THE LISBON TREATY - TIME FOR EUROPES RIGHT TO GET ITS ACT TOGETHER AND COME ON BOARD.

On December 13, the Lisbon Treaty was signed. Many say it's just that dreaded EU Constitution in disguise. It is not. For one thing, whereas the Constitution attempted to replace the earlier treaties and start "anew", so to say, the current treaty "merely" amends the existing key treaties of Rome (which established the European Community 50 years ago) and Maastricht (Treaty on European Union, 1992). Also, although that's rather cosmetics, any reference to (or declamation of) symbols defining a European superstate, like an EU flag, a hymn and a motto, is scrapped. Here are the key points:


1.) The European Union acquires International Judicial Accountability.

Strange though it may seem, until now the European Union did not exist as
such in the international judicial field. The Lisbon Treaty will change
that (one of the consequences will be that it can be charged by the
ICC in The Hague for, say, war crimes!)


2.) Simpler decision procedures.

Until now, decision making in the EU was, to put it simply, a mess... The EU Commission e.g. (its day-to-day "government"), could not simply take decisions with regards to foreign policy or justice and security. This was only true where the previous treaties had explicitly stated the EU stood above the member states, like agriculture and competition. Similarly, the European Parliament did not have a say in everything either. Often it found itself in only an advising capacity without the power to actually block the Commission's decisions. Try to imagine that the US federal government could only take nationwide measures in a limited number of fields, or that Congress' power was severely hamstrung.

All this will change after Lisbon. In theory, only one decision procedure remains: the EU commission proposes a decision, a bill or a policy, and the EP (and the minister councils) votes about it. One important domain remains the exception: foreign policy. The Commission still cannot "overrule" its member states with regards to foreign policy.


3.) An ever bigger grasp on European lawmaking

Simultaneously, the EU will now be responsible for a host of other domains on which it can implement EU-wide laws: energy, health, civil protection, climate change, public services, space travel, humanitarian aid, tourism, administrative cooperation.


4.) National parliaments get "alarm-bell procedure".

In order to limit the power of the EU Commission, the 27 member states will get a so-called "Alarm Bell Procedure" which they can invoke if they think the Commission exceeds its authority. In such a case, the EU Parliament must decide whether an EU decision must be annulled.


5.) A new way to "weigh" the votes.

Until now, every member state had a number of votes, and not everyone was pleased with the way the votes were attributed to the respective states. For instance, of the 345 votes to be allotted, Germany, with a population of roughly 80 million, had 29. Spain and Poland, with a population of around 40 million, had 27 votes each. The Treaty Of Lisbon determines that in the future (from 2014 on) 55% of the member states, representing a total of 65% of the European population, will be necessary for a decision. It comes at no surprise that the Poles fought fiercely to keep the present system, to no avail however.


6.) The power of the EP enlarges.

See also 2. The European Parliament will finally have a say in ALL decisions, including the EU's budget. In addition, the maximum number of seats in the EP is 750 plus the chairman from 2009 on (currently there are 785 members).


7.) A slimmer EU Commission

Until now, the Commission - the EU's "day to day government" - counted one "minister" per member state. With 27 member states and more to come, this has already proved to be far too many. From November 1, 2014 on, the EU Commission will be composed of a number of ministers (commissioners) corresponding with 2/3 of the member states. It is clear that the biggest member states will always have commissioners. The smaller ones will get commissioners following implementation of a rotating system.


8.) A European President.

The most visible measure. Instead of the grossly ineffective rotating "presidency" of the EU - every member state had the presidency for six months - Lisbon makes sure there will be ONE European President, to be chosen by an outfit called the European Council with a simple majority.


9.) A solidarity clause

Lisbon states that all member states must offer help to each other in case of, e.g., a terrorist attack or energy deficiencies.


10.) The Symbols

Important to note is that where the European Constituion established a flag, hymn and currency as the official symbols of the EU, this statement was omitted in the Treaty of Lisbon. Still, in a separate, unrelated agreement, sixteen member states recognized them.


11. Petition.

Also very important, if at least ONE MILLION EU citizens from a significan number of member states think that there should be a European law, they can ask the Commission to do so.


And there you have it. I must repeat once again, that I think it's a very sorry thing that the very concept of a United States of Europe is sabled down and again by Europes self-proclaimed "true" rightwing ideologues and parties. One finds this demeaning attitude in VB's programme as well as in the writings of TBJ's Daniel Hannan(himself a Europarliamentarian) and Paul Belien, amongst others. Sadly, the Euroskepticals are to be found exclusively on Europes Right. They fail to make the essential distinction between a tool and he who uses it, between the car and its driver. Like Don Quixote fighting windmills, the European Right figths the concept of a European Union, not those who steer it in the wrong direction. And I'm sorry to see this attitude is all too eager replicated across the ocean, where US rightwing commentators simply echo what is loudly proclaimed over here. A much more realistic attitude would be to accept that the European Union IS, and that the process which led to it cannot be reversed.

It is a political, economic and financial integration movement of which the logical outcome CAN ONLY BE a supranational state, and THIS DOESN'T HAVE TO BE BAD. From a purely ideological point of view, the Right's reluctance towards a USE makes sense: further integration will mean an even heavier European state apparatus, while the shift of responsibilities towards the "higher" level will not lead - at least not immediately - to slimmer national administrations. Still, this is a downside we have to accept, for the disadvantage is to a large degree offset by the gains that will be made. After all, from a purely financial POV, the costs of EU bureaucracy have been paid back many times over by the economic impetus Europe enjoyed as a result of the common market.

And of course, a unified Europe will be much more able to finetune a common policy with regards to critical domains in an increasingly complex world. A common foreign policy e.g., not the cacophony of 27 countries playing more or less cavalier seul. A common policy which tackles the immigration problem in a rational and smart way e.g., unlike the poor show seen now.

I remember that several years ago, the main objection of one of the founders of this blog, Kerry D., to more EU integration , was that an EU under the aegis of a prominent anti-American country would be a bad thing for the US. And she mentioned France and Chirac, which at the time certainly had a ring of self-evidence. But... first of all, dominance of one country has now become impossible, exactly because of the increased integration and the influx of more countries. And secondly, one must trust that a Europe still subscribing, theoretically at least, to the same core values that are held in such high esteem across the Atlantic, will still be a reliable partner to the United States of America even if it has morphed into the... United States of Europe. Think of it as the political equivalent of Adam Smith's invisible hand... but one one condition.

And that condition is that Europes rightwingers should STOP BICKERING and whining over lost sovereignty. They should STOP LAMENTING the coming into being of the "EUSSR", because damn right that is what it will turn into, IF they prefer to stick on the sidelines and let the Left determine where to go with Europe. Since they cannot stop the process, they might as well get on board and GRAB THAT STEERING WHEEL, because naturally, the Left adores the concept of a superstate, for obvious reasons. A chance to indeed turn the USE into the EUSSR and once again try what their idelogical confreres tried in other big geopolical blocks, the USSR and China, under the motto "We just had bad luck over there, but this time it will work!". Europes rightwing parties and ideologues should formulate a strategy whereby whatever power they possess, be it in their national governments or in the EU Commission and the European Parliament itself, should be used to keep the USE "mean and lean", focused on its key policies: defense, justice, the common currency, finance, foreign policy, science, space exploration. The way it is now, the Euro right resembles more the proverbial barking dogs who see the caravan pass. Unfortunately, they seem not to realize what direction the fellas sitting on the camels are taking the caravan.

And last but not least a question for the Americans themselves: would YOU like to go back to the days before the US Constituion made a True Union of a hodgepodge of mini-states acting on themselves? The days when Pennsylavania, Connecticut, Virginia, Massachusetts and what not all had a petty army and navy of their own, when each of them had a self-important ambassador in Louis XVI's Paris, when each of them issued its own quasi-worthless currency? You may rant and rant against "Washington" and its meddling in the states' affairs, the very way the Euro right is now ranting against "Brussels", but can you imagine an America toppling the Taliban one month after 9/11 if it had had to reach a decision between 51 states first? Would California and Massachusetts still have supported bombing Kabul after one week? Would they even have supported deposing of Mullah Omar in the first place at all? SWould they not have suggested talking to him first???

Europe finds itself in the same situation now; Actually, precisely the reason for the lackluster support in the WOT thus far is because of the EU's lack of a common Foreign Policy. There is but one caveat I see: apart from grabbing the EU's steering wheel from the Left, Europes Right must first put its house in order. Europes Right must rediscover what it means to be "Right" again. As little government as possible. Promoting indivualism and self-reliance. Emphasizing the virtues of fending for yourself, of determining your own future, of a sound labor ethic. Open economies, free markets. Make Capitalism a fashionable word again. Respect our heritage, reinstate the importance of the Family as the Cornerstone of Society. Instill in our youths a Respect also, or even especially, for our judeo-christian roots and the quintessential, ultimately benign role our christian religion has played over the centuries.

If Europes Right can do that, become truly "Right" again, AND have its say in Europes integration process, then a USE will, and can, do good for its citizens. Then a USE does not need to be a nightmare for the USA. To the contrary: it could be the beginning of a Grand Transatlantic Alliance. It is up to Europes Right which course they prefer.


MFBB.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Today is the day the Christians among us celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth to all people of good will!

And special consideration for those particular men and women who make Peace on Earth possible for millions, day after day: the members of the US military. Hundreds of thousands are far away from their home and loved ones, dispersed as they are all over the planet. From underground facilities in Germany over checkpoints in Anbar, Iraq to remote foxholes in Afghanistan or the deck of a destroyer off Korea's coast. These brave servicemen and -women can use a little support. Send them some Xmas greetings using this site. Go ahead, it doesn't take long!


MFBB.

DEMOCRACY BELGIAN STYLE: THE LOSERS RULE AGAIN.

Belgium finally has a new government. On Friday, December 21, PM Guy Verhofstadt presented his new equipe to the national and international media. Verhofstadt served already two four-year terms in the previous goverments, which were liberal/socialist coalitions. This government - an interim government till March 23, 2008 it is said - is a so-called asymmetrical coalition, since it comprises the liberals of Open VLD and the Christian-Democrats of CD + V on the Flemish side, and the liberals of MR, the (former) Christian-Democrats of CDH and the socialists of the PS on the Wallonian side. Belgium has been without a government since the general elections of June 10 of this year, setting a record of 196 days.


And this is what I wrote right after those elections:

In line with what's happening in the rest of Europe, Belgium's voters shifted to the right. Or at least, away from the left. The ruling coalition of liberals and socialists suffered huge blows to the extent that the PM, Guy Verhofstadt, of the liberal VLD party, could definitely abandon his plans for a third term and the socialist candidate for the top job, Johan Vandelanotte, who was also party chairman, resigned brusquely and clearly depressed, leaving party HQ in disarray.

This is the stat showing the respective results on June 10 (compared to the previous general elections) on the FLEMISH side. Not included are the results for Wallonia.



Important to note is the huge loss for the liberals of Open VLD and the socialists of SP.A, as well as the gains for the center-right CD + V, Flanders' Christian Democrats. I do not have a similar graph for Wallonia, but the picture there showed huge losses for the Parti Socialiste as well as gains for the Walloon liberals. To sum it all up: the BIG losers on June 10 were Open VLD on the Flemish side, and the socialist parties, both the Flemish (SP.a) and Wallonian (PS) ones. In today's "interim" government - just wait and see till March twenty-three - the heavyweights are... Open VLD and PS. To put it another way:

* in France, people vote center-right, and they get a center-right government under Sarkozy
* in Germany, people vote center-right, and they get a center-right government under Merkel
* in Denmark, people vote center-right, and they get a center-right government under Rasmussen
* in Sweden, people vote center-right, and they get a center-right government under Reinfeldt
* in The Netherlands, people vote center-right, and they get a center-right government under Balkenende
* in Poland, people vote center-right, and they get a center-right government under Tusk


And in Belgium? People vote center-right, and they get a leftist government under Verhofstadt. I don't see how this travesty could be called otherwise, since eight years of co-rule with socialists have turned Verhofstadt, a man I once admired, into a Big Government buff who did his utmost best to force us gay marriage and gay adoption through our throats, and to keep any reference to Europes judeo-christian roots out of that monstrosity called the European Constitution. In addition, the small Wallonian former christian democrat party CDH delivers a former union chief as minister. I say "former" since the "C" in that acronym no longer stands for "Christian", CDH now means Centre Démocratique Humaniste. But to top it all off - and this is the real shocker - the Wallonian Parti Socialiste (PS), the "Party of 1,000,000 scandals, the chief responsible for Wallonia's disastrous decline - is again holding minister portfolios.

How is this possible? For a very long time, it looked as if the new government would become a liberal/christian democrat alliance, since the coalition talks all through summer and autumn carried on between the same four parties: Flemish liberals and christian democrats on one side, their Wallonian counterparts on the other side. The stalemate in forming a government composed of these parties basically centered around two seemingly insolvable issues:

a.) the impossibility to come to an accord between Flemings and Walloons in the so-called BHV dossier. To put it simply, in certain areas of Flanders, let us call them Halle and Vilvoorde (whence the H and V in the BHV acronym) Wallonian politicians can run and garner votes from Walloons who have settled there. The opposite - Flemish politicians running in similar fashion in Wallonia - is nowhere true. Needless to say, this is a grossly unfair situation, and the remedy is obvious: splitting the electoral district BHV (Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde). This the Wallonian parties categorically refused to do, despite a conclusion reached by the Constitutional Court that the current situation is, well, unconstitutional.

b.) the flat refusal of the Wallonian parties to grant more autonomy to the regions. In other words, the federal government ceding more power to Flanders and Wallonia respectively. In practice this would mean that both the Flemings and Walloons would have the ability to develop the proper instruments for governing their slice of Belgium, and an example would be that the regions decided for themselves what corporate tax they'd levy. The more "anglosaxon" Flanders e.g. would like to implement a lower corporate tax. The étatist Wallonia sees companies merely as milkcows (to be sure, it seems that finally, even in the PS, saner minds are realizing that a country's wealth stems from its companies, but as recently as 2005 the corrupt and incompetent PS Minister of Defense, André Flahaut, called companies "vultures").

With regards to point b.), more autonomy for the regions would automatically mean that they would have to be more self-sustaining. The situation as it is now is very favourable for Wallonia, since the federal "Belgian" state redistributes the nation's wealth among the ... regions, and since Flanders is obviously the workhorse of the Belgian economy, with a GDP comparable to Sweden's and accounting for 80% of Belgian export, it is clear who is chief contributor to the federal honeypot. This situation has over time developed in a gigantic financial transfer of roughly 13 billion EUR every year from Flanders to Wallonia, which means that statistically speaking, every Fleming, from the freshest newborn to the oldest centenarian, pays 2,000 EUR each year (now some 2,800 US$) simply to keep the Wallonian semi-communist state afloat. Even so, one can deduct from international press reviews, the Walloons manage to depict the Flemings as egoists.

Well, to cut a long story short, the coalition talks have basically achieved nothing. BHV has not been split, and the regions haven't gotten more autonomy. Chief responsible for botching the talks is the chairwoman of the small (former) christian democratic party CDH, Mme. Joelle Milquet (photo). Over the past six months, she became known as "Madame Non", since her response to whatever proposal to come to an accord, was always - non. It did not help that the big winner of the June 10 elections, Yves Leterme of CD + V and the obvious choice for PM with his 800,000 votes, screwed up big in the media on several occasions, making him indigestable for most if not all Walloons. On one occasion, when asked by a Walloon reporter to sing the national anthem, the Brabançonne, he sang the Marseillaise - France's anthem! Though himself not a secessionist, Walloon media immediately jumped on the occasion to depict Leterme as paving the way for a splitup of Belgium - the ultimate nightmare for Wallonia since in it present state it is incapable of fending for itself.

To go through all the alleys and possible loopholes the negotiators investigated would lead us too far. Suffice to say that in the second week of December, mounting pressure from the EU, the unions and the Royal Court led to a rather unusual move by the former PM Guy Verhofstadt, whose government had stayed on all those days in a caretaker capacity. Verhofstadts initiative was aided by Leterme who, after yet another failure to unite the four parties around a comprehensible programme, formally resigned as formateur. The pressure put on by the EU is not to be underestimated, since critical decisionmaking on the European level threatened to be postponed by the Belgian stalemate. God knows what shadowy deals were made, fact is that Belgium suddenly had a new government, composed of the election's losers and with none of the Flemish demands met. In Belgium, democracy is a farce. But then, this is also the country where an important party, and thus an important segment of the population, is shut out of the political process for the simple reason that it is conservative, and where this party even risks financial starvation because one of its strongmen said that they might be called islamophobic. I am talking about the VB, of course.

Is everything doom and gloom, then? Luckily, it is not. One of the very few silver linings - possibly the only one - is that the post of Minister of Defense goes to Pieter De Crem of the Flemish Christian Democrats. If there is one man who continuously addressed the question of the castration of the Belgian Army at the hands of André Flahaut (PS) during his eight-year long catastrophic tenure, it is Pieter De Crem. One of his most memorable quotes is: "André Flahaut is the biggest disaster happening to the Belgian Army since the defeat against the Germans in 1940." That Decrem is now responsible for Defense is sweet revenge for someone who vowed last Spring "that he would make sure that Flahaut would never again be Secretary of Defense". On many occasions, De Crem has deplored the very meagre contributions of Belgian troops in WOT theaters, its most significant undertaking being that in Afghanistan, where some 360 troops are guarding and managing Kabul Airport in a near risk-free environment. It is possible - it just might - that with this man Belgium may act a bit more in a responsible way with regards to its international obligations.

But all in all this outcome leaves me - and I am sure a lot of Belgians - with a bitter feeling towards Belgiums "powers that be". We haven't gotten the government that we asked for. We are hushed with the story that a Leterme I government will assume control in March 2008, and that at that occasion the Flemish demands will be addressed. But at age 42, I am fairly acquainted with the Macchiavellism in politics here, and I buy nothing of that. Sixty years ago already, there were others who knew:

'Nothing is more disgusting than Belgian politics.'

- Sir Winston Churchill



MFBB.

HATRED HAS BLINDED MY EYES.

A comment from Aegeanbreeze, yesterday:

If the assailant is "UNKNOWN", how do you know who murdered him??? How can you assume immediately that moslems or anybody else did it?? When Olof Palme was murdered, it was assumed Kurds did it, but this has never been proven!

You are talking nonsense because extreme hatred has blinded your eyes.
Aegeanbreeze 12.16.07 - 6:56 pm #


From my point of view, that's better - at least for me - than to have your eyes blinded by policial correctness. I am flooded every day by stories like this one. From the Belgian newspaper La Dernière Heure, 27 October 2007:


SADIA, 20 YEARS, TOO WESTERNIZED TO LIVE (27/10/2007). Her brother, searched after by the Antiterrorist Cell, still at large.

LODELINSART. Sadia was a girl in full blossom. From Pakistani origin, this 20-year old student prepared to succeed for her baccalauréat of Law at Charleroi's Provincial High School, flew nevertheless off to her home country yesterday. In a coffin... Her brother shot her in front of the family home in Lodelinsart, wounding Sadia's sister in the process. A family home she had fled a couple of months back to escape the integrist yoke imposed on her by her family.

Sadia wanted to live a western life, study, probably marry her Belgian boyfriend. But her family, which had already arranged her marriage in Pakistan against her will, judged her too "degenerated". "Her brother had called her, telling her her relatives would make concessions," said a friend. "She fell in an ambush. And her whole family is responsible for her death."


More on Stophonourkillings.


With regards to Dr. Fuat Deniz, the Swedish English-language newspaper The Local has cited Dr. Gaunt too, as did the Dutch daily Nederlands Dagblad:

Fuat Deniz researched within the field of the Assyrian genocide in the Ottoman empire and other researchers working in the field have been threatened, according to David Gaunt at Södertörn University College. Gaunt has worked with Fuat Deniz and they held several lectures and seminars together.

"On several occasions at our seminars people would attend claiming to be journalists only to then walk around photographing delegates," Gaunt told Svenska Dagbladet.

It is reported that researchers have been harassed, received death threats and been labeled terrorists. Gaunt reports having been followed by security police on trips to Turkey and describes being subjected to a smear campaign by a Turkish newspaper.

At least the good Doctor Gaunt has the guts to state that he and Dr. Deniz were threatened because of their historic research on the Assyrian Genocide. The Dutch colleague who also hinted at involvement of Turkish murderers wished to remain anonymous.

The murder of Dr. Deniz is eerily reminiscent of the murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, editor of the Turkish-Armenian magazine Agos. While Dink was very critical of the Turkish state's continued denial of the Armenian Genocide, he was at the same time advocating Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. That didn't help. After having received numerous death threats, he was assassinated on January 19, 2007 by a Turkish nationalist. To get a grasp of the state of mind of the Turkish legal and judicial apparatus, one should know that earlier this year photos emerged of the killer - supposedly in custody - standing in front of a Turkish flag, flanked by smiling policemen.

June 17, 2006 in Valentigney, a small town of 13,000 in the Doubs region of France. On this day, a expositon featuring the work of Antoine Agoudjian is scheduled as part of a folkloristic festival with as theme the "Year of Armenia". Agoudjian is renowned for his work on the Armenian community, and his exposition consists of 35 photographs earlier released in the "Photopoche" collection (Actes Sud). It is not to be. For from the beginning of the exposition, there are violent threats by Valentigney's Turkish community, whose feelings of "Turkishness" are insulted because Agoudjian's work includes two references to the Armenian Genocide - one of the two a photograph of a monument in Lyon commemmorating the gruesome events from 1915-1918. Fearful of the reactions of Valentigney's Turkish community, several thousand strong, the mayor decided to scrap Agoudjian's exposition.


Mehmet Koksal is a Belgian blogger of Turkish descent and a (very) rare example of an independent Turkish mind. On his blog "Humeur Allochtone" he regularly questioned Turkish nationalism and did not spare his criticism for high-ranking Brussels politicians of Turkish origin who deny the Armenian Genocide. On October 29 of this year, Mr. Koksal stopped his blog. The reason? Death threats and violent physical assaults by member of the Grey Wolves - a Turkish neo-nazi inspired extremist organization. From his last entry: "From my side, the situation has become intolerable. Threats and insults, family pressure and trials against me instigated by Turkish associations and cafés, I am tired of having to explain the basic principles of a democratic society to persons who refuse every dialogue."


And so a cloak of frightened silence spreads over Europe before our very eyes. The Turkish intimidation is but a part and subsection of the larger intimidation from the mass of muslim immigrants who have settled, or are settling, in our continent, taking without gratitude the pleasures and facilities it offers freely but spitting at the exact values and mechanisms which over time enabled Europe to become a generous society in the first place. The first victim is Freedom of Speech. The long arm of Turkish hatred towards those who dare to speak the truth about the horrors inflicted upon an innocent Christian population now reaches till Orebro, Brussels and Valentigney. We face an enemy which does not shy away from gruesome methods to attain its goals.

Aegeanbreeze thinks I'm talking nonsense because "hatred has blinded my eyes". I think that description fits better the guy who shot his sister because she dated a Belgian infidel, or the monster who slit a University Professor's throat because the man was telling the truth. With regards to the latter, I promise to publish an apology and correction should it ever become clear the perpetrator is NOT a muslim.

But something tells me I will never have to do this.


MFBB.

MUSLIMS MURDER ASSYRIAN CHRISTIAN PROFESSOR IN SWEDEN.

From AINA (Assyrian International News Agency):

Örebro, Sweden (AINA) -- Dr. Fuat Deniz, a renowned lecturer and Ph.D researcher in the field of sociology at Örebro University, was pronounced dead today by Örebro University Hospital; Dr. Deniz was stabbed in the neck by an unknown assailant on Tuesday. The murder of a teacher during day time and in his own workplace has shocked the community in Örebro, a mid size Swedish town. There are no witnesses to the stabbing and no suspect yet. Police are working to secure forensic evidence, survey the victim's daily routine and his circle of acquaintances.

Sweden's equivalent to the FBI, the Swedish security police (SÄPO), have announced they are looking into this case because the attack could have a political motive. SÄPO noted that Mr. Fuat Deniz dedicated much of his research to Assyrian identity and the Turkish genocide of Assyrians. His masters thesis, A Minority's Odyssey: the Assyrian Example, was praised for its way of describing developments in social identities among Assyrians...

So far, so good. But then it comes:

Dr. Fuat was to participate in an international conference on Assyrian identity and the Turkish Assyrian genocide at the University of Leiden in Holland on Friday 14 December.

Sweden being what it has degenerated into, there is no mention in its journals or televised reports about the identity of the attackers or their motives, but I am 100% sure Dr. Fuat Deniz was murdered by muslims because of the great work he has been doing in exposing the hitherto little known Assyrian Genocide. Take into account also that he was murdered by slitting his throat, an appropriate method for followers of a certain religion, especially during Ramadan when knife-wielding hands are loose. Gates of Vienna thinks so too.


Perhaps no other people live in such a far stretched diaspora as the Assyrians, who are essentially the descendants of the inhabitants of the ancient Assyrian Empire, which itself emerged from the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon of Akkad. The most famous Assyrian rulers were Tiglath-Pileser III, who ruled in the 8th Century BC, and Ashurbanipal. Eventually, the Assyrian Empire was overrun by Babylonia (most famous king Nebuchadnezar II) with the sacking of Ninive in 612 BC (note that by that time, the most common language in Assyria was Aramaic, whcih was the native language of Jesus Christ).

TheAssyrian Genocide took part in the same time frame as the Armenian Genocide, on which we reported earlier, and must be seen in the same context. The Ottoman Empire, where the "Young Turks" fraction under Enver Pasha had assumed a major political role just prior to Wordl War I, actively started wiping out its Armenian and Assyrian minorities (and chasing away its Greek minority) on the pretext that they were a fifth column. The mass slayings took the form of wholesale murder on the spot or deportation to the Syrian desert in death marches. While the Armenian Genocide is well documented, the Assyrian Genocide is far less due to the fact that Assyrians, by the beginning of the twentieth century, were but a small people dispersed over several countries in the region. One of the key witnesses of the horrendous events was a certain Reverend Joseph Naayem, an Assyro-Chaldean priest from Urfa in Turkey's southeast. Urfa, now Sanliurfa, is one of those many places throughout the Middle East where the ancient Christian population has vanished under the relentless assaults of the so-called "Relgion of Peace" (present-day Turkey numbers less than 100,000 Christians, down from 2 million a century ago). In 1921, Reverend Naayem wrote a book on his experiences, titled Shall this nation die?. This is an exerpt from it:

'One day the Moslems assembled all the children of from six to fifteen years and carried them off to the headquarters of the police. There they led the poor little things to the top of a mountain known as Ras-el Hadjar and cut their throats one by one, throwing their bodies into an abyss.'

If you would have thought this was the worst, you'd be mistaken. Another chilling account is from the hand of yet another reverend, Father John Eshoo from the district of Khoy, now in western Iran. In 1918, Ottoman troops arrived in Khoy and started to massacre its Assyrian inhabitants:

At the same time, the Assyrians, who were residing in the suburb of the city, were brought together and driven into the spacious courtyard of a house [...] The Assyrian refugees were kept under guard for eight days, without anything to eat. At last they were removed from their place of confinement and taken to a spot prepared for their brutal killing. These helpless Assyrians marched like lambs to their slaughter, and they opened not their mouth, save by sayings "Lord, into thy hands we commit our spirits. [...]

The executioners began by cutting first the fingers of their victims, join by joint, till the two hands were entirely amputated. Then they were stretched on the ground, after the manner of the animals that are slain in the Fast, but these with their faces turned upward, and their heads resting upon the stones or blocks of wood Then their throats were half cut, so as to prolong their torture of dying, and while struggling in the agony of death, the victims were kicked and clubbed by heavy poles the murderers carried Many of them, while still laboring under the pain of death, were thrown into ditches and buried before their souls had expired.

The young men and the able-bodied men were separated from among the very young and the old. They were taken some distance from the city and used as targets by the shooters. They all fell, a few not mortally wounded. One of the leaders went to the heaps of the fallen and shouted aloud, swearing by the names of Islam's prophets that those who had not received mortal wounds should rise and depart, as they would not be harmed any more. A few, thus deceived, stood up, but only to fall this time killed by another volley from the guns of the murderers....

As you can see above there was coverage of this terrible tragedy in US newspapers, the copy above being from the Washington Post. Dreadful as the context is, it may be cheering up those patriotic Americans who are constantly reminded by their moral betters at home and abroad that their country is evil and imperialist.

No one has to tell me what the motives were for the murder of Dr. Fuat Deniz. Being killed in a typical manner just days prior to his giving a lecture on the tragedy that befell his people, while he had been made a name for himself on the subject, is just too much coincidence. If you think I'm jumping too fast at conclusions, how about this exerpt from the Dutch Nederlands Dagblad:

According to the Swedish journalist Patrik Ekstrom, who follows the matter for Svenska Dagbladet, the situation in Sweden is still very tense. "I spoke with a colleague of Fuat Deniz, Professor David Gaunt. He is a Swede of English or American descent, but he too mentions people who claimed to be journalists on symposia or lectures, but who photographed all those present. He found that very threatening, and he told that Deniz was constantly subject to this kind of intimidations."

A Dutch scientist who wishes to remain anonymous, confirms that. "I felt the eyes of Turkish spies in my back during a couple of lectures I gave in Holland." This scientist does fear to be at risk and therefore publicly speaks out as little as possible about the Assyrian Genocide."

The lesson to be learnt from this is that someone out there is trying to teach a lesson: shut up, or else! Well, here's another lesson motherfuckers. WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Know that we know that islam's strength has always been the weakness of its adversaries. Know that the tide is turning and that once we here in the West get our act together, you stand no chance.

In the meantime, let us pray for the wonderful citizen and human being that Dr. Fuat Deniz was. Let us pray for his wife and two children, of which one, his daughter, just turned three last Monday. This little, lovely girl will never know her father. What kind of a diabolical swine full to the brink with stinking shit do you have to be to deprive an innocent girl of her daddy in such a callous way???



Religion of Peace, my fucking ass. Religion of genocide, inhuman treatment and general megabackwardness, yeah.


MFBB.


P.S.: sorry for my French, but sometimes I have to get things off my chest. Rest in Peace, Dr. Deniz. You will not be forgotten.

MUSLIM RIOTS IN EUROPE: WE MUST PREPARE FOR CIVIL WAR.

A.) FRANCE.

As most people who get their news from blogs know by now, Paris saw a severe flare-up of the so-called French Intifada again the previous week. The incident that sparked the street violence was the accidental death on Sunday November 25 of two teenagers, Mouhsin and Lakhamy, who had no ancestors in Norway nor in Lithuania, Denmark or Wales. While driving without the compulsory crash helmets on a stolen motorcycle in the Parisian suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, they crashed at breakneck speed into a police vehicle. Their death signalled the start of extremely violent riots in which an enraged and hysterical mob already the same night destroyed two police precincts and a petrol station, torched a few dozen cars, looted stores and wounded a mimimum of 25 police officers, two of them seriously.

The second night, muslim youths not only attacked police officers and firemen in Villiers-le-Bel, but also in nearby Sarcelles and Garges-les-Gonesses. In this night's riots 82 officers got wounded, 10 of them by buckshot and pellet. According to Patrice Ribeiro of the Police Union "Synergie" the rioters included "genuine urban guerrillas". Gilles Wiart, deputy chief of the SGP-FO Police Union reported that one rioter "was firing off two shots, reloading in a stairwell, coming back out -- boom, boom -- and firing again". Even a makeshift bazooka which shot clusters of nails was used. In addition, 63 cars, two schools, a bank, a public library, and a supermarket were torched. To set the buildings ablaze, the "youths" crashed burning cars into them. The third night the mourners, still coping with their grievous loss, burned a nursery school, a car dealership and a library in vain hopes of getting over the tragedy. Distant relatives in the southern French city of Toulouse lent moral support by torching twenty cars in that locality. Omar Sehhouli, the brother of Mouhssin Sehhouli who was killed in the initial accident, was quoted as saying to a reporter from the French press agency AFP that "the eruption of violence is not what it seems. This is not violence, but just anger that needs to be expressed”.

What is obvious is that apart from the pillaging, the number of head-on attacks against the police forces takes a steep rise. Whereby over the past years mostly "only" rocks, iron bars and molotov cocktails were thrown against the gendarmerie, this time a significan number of hunting rifles and air rifles were used. No Pasaran! writes:

According to the latest available figures, some 130 police officers were injured in the rioting, with several of them being seriously wounded by gunfire (Le Figaro, Nov. 30). One police officer lost an eye; another was struck in the shoulder by a 12 mm cartridge fired from a shotgun; a third is reported to have been hit 30 times by pellets, eleven times in the face. Police have also reported being fired upon with an "improvised bazooka" (Le Figaro, Nov. 29). It is clear from the reports that still more serious injuries or even deaths were only avoided thanks to the heavy body armor that French police habitually wear in riot situations. "The use of firearms has been systematic," Patrice Ribeiro of the French police officers union Synergies Officiers told Le Figaro, "There was an intent to kill."

And from The Times Online:

“It felt like they were out to kill us,” said one of the officers in Villiers-le-Bel last week. “We knew that there were weapons in the suburbs, but they have never been turned against us like that. The kids were shooting at us at close range, loading and reloading their weapons. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

B.) THE NETHERLANDS.

The violence in Paris comes almost on the heels of the riots in Amsterdam, which started on Sunday, October 14. As readers may recall, on that day a Moroccan youth by the name of Bilal Bajaka walked into a police station in the Slotervaart neighborhood in West Amsterdam, and randomly started stabbing the officers present. One got a knife in the throat and shoulders as well as slashes in the face, another one, a woman officer, was stabbed in the chest and the back. Yet it was her who was still able to pull her weapon and shoot the scumbag dead. Bilal Bajaka was the brother of Abdullah Bajaka, who was arrested in 2005 for planning to blow up an El Al Boeing at Schiphol International Airport. He was also acquainted with Mohammed Bouyeri, Theo Van Gogh's murderer.

Bajaka's death set off a ten-day spree of carbeques, attacks on police stations, damage to public infrastructure, shop looting and generally terrorizing the neighborhood. In sharp contrast to French Police, Dutch Police during most of the riots stood by and did nothing. It's not that they didn't want to, but they were ordered not to intervene by Amsterdam's mayor, the socialist Job Cohen, in a vain attempt to "calm things down". Of course, neither can the leadership of Amsterdam's Top Cop, Bernard Welten, hardly be called inspiring: on Dutch TV he officially announced the so-called De-escalation policy in order to avoid "...a Parisian scenario. We need to keep the peace at all cost." And so Dutch police limited itself to some occasional arrests (only to release the perpetrators hours later) and escorting the fire crews, who were also assaulted by the Moroccan mob. After ten days the riots did indeed petered down, but only a fool would believe that Amsterdams problems with its muslim comunity are over. Rather, they are just beginning.


C.) BELGIUM.

At roughly the same time, two events happening thousands of miles away from each other stirred up tensions in the Turkish community in Sint-Joost-Ten Node, a Brussels neighborhood. First a Commission of the US Congress endorsed a resolution condemning Turkey's murder on an estimated 1.5 million Armenians during WWI as a genocide. Then, skirmishes along the Turkish-Iraqi border resulted in the deaths of tens of Turkish troops at the hands of PKK rebels.

Apparently both developments were too much for hundreds of Turkish hotheads, who on Sunday October 21 took to the streets of Sint-Joost-ten-Node, leaving a trail of destruction behind them. Cars were torched, public infrastructure destroyed, shops looted. Upon passing a cafe called "Le Jardin de Babylone", the mob discovered it was run by an Armenian, a certain Mr. Peter Petrossian. Concrete blocks were smashed through the windows, the guests chased away and the interior destroyed. Mr. Petrossian, who had to flee for his life, recalls that the thugs shouted: "It's an Armenian! Kill him! Bust his cafe!" Police was attacked too, to the extent that even a twit like Sint-Joost-ten-Nodes mayor, Jean Demannez, felt compelled to call for reinforcements, justifying this by saying "We have to stop the thugs. The Turks cannot hijack the rest of the population.". If a Parti Socialiste mayor says that, things must be very hot indeed. He got 80 more police officers, but these too were unable to quell the unrest. For several days cars were burnt, public transportation services attacked, with passengers thrown off the buses and utilities busted, and shop windows smashed. Even the nearby US Embassy was targeted, but - when it's good, we say it also - a large police presence there prevented any damage (although the US flag on the pole outside was stolen). Finally, even more reinforcements and widespread use of watercannon turned the tide.

The Brussels 2007 muslim riots conjure up memories of the 2006 riots, although these were mostly, if not exclusively, the work of Moroccan thughs. On September 24, 2006, a 25-year old inmate of Vorst prison, Fayçal Chaaban, acted so violently against the prison guards that they sedated him. When upon awakening he continued to beat and shout, a second dose was administered. Apparently this was an overdose, since he never woke up again. When news of his death seeped out the day after, this was the signal for a Moroccan mob to start violent riots in the Marollen neighborhood in central Brussels. Several cars and a shop were torched, windows smashed, and a trail of devastation was left in their wake. This went on for several days. Buses and trams full of commuters were pelted with stones, bus stops were shattered, and a youth center at the Place de la Querelle was burned. The firemen trying to extinguish the flames were attacked. Perhaps the most repulsive act was when the scumbags threw two molotov cocktails into the Saint Peter Hospital, luckily without too much damage...


When we examine these events, we can conclude two things.

The first is that islamic youths unmistakably use a totally skewed logic. Two young petty criminals foolishly kill themselves (France). A twentysomething with a decadelong past of robbery tries to kill cops doing civil work at their desk. Thousands of miles away, a conflict is fought between a rebel group and the Turkish Army. A young criminal dies of an accident. And yet... in all these instances, the islamic mob aims its retaliation at the very society they live in. Shops and innocent bystanders are attacked. Cars used by anonymous working class heroes torched. Public services they themselves use, are rendered unusable. Behaviour like this is anathema to westerners, who usually - provided they are not leftists - upon hearing of the shooting death of a dangerous white criminal, will actually welcome the news, often using some swell endorsement like "Good riddance". Not so our Moroccan, Turkish and/or Algerian co-citizens. And no, I'm not narrowing down my spectre to the guys who actually took to the streets. These 10 to 25-year old hotheads have mothers and fathers. Were I to know that my son took part in some violent riot one day, I'd make sure he'd long passionately to sit on the school banks the next morning - despite a raw butt. It is obvious that the perpetrators' parents don't give a flying sh*t - pardon my French - about the whereabouts of their offspring if the latter are curiously absent from the house and the telly shows carbeques round the clock.

The second thing is that, no matter how illogical the behaviour of the muslim crowds is, we are and remain faced with it. It is not going to change, to the contrary. The muslim riots, getting worse with every passing year, are a signal that our legal and judicial systems are put to the test. If anything is clear from what happened at Villiers-le-Bel, Slotervaart or Sint-Joost-ten-Node, it's that these riots are meant to indicate that territory is being claimed. Few things illustrate this more clearly than the sea of blood red Turkish flags and the ubiquitous posters of Kemal Ataturk in the latter community. And these flags and posters illustrate too the utter failure of the multicultural pipedream.

French judge and blogger Jean de Maillard (who is a Vice-president of the Superior Court of Orléans, and a professor at the Institute of Political Science in Paris), writes "Dans les banlieues, le pire reste à venir". (In the suburbs, the worst has yet to come). The Brussels Journal uses a rather "liberal" interpretation of de Maillard's post when the title of its referring post is: "A judge warns: France should prepare for civil war." But even if the good judge stopped short of writing to prepare for guerre civile, for me it's abundantly clear that the current trend can lead only to this outcome. It's that, or living in slavery in a future impoverished Eurabia where stupid muslim masses ask themselves in 2050 where the social security manna came from back in 2005. Where they may even then not realize that the exact mechanics which killed the economy in their countries: a deady marriage between islam and socialism - and which they imported here - killed Europes economy too.

What will it take for the leftist loons to wake up?

Do we really have to wait for the first dead cop?




MFBB.

DEBUNKING CHARLES JOHNSON STILL EASY AS PIE.

Charles Johnson got mail from his Belgian buddies again. This time he was provided with photos showing current VB European Parliament member Koen Dillen, son of the late Vlaams Blok founder Karel Dillen, in the company of Léon Degrelle. The photo dates from July 11, 1992. Johnson must have gotten it via the extreme leftist hatesite Blokwatch.



And on this photo you see the same Léon Degrelle, be it somewhat younger, shaking hands with a well-known socialist, deceased in April 1945:



Who was Léon Degrelle? He was the prewar founder of the Rex Party, Belgium's Wallonian fascist movement in the thirties. Like in other industrialized countries, the economic crisis had struck hard, and the traditional parties seemed unable to turn the tide. In 1936, the charismatic and populistic orator Degrelle scored high with Rex, conquering 10% of the vote. This was to be the movement's peak moment, however. News of Rex's contacts with the NSDAP and Mussolini's fascists, together with a better performing economy, had shrunk it to a marginal party by the time war reached Belgium in 1940. Initially, the Nazis ignored Degrelle and Rex, deeming the "latin" Walloons inferior to the "germanic" Flemings. That changed after Nazi Germany attacked Russia on July 22, 1941. Degrelle offered a Walloon Legion to help fight communism on the Eastern Front and the Nazis, eager for manpower, accepted. The Walloon Legion, under the - brave, it must be admitted - personal leadership of Degrelle, fought with distinction and Degrelle made quite a name of himself, so much that at one point Hitler said "that he was the only Belgian useful to him". By 1943, a bitter rivalry for manpower and resources had developed between the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS. The power-hungry Degrelle, seeing that promotion in the latter organisation tended to be much faster than in the Army, had already managed to get his Walloon Legion transferred to the Waffen SS, where it had been named "SS Sturmbrigade Wallonien", see the propaganda poster. The charging knight evokes the glorious "Walloon" past with its powerful medieval counties, a.o. the County of Hainaut, and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège (the name "Wallonia" does in fact not emerge until the 19th century). In the winter of 1943-1944, Degrelle's unit was encircled, together with various other Waffen SS and Wehrmacht units, in the notorious Korsun Pocket near Cherkassy, Ukraine. SS Sturmbrigade Wallonien managed to extricate itself from the pocket, but was very badly mauled. For his bravery, Degrelle was personally awarded the Ritterkreuz by a grateful Fuehrer, and at this occasion Hitler reportedly said "that if he had had a son, he had wished him to be like him [Degrelle]." During 1944 the brigade was brought up to strength again and by fall even upgraded to a Waffen SS division, the 28th Waffen Grenadier "Wallonien", still under Degrelles leadership. It withered away in the spring of 1945 under the Soviet onslaught, and disintegrated completely in late April alongside - the irony! - the Flemish Waffen SS division, the 27th Waffen Grenadier "Langemarck". An opportunistic Degrelle evaded the fate that awaited many Rexists and Eastern Front veterans in Belgium - execution - by fleeing to Spain where he made a lot of money as an entrepreneur building barracks for the Spanish Army. Over the years, he became something of a celebrity among the other Third Reich fugitives there. An unrepentant hardcore Nazi to the end, who kept calling Adolf Hitler "the greatest statesman he had ever known", Degrelle died in Malaga in 1994.

To say that our friend Koen Dillen thus found himself in pretty seedy company is therefore the Mother of all Understatements. It is ironic that two Belgians, "antagonistic by nature": the one a Fleming, the other a Walloon, only found mutual understanding in their admiration for the epic combats fought by the grenadiers of the "Langemarck" and "Wallonien" divisions. All the more so since the photo session took place on... July 11, the Flemish "National" holiday, birthday of the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302, in which an army of Flemish volunteers virtually destroyed a French Knight's Army.

I have known about this notorious visit for a long time, and this is just one of the examples I have often referred to when I mentioned the VB's "murky past". Yes, Dillen's meeting took place fifteen years ago. And yes, it should be noted that unlike most if not all purely German Waffen SS divisions, the "Belgian" ones have no record of savagery or criminal conduct on the Eastern Front. I suppose this has a lot, if not all, to do with the fact that the Flemings and Walloons were drafted into the Waffen SS without the inhuman ideological indoctrination the German Waffen SS men received. In the case of the Flemings, Himmler simply "picked" the Flemish Legion away from the Army and the men found themselves wearing, from one day to another so to say, SS-runes. It is said that a lot of them kept wearing their necklace crosses behind those dreaded runes. Belgium was a deeply catholic country in those days - and quite a few priests exhorted glory-hungry youngsters to go fight the godless bolsheviks (the most notorious among these being a certain Cyriel Verschaeve). In the case of the Walloons, Degrelle, more a Nazi at heart than his Flemish counterparts, was even more eager to get the transition done than Himmler himself - but the effect for his men was the same. Either way, both groups fought and died bravely, and seem to have behaved "humanely" vis-à-vis the Russian population, insofar that was possible of course. But... there is no excuse here.

There is no excuse here, not then and not fifteen years later. One cannot simply reduce this to the judgment errors a young man often makes. All the more so, since I have never known Koen Dillen to excuse himself. These are the things the Vlaams Belang, successor to the Vlaams Blok, has to live with, just as Sverigedemokraterna has to live with its history of Nazi adoration and Italy's Gianfranco Fini with his neofascist MSI days.

The very serious problem I have with Charles Johnson's logic - apart from his most unnerving Holier-Than-Thou attitude - is that in his static worldview people and parties cannot change and that the efforts of hundreds of thousands cannot atone for the long past missteps of some. Some compromising photo from the old days is dug up somewhere and a whole people's movement is branded a bunch of Neonazis. If we are to apply Mr. Johnson's logic to the Democratic Party e.g., then no decent individual should ever cast his vote again for it because it has a 200-year history of racism, from promoting slavery before and during the Civil War, over Jim Crow laws, Black Codes, outright support for the Ku Klux Klan and voting against the 1957 and 1964 Civil Rights Laws, to Senator Christopher Dodd praising former KKK member Robert Byrd and saying he would have been a good Confederate General. How about that??? I however, as a Rightwinger (and a Neonazi according to Mr. Johnson), am convinced the Democratic Party IS NECESSARY in American politics. Though in all honesty, I wish less clowns would take shelter there.

The second problem I have with Mr. Johnson, is that he displays a willful ignorance of the historic background of the Flemish struggle. As stated before, for a long time and even till today, Flemings have been second-rank citizens in Belgium. During the entire nineteenth century, and the bigger part of the twentieth century, all power echelons in the Belgian state were reserved for the French-speaking Walloons, since Flemish, which relates to Dutch the way American English relates to "British" English, was considered a vulgar peasants language. In the nineteenth century, schoolchildren could be punished for speaking their mother tongue on the schoolyard. During World War I, many Flemish soldiers died because they could not comprehend their orders given to them in French by their Walloon NCO's and officers. For them, it was "Pour les Flamands la meme chose!!!" (For the Flemings, the same!!!). Ghent, one of Flanders's most famous cities, only got its first Flemish university during World War I through the efforts of... the German occupier. It took a century since the Independence in 1830 before a Belgian monarch, Albert I, addressed Parliament in Flemish. And the famous university at Leuven, a city only known in Anglosaxon countries as "Louvain", after the French way to write it, was not entirely Flemish until 1968... It is with this in mind that one has to look at, say, the - very disturbing, admitted - show of leading Vlaams Blok politicians laying flowers on the graves of Flemish Waffen SS soldiers. For besides their role on the Eastern Front, in the service of one of humanity's most evil regimes, these men had often made a name for themselves in another struggle, the Flemish struggle. YES, they chose the wrong side, and a DEAD WRONG side at that, in vain hoping that the Germans would reward their efforts and sacrifices against the USSR with at least a limited degree of self-rule. Naturally, the Nazis simply abused them. STILL, if anno 2007 we have come a very long way from the days when Flemings were looked down upon by La Belgique's Walloon establishment as an uncivilized, vulgar people speaking an atrocious, incomprehensible dialect, this is in part ALSO thanks to these men. No matter how inhuman the regime was they served. Before judging a controversial video ripped out of its context in his usual knee-jerk fashion, Charles Johnson the Anti-Racist would do better to get himself acquainted with some essential history.

The third grave problem I have with LGF's Chief Editor, is that he swallows the data being fed to him by extreme leftwing sites without criticism, while bullying away any person on or outside his blog who offers a different viewpoint or even a more nuanced approach. A lot of "material" seems to come directly or indirectly from the extreme leftwing hatesite Blokwatch or from the obscure communist Yelloman. For example, after Yelloman posted a French documentary on the "hidden face of the VB" on October 31, a link to that same video appeared on LGF on November 10. Sure, Johnson said he "got it from a Spanish reader", but after seeing his minions referring and linking ad nauseam to the same commie hateholes, I'd wager he'd have, by now, serious reason for listening to another bell. The opposite is true, however. Longtime commenters on LGF suddenly find themselves shut out, and very reasonable counterarguments by TBJ's Paul Belien are downright ignored.

Let us now have a close look at these sources. As said before, they seem to be the obscure Belgian extreme leftwing blogger Yelloman as well as the extreme leftwing Blokwatch, a group of multiculti commie loons if ever there was one. One of its leading figures, a certain Patrick Coeman, kept sticking to his alien multicultural beliefs even as his 16-year old pregnant daughter Jasmijn was violently assaulted and kicked in the belly by a bunch of Moroccan teenagers, who called her a whore and a slut. Blokwatch is affiliated with such gems as Verzet.org, another extreme leftwing site which recently sported a scathing attack on Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, the man who bombed Hiroshima and thus ended World War II. Another close ally of Blokwatch is the site Mensenrechten (Human Rights), an outfit curiously not interested in Human Rights violations if they happen to be at the hands of their ideological confrères.Their homepage proudly displays an ad for the upcoming movie My enemy's enemy, on Nazi henchman Klaus Barbie. As you can see from the poster, this notorious killer is linked in a not so subtle way to a certain country somewhere in the north of the American continent. A look at Mensenrechten's Board of Directors will in all likelihood not tell you very much, but no. 2 on that board is Eddy Boutmans, from the Green Party, who was a minister in the previous government. One of his aides was a certain Peter Terryn, nicknamed on Boutmans' cabinet the "Minister of Agitation" for his anarchist sympathies. On his website Terryn had called the 9/11 attacks "aesthetically beautiful". Sure, Boutmans fired Terryn... after one week of intense pressure from more sane-minded colleagues. Afterwards, Boutmans' spokeswoman deplored "that a heavy gun had been used to shoot on a trivial bug", and described Terryn's comment as "satire".


If you'd have though this was the high point of Belgian foolishness in the early days of the WOT, you'd be mistaken. In 1993, Belgium passed a so-called "Universal Jurisdiction Law", which allowed foreigners to file complaints against individuals accused of war crimes and genocide, no matter where they resided on the globe. Ten years later, the Liberation of Iraq stirred a number of Belgium's colourful association of leftwing bozos to emphatically support the complaint laid down by some Iraqis against former US President George Walker Bush and former US Army Chief of Staff General Colin Powell, for their alleged role in the bombing of a Baghdad bunker in 1991, whereby as many as 400 civilians would have been killed (curiously, the loons seem not to have discovered the excellent possibility the law gave them to prosecute a certain Middle Eastern dictator who gassed Kurdistan). The monstrosity was repealed in August 2003 when Rummy, who was also in the targets, threatened to move NATO HQ out of Belgium, a decision Blokwatch, Verzet, PvdA, the socialist party, Mensenrechten et al would actually have cheered. The crux of the matter is that Charles Johnson, who I believe referred to this stupid law back in 2003, should know that his trusted sources were all fiercely supporting the "lawsuits" against Bush 41, Powell, Cheney, Sharon and Rummy. Shall we then say, in the man's own words: "Nice company Johnson runs with"?


The proverbial elephant in the Hall of Political Correctness is that while all leftists cry murder whenever some compromising photo taken twenty years ago comes out, they, on the other hand, still demonstrate a kingly nonchalance in the practice of revering "their" heroes. In Spring 2006, Animo, the youth chapter of the Flemish Socialist Party SP.a, sported a poster of Mao on their website, announcing the good - cough - news that the winner of the May 1 Personality of 2006 Contest would be carried around on Labor Day "in true Maoist fashion". FYI, most historians now agree that during Mao's rule between 60 and 70 million Chinese died of non-natural causes, be it execution, mass stravation or other niceties. It's even worse. Leftists somehow take it for granted that they will keep enjoying absolute moral immunity in the presence of leftist dictators. A good example is Cuba. Almost fifty years have gone by since Castro removed the "rightwing" dictator Fulgencio Batista from power there. And after all those years, during which Portugal's Salazar, Taiwan's Chiang-Kai-Chek, Spain's Franco, South Korea's Chun-doo-Hwan , Guatemala's Mejía or Chili's Pinochet - ALL of them rightwing dictators - bloodlessly gave way to democratic rule... the Cubans STILL find themselves living under leftist tyranny. Let that be no problem for our moral betters at home: leftwing politicians still revere the old monster, and while there visibly enjoy being in a country where society and even Man itself is still makeable. The photo, taken a few years back, shows you former Foreign Minister Erik De Rijcke, now Minister of State, enjoying the company of El Lider. De Rijcke is a prominent member of the Flemish socialist party SP.a. Leftists fret about Guantanamo, where at most 500 islamoterrorists simultaneously were held. The gruesome truth is that the real jail begins OUTSIDE Guantanamo's gates, and at any given moment over the past fifty years it has contained over ten million people. The Cuba/Gitmo paradox is not an elephant in a room going mysteriously unremarked, it is one of those 20 mile diameter disks from Independence Day wiping away Greater Roswell including Vegas and the Air Force still pretending it was just a weather balloon.

Either way, the sad thing about the whole LGF/TBJ blogwar is that a precious front in the defense of Europe against the mortal threat posed by Islamization is critically weakened because Mr. Johnson seems not to be able to see anything but Nazis in what has, over the years, become a decent rightwing party - possibly the most GOP-like party on the European Continent. As I have stated before, I would never have joined the VB back in the streetfighting days - even though then already, I recognized, and acknowledged, the sheer necessity of their message. And this despite the at times unfresh odor emanating from the package. But today, the Vlaams Belang has moved on. It is "clean". Not as clean as can be, perhaps, but which party is? Perhaps the best rebuke of Johnsons long diatribe against a movement he should actually praise, is the VB's programme. I have copied and translated some key points. Here they are, and judge for yourself:


IDENTITY AND DEMOCRACY.The Vlaams Belang is a "nationalist party of the right" (In the continental-European semantic context, as opposed to the collectivist, etatist "left". In an Anglosaxon context the term "conservative" would be used, as opposed to "liberal"). Indeed, we recognise man as a free agent, with all his human qualities and flaws, and we reject ideologies that presuppose the "makeability" of mankind and that advocate social engineering. Tradition, virtues and morality, as these have grown through time, must be respected and are constitutive elements of the society of the future. The Vlaams Belang chooses unequivocally for democracy as political model. The people decide.


FREEDOM.Human beings are free persons. The Vlaams Belang is dedicated to protecting the individual from abuse of power by the state. The party defends the freedom of speech, as the first and most important principle in the democratic organisation of society. Other principles include - among others - the right of free assemblage and association, freedom of education, freedom of conscience and the right to life. The right of ownership and free enterprise - which constitute the foundation for economic development, employment and prosperity - are inherent freedoms of our society. In its political activities the Vlaams Belang will respect, as a minimum, the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 4 November 1950 and the related protocols which apply in Belgium. The party will ensure that itself, its various components and elected delegates also observe the right to self-determination of nations.


LAW AND ORDER.The authorities must respect the rights of every citizen and guarantee law and order. The Vlaams Belang believes that democracy and the rule of law are the best safeguards for personal freedom. Security, and the curtailment of crime, are essential to society. The authorities of a state must guarantee security for all its citizens. The criminal's personal responsibility must be recognized and appreciated as a cause of insecurity. For the Vlaams Belang a tough line on crime and zero tolerance are central to government, and the judiciary and the prison system must cooperate in this.


ECONOMY.To sustain the present level of prosperity our party is in the first place convinced that Flanders has to become an independent state [note: although a VB member myself, I do not subscribe to this view]. Furthermore, Vlaams Belang pleads for supply side economics. This means a policy steered "from beneath" and which gives ample room to individuals and companies to deploy... Free entrepreneurship is of course of the utmost importance. Freedom gives the determined individual the chance to choose a professional activity which best suits one's own talents and preference. By individually choosing education, labor, a sector and specific professional initiatives well suiting one's person, a maximum of added value for the whole of society and thus economic prowess, is generated. The role of the government is first and foremost creating a climate leaving entrepreneurs sufficient room to act in a creative and innovative way. A favourable entrepreneurial climate is only possible when taxes on wages are lowered, administrative overload disappears and the necessary incentives are available. Free competition must be assured as much as possible. A sober government limits entrepreneurs as little as possible. Decision making has to be relocated - following the subsidiarity principle - as much as possible to the lower levels. This implies a drastic reduction of government interference. Only a lean government shall be able to effectively lower and simplify taxes.


THE FAMILY AND MARRIAGE.The Vlaams Belang is an outspoken Family Party. As the Cornerstone of Society, the Family provides stability, comfort and education of children. Families form the solidarity between the generations, between the past and the future. Families are best suited to pass on norms and values. They throw up a dam against egoism and materialism, aginst indifference and the mounting violence on our society. A family-friendly climate is the best condition and guarantee for a healthy society... Marriage forms the strongest basis for families. That is why for the Vlaams Belang, marriage is a basic structure of our society.


ABORTION.The Vlaams Belang has always denounced abortion, for the following reasons: a.) Unborn Life in the mother's womb is also Human Life. b.) Innocent Human Life cannot be killed. c.) Other solutions are possible. That does not mean that we close our eyes for the painful situation of girls who unexpectedly become pregnant...
In the case of rape or in situations whereby the life of the mother herself is in danger, abortion has never been prosecuted, let alone condemned, which means that the current legislation need not be amended... In the meantime, abortion has become an ordinary operation. No serious monitoring of the phenomenon exists. For the VB human life cannot be touched. The State has as its first priority to protect the weakest in society. And the weakest is without doubt the unborn child. In order to have this protection signed into law, the VB has introduced a bill granting legal personality to the unborn child.


EUTHANASIA.The Vlaams Belang is principally against every change of the law which would render euthanasia no longer a punishable crime. Naturally, our resistance against euthanasia does not mean that the Vlaams Belang advocates therapeutical stubbornness or needlessly prolonging life and suffering. Stopping a useless medical treatment with terminal patients and administering painkillers which shorten the dying process are allowed, medical experiments are not allowed.


IMMIGRATION.Flanders is no immigration country and should not have a policy attracting immigrants. He who arrives here as an immigrant and wants to settle permanently, adapts to our language, culture and habits and is in the first place loyal towards his new country, Flanders. The solution is not, as the multicultural dogma proscribes, that numerous cultures must live next to each other. The solution is of course, that the newcomers have to adapt to our culture, not the other way round. This whole theme cannot be seen detached from Flemish history. The Flemings have very nasty experiences with people speaking other languages who did not want to adapt to our language and culture. Our capital is a painful reminder of a Flemish culture usurped by French culture, and currently by other cultures. We want to avoid a recurrence of that phenomenon in other Flemish cities. Francophones who do not want to adapt to the Dutch language in the public sector, educational system and judiciary are not welcome in Flanders. In the same manner, those who adhere to another culture must adapt to us or get back to their country of origin, where they are free to live as they want.


HOMOSEXUALITY. The VB believes that the sexual nature of individuals belongs to the private realm and what consenting adults, be it homosexuals, lesbians or heterosexuals do in the private sphere of their house or sleeping room is not our business. The VB most definitely does not plead for discrimination of gay people. But that does not mean yet that we are cheering the sexually-tinted orgies of gay parades. For the VB the marriage between a man and a woman is and remains the norm. Can it? Gay marriage and gay adoption are, as far as we are concerned, foolish and dangerous nonsense, a bridge too far. This principled rejection has nothing to do with disrimination, but everything with our concern for a healthy society and a healthy education. In the ideal situation children are raised by their biological mother and father. When that is not possible they are best brought up in an environment as stable as possible. But in no way children may become the subject of experiments with gay marriage. We would like to conclude that the VB has a fair number of otherwise oriented members, apart from several homosexual and lesbian politicians. They feel good at home within our party but don't want to make a show of it. And especially, they were not elected because of their orientation, but because of their viewpoints, engagement and other qualities.


RACISM.According to a dictionary, racism is the belief that one race is superior to another. The notion that one race would be superior to another race is just as stupid and short-sighted as the dogmatic and utopian conviction that all people would be equal. People are not equal, but in our view of equal value... The Vlaams Belang is not, as is being claimed so often, against immigrants, but we do oppose the foolish immigrant policy the authorities have applied for decades. A woolly policy standing in the way of any real integration and which has only resulted in the creation of ghettos, school troubles, unemployment, high societal tensions and a disturbing level of criminality. Self-declared "democrats" have always shoo-shooed these problems away, but taboos have never led to a solution for them. The fact that the VB opposes the multicultural society has nothing to do with racism, even though it is often portrayed as such. Our criticism on multiculturalism is no plea for ethnic cleansing. But, we do want to stay boss in our own country. Furthermore, for a well functioning democracy, the population has to agree on a number of shared norms and values... We do not want to sacrifice our freedom and our norms and values on the altar of multiculturalism.


HEY CHARLES JOHNSON!!! SOUNDS ENOUGH LIKE MEIN KAMPF FOR YA?????!!!!????


Sheesh.


MFBB.

DEBUNKING CHARLES JOHNSON IS EASY AS PIE.

These days it seems I can't open up LGF or there's another smear from Charles Johnson, LGF founder and chief editor, against the party I am a member of, the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest). Mr. Johnson, who, btw, I still admire very much for keeping up a blog which learns us a gazillion of facts on the true nature of the "Religion of Peace", seems to have become convinced that the Vlaams Belang, and the Sweden Democrats party for that matter, are neo-nazi parties.

I can't really speak for the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), of which I had never heard before the Brussels Counterjihad Conference a couple of weeks ago. After looking briefly into their past, I did indeed find quite a lot of troublesome material. However, the party seems to have gotten rid of its Nazi supporters a decade ago: at least all the openly extremist members were expelled. They formed a fascist splinter party, the National Democrats, which is actually denouncing SD. Furthermore, I think it's hard to call SD anti-Semitic when it is led by a Jew, Ted Ekeroth, especially when that Jew won the Zionist Herzl Award 2006. Sverigedemokraterna's site also states that it considers the 1948 UN Declaration on Human Rights an inalienable centerpiece of its politics. Jesus, why do I bother you with facts? Check out their site yourself, it doesn't exactly look like Der Stuermer to me. If we are to apply Johnson's standards for judging a party, then the Democratic Party should be steered clear off because its leader in the Senate, Stephen Douglas (D-Illinois) pushed a pro-slavery act through Congress in 1854. Hey wait, now there's an idea...

As for the Vlaams Belang, the first shot fired by Johnson was the allegation that in 2005, the VB shunned a Resolution condemning the Nazi death camps.

The resolution Mr. Johnson is referring to is actually an EU Resolution, more specifically the January 27th, 2005 European Parliament Resolution PE 354.156 on Remembrance of the Holocaust, Anti-Semitism and Racism. Now here's the thing: imho anyone with a clear and objective view on things should notice the stink when a party like the VB is accused of not signing a Resolution condemning the Holocaust, because really, who, apart from the Nazis themselves and Ahmadinejad plus the usual suspects would not sign such a document? Why on earth would a party which is Israel's loudest supporter in the Belgian political landscape oppose a Holocaust Resolution??? The reason is very simple. The VB did not sign this resolution since it is a Leftist/Green fabrication intended to provide "legal" basis for prosecuting any European party opposing or at least questioning unburdened immigration. When we take a close look at PE 354.156 we find under Article 1:

"1. Pays homage to all the victims of the Nazis and is convinced that lasting peace in Europe must be based on remembrance of its history; rejects and condemns revisionist views and denial of the Holocaust as shameful and contrary to historical truth, and expresses concern over the rise of extremist and xenophobic parties and growing public acceptance of their views;"

In Flemish we have a saying: "Het venijn zit in de staart" meaning "the venom is in the tail". PE 354.156 bluntly links anyone denying the holocaust with "extremist and xenophobic parties". In reality, this will boil down to calling all parties who oppose the massive and unchecked immigration wave... Holocaust Deniers. Note that the immigration wave is to a large extent instigated, and fueled, by the same leftist and green parties with the specific aim of catering for the immigrants in return for votes!

It gets even better when we examine PE 354.156 more closely. Enshrined in it is a so-called Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia. Its opening sentence literally states:

The purpose of this framework decision is to ensure that, in the European Union, racism and xenophobia are punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal penalties which can give rise to extradition or surrender; to improve and encourage judicial cooperation.

Ladies and gentlemen, there you have it: Punishable by Effective, Proportionate and Dissuasive Criminal Penalties. In other words, this so-called "Holocaust Resolution" provides nothing less than a "legal" instrument to kill parties opposing, a.o., unbridled immigration!THAT is the reason why the Vlaams Belang did not sign it!!! It's leftist reasoning all over again. If you can't beat them, sue them. You do not have to tell Filip Dewinter what that means. In a 2005 interview with a Jewish weekly he said a.o. "Yes, we’re afraid of Islam. The Islamization of Europe is a frightening thing." A multicultural youth organization (KifKif) and an "Anti-Racism" organization (aptly called MRAX, do I see a Freudian Slip there? Or is it rather a not so subtle hint?) promptly lodged a criminal complaint against him using Belgium's notorious "Anti-Racism Law", accusing him of inciting racial hatred. As a result of this complaint, one of the highest Belgian courts, the Council of State, is currently investigating whether the VB can be deprived of public funding (in Belgium, parties cannot receive gifts from companies and get funding from the State). This investigation's purpose is nothing less than an attempt to "kill" the Vlaams Belang financially. You can see how the mechanism works on the Belgian level. I shudder at the thought the same would be possible on the European level, and this is just what EU Resolution PE 354.156 intends to do.


PE 354.156, a Leftist/Green fabrication, is in its essence a shameful thing, as it recuperates one of the greatest horrors humanity has ever known for vile political purposes. To explain the VB's decision, Filip Dewinter wrote in an Open Letter to the Jewish Community on January 28, 2005:

Dear Citizens,

As a result of the unfortunate and untrue reports in the media concerning the attitude of Vlaams Belang in the European Parliament regarding a resolution “concerning the commemoration of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and racism” I would be more than glad to put right what I for one and others would like to clarify.

Naturally Vlaams Belang bows down in deep respect for the suffering of all the victims of the Holocaust. The genocide against the Jewish people committed by the Nazi regime no one can never forget. The 60th anniversary of the release of the prisoners from the camp at Auschwitz is an excellent occasion to honor the victims and stands as a warning memory to the victims of every form of anti-Semitism and racism. I can refer to the MEP elected and party President Frank Vanhecke, who has also put this explicitly in his speech in the European Parliament with the following words: “Vlaams Belang bows down in deep respect for the Jews and for all the other victims of the criminal National Socialistic regime” [Nazi regime].

Unfortunately, some find it necessary to demonize a number of people from a successful and growing opposition with the use of a shameless abuse of the holocaust tragedy in the year 2006...

FYI, the VB did endorse a resolution condemning the Holocaust... in the Flemish Parliament. Because that resolution dispensed with the angle allowing for prosecution of immigration-critical parties. I wonder why Charles Johnson did not tell you that. Either way, LGF's Chief Editor took the accusation thrown at VB's feet hook, line and sinker. For a fella who has debunked the EU's "famous" soft-power resolutions so many times on his own blog, I thought he was smarter.


Now for his "Exhibit 2". According to Johnson, "a White Power flag at a Vlaams Belang rally this month. The other flags are Vlaams Belang."

Except this is not a VB rally, and these are not VB flags. It is a July 10, 2006 VJW rally, in which VJW stands for Vlaamse Jongeren Westland, or Flemish Youths Westland. This is their site. They are really a fringe group - until LGF posted the photo, I had not even heard of them - and it is quite hard to describe them. They appear to be fiercely nationalistic, anti-muslim but also anti-Israel, definitely anti-USA (burning US-flags), and heavily leftist leaning in their economic recipes (they favor nationalization!). And yes, I'd label these guys white supremacists. They amply use Celtic crosses, Odal runes and other (Neo)Nazi symbols, and they worship Flemish Waffen SS volunteers. To be sure, after some Internet rummaging I did find out that a handful of VJW members have ties with, or are also member of, the VB. I can only deplore this, and while I think it's a good thing the VB leadership almost from the beginning removed the (very few) VJW members from any post of importance, I'd rather like these idiots-stupid fucks-scumbags-morons-take your pick, to disappear from my party altogether.

But the bare fact remains that Johnson, when he claimed this was a VB rally and these were VB flags (the official VB flag can be seen here) was dead wrong. One really wonders why he unconditionally trusted his source, the obscure Belgian extreme-leftist blogger Yelloman. One last word about the use of Flemish flags together with a White Supremacist symbol: if we follow Johnson's logic, the US flag itself is a vile symbol, since Code Pink does also use the Star Spangled Banner at their rallies. How about that?


Then Johnson's "Exhibit 3". He writes: "As mentioned above, the predecessor to Vlaams Belang, Vlaams Blok, was outlawed in 2004. Their comeback as Vlaams Belang was applauded in 2005 by David Duke and the neo-Nazi skinheads at Stormfront." If you follow the Stormfront link, you come upon the start of a Discussion with the subject being "Pro-White Vlaams Belang Now Belgium's Strongest Party." First of all, the "Pro White Vlaams Belang" is a projection made by the Stormfront bozos. "Pro White" is not, and has never been, repeat NEVER, a VB denomination or motto. The VB-slogan which came closest to advocating white supremacy was "Eigen Volk Eerst" (Own People First), and even then it was a (very) far stretch, since "Eigen Volk" (Own People) stood for all "good" citizens with a Belgian ID, including the hundreds of thousands of Italians, French and Greeks who became, in decades past, respectable countrymen. The "Eigen Volk Eerst" slogan was dropped four years ago, when Vlaams Belang's predecessor, Vlaams Blok (Flemish Bloc) was outlawed. To be sure, I do feel more comfortable now that that motto is gone, but let us be honest here, what precisely is wrong with such an attitude? Does not a government has as its first priority the interests of its own people, and then the interests of citizens of other nationalities? Should by the logic of the Belgian Court not the whole population of Japan be outlawed, since they barely - if even that - allow immigration? A government has at its disposal a limited set of resources with which to pay employees' wages, pensions, infrastructure, hospitals, schools and what not. Is it not logical that a government uses these resources for its native inhabitants first? "Eigen Volk Eerst" is a cry from the early eighties, when nationwide unemployment was skyhigh and the leftist red carpet treatment (including positive discrimination) for newcomers, who did not even want to learn the language, started in earnest. Anno 2007 it is a demographic reality that Antwerp, the place where the slogan "Eigen Volk Eerst" was born, is slowly but steadily running out of "Whites" and people of other color fill the space. Close to 4,000 "White" Antwerpians flee the inner city every year, and 5,000 "Non-White" newcomers flow in. Is it asked too much WHY there is a White Flight? Why did native Belgians not move away when Italians moved into their neighborhoods en masse during the fifties? Furthermore, does not, in light of the stark reality of the rise of sloppiness, poverty and crime after the newcomers' arrival, sound a cry like "Eigen Volk Eerst" more like a sane, sad wish post factum than a racist battlecry? 2006 marked the first year that immigrants who do not even WISH Belgian nationality, were allowed to vote in municipal elections - exactly the reason why I joined the VB, btw. It was a common phenomenon that Moroccans, Turks and Algerians voted only for "their" candidates, which resulted in hitherto unknown Ahmeds, Fatimas and Alis, posted on "unelectable" places on (especially socialist and green) voting lists, miraculously jumped over the gullible indigenous "white" candidates. In Ghent, a Turkish candidate, Fuat Korkmazer, profiled himself in the first place as a Turk, NOT as a Belgian. Just LOOK at that poster (in Turkish!), and now look at the site of Bobby Jindal, US Congressman of Indian extraction, now Governor-Elect of Louisiana. What kind of flag is that huh? Were I an American in Louisiana, I'd feel verrrrry comfortable with my "brown" governor. Were I living in Ghent, I'd feel extremely uncomfortable with a mayor like Mr. Korkmazer. The Vlaams Blok had to drop the "Eigen Volk Eerst" slogan. "Non-whites" openly applied "Eigen Volk Eerst" - and the leftist loons pretend that their noses are bleeding.

Now back to Stormfront and David Duke. Are we to assume that the VB is a Stormfront susidiary, as Mr. Johnson alleges, just because that hatehole links to the VB site? If some Neonazi clusterfucker reads a DowneastBlog post, comes across twenty times "Stop Muslim Immigration to Western Countries", presumes I'm and links to it, does that make DowneastBlog a Neonazi site? In this very post I link to an extreme leftist blogger, the nutjob who provided Johnson with false photos. Plus, I link to the leftozoid hate site Blokwatch. Does that make ME a Code Pinko??? Jesus, and I wonder how many VB staffers even know David Duke. I will tell you one thing. David Duke may praise the Vlaams Belang, which he perceives as white supremacists because they happen to question the flood of non-whites flowing uncontrollably into our country. But the Vlaams Belang will NEVER praise David Duke.

To cut a long story short, the technique Charles Johnson uses here to attack the VB is known as "guilty by association". I read a book recently, "Digital Fortress" by Dan Brown. In it, a murderer (US government paid of course, what did you expect) kills each and everyone who came into contact, even randomly, with his target, a Japanese encoder. Guilty, or shall we say, "burned" by association. Dare I say that Mr. Johnson follows the same logic as that killer? Just because Stormfront links to the VB... the VB is guilty of the sins of Stormfront. Honestly Mr. Johnson... I am BAFFLED.

Just three "exhibits" debunked, 27 to go still... Or is it 28? Because Charles does not seem to get enough of it. In the process, got involved in a serious brawl with The Brussels Journal's Paul Belien. Called The Brussels Journal "Repugnant"... and gives as "proof"... three COMMENTS. Shall we examine LGF's comments section? No, honestly, can any sane individual who has regularly read Paul Belien's site over the past years claim in all seriousness that The Brussels Journal is "Repugnant"??? Either way, in my opinion Mr. Belien has done a fine job of defending both his site and the Vlaams Belang. I might add that neither I, nor Paul Belien, nor the Vlaams Belang itself have ever hidden the party's past, which has its ghosts. I wrote about that here. And I wrote again about it, not mincing my words, here:

...The struggle for recognition of the rich culture of Flanders and its language, Flemish (which relates to Dutch like American English relates to British English) inside a francophone Belgique has been long and hard, and on two occasions important organizations of Flemish activists have, in vain hopes of getting from under the Wallonian yoke, sided with a party they should have avoided: the German invader, both in World War I and in World War II. In 1914-1918 the German occupier had his Flamenpolitik, promising a degree of Flemish independence and a.o. a Flemish University in Gent. In 1940-1944 the Germans went further and extracted apart from political cooperation military cooperation: enough Flemings were drafted to finally form a Waffen SS infantry division, the 27th Waffen Grenadier “Langemarck”. In both conflicts, opportunistic Flemish populists got themselves used for unsavoury purposes for a bait, Flemish self-rule, which all to soon proved illusory – the German yoke simply replaced the Wallonian, and it was much worse. The awakening after the armistices in 1918 and 1945 was hard, and left the country with a body of embittered Flemish nationalist outcasts.

In the seventies, such various groups of Flemish Eastern Front veterans – tough men who had seen the endless steppes and proudly worn the typical shoulder patches with the Flemish Lion on a Feldgrau sleeve, almost inevitably flocked to the new political formation promising once more glory for Flanders: the Vlaams Blok, as it was called then and until 2004, when the party was banned by Belgium's politically correct establishment and it quickly had to take another identity as the Vlaams Belang.

But whether they went to Russia to fight Bolshevism or not, whether they were proud Flemings or not, I am sorry to say that among these men were convinced Nazis too, and they left their mark on the young formation. They were not in a majority position, but they were unmistakably there. And so nazi rhetoric from time to time surfaced, as well as references to white supremacy and contempt if not hatred of other races. Needless to say, back in those days I would never have joined the VB...

But that was then, and this is now. As far as I am concerned, my party is clean. No photos of Filip Dewinter (whose father and uncle were in the Resistance) with Jean-Marie Le Pen can change that. That one goes the rounds now on LGF, and it reminds me eerily of the photo with Rummy on Saddam's payroll. The (few) neonazis were expelled long ago, and today the VB is a decent, pro-free market, ethically conservative party any true GOP member would feel comfortable in. I am very glad to see that several powerful American bloggers and commentators have taken up the defense of my party, notably Pamela Geller from Atlas Shrugs. She has written very eloquently and with authority. View From the Right is truly excellent. But perhaps it is even better to let Diane West have the last word:

I refer to the very upsetting and undeserved Internet attacks — mainly being lent credence by the blog Little Green Footballs — on Vlaams Belang, the Flemish secessionist party in Belgium. The attacks allege that Vlaams Belang has ties and allegiance to Nazi-type ideologies and organizations. I find these attacks both sloppy and unconvincing. Vlaams Belang is not only the most stalwart, resolutely anti-jihad party in Europe that I know of, but also — and, not at all incidentally — the most pro-Israel party in Europe that I know of. In other words, it is ridiculous to suggest that they are Nazis — neo-, South American, Religious Right, or Other.

Indeed, it is crucial to understand that Vlaams Belang’s political opponents in Europe are the Islamo-Socialist Left, which is where vicious anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism now finds its ideological home. Vlaams Belang is fighting, virtually alone, the Islamization of Europe. For that they deserve both our gratitude and our support.

MFBB.