DowneastBlog

Post upcoming about the appointment of Belgian PM Herman Van Rompuy to EU President, but since not ready yet here two appetizers. If you get sick of it, tomorrow some lighter stuff.

First France. There, Algerians (I will call them Algerians even though they have French passports) tore off the French flag of Toulouse's town hall and replaced it with the Algerian flag:





Then Anderlecht, Belgium. Moroccans (I will call them Moroccans because, when a poll shows only 7% of Moroccans with a Belgian passport consider themselves Belgian, it is clear where their loyalties lay) attacked a police station and threw a molotov cocktail in it.






MFBB.

Labels: Islam in Europe

French police is losing control of the streets in virtually all big cities. The followong is a video of a publicity stunt gone wrong when the Belgian (hey yeah, I can't help it) advertising company Rentabiliweb promoting god knows what stuff, distributed envelopes with money for free. The fools had announced it days before so that, on the day the distribution would start, a throng of hundreds if not thousands of Cultural Enrichers had appeared on the foot of the Eiffel Tower, where Mailorama, the French branch of Rentabiliweb, would hand out the envelops. Realizing there wouldn't be enough for the 7,000 or more persons who had turned up, Mailorama canceled the event at the last moment. That's when the fun started for real.




No one has to give me or any of the decent people out there money. I suppose you, like me, work for it. Not so for the scum you see in the video. Apparently thousands of "youths" can hang out in the middle of the day in Paris, doing nothing but nevertheless feeling "entitled" to checks for free. And when that doesn't turn up, that apparently justifies demolishing the neighborhood.


Another telling example of French police incapable of asserting its power on the streets in Marseille, when after a soccer match Egypt-Algeria on November 14, which ended in defeat for the latter, all hell broke loose. And not only in Marseille. A majority of muslims in France are Algerians, and apparently they think that if their country loses a soccer match thousands of kilometers away, those stupid French should pay for that. Btw, it really is their country first and foremost, a situation which reminds me of my country, where 93% of Moroccans or people of Moroccan descent feel first like Moroccans and then - possibly - like Belgians. Anyway, in France a soccer match Egypt-Algeria ending in 2-0 is reason enough for this scum to terrorize the Marseille natives and set boats in Marseille's port on fire:








Of course, it's not only the police that get the rough treatment. Firefighters too are subject to insults and beatings. They are molested, thrown rocks and iron bars at, in some cases lynched. Same goes for medical personnel. More info here. Sorry, it's in French and I got no time to translate. Let me conclude that I suspect the usual assholes will show up claiming this has nothing to do with Islam. It has EVERYTHING to do with Islam, which teaches its adherents to despise the West, even though we have given them everything - free education, housing, food, decent medical treatment - with which to succeed in our society. That all, plus the mindboggling attitude of the lefist elites who, even on the funeral pyre of our civilization, stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the horror now engulfing Europe and keep feeding the indigenous Europeans fairytales through the media and the education apparatus, which are overwhelmingly in their hands in all European countries.

While these traitorous idiots keep spouting their vicious les, at the same time, all over Europe, thousands of mosques are being constructed. The photo below shows the mosque of Poitiers, nearing completion. It will have a 21-meter high minaret equipped with loudspeakers and high-power light projectors, and these won't be for playbacking Britney Spears. During the years this abomination was under construction, an estimated 400,000 Iraqi Christians were forced to flee from their country under threat of death, Algeria closed churches by the tens, and persecution and mistreatment of the remains of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism in a great many predominantly muslim countries were continued more intensively than ever. Curiously, facts like these elude the attention of our moral betters, who insist that we have to trust the intrinsic capacity for self-emancipation of the muslim world.





Just so that you know who's the new boss. In Poitiers, of all places. Charles Martel is spinning in his grave.

One last thing.

The mayor of Poitiers, Jacques Santrot, is a member of the Parti Socialiste.

I suspect however, that you suspected that already.



MFBB.

Labels: Islam in Europe

News from the Belgian contingent in Afghanistan is hard to come by, but since last summer there's a sketchy overview every week via a pdf document downloadable from the MoD website. Currently, Belgium has about 600 plus military personnel in Afghanistan, active in south, east and north Afghanistan.

Operating from KAF (Kandahar Airfield) in Afghanistan's south are six F-16 fighter bombers, which are flying combat missions daily. Crews, ground personnel and a protection squad account for about 125 men. Many flights are recce and "scare" flights, but about every week or so the jets are requested to engage ground targets. E.g., the MoD overview file for 28 0ct/4 Nov states that two F-16's destroyed two 107mm rocket launching sites which were threatening KAF. The weapons used were laser-guided GBU-12 Paveway II bombs.





Then there is the 300-strong detachment securing KAIA (Kabul International Airport). They guard the innermost perimeter, this for both military and civil aviation (besides, the latter is becoming ever more important). The detachment has been there for aeons now (2002, to be exact), and even though it must be one of the safest assignments in the whole of Afghanistan, it's a wonder that apart from a couple of wounded now and then there haven't been fatalities. It is composed of a variety of subunits and changed every three months. Every new batch is transported from Belgium to Dushanbe, Tajikistan with airbuses, then from there to Kabul with C-130's. The 15th Transport Wing has constantly about three to four of these old but reliable and recently updated transports in service between KAIA and Dushanbe, and regularly provides transport services for our allies too. Aviation freaks may be interested to know that the Belgian Air Force will replace its Hercules transports with the Airbus A 400M, but delays in the programme have postponed the first delivery to 2012 at the earliest. As a sidenote, the problems have been such that several countries (Italy, Portugal, South Africa) involved in the project have already quit or cancelled their orders. Which is a shame imho, since the A400M will be a magnificent transport plane once it is operational, capable of delivering a payload of 30 tonnes over a distance of 2450 nautical miles.




Third, a small platoon-sized EOD group of about thirty men is embedded with the Germans in Kunduz. While not in an actual combat role, this group has made itself extremely useful in that it has, over the past three years or so, neutralised or otherwise destroyed litterally tens of thousands of explosives, mostly mines and mortar rounds:




Fourth, a 70-strong OMLT (Operational Mentoring and Liasion Team) is operational also near Kunduz, where they are responsble for the training of an ANA infantry battalion. This is actually Belgium's only ground combat engagement, for while this troop is not supposed to be fighting taliban, the nature of their work implies that they come under fire regularly. The MoD entry for 1 and 2 November e.g. reads that the OMLT and the battalion it is "coaching" were engaged east of Kunduz. Rather exceptionally the Belgian EOD team was present too, clearing IED's around a place called Basoz. After the mission, the 2nd ANA battalion (kandak in Pashtun), the OMLT, and the EOD team moved to Chahar Dareh, but were still taken under fire.




The Belgian camo, see the instructor, is quite good given the bleak surroundings, but the camo of the ANA soldiers strikes me as incongruous. These guys stand out like sores and must be easy targets. You wonder who came up with the folly of kaki in a desert battleground.

A second OMLT team, about thirty-five men strong, will arrive in Afghanistan towards the end of November. They will bring the total of Belgian military personnel in Afghanistan to about 650.

All in all it's not that bad, but still not comparable with the Dutch mission in Afghanistan, which has seen fierce and unfortunately bloody ground combat for a couple of years now. Even so, it's amazing what a difference a government with half of the socialists out can accomplish. The complicated political situation in Belgium has led to a coalition in which the Flemish socialists find themselves in the opposition, while the Walloon socialists are still in the government. Luckily, not in a position where they can do much damage to Belgium's NATO responsibilities: the current Secretary of Defense, Pieter De Crem, is a center-right Christian Democrat and a far more competent personality than his predecessor, the catastrophic André Flahaut of the Parti Socialiste. The current Belgian PM, Herman Van Rompuy, also a Christian Democrat, can be cautiously labeled center-right too. He is actually tipped for the post of EU President, but I'd rather have - and I mean that very honestly - that he stays on his post, because we finally have a degree of stability here. A stability that not only allows us to come up with a more than symbolic military presence near our allies in AF, but also a stability that is rather business-friendly, as opposed to a situation where you have politicians in charge who see the private sector as enemies, like in some recent governments. I guess this is one of the reasons why Belgium, even though we too have seen a rather troublesome surge in unemployment figures, has until now withered the economic crisis relatively well. But more about that later. Time allowing.



MFBB.

Labels: ISAF

Pets, the only single drawn from Porno for Pyros' debut album of 1993. PfP was formed by Perry Farrell and Stephen Perkins, both ex Jane's Addiction. Farrel was also the father of the touring festival Lollapalooza, of which I'm not sure it still continues.





What can I say? Rock with balls. Roger Daltrey CBE with "Say it ain't so, Joe", actually a Murray Head cover. One of my all-time favorites.





Nite.


MFBB.

Labels: Music

Just a couple of minutes ago, I could slap myself on the head for not having the appropriate cable right now to extract a number of photos from my digital camera, for on its memory card are several very relevant shots related to the battles around Nieuwpoort during WWI. Those photos were of commemmoration plaques of British and French soldiers who fell defending the Belgian coast town of Nieuwpoort in 1914-1915 - in Europe, Armistice Day as it is called here, or at least in my country, is still very much a "Great War" related event, as opposed to the broader concept it seems to have in Anglosaxon countries.

However, when I remembered I had a set of recent shots of WWII vets I thought I could just as well post from them. I took them in Oosterbeek near Arnhem, The Netherlands, about one month and a half ago. A business trip had taken me to Germany and, matters concluded there, I discovered I could make the return trip in about the same time going over Arnhem. It was the perfect occasion for a quick visit to Hotel Hartenstein in Oosterbeek, which was the HQ for the British 1st Airborne Division during those fateful days in September 1944, when Operation Market Garden was in full swing and upon it success depended whether the war could be ended that same year.

However, Market Garden faltered. The fact that a 100 km long corridor had been wrestled from German control did not matter, for it was leading nowhere. The British 1st Airborne Division was virtually annihilated, with barely 2,200 troops making it back to Allied lines. As all WWII buffs know, Market Garden required the capture of five crucial bridges across Dutch canals and rivers, and crossing the last and northernmost one across the Rhine in Arnhem would put the Allies in a situation from where they could storm unhampered either by natural obstacles or the Siegfried Line across northern Germany to Berlin. Of the about 10,000 paras and glider troops which landed near Arnhem on September 17 and subsequent days, only around 600 or so, constituting the bulk of Lt. Col. John Frost's battalion plus some scattered divisional subunits, made it to the bridge across the Rhine in Arnhem's centre. Unable to capture it entirely, they dug in around the northern end where they withstood the German armoured onslaught for several days. When they were finally defeated, what remained of the 1st Airborne concentrated in the village of Oosterbeek, some six kilometers west of Arnhem, whence the survivors were finally evacuated across the Rhine not one week later.

Today, Hotel Hartenstein in Oosterbeek's west has been beautifully restored, and it houses a splendid museum full of dioramas and artifacts. When I arrived there in the afternoon of a late September day, there happened to be a few vets around - which was no coincidence, since the fateful events of September 44 took place almost day to day 65 years ago. Below you see a snapshot of three Brits, I assume once all belonging to 1st Airborne, together with a Dutch lady. The troopers must now be in their late eighties - as for the lady, she said she was a teenager living in Oosterbeek at the time, so she must be in her late seventies. Meeting with these old warriors who, in the mist of time, liberated her from the yoke of nazi tyranny, was obviously a very moving moment for her - as it was to all of us tourists standing around.





A few passes further, behind the hotel, I took a photo of this small monument. In outward appearance it is not impressive, however upon reading the text with which it was emblazoned I felt I could not simply walk by it:




How... utterly true. But then of course, so many men laid down their lives back then not just for their friends, but for an entire population. Men not only from the 1st British Airborne, but also from the British XXX Corps, allied aircrews, and last but not least from the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, units which TODAY... sixty five years later, are AGAIN in the field, fighting an enemy which is every bit as inhuman as the nazi oppressor.

To all those warriors from past and present times, I - we - want to say

"Thank you for your Service".

God bless.


MFBB.

A.) Belgian daily Het Laatste Nieuws, 6 November: "BLOODBATH ON ARMY BASE BECAUSE PSYCHIATRIST HAD TO GO TO IRAQ".






B.) Belgian "top" daily De Standaard, 6 November: "MAJOR HASAN DID NOT SEE THE MEANING OF WAR"






C.) DUTCH TV BROADCASTER NOS: "HASAN DID NOT WANT TO GO TO AFGHANISTAN".





Mark Steyn says it best on NRO's The Corner:

NUTS [Mark Steyn]

For the purposes of argument, let's accept the media's insistence that Major Hasan is a lone crazy.

So who's nuttier?

The guy who gives a lecture to other military doctors in which he says non-Muslims should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats?

Or the guys who say "Hey, let's have this fellow counsel our traumatized veterans and then promote him to major and put him on a Homeland Security panel?

Or the Army Chief of Staff who thinks the priority should be to celebrate diversity, even unto death?

Or the Secretary of Homeland Security who warns that the principal threat we face now is an outbreak of Islamophobia?

Or the president who says we cannot "fully know" why Major Hasan did what he did, so why trouble ourselves any further?

Or the columnist who, when a man hands out copies of the Koran before gunning down his victims while yelling "Allahu akbar," says you're racist if you bring up his religion?

Or his media colleagues who put Americans in the same position as East Germans twenty years ago of having to get hold of a foreign newspaper to find out what's going on?

...

We have nothing to fear except ourselves.



MFBB.

At the 20-year anniversary of the fall of the Wall, The Guardian openly regrets the demise of the cruel dictatorship that the GDR was:





Quick reality check. The Boston Globe, May 2006:

"Matthias Melster, 40, says he still suffers nightmares from his time at Hohenschoenhausen, a notorious Stasi prison that today serves as a museum. He was inmate number 312. As with all Stasi prisoners, his guards and interrogators addressed him only by the number of his solitary confinement cell. Melster was more fortunate than most inmates -- he at least knew why he was shoved into a windowless van in 1987 and hauled away to prison. He and his girlfriend had plotted an escape to West Germany, a major offense.

``I liked the idea of freedom, and that made me an it antisocial element," Melster recalled as he led visitors along the same dimly lit corridors through which he was frog-marched as a terrified teenager. He passed rows of solid cell doors to the monotone chamber -- looking like the lair of the blandest of bureaucrats, with its wooden-veneer desk, clunky telephone, and metal file cabinet -- where he was grilled 10 hours a day for five months before being sent to another prison.

``At first you think, `I'll tell them nothing,' " Melster said. ``In the end, you tell them everything. Whatever they want to know, you tell."

Melster's life has never quite gotten back on track. He's nervous. He chain-smokes. His voice is flat, affectless. ``Was I beaten? No, I was never beaten. I have no scars to show," Melster said.

``Stasi torture was psychological. It was sleep deprivation and disorientation," he said. ``It was intimidation through insinuation -- the guard who would start screaming and touching his weapon, as if you were just seconds away from a bullet. The interrogator whose hints of `worse to come' were somehow more terrible than an actual fist to the face.

``It was months of never seeing another human, except for guards and interrogators. It was never hearing your own name, only your cell number," he said. ``It was being stripped of your humanity, layer by layer."

Sleep deprivation, intimidation through insinuation, months of never seeing another human, except for guards and interrogators. Hmmmm. Where have we heard that before? It's on the tip of my tongue...

... got it! The Guardian!




Hey, if there happens to be a The Guardian sonofabitch out there reading this, I just want you to know that I consider you a piece of shit and that I'd like to kick you in the balls!

That's all. good night!


MFBB.