Via a commenter over on Winds of Change, I found this post on The Spirit of Man, which in turn pointed to A Question of Numbers.
Short version: the Shah’s regime, odious as it was, killed a little over 3,000 people between the early ’60s and its fall in the late ’70s.
The mullahs have killed unknown but vastly greater numbers, by execution, incompetent defense during the Iran-Iraq war, and generalized misrule — many times the Shah’s entire toll, each year. The grand total may reach into seven figures.
Ironically, by suppressing the relatively timid elements of his opposition, the Shah all but guaranteed that he would be succeeded by the most unhesitating killers among them. See Daughter of Persia
The Shah’s box score of victims is nothing compared to his successors.
This all ties in with the recent discussions of Pinochet. The Shah fell in part because of Carter’s liberal guilt. Nixon and Kissinger thankfully did not have that. If Carter had said “send the tanks into the streets, crush this revolt, do whatever is necessary, when Khomenei returns to Iran kill him, we will support you”, the regime would probably have survived. An absolute and ongoing catastrophe would have been averted. Nothing good has come of the destruction of the Shah’s regime. Too bad the Shad did not have a Pinochet in his army leadership to seize control and crush the revolution.
Yes. If the Shah had crushed Khomenei and his supporters, not only would the Islamists have been repulsed, but it seems likely that Iran eventually would have liberalized.
Hi. I’ll introduce myself. I’m 32 in Chicago. Growing up always liked reading about israel and bible propehcy (dont worry this is not about that). During high school, the first gulf war happened and I spent some time reading a bit about Israel’s conflicts with its neighbors and seeing the clear pattern of unceasing hositlity by Arabs toward Israel.
In 1998 I took a trip to Israel (which is a great place) and got a good appreceiation of the history and its smallness and teh stark differences btween the Jews and the Arabs
Later that year, I had to work in Hong Kong, and when I was there I bought Clash of teh Civiliation buy Huffington(?) HIs thesis about the bloody borders of Islam was interesting and sort of confirmed what I already knew.
So since 98 I watch as the Muslim’s Jihad takes shape. Leading to 9/11.
Since that day I know, history is all a regression from that point.
The Jihad has started again, after we let it fester for 20-years at the min. The most imporant time to stop it was the late 80s, 90s abut we didn’t. I blame Clinton partially but the govt before didnt take this seriously so why should he have (at first anyway).
The Muslims global jihad is in motion with its two center of powers,, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
EVERYTHING that is going on in the world is answerable in the context of Jihad. When you view the Jihad, there is no more confusion.
What infuriates me is that every f’ing leftist in the world is stuck in 1968 and they will cause us to not have the courage to fight this thing.
I never quite knew how the world would get so bad as to lead to the Bible prophecy stuff, but now it’s almost palapable.
Oh I’m proofing my post (after the fact of course. embarassing grammar and spelling).
I just wanted to elaborate a little bit more.
Europe is gone. I totally accept Mark Steyn’s hypotheist. UK might surivive they do have the benefit of being an island.
To fight Jihad for global sharia is a basic tenent of Islam. It will never stop unless Islam is discredited.
It almost makes me sugest a solution but at this time I’ll keep pondering it.
This is a point I’ve been making for some time. The Shah’s crime isn’t that he was repressive (although he was). It isn’t that his restoration removed a liberal democratic government (it wasn’t).
It’s that he was modernizing the country. That’s the Shah’s crime.
Dave: I agree. Eventual Shiaa revolution was inevitible.
I saw some other person’s comment in a different thread which said something like better 100 KIA now then 100,000 KIA 10 years from now. Not even sure if he meant “killed in action” or perhaps it’s a groups acronym and I remembering it wrong.
But I agree cuz eaither is an expression of the same number, the longer we wait to fight this, the more dead there will be.
This is the reason I have always supported the Iraq War. I knew from the beginning it was not about oil or WMD, it’s about Jihad.
If the only choice Middle Easterns have is horribly secular totalatarianism or repressive Sharia, in the midst of an Islamic awakening, they’re going to go with Sharia.
That’s why Bush always said we have to export democracy.. give them another choice.
Other than killing them all, which is a disgusting prospect, or having them enslave the world (I wont be a dhimmi) what other choice is there.
Now all of Bush’s statement all conform to this thinking, so hopefully this all accounted for from the beginning. that would be wonderous.
Mr. Pacella:
Europe is gone. I totally accept Mark Steyn’s hypotheist.
In the case of the Netherlands,
plummeting fertility rates among immigrants–including Muslims–will ensure that the Netherlands will retain an overwhelmingly non-Muslim population, the 70% of the populatione expected to be ethnically Dutch joined by other non-Muslim populations. In fact, fertility rates for almost all European Muslim communities are either near or at replacement levels right now. French Muslims are somewhat higher, but then, between low rates of religious practice and language maintenance and high rates of intermarriage in many ways they’re about as assimilated into French culture as Jews into American culture.
Now we come to immigration, the only way apart from birth rates to produce larger Muslim populations. It doesn’t seem very likely, though. Take a look at Spain, where nearly four million Spain’s 4.5M immigrants–apart from the sizable Moroccan contingent–come from countries like Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, Britain, and Romania, this despite Morocco’s location just across the Mediterranean.
Eurabia’s not happening; Steyn’s an idiot.
“Steyn’s an idiot”
No, Steyn is not an idiot besides he’s only one of a chorus of people who have noticed the demographic issue. This sort of discourse blinds people to examine or re-examine points of view.
I view with extreme suspicions any stat which says the population growth (from birth and immigration) rate of Muslims is that of the Euros. If that was the case the total populations would be going down.
In Germany it is going down, why? The largest emigration from Germany is happening. Large emigrations of Europeans is going on.
Massive mosque building is going on. Un-reconquesta is being suspected in Spain.
The things I read going on in cities with large minorities of Muslims fits the Muslim historical pattern of plan.
Here’s an example from history… when I read this a few weeks ago, French cities, Malmo, parts of UK came to my mind.
“More Moslems came, and soon a small mosque was built, which attracted yet others. As long as Zoroastrians remained in the majority, their lives were tolerable; but once the Moslems became the more numerous, a petty but pervasive harassment was apt to develop. This was partly verbal, with taunts about fire-worship, and comments on how few Zoroastrians there were in the world, and how many Moslems, who must therefore posses the truth; and also on how many material advantages lay with Islam. The harassment was often also physical; boys fought, and gangs of youth waylaid and bullied individual Zoroastrians. They also diverted themselves by climbing into the local tower of silence and desecrating it, and they might even break into the fire-temple and seek to pollute or extinguish the sacred flame. Those with criminal leanings found too that a religious minority provided tempting opportunities for theft, pilfering from the open fields, and sometimes rape and arson. Those Zoroastrians who resisted all these pressures often preferred therefore in the end to sell out and move to some other place where their co-religionists were still relatively numerous, and they could live at peace; and so another village was lot to the old faith. ”
Boyce, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism, pp. 7-8;
Mr. Pacella:
No, Steyn is not an idiot besides he’s only one of a chorus of people who have noticed the demographic issue. This sort of discourse blinds people to examine or re-examine points of view.
I’ve taken a look at it. I’ve even provided figures. In the case of the Netherlands, where the difference between Muslim and non-Muslim fertility rates is marginal, Muslims are outnumbered by more than ten to one by non-Muslims, and immigration policies are–shall we say–decidedly unsupportive of large numbers of Muslims entering the country, talking about an Islamization is decidedly baseless.
True, if non-Muslims decide to convert to Islam, this could change things. Is there any sign at all that this is happening in the modern-day Netherlands, that Islamic mores and Muslim individuals are becoming accepted? Oddly enough, non-Muslims in aggressively social-democratic-liberal polities don’t find fundamentalist Muslim culture very attractive.
I’ll repost the link to Nicholas Eberstadt’s American Enterprise Institute essay here, wherein he documents that fertility rates for almost all Muslim immigrant populations in western Europe are quickly dropping. You’re welcome to take a look at it.
I view with extreme suspicions any stat which says the population growth (from birth and immigration) rate of Muslims is that of the Euros.
It isn’t. Instead, it is converging. TFRs for German Turks, as Eberstadt’s chart points out, are about the level of TFRs for Americans.
Also, keep in mind that Europe isn’t a homogeneous whole. Women in Britain, Ireland, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland bear substantially more children than their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, for instance.
If that was the case the total populations would be going down.
That actually is the case in some countries, or would be without immigration. Immigration in Italy–again, overwhelmingly non-Muslim–has kept the country’s population from shrinking, while Spain’s 10% population growth over the past half-decade was also driven by immigration.
In Germany it is going down, why?
Honest answer? The TFRs remain too low to sustain the population over the long haul while Germany after the mid-1990s has discouraged immigration from its natural immigrant-sending hinterlands in central and eastern Europe as well as from Turkey.
The largest emigration from Germany is happening. Large emigrations of Europeans is going on.
Large migrations, yes. Britons are moving to Spain; French are moving to Britain; Romanians are going to Italy; et cetera, et cetera. Europe’s increasingly an integrated demographic entity and its populations move around in ways unprecedented for most of the 20th century.
Massive mosque building is going on.
Yes. The same is true in my Toronto. I can also support that the numbers of synagogues, Hindu/Buddhist temples, and other religious institutions have grown sharply in this city thanks to immigration by non-Christians.
What does mosque-building demonstrate?
Un-reconquesta is being suspected in Spain.
Suspected? Based on what? The material substructure to support any kind of reconquista is sadly lacking, both on the Spanish side (a half-million poor immigrants in a country of 45M do not an army of conquest make) and on the Maghrebin side (what force projection-capable military)?
The things I read going on in cities with large minorities of Muslims fits the Muslim historical pattern of plan.
You do realize, right, that the European Union has not been conquered by Muslim armies, that in fact the force disparity between Europe and the Middle East has been growing for the past two centuries and may never have been larger?
Look at the statistics I cited above, and consider the fact that in all of the major countries of western Europe–Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, yes, even France–Muslims of all origins are far outnumbered by non-Muslims and will remain a small minority of the European population given the demographic dynamics described above.
Can you please present your counter-cites, with links where possible? Thanks; debates with fact-using people are nice.
More and More Leave Germany Behind
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,446045,00.html
German Population Plunge “Irreversible,” Federal Stats Office Admits
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/nov/06110903.html
Within most of our lifetimes the Russian Federation, assuming it stays within current borders, will be a Muslim country
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/495
Millions live in one of 751 No-Go-Zones in France ZUS (8%). Effectively this is Dar-es-Islam and who knows what is going on inside them
http://www.lesechos.fr/regions/atlas/atlas_06_08_2004.htm
http://i.ville.gouv.fr/divbib/doc/chercherZUS.htm
UK: Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=Y3UZA1RZGTHK5QFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/11/29/nsharia29.xml
Spain:
Spanish bishops fear rebirth of Islamic kingdom
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2125423.ece
Exodus as Dutch middle class seek new life
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/11/wneth111.xml
Dutch desert their changing country
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/11/wneth11.xml
Exodus to Australia
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2005/02/14/healthduch.xml
Randy: I’ll reply to your comments tomorrow. Going to sleep now.
Algerian President, Houari Boumedienne, said this in a speech at the UN …
“One day millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere to go to the northern hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.”
A Muslim cleric in Turkey expressed this international Islamic agenda very succinctly when he said …”thanks to your democratic laws we will invade you. Thanks to our Islamic laws we will conquer you.”
Some twenty years ago a document published by the Islamic Foundation in the northern English city of Leicester had this to say …
“…an organized struggle to change the existing society into an Islamic society based on the Koran and the Sunna and make Islam, which is a code for entire life, supreme and dominant, especially in the socio-political spheres”¦ the ultimate objective of the Islamic movement shall not be realized unless the struggle is made by locals. For it is only they who have the power to change the society into an Islamic society.”
So, the president of Algeria, an anonymous cleric in Turkey, and a document published in Britain all make certain specific claims. Don’t forget Gadaffi!
How likely are these claims to be realized? Are they being realized? The statistical evidence, as I’ve pointed out above, says no: Muslims are not out-breeding Europeans, Muslim immigration into Europe isn’t taking place at the necessary rate, and mass conversions aren’t happening. So far, all you’ve brought forth are quotes from people taken in isolation from what’s actually going on.
I’d like to think that asking you to take a look at the actual statistics wouldn’t be too much to expect. But, well, it’s all up to you now. I bow out.
The behavior of the Muslims in France, in Malmo, all throughout England, in Australia, in Thailand, in Minneapolis, now even in Texas are in conformance with what they are taught. Establish an enclave. Maintain peace. Build a vanguard. Then spread and take control, sometimes violence is best, sometimes the local political system.. pick the way that is the best.
Your stats dont answer to the motiviation of the people and the pattern they are following. Plus they don’t refute the stated goal they themselves state. When someone says they mean to domininate you, take them at your word. Are are dark skinned people not to be taken seriously?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467696394&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Right on!: Say Goodbye to Europe
——————————————————————————–
Michael Freund, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 9, 2007
——————————————————————————–
If you ever wanted to see Paris or Rome before you die, but haven’t had a chance to do so, you might want to hurry. Soon enough, most of what we now think of as Western Europe will be transformed into a branch of the Muslim world, which is sure to make it an even less welcoming place for Americans, Israelis and for Jews.
That, at least, is the unpleasant, yet entirely unavoidable conclusion to be drawn from Europe’s headlong demographic drive toward oblivion.
Think I’m exaggerating? Consider a few cold hard facts.
According to a recent report by the Rand Corporation, “Across Europe, birth rates are falling and family sizes are shrinking. The total fertility rate is now less than two children per woman in every member nation in the European Union.”
Needless to say, demographers consider a birthrate of 2.1 children per family to be the replacement level at which a society’s population size remains stable. Barring large-scale immigration, anything less means decline and dissolution.
A research study published last year in the International Journal of Andrology found a similar trend, concluding that, “Fertility rates have fallen and are now below replacement level in all European Union (EU) Member States. In the 20-year period since 1982,” it noted, “most EU Member State countries have had total fertility rates continuously below replacement level.”
At the bottom of the list are Spain, Italy and Greece, where birthrates hover around just 1.3 per couple, leading some forecasters to suggest, for example, that Italy’s population could shrink by one-third by the middle of the century.
Others, such as Germany’s 1.37, the UK’s 1.74 and Sweden’s 1.75, aren’t all much better.
The figures are so bad that in many European countries, the total number of deaths each year has actually begun to exceed the number of births.
Indeed, the Council of Europe’s 2004 Demographic Yearbook warned that, “for Europe as a whole, more people died in 2003 than were born.” In 1990, said the yearbook, “three countries – Germany, Bulgaria and Hungary – had negative natural growth for the first time. By 2002, it was negative in fifteen countries.”
LAST YEAR, after the publication of statistics revealing that 30 percent of German women have not had children, Germany’s family minister, Ursula von der Leyen, caused a stir when she said that if her nation’s birth rate did not turn around, the country would have to “turn out the light.” And while Europeans may be busy everywhere but in the bedroom, the Muslim populations in their midst are proving far more expansive.
As columnist Mark Steyn points out in his must-read new book, America Alone, “What’s the Muslim population of Rotterdam? Forty percent. What’s the most popular baby boy’s name in Belgium? Mohammed. In Amsterdam? Mohammed. In Malmo, Sweden? Mohammed.”
Last month, the UK Daily Telegraph reported that, “Mohammed, and its most common alternative spelling Muhammad, are now more popular babies’ names in England and Wales than George.”
This, said the paper, using typically British understatement, “reflects the diverse ethnic mix of the population.”
But that “mix,” so to speak, is rapidly changing – and not in traditional Europe’s favor.
ISLAM, BY all accounts, is the fastest growing religion in Europe, spurred by immigration and high fertility rates. According to projections by the US federal government’s National Intelligence Council, the continent’s current Muslim population of 20 million will likely double by 2025.
And as Bruce Bawer noted last year in While Europe Slept, “Already, in most of Western Europe, 16 to 20 percent of children are Muslims”¦within a couple of generations many [European] countries will have Muslim majorities.”
Not since September 8, 1683, when the Ottomans were threatening to breach the walls of Vienna, has Islam been so perilously close to seizing control over Western Europe.
The implications of all this are far graver than we can even begin to imagine, and it is not just a matter of choosing new and more hospitable tourist destinations.
An increasingly Islamified Europe will prove ever more hostile to Israel and America, and this trend will only intensify as the Muslim population there continues to grow.
Even if European governments succeed in reversing the curve, which seems highly unlikely, it will be decades before it would begin to be felt. In the meantime, however, Muslim political power on the continent will develop and expand, and European leaders will be hard-pressed to ignore their demands.
This makes it far less likely that Israel and the US can count on Europe – if they ever really could – at times of crisis in the decades ahead. Just pick an issue, from the war on terror to Palestinian statehood, and you’ll see what I mean.
For however unbalanced Europe’s stance has been until now, it will likely only grow worse in the years to come.
Europe as we know it is a thing of the past, and it is time for Israeli and American decision-makers to take this into account as they plan for the future. The face of Europe is changing rapidly, and with it the continent’s social and political make-up.
So if you really want to see the Eiffel Tower up close, you had best not delay. Before you know it, it might just turn into a minaret.
Mr. Pacella:
“Your stats dont answer to the motiviation of the people and the pattern they are following. Plus they don’t refute the stated goal they themselves state. When someone says they mean to domininate you, take them at your word. Are are dark skinned people not to be taken seriously?”
Should I have taken Khrushchev seriously when he told the Americans that the Soviet Union would beat them–economically, militarily, geopolitically? As an expression of his intent, sure. As an expression of his capabilities–well, I’d have to see the stats and the reasoning for that.
People can make whatever claims they want. “Europe is becoming Muslim.” First, you have to demonstrate what the statistics are. A European Muslim TFR that, by all accounts, is not much higher than European TFRs in the 1970s is not going to be enough to make Europe Muslim. Similarly, European immigration policies which are increasingly closed and which select far more heavily for eastern Europeans and Latin Americans aren’t going to give Muslims an edge. Finally, mass conversions to Islam in sufficient numbers aren’t happening.
What do I think of these people? Briefly, I think that they’re blowhards. More seriously, I think that they’ve managed to find a wonderful symbiosis with people like you, based on shared disregard for facts and a mutual interest in the apocalypse.
One last thing.
The behavior of the Muslims in France, in Malmo, all throughout England, in Australia, in Thailand, in Minneapolis, now even in Texas are in conformance with what they are taught. Establish an enclave. Maintain peace. Build a vanguard. Then spread and take control, sometimes violence is best, sometimes the local political system.. pick the way that is the best.
These are separate events: Riots by the poor and by immigrants that also included Portuguese, “native” French and Christian Africans, immigrant poverty in a provincial Swedish city, sex attacks by young men and riots, an ethnoterritorial dispute stemming from contested frontiers, again (I presume) immigrant-integration issues in the United States.
They are not seperate, they are consequences uniquely manifested for the local environment.
From Mark Steyn
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDM4MDczYjMyMjVlMjZlZmM3ODcxMTI1NTJiNDAyOGQ=
RE: FRANCE TO STEYN – BACK AT YA [Mark Steyn]
Kathryn posted on this story on rising French fertility rates the other day and interpreted it as a refutation of my book. Apparently, Mimi and Fifi and Yvette and Solange are lying back and thinking of la belle France, and in doing so telling Steyn to stick a croissant in his escargot and smoke it.
Au contraire, I think France’s rising fertility rate is confirmation of my thesis – that native Europeans have given up breeding and Islam is inheriting the Continent by default. If that’s the case, then as Muslims increase as a percentage of the population so that country’s fertility rate will improve.
Do Muslims generally correlate with healthy birth rates in Europe? Yes. The only nations on the continent breeding at replacement rate are Turkey, Azerbaijan and Albania.
Do significant minorities of Muslims improve fertility rates? Yes. Of all those Continental nations below replacement-rate fertility, the top breeders are the Macedonians, whose population is 30% Muslim, which happens to be the largest Muslim minority in a European nation. [I’ve excluded war-ravaged Bosnia from the analysis, as, pace Derbyshire, rubble causes (statistical) trouble.]
Well, okay, forget Macedonia and stick to western Europe.
Which country has the healthiest fertility rate? France.
Which country has the most Muslims? France.
Which country has the second healthiest fertility rate on the western end of the Continent? Denmark.
Which country has the second largest proportion of Muslims? Denmark.
Get the picture? Take France and its neighbors and rank them in order of healthiest fertility rates (2005 official Eurostat figures):
1) France
2) Netherlands
3) Belgium
4) Switzerland
5) Austria
6) Germany
7) Italy
8) Spain
Now rank them in order of highest proportion of Muslims (no central source, but compiled from national data, European Muslim groups, UN and State Dept figures):
1) France
2) Netherlands
3) Belgium
4) Switzerland
5) Austria
6) Germany
7) Italy
8) Spain
Hmm.