Cameron pushing for intervention in Syria?

It would seem almost superfluous to note that the situation in Syria is very ugly, but irrespective of the complexities and the relative ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ articulated by different elements within the pro- and anti-regime camps, the civil conflict in that country is not our conflict, and we have no business in becoming embroiled in it. Nonetheless, there has for quite some time been a clear eagerness on the part of leading members of our Government – as exemplified by William Hague in particular – to get involved in some fashion, by lending assistance of one form of another to ‘the rebels’, despite the significant if not leading role played by jihadists within this opposition.

Assad is far from being a saint of course, but what do Hague and the policy makers at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office realistically anticipate will replace him and his regime? One thing is for certain: it will not be a Western-style liberal democracy. As elsewhere in the Arab world where unrest has led to the toppling of long-established regimes over the past couple of years, the most likely outcome is an Islamist government, and as events in Egypt are demonstrating, this is unlikely to produce a system of consensual governance based upon equality before the law for all of its citizens. Members of Syria’s Christian population may look at the position of Egypt’s Copts, and therein divine the sort of future that they can expect to face.

A report in today’s Guardian states that David Cameron has asked for plans to be drawn up ‘for maritime or air support to rebels’, but with the proviso that such support would only be rendered in the event of the US also intervening in the Syrian conflict. However, this request is reported as generating unease amongst our chiefs of staff, who have drawn parallels with the pressure brought to bear by Cameron in the lead-up to the intervention in Libya, but note that in the case of Syria, the situation would be ‘very different’ owing u/ &e s%)`army’s much stronger ground-to-air missile capability. Hague, in wishful and myopic fa{hnog prZ)sts in constructing a fantasy Syrian opposition which he hopes, according to the Guardian, will ‘unify around a coherent programme built on respect for human rights and ethnic tolerance.’

The tide appears to have turned against the Assad regime, but what comes next should be left up to the Syrians themselves. Intervening because of the feeling that ‘something should be done’, is not a valid reason for doing so. If we were to intervene, it would generate one sort of resentment or another, and may not lead to an outcome that we would find desirable.

Tony Blair on 'Innocence of Muslims'

Tony Blair appeared on this morning's Today Programme on Radio 4 to speak about the violent reaction of many Muslims to the film 'Innocence of Muslims'. For once, he appeared to be genuinely discomfited: voice croaky and quavering and stumbling for words. He struggled to find a politically correct way of explaining the situation, yet reluctantly had to concede that the violence had something to do with Islam, although he termed it "a wrongheaded view of religion". However, on a more encouraging note, although rubbishing the film for its poor production values and content, he did not call for its censorship or wider restrictions on free speech, which is something that the OIC will surely press for afresh following this outbreak of violence amongst Muslims across the world.

Obama: preparing to attack Syria?

There are ominous signs that the US is preparing for military intervention against Syria. As in Iraq, it is of course the pretext of WMD - this time the potential movement of Syrian chemical and biological weopons - that is being deployed to rationalise US aggression. The New York Times quotes Obama as saying:

We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.

In other words, the US President is implying that such weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants including Al-Qaeda. This comes a day after Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennadii Gatilov claimed that:

Yet more facts have appeared, including those in the mass media, about the massive scale of the supply of weaponry manufactured in the West to the Syrian opposition through third countries.

Today, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo as well as a Syrian government delegation, and issued a statement reiterating their opposition to foreign intervention in Syria, emphasising "the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law and the principles contained in the UN Charter, and not to allow their violation". No country or group of nations, in their opinion, should pursue a policy of imposing "democracy by bombs". The message from Moscow and Beijing to Obama is clear: stay out of Syria. The question is, will the world's sole military hyperpower take heed of these words, or instead pursue the reckless policy of destabilising and destroying another Arab state with no clear vision of what is likely to come next? Some within America's Christian fundamentalist eschatological fringe may rave with enthusiasm at such a potential portent of the coming of the 'end times', but rational beings everywhere will instead shudder at the likely mass bloodletting which will ensue.

It is widely known that Islamist militants, including some holding UK passports, have entered Syria in order to destabilise the Assad regime, and that regional powers such as Saudi Arabia appear to have been funding the uprising. Whatever should happen, Syria's internal problems are not our problems, and the UK should not interfere in Syrian affairs. However, just as in Libya, there has been a clamour for intervention within our foreign policy establishment that has been paralleled by the BBC's emotive tenor favouring direct intervention. We should not succomb to such propaganda. Atrocities are being committed in Syria, and they are being committed by both sides. However, the so-called "activists" of the "Opposition" are not, on the whole, humane Western-style democrats. Islamism looks set to come to Syria aided, no matter how unwittingly, by the US and the UK. Life under Assad may have been bad for some people, but for others, particularly Christians and Alawites, many may find that they have no lives at all once his regime is gone. If Syria fragments, what happens to her neighbouring states? What impact, in particular, will this have on Turkey? Ethnic and confessional groups straddle borders, and hundreds of thousands of refugees threaten to add an additional destabilising influence to the mix.

EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström: open the EU to North African immigration

A few weeks ago, Peter Sutherland made it clear to the House of Lords that he believed European countries must be forced to become multicultural through further opening their borders to mass immigration from Africa and Asia. Earlier this week, we had the first release of data from the 2011 census that revealed that the officially recorded population of England and Wales had grown at the fastest rate over any 10-year period since the census began in 1801, with this rise being fuelled predominantly by an historically unprecedented wave of immigration and higher birth rates amongst the immigrant-descended population. Yet, despite economic crisis, permanent mass unemployment, a housing shortage and increasing social Balkanisation, Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs, has reiterated her belief in an interview with Le Monde that “Immigration will be necessary for Europe”. 

In the interview, conducted in Brussels and published on 10 July, Malmström elaborated upon her earlier comments that immigration to the EU constituted “not a threat, but an opportunity” and should be considered as “a factor of growth”. Moreover, she has described the Arab Spring as an “historical opportunity”, but was critical of the manner in which the EU had reacted, believing that popular hostility to being flooded by a human exodus from North Africa had “led to a deterioration of our relations with these countries”. In her evaluation of the outcome of the Arab Spring she naively interprets it as expressive of “reclaiming liberty and the rights of man”. Quite how that squares with the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Egypt, Islamists winning elections in Tunisia and dominating post-Qaddhafi Libya, it is difficult to say, for by any rational and objective set of criteria Islamism sets itself in direct opposition to the notion of such rights, for Islam recognises the supremacy of its ‘divine’ Sharia over all manmade law.

Although it may be wise to follow Zhou Enlai’s cryptic comment about the impact of the French Revolution (was he referring to 1789 or to 1968?) by stating that “it is too soon to say” what the eventual outcome of the Arab Spring may be, what seems to have happened thus far is that one form of authoritarianism has been substituted for another. Particularistic national authoritarianisms have been traded for a religious variant, with a limited national colouration and universalist aspirations. Malmström appears incapable of grasping this primary fact, this incomprehension seemingly rooted in her inability to see beyond an economistic reductionism which fails to take into account the centrality of people’s cultural identities, as well as their economic situation. Her thinking, if perhaps not strictly speaking Marxist, is certainly in this respect Marxisant.

This blindness to the salience of culture, and to its deep civilisational underpinnings which find expression in structuring distinctive worldviews and psychologies, thus leads individuals such as Malmström to view human beings as interchangeable economic units, not as distinctive beings imbued with integral identities without which there can be no meaningful sense of self. Although the Mediterranean world may have been unified politically and to a considerable extent culturally during late Antiquity, it no longer is so, and has not been since the arrival of Islam in the Seventh Century. To ignore the fundamental differences that have grown since this time is myopic in the extreme, and whereas recognition of this difference is well understood in the Muslim world, it is systematically denied by those of a PC multiculturalist bent in Europe.With Malmström, the spirit of Euromed is very much alive and kicking. 

Ignorance of the centrality of culture is leading to the adoption of disastrous demographic and economic policies for native Europeans. Le Monde, unsurprisingly gave Malmström a sympathetic platform, formulaically referring in pejorative fashion to “the rise of populist and xenophobic forces” in northern Europe, with the interviewee singling out Geert Wilders for special opprobrium. Malmström peddles the official EU line that is familiar to all in Britain today that mass immigration is “necessary” because of our ageing societies. This assertion is false. We have permanent mass unemployment and it should be our aim to match the unemployed with the vacancies in our economy. Where they lack the requisite skills, they should be trained. Moreover, as Greece knows much to its cost, many immigrants possess no skills, and come in search of only what they can take by way of benefits, wishing to assert their “human rights” without taking on any national responsibilities.

Malmström’s opinions are therefore far from unusual amongst members of the EU’s governing oligarchy, but we should take note of what she says because of her influential position and consequent ability to shape policy. I close therefore with her words on the need for the “new immigration”, the implications of which I ask you to reflect upon:  

Yes, but the reality is there. The role of the Brussels Commission is also to encourage politicians to take this into account. To envisage the problems in the long term, and to rise above national contingencies. Besides, the academic world considers what I say to be perfectly commonplace …

 

The Arab Spring and Euromed

How might these two be linked? The first, an outbreak of mass popular unrest in many countries of the Arab world, in which political Islam plays a significant role; the second, a process initiated by the European Union without the consent of indigenous Europeans for the managed mass ingress of Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East. Are there indeed, any links? No sentient member of the adult population in our country can have failed to have heard of the Arab Spring, yet how many of our citizens have heard of Euromed? Euromed is after all, not something that has been widely publicised, for were it to be so, our people would vociferously object to it; not that this objection would necessarily make any difference to policy of course, for the strong opposition of a majority in Britain to mass immigration has not lessened the intent of the globalist parties – Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative – to facilitate this process. 

Euromed – or the Euro-Mediterranean Process to give it its official title – lists the following as its primary aims:

• Create a common area of peace and stability through political dialogue
• Construct a zone of shared prosperity through an economic and financial partnership and the gradual establishment of a free trade zone
• Promote the rapprochement between peoples by encouraging social, cultural, and human exchanges between cultures and civil societies; The partnership has two complementary dimensions:

• The bilateral dimension: the EU carries out substantial co-operation activities bilaterally with each country, the most important being the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreements.
• The regional dimension: one of the most innovative aspects of the Partnership, covering the political, economic and cultural areas of regional co-operation.

With respect to the first of these aims, one can have few quibbles, for the citizens of EU member states surely do not wish for conflict with the states of North Africa and the Middle East. However, once we move away from the first of these goals, the implications for the people of Britain and the other member states of the EU become rather more worrying, for after all, was not the EU itself sold to the peoples of Europe as a free trade area rather than a superstate? The second bullet point in effect lays the economic foundations for political union between the EU and the majority Muslim states of North Africa and the Middle East. Indeed, this intent is alluded to in the third major strand promoting the ‘rapprochement between peoples’ which in effect amounts to the colonisation of a demographically ageing Europe by the high fertility peoples from the southern and eastern littoral of the Mediterranean.

The political tumult in the Arab world which became known as the Arab Spring began in Tunisia in December 2010, rapidly spreading to other countries in the region and ultimately leading to the overthrow of governments in Tunisia, Egypt and – with the assistance of foreign intervention – Libya. By the time the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union met for the 3069^th time on 21 February 2011, significant unrest had manifested itself in fifteen Arab states and the EU was readying itself to declare in favour of the anti-establishment forces now flexing their muscles in these countries, irrespective of the nature of the movements involved.

This meeting adopted a number of conclusions, the first of which made the following tenuous claim: “Europe and the Mediterranean region share a common history and cultural heritage.” Well, if we except the history of conflict that has bedevilled the Mediterranean since the arrival of Islam, this region actually shares nothing in terms of a common cultural heritage and history since the demise of the Roman Empire. I would contend that despite the intense efforts of the early Church to eradicate much of Classical philosophy and scholarship, it is the European nations that today owe much to Ancient Greece and Rome, whereas the rational influence of Classical Antiquity is far more attenuated in those states that fell to Islam. In reality therefore, non-Muslim European peoples and Muslims inhabit fundamentally different psychological and cultural universes. Contrary to the assertion of the Foreign Affairs Council of the EU, there is thus no meaningful “common history and cultural heritage”; we belong to two separate civilisations.

On 29 August 2011 the Council of the European Commission issued a press release regarding its establishment of a ‘humanitarian presence’ in Libya. Amongst the measures it enumerated were:

• Assistance to the people fleeing Libya
• Assistance to refugees who cannot go back to their home country and Libyans fleeing Libya

One of the primary partners associated with this activity was the International Organization for Migration (IOM) which was founded in 1951 with the slogan of ‘Migration for the Benefit of All’. As is evident from this slogan, it can hardly be adjudged to be a neutral body with respect to the question of international migration which is attested to by the following statements taken from its website:

IOM is committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society.

As the leading international organization for migration, IOM acts with its partners in the international community to:

• Assist in meeting the growing operational challenges of migration management.

• Advance understanding of migration issues.

• Encourage social and economic development through migration.

• Uphold the human dignity and well-being of migrants.

Strategic Focus:

1. To provide secure, reliable, flexible and cost-effective services for persons who require international migration assistance.

2. To enhance the humane and orderly management of migration and the effective respect for the human rights of migrants in accordance with international law.

3. To offer expert advice, research, technical cooperation and operational assistance to States, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders, in order to build national capacities and facilitate international, regional and bilateral cooperation on migration matters.

The Italian island of Lampedusa has this year been swamped by tens of thousands of immigrants issuing from Tunisia, Libya and sub-Saharan Africa using the turmoil of the Arab Spring as a pretext to claim ‘political asylum’ in the EU, whilst in fact being economic migrants. Many of these have clearly stated that they wish to settle in Britain, in particular, England.

Underpinning the goals of Euromed is the misplaced assumption that people are little more than interchangeable economic units, with the cultural identities that they carry counting for little, and that no culture can be judged to be superior to any other. Thus, think the policy makers of the EU and the advocates of multiculturalism, it matters but little if the imported population differs radically in its mentality and customs from native Europeans. It is the opinion of the author that this supposition is both fundamentally flawed and dangerous. Culture matters greatly.

Now that Qaddhafi is dead and Libya finds itself under a National Transitional Council; that Tunisia has become a democracy, and Egyptians head to the polls for their national elections on 28 November, the formal preconditions for Euromed’s transformation are being laid: the establishment of democratic forms of governance. The ultimate aim of both Euromed and the British foreign policy establishment is the accession of the Arab states of the Mediterranean littoral and Turkey to the EU; a greater Europe in which European values are effectively replaced by Islam, and the European peoples by Afro-Asiatics. In effect, this Euromed hybrid would not constitute so much the rebirth of the Roman Empire, as a renewed Caliphate with universal ambitions.

Cameron, Hague and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are continuing to push exactly the same line with respect to EU enlargement as was pursued under the Blair and Brown administrations. Recognition of this continuity is important, insofar as former Foreign Secretary and failed Labour Leadership candidate David Miliband made clear in a speech delivered on 15 November 2007 that not only should Turkey join the EU, but that the EU should look in the longer term to create a:

version of the European Free Trade Association that could gradually bring the countries of the Maghreb, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in line with the single market, not as an alternative to membership, but potentially as a step towards it.

Such a move would be suicidal for Britain and the peoples of Europe. It would be far more rational and beneficial for us to orientate ourselves towards a Euro-Siberian geopolitical axis, rather than towards a North-South Euro-Mediterranean one. Alas, our foreign policy establishment and that of the EU is instead intent upon manufacturing a non-existent enemy in the form of Russia.

The precise ideological complexions of the governments that emerge from the unrest of the Arab Spring have yet to fully reveal themselves, but there exists one certainty: Islamism will play a large if not a predominant role in the politics of these countries. Already in Tunisia we see a coalition government led by the Islamist Ennadha Party; in Libya, Islamists play a significant role in the National Transitional Council and fighting has broken out between rival militias; and in Egypt, the prospect of an Islamist victory in this month’s elections looms large. Egyptian secularists and Copts live in fear of the rise of Islamism, and whereas apprehensions on this score have hitherto focused upon the long-established Muslim Brotherhood, another allegedly more ‘radical’ Islamist party – the Nour Party – linked to Saudi Salafists, has emerged and is causing even greater concerns. Its supporters are reported as having torn down election posters for the Muslim Brotherhood, and whereas Nour is Arabic for “light”, any success on the part of this party of light would serve to bring only the darkness of religious obscurantism to Egypt. According to the Financial Times, Saudi finance is believed to underpin its rise.

Why did the UK intervene in the Libyan conflict? This intervention was ostensibly launched in the name of the principle of ‘humanitarian interventionism’, invoking Qaddhafi’s prospective slaughter of Libyan rebels as a casus belli. Although there was a degree of apprehension amongst sections of the press and some politicians with respect to the wisdom of this move, the public mood at the time was manipulated in a sufficiently skilful manner by the ConDem Coalition so as to win majority support for air strikes. Al-Qaeda militants were known to be amongst the rebels, yet our government took the decision to enter the conflict on their side. The reasons for this are undoubtedly complex and beyond the scope of this particular article, but the implications of the creation of façade democracies in a number of North African countries and their recognition by the EU states are significant. Firstly, it bestows legitimacy on the new governments in the eyes of EU policy makers; secondly, it allows the peoples of the region to express their natural political preference for Islamism; and thirdly, it paves the way for these states to move towards political association with, and eventual membership of, the EU, thus sounding the death knell of European civilisation. Is this what you want? Would this make our lives better? I think not.   

The Member States of Euromed