lost. Constantinople remained part of the Islamic world.
In 1526, Sultan Suleiman conquered most of Hungary, with Bulgaria
already under his control. Three years later, the Turks reached all
the way to Vienna and laid siege to it. The city stood up only because
it was attacked too late by a Turkish force that was too tired from
prior battles. In 1532, the Ottomans tried again, but faced stiff
resistance in western Hungary.
For 150 years, the Ottomans tried to jump from southeastern Europe
into its heartland before the epic Battle of Vienna. This time,
the siege began in July of 1683. During the siege, 10,000 Viennese
troops were surrounded by 140,000 Turks. They would probably fail,
and allow Islam into the center of Europe, but King Jan III Sobieski
of Poland sent a 30,000 man army to protect the city, possibly saving
the Western civilization. The Battle of Vienna began on September 11.
When the battle was over next day, 4,000 Christians had been killed –
and 15,000 Muslims. Vienna survived again.
The rest is history. The Enlightenment and later the Industrial
Revolution sent the West far ahead of Islam. In the 19th century,
Napoleon showed just show dominant Christendom was over Islam. The
Caliphate was eliminated when the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist. The
West stopped fearing Muslims, viewing them as nothing more than
"oil cows". And Islam truly ceased being a power.
That, of course, is what the West wanted to believe. Truth is that
Christendom still didn’t recover most of the territories lost since
the rise of Islam. Constantinople (now Istanbul), Egypt, Syria,
Bosnia and Chechnya were all Christian lands in the past.
Islam did not invade the West continuously for a thousand years.
Instead, there were many generations of peace, but that peace was
eventually always interrupted by Muslim attacks on Europe. Each time
Christians lost large parts of their territory, then fought back,
but never fully recovered the lost territories.
For two centuries now, the West was strong enough to ignore the threat
from the south. But Muslims felt "humiliated" because they did not
have the strongest army, the wealthiest economy and the dominant
political power.
Islam began to resurge in the 1960s (some say in the 1920s, but
Islamists weren’t strong enough until after Israel "humiliated"
Arab nationalists in 1967). First came terror. Then global Jihad. In
the 1990s, massive Islamic immigration into Europe began to threaten
a demographic takeover. Islam is on the move again. Will Vienna be
under siege once more?
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