Posted on 02/27/2006 6:38:50 AM PST by montyspython
Why is a bombed mosque major news, while bombed churches are ignored?
Mary Mostert
February 26, 2006
The front page of my local paper last Thursday was taken up with color pictures and the Los Angeles Time article about the bombing of the Shiite Golden Dome Mosque of Samarra, Iraq and the repercussions of that bombing — presumably by radical Sunni Muslims.
According to the media, this battle between Muslim sects may lead to civil war. I haven't written about it because I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out why the bombing of one mosque in Iraq in 2006 is a worldwide news event, but the bombing of more than 150 Serbian Christian Churches and monasteries in Kosovo by Albanian Muslims didn't even make it to the back pages of most American and European newspapers?
FAR more is being reported about the bombing of this one Shiite Mosque in Samarra than has been reported in US and European media about the Albanian Muslim attacks on 150 Serbian Orthodox Christian Churches that have been bombed, or set afire and vandalized in Kosovo?
Kosovo has been under the governmental control of NATO since the 1999 bombing of Kosovo and Belgrade ordered by President Clinton. In 2004, under the watchful eyes of NATO troops, from March 17-20, Albanian Muslims totally destroyed or badly vandalized 30 Christian Churches in Kosovo. Twelve Christian Churches in Prizren, the only ones that had not been destroyed by Albanian Muslims in the previous 4 year of NATO control, were blown up or torn down during those 4 days.
In Samarra, the fire was still smoldering at the Muslim Shiite Mosque when President Bush led the Western nations in condemning the attack on the Shiite Mosque and promised to provide funds to rebuild it. In Kosovo, not only have those Serb Churches, many of which contained historic art, not been rebuilt, the international community seems to be getting ready to reward the Albanians for their vandalism by taking Kosovo away from the Serbs and GIVING it to the Albanians, although most of them are actually from Albania — not Kosovo. Over a million Albanians fled their country when its economy collapsed in the early 1990s.
What will happen to the remaining Serbs in Kosovo if the Albanians who burned down their churches are in control and NATO withdraws? Rev. Archimandrite, a Greek Orthodox priest in Boise, Idaho who is President of the Relief Fund for the Decani Monastery in Kosovo, predicts the following after a visit to Kosovo:
"If Kosovo and Metohija becomes independent and the UN withdraws it's shall then be end of the lives of the Serbian people, as all property including homes, land, and farms, as well as hospitals and schools, all will be lost. Apparently all the blame is put on the Serbians and no one else! Why are the Serbian people all to blame and who told the world that it's the fault of the Serbian people? When shall the hour of truth be revealed? The reality is that Kosovo and Metohija is falling before our eyes and we pay no attention to this fact, but we judge just the Serbians and no one else. Enough! Let the Serbian people be free too! Let the Serbian people live among their brothers! Serbia within the Providence of Kosovo and Methojia desires not to hear the words of Independence.
"When we speak of the losses of Kosovo we must include the Serbian Orthodox monasteries (for both nuns and monks), churches, and cemeteries. Martyrdom is rampart and bodies are not found, as was the situation with the Hieromartyr Hariton the New Martyr of Serbia, who himself was buried in the sacred grounds of Kosovo without his head.
"Everything Serbian will be excluded in this new call for independence. All Serbian language and culture will be extinguished from Kosovo. Already we are finding blacked out signs written in Serbian along the road sides, even those directing the faithful to the Decani Monastery?
"Death will be rampart, the loss of lives will be too high to count and no one will pay attention to this factor in the media. ...This independence is not for the Serbians but for the non-Serbian, Albanian Muslims, intent on taking over the sacred fields as they continue to pressure the free world.
"It is unbelievable to me that so many people talk about how Kosovo and Metohija should live. Even today some think that the best way to accomplish independence for Kosovo and Metohija is simply to banish the Serbian population from the region. To this day it is well known that more than 250,000 Kosovo Serbians have left the region, being forced out by the atrocities perpetrated upon them by the ethnic Albanian populations. Yet even in light of this forced exile so many western politicians and religious leaders lend their groundless opinions and keep offering their ideas, but they never realize that Kosovo and Metohija are simply Serbia!
"Why are we hearing every day that Serbians better leave now or that it's their last hour?
"Why are we hearing every day that even the electricity is shut off, does anyone really realize how freezing it is in Kosovo and Metohija in winter!
"Why is there barbed wire surrounding towns and villages to protect Serbians, because if these barbed wires come down it's the last hour for the Serbians!
"Why have we seen constantly UN Peace Keeping forces in these same said regions, because if they leave at the hour, again it's the last hour for the Serbians!
"Why have soup kitchens been set up in these regions? Because the Serbians cannot go about getting food, because once they go beyond a certain border, rocks and gun fire occurs at the hour, and the lost of lives which no one really hears about in the media.
"Why does no one care or pay attention to the fact that more then 150 Serbian Orthodox Churches and Monasteries have been destroyed, and that one or two are repaired just to make someone look good?
"Why is it that the Serbian population has pre-fabricated homes, while other non-Serbian homes have beautiful three story brick houses!
"Why is it that the Serbian population cannot simply come home, and live in their homes, and on their farms that belonged to them in the first place?
"Why is that so many refuse to hear the truth of the Serbian Orthodox Cemeteries that have been destroyed? Is it because of how truly tearful we would be reeling in shock as the number keeps rising and rising? I saw these graves myself. The number I was quoted by a local Bishop was 126 cemeteries."
..."Is this the type of independent Kosovo that should currently exist?"
Is it, indeed? Why, indeed, have we so shabbily treated our valiant World War II ally, the Serbian people, who saved the lives of more than 500 American pilots who were shot down when Yugoslavia was occupied by the Nazis? Who are we listening to? Could it be we are listening to the wrong people — those who burn down churches and behead Christians?
How can we get so upset over one Shiite Mosque and totally ignore 150 Serbian Christian Churches and monasteries that have been bombed?
For pictures of some of the destroyed churches, which never appeared in the US media, go to http://www.kosovo.com/churchdamaged1.html
Mary Mostert is a nationally-respected political writer. She was one of the first female political commentators to be published in a major metropolitan newspaper in the 1960s. After working in President Lyndon Johnson's failed War on Poverty programs in New York state, she became a Republican. She ran, unsuccessfully, for the New York State Senate and became campaign manager for a number of candidates. She once served as the secretary of "Positive Action NOW!"--a South African women's group that sought to reduce the hostility among South Africa's various racial, religious, and political groups.
In recent years, Mary has researched, written, and edited articles for national talk show host Michael Reagan's Information Interchange on the Internet, and for The REAGAN MONITOR, a monthly newsletter that provides in-depth information on key issues. Her book, COMING HOME - Families Can Stop the Unraveling of America," was published in 1996 by Gold Leaf Press. Mary maintains a political media site, Banner of Liberty. She can be contacted at mary@bannerofliberty.com. Click here for more information.
© Copyright 2006 by Mary Mostert
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/mostert/060226
bump
I'm not sure, but I did read a while back the public schools setting aside public classrooms for muslim students to pray numerous times a day, while we have the ACLU fighting continually to keep christian values out of public schools.
What the hell is this country afraid of?
The major news was not the bombed mosque, but the reaction to it. I don't recall the last time a bombed church started a round of Christian on Christian violence (even the Irish conflicts didn't focus on churches). If it did, it would probably make the headlines.
This mosque must be the most important religious site on earth because the President of the United States of America has said the good old Christians and Jews in America are going to rebuild it for the Shiite Muslims. Did you get to vote on this? Me, either. I would consider having my hard-earned tax money being used to build a temple to a false god to be sinful, but apparently, some who claim to be Christians, who believe that the God of the Bible is the only true God, don't really mean it.
ANYTIME a mosque or synagogue or temple is burned, vandalized or graffitied, it's INTERNATIONAL news.
ANYTIME a black Church is burned, vandalized or graffitied, it's INTERNATIONAL news.
That shows you where non-minority Christians stand in this country, doesn't it?
It seems the enemies of the US inside our borders keep us from fighting the enemies outside of our borders so we allow the assault of Clinton's Muhammedan "friends" against our former allies, the Serbian Christians, to continue unabated.
It would take a certain courage to reverse course in the Balkans and get back on the right track. Our nation appears to lack that certain courage these days.
Popular or not, I suspect the answer lies in the fact that a potential civil war in Iraq would have enormous consequences for America, given our 140 thousand troops on the ground there, while the bombing of the churches in Kosovo has little chance for spilling American blood.
Just a thought.
not being multicultural.
and being referred to as racist.
And don't forget the ten Alabama churches burned down recently.
"What the hell is this country afraid of?"
I think it falls under the heading: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
The left and MSM, (one in the same?), hate GWB. So, radical muslims by virtue of being identified GWB as the enemy become favorites of the left.
My analysis of the left, (which is just some guy's opinion, I'm not an expert), is that they have combined self loathing with incorrect evaluations. Many, if not most leftists were raised in a Christian area, and many in some form of a Christian household. The left hates themselves, so their Christian heritage becomes a focus for their hate.
Also, Fundamental Christians, in the past, have been guilty of some of the attempts to control their surroundings, including other people's lives. Some Christians in the past have been quite intolerant. So, some of this is a backlash. I'm a Methodist, and the Methodists are a bit too tolerant for my tastes sometimes. So, I understand the vast majority of Christians are beyond the inflexiblity of the early fundamentalists.
Just my 2 cents.
posted by Melani Phillips-re Mark Steyn Inbox
Moshe Sheskin
More options
February 26, 2006
Shuffling into the European darkness
Mark Steyn, in a column which gets the point (as usual) about the refusal to acknowledge the Muslim terror against Jews in France, gets the deeper point too:
Something very remarkable is happening around the globe and, if you want the short version, a Muslim demonstrator in Toronto the other day put it very well: 'We won't stop the protests until the world obeys Islamic law.' ...What, in the end, are all these supposedly unconnected matters from Danish cartoons to the murder of a Dutch filmmaker to gender-segregated swimming sessions in French municipal pools about? Answer: sovereignty. Islam claims universal jurisdiction and always has. The only difference is that they're now acting upon it.
And multicultural Europe is rolling over and saying, 'Take me – I'm yours'. A chilling story by Douglas Murray in the Sunday Times illustrates this by what is happening in the Netherlands:
'Would you write the name you'd like to use here, and your real name there?' asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the Hague. An hour earlier I'd been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man holding a sign with a pre-agreed cipher. I hadn't known where I would be staying, or where I would be speaking. The secrecy was necessary: I had come to Holland to talk about Islam… I was given my key and made aware that the other person in the lobby, a tall figure in a dark suit, was my security detail. I was taken up to my room where I changed, unpacked and headed back out — the security guard now positioned outside my bedroom door...
Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the 'liberalism' that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.
All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy's greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice. Those of us who write and talk on Islam thus get caught between those on our own side who are increasingly keen to prosecute and increasing numbers of militants threatening murder. In this situation, not only is free speech being shut down, but our nation's security is being compromised.
Since the assassinations of Fortuyn and, in 2004, the film maker Theo van Gogh, numerous public figures in Holland have received death threats and routine intimidation. The heroic Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her equally outspoken colleague Geert Wilders live under constant police protection, often forced to sleep on army bases. Even university professors are under protection.
Europe is shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up to its enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a minority is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people. The governments of Europe have been tricked into believing that criticism of a belief is the same dangerous to criticise a growing and powerful ideology within our midst. It may soon, in addition, be made illegal.
Lazy folk who don't give a rip and are willing to turn a blind eye!! Wake up America and take back what the EVIL ones have stolen from us and our future generation!!
A question that I frequently ask but get no intelligent reply as to why.
only because their voices are 15 times louder, and their losses 15 times heavier, and their ability to grieve 15 fold.
accordingly, their ability to lie, cheat,cheat, steal, forge deceive, and murder is 15 times higher
everything 15 times as they are 15 times the people, 15 times better than we are in their eyes
who! are the arrogants?
IMO
But didn't you all hear about the attempt to burn down the historic convent at the Immaculate Conception Church in Malden, MA two weeks ago?
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