The Rationale of Terror
Arguably the most successful act of revolutionary terror was the June 1914 assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
Believing his mission to murder the heir to the Austrian throne had failed, Gavrilo Princip suddenly found himself standing a few feet away from the royal car. He fired twice, mortally wounding the archduke and his wife.
Tactically, that act of terror eliminated the reformist Ferdinand, who meant to address the grievances of his Slav subjects by granting them greater autonomy and equality with Austrians and Hungarians inside the empire.
Strategically, the assassination succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its Black Hand plotters.
Hard-liners in Austria demanded an ultimatum to Serbia. When her demands were not met in full, Vienna declared war. Czar Nicholas mobilized in support of Russia's little Slav brothers. The Kaiser ordered mobilization. When the French refused to declare neutrality, Germany declared war. In hours, the British Cabinet had reversed itself to back war with Germany on behalf of Belgium and France.
Princip had lit the fuse that set off in six weeks the greatest war in history. While Serbia suffered per capita losses as great as any other nation, she ended the Great War as the lead nation in a Kingdom of the South Slavs embracing Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Hungarians. The Habsburg Empire at which Princip had struck had vanished.
Last week's Mumbai massacre seems a similar triumph of terror.
Tactically, by sending a platoon of suicide warriors into India's financial capital, terrorizing a train station, two five-star hotels and a Jewish center, and killing nearly 200 in over 60 hours, the plotters assured themselves of round-the-clock worldwide television coverage.
In so riveting the world's attention for four days, this terrorist atrocity was a success.
And by using Pakistanis to perpetrate the massacres and Karachi as port of embarkation, the plotters focused India's rage exactly where they want it, against Pakistan. By this slaughter in India's commercial capital, the Islamists have destroyed the detente Pakistan was seeking with India and pushed both toward war. Out to murder moderation and stoke militancy, the terrorists succeeded.
Years ago, this writer observed:
"Terrorism is a tactic, a technique, a weapon that fanatics, dictators and warriors have resorted to through history. If, as Clausewitz wrote, war is the continuation of politics by other means, terrorism is the continuation of war by other means."
Yet terrorism—the killing of innocents for political ends—can only triumph if the aggrieved play the role the terror masters have scripted for them in their bloody drama. What, then, may we surmise are the tactical and strategic goals of the terror masters of Mumbai?
To humiliate, wound and outrage India in her pride as a great new democratic and economic power in Asia. To imperil Mumbai's future as a safe and secure financial capital in which to live, work and invest. To awe the world and inspire Islam's young by their audacity. To attain immortality.
But the strategic target of the militants is the Pakistani government.
Pakistan's offenses? Cooperating with America in Afghanistan and the border region, battling al-Qaida and the Taliban, withdrawing from the fight for Kashmir, seeking peace with a Hindu nation where 170 million Muslims are denied their place in the sun.
President Bush should pray New Delhi does not adopt his Bush Doctrine of preventive war or the Cheney Doctrine: "Even if there's just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty." For war in the subcontinent between India and Pakistan would be a calamity and a triumph for the terrorists across what Zbigniew Brzezinski has called the "Global Balkans."
War would pit two nuclear powers against each other for the first time since the Sino-Soviet border clash of 1969. It would spawn bloodshed between Muslim and Hindu in India. It would see the collapse of Pakistan, its possible dissolution and a military dictator in a nation already divided against itself over whether to continue resisting al-Qaida and the Taliban, or cut ties to the unpopular Americans.
Wounded and enraged by the atrocities of 9-11, America lashed out, first at Afghanistan and the al-Qaida source of the conspiracy, then at Iraq, which had nothing to do with the attacks. Thus did the Bush administration disunite its nation and forfeit its mandate.
For India to lash out at a Pakistan that was not complicit in the Mumbai crimes against humanity, but harbors elements within that are guilty and are celebrating, would be as great a mistake.
India and Pakistan both have a vital interest in no new war.
But a new war is exactly what the terrorists killed for and died for.
Should it come, they win—and enter history as revolutionary terrorists alongside Princip and the perpetrators of 9-11.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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I hope that readers will recognize Mr. Buchanan's very precise words. Princip's assassination succeeded for the Black Hand plotters - use of "Black Hand" and not "Serbian government". The Serbian monarchy repudiated the regicide in Sarajevo, even though the Serbian king may have wished to rule his Serbian peoples in Bosnia and Hercegovina. The Black Hand were dominated by Yugoslavists seeking unification of the nations Pat mentions. Yugoslavism proved a defeat for Serbian patriotism - even when ostensibly the Serbian monarchy was leading it. The unification of those nations - politically and definately not culturally - only served to transfer Vienna's problem to Belgrade. Only communist brutality led by a Croat-Slovene dictator was able to pacify the mix for four decades. Once the dictatorship unravelled, so too did the Yugoslavist experiment. I write this if only to anticipate the comments of some posters here who often (mistakenly) equate Princip with Serbian patriotism.
While the danger of conflict between India and Pakistan, a country which is inherently unstable because of the way it was created, is great and has been for decades, they both have the advantage that they are not run by neoconservatives as an extension of Israeli foreign policy.
Wow, took only two posts to see the Jewish conspiracy nonsense show up.
So tell us Lee, where is the US establishing Zionist puppets? is Thaci Jewish? Abbas? Karzai? Al-Sadr? Maliki?
In what way is stealing Israel's land, cleansing it of Jews, and giving it to the same people that killed Jews in WWII and 1948, considered 'pro Israel' policy?
In what way is scapegoating Israel for US imperialism that endangers Israel considered 'pro Israel' policy?
You mean other people were killed in the Mumbai attack? From reading the NYT I thought it was all about Jews and Muslims.
It's quite true that the Black Hand plotters did NOT want the reformist, pro-Slav Franz Ferdinand to come to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His accession would have taken the steam out of the terrorist movement.
It may well be that the terrorists in Mumbai were also frightened by the election of BO in the United States. Whatever our disagreements here at Chronicles with Obama and his politics, it's clear that many in the Moselm world were delighted by his win, and were prepared to see America make some significant changes in its mindless, pro-Israeli foreign policy.
THAT may be the thing that precipitated this terrorist atrocity.
I like to play the devils advocate here and stress that Black Hand plotters (Bosnian Serbs) were freedom fighters, tired of foreign occupation, tired foreign interference, after five hundred years of Ottoman occupation, they were ready for their freedom and independence or reunification with Serbia. [If it is ok for all Germans to live in one country, why is it so hard to understand or accept Serbian people living outside Serbia proper wanting to live in one country as well?] As for the idea that Franz Ferdinand the heir to the Austrian Hungarian throne is pro-Slav (but this idea is mostly perpetuated by anti-Serbian circles) it is ridiculous, and it shows the idiocy or the mentality of foreigners or occupiers and thus the lack understanding [of Serbian history, culture, religion, etc.] of the people they have enslaved or are occupying. People need to stop blaming the victim of aggression, in this case Serbia while trying to make Austria Hungry a benevolent super power bent on helping Serbian people get greater autonomy, when Serbs outside Serbia proper should have been allowed to unify with Serbia proper, they won their freedom from Ottoman Empire and should have been rewarded with freedom, instead the vacuum created by the defeated Ottoman Empire was quickly felid by the ambitious and greedy Austrian Hungarian Empire. There is no Ottoman Empire; there is no more Austrian Hungarian Empire, and all the other aspiring Empires will meet the same fate, at least in the Balkans.
Comparing the terrorists in Mumbai with Serbian freedom fighters is insane, but expected, after two decades of Serbian state being demonized, by the western media anything is possible, and most non-intellectuals accept this propaganda, after all we are heading back to 1999 and the benevolent work of the US Empire [New World Order], creating new states and new terrorists, then blame it on other convenient scapegoats. This serves nothing more then a distraction from the reality of the situation, the US will collapse financially and resurrecting the military or making US military second to none will not prevent this outcome.
Let me get this straight:
You are defending a group of fanatics who murdered an innocent couple, and who thereby lit the fuse that led to two suicidal world wars, ultimately resulting in the collapse of Western cultural hegemony?
And for what? So that you could get Bosnia-Herzgovina? As we say in New York, "Puh-LEEZE!"
Murdering two friendly innocents in Archduke Ferdinand and his wife was nothing that Gavrilo Princip and the Black Hand can be proud. A greater Serbia and a diminished Austria-Hungary was inevitable without a world war. Instead, you can include Princip and the Black Hand in the cast of thousands- Conrad von Hotzendorf, the German General staff, Kaiser Wilhelm, Herbert Asquith, Winston Churchill, Raymond Poincare, Maurice Paleologue, Sergei Sazonov, Czar Nicholas etc.- who are responsible for the wreckage and decline of European Civilization.
The Black Hand was probably a front for British interests.
British geopolitics is notorious for supporting ethnic separatists groups Bosnians, Kosovars, Chechens, Tibetans, Tamil Tigers, Central Asian militant groups etc.
http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/12/01/put-britain-list-states-sponsoring-terrorism.html
Years prior to the Bolshevik revolution (invasion) in Russia London gave sanctuary to Marxist groups, US as well, and Lenin and his goons held Marxist conferences in London.
London based banking firms also help fund the revolution and British politicians and media led a crusade against the Czar.
Even a person affiliated to a radical Central Asian Muslim militant group was working for Rothschild owned anti-Russian propaganda rag The Guardian.
Divide and conquer breaking up states into smaller entities just like they did to Yugoslavia and making strategic alliances like Bosnia and Kosovo and what they are trying to do to Russia since the break up of the USSR.
The Cecil Rhodes strategy they used in Africa.
They tried that during the American civil war aligning themselves with the Southern confederacy to patrician the US but were held back due to mostly Russia and Germany promise to intervene on US behave if Britain became involved.
Yes EVIL RUSSIA that most Americans hate helped keep the US united which they have returned the favour by helping install Communism and supporting terrorism, arming Georgia to attack Russia, create anti-Russian coloured revolutions, expand NATO on all its borders and point missiles at it that can wipe out entire Russian cities.
I think the Czar got involved in WW1 partially because banking firms there were financing anti-Czar communist groups there.
The BBC is trying to cover up the fact that British nationals were involved who since the early 90's in conjunction with Pakistani intelligence help recruit militants from British mosques to fight in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and Kashmir.
It is not a coincidence that Brezinski, Gates and now another war criminal NATO General James L Jones also has the dubious achievement of engineering the NATO bombing of Serbian civilians in 1999 when he served as NATO’s Supreme Commander while leading the American operation in Kosovo who were working with KLA terrorists on the ground.
So we have three people Brezinski, and Gates who helped create international Islamic terrorism six months prior to Soviet invasion in 79 and who have worked with Islamic militants for decades and objective of the Afghan war was to infiltrate Central Asia to capture the oil reserves there.and now General James L Jones.
Brezinski has advocated US policy shift to Pakistan and Afghanistan and know this happens a perfect pretext to alliciate Indian support and intervention in Pakistan.
The US and British intelligence with Pakistani intelligence help set up these militant groups in the first place and if Pakistan was involved or militants in it terratory then the US would know about it.
Also have to remember the huge bomb about 2 months ago in Pakistan that killed Pakistani intelligence officers in a hotel.
@8Derek Leaberry
I think the Czar got involved in WW1 partially because banking firms there were financing anti-Czar underground Communist groups in Russia
Kaiser Wilhelm made the worst geopolitical decision ever during WW1 when he aided the Bolsheviks Lenin, Trotsky and the gang to undermine the Czar and the British war effort.
Some more British background on the Mumbai attack.
http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/12/01/eir-makes-available-crucial-background-mumbai-attack.html
3 slim,
"Wow, took only two posts to see the Jewish conspiracy nonsense show up."
I heard if you go into a business establishment owned by Jews and buy something, they are not taking your money in exchange for goods, they are screwing you out of it! I think I saw this on some skinhead's pickup truck.
I remember reading that during the Black Plague years the locals believed Jews poisoned all the water which in turn gave the rest of the people the plague. I mean it makes sense, doesn't it? I heard Jews don't have to drink.
3 slim,
"So tell us Lee, where is the US establishing Zionist puppets?"
I think I can answer that: The North Pole, Siberia, under the bed of some people who post on this site. I'm so scared I can't sleep most nights!
@ george
"Yes EVIL RUSSIA that most Americans hate helped keep the US united..."
Are you trying to turn me against Russia?
@ KMarx, slim, Leo
Please pick one screen name and stick to it.
Great article Mr Buchanan!
The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand has bee called the match that set the world on fire. The fire could have been dampened, but other events prior to 1914 amounted to leaving oil-soaked rags lying around. Germany and Italy had recently become modern nations and posed a threat to the Big Boys -- Britain and France who between them had gobbled up most of Africa. The new upstart nations wanted in on the action and were establishing their own colonies. Of particular interest were the Belgian Congo because it was 40 times more real estate than Belgium itself, and of course South Africa which already had a large, industrious German-speaking population.
Britain and France had been rivals since 1066, but for the big picture, they dragooned Russia into the Entent Cordiale in order to put the squeeze on the Central European upstarts, who themselves had formed the Triple Entente in response to the threat all around them. The Balkans were really of little value other than to start a war, which, at its conclusion, would leave a suitable carcass for the usual vultures to pick over. Britain got African colonies, Papua New Guinea (reckoned to be the worst nation on the planet), France got Alsace-Lorraine and its vinyards and some token bits of Africa. Russia got the shaft worse than Germany, Austria got rid of its troublesome minorities, Turkey had to give up its oil in Mesopotamia, and the Brits got Palestine -- how lucky!
on 02 Dec 2008 at 4:58 pm13travis
"@ KMarx, slim, Leo
Please pick one screen name and stick to it."
My moniker is and has always been KMarx on this site. The others are not associated with me.
@3 slim
I don't know. One comment and 3 questions from you. How radical 60s chic!
When you can make an intelligent comment you need ask no questions. Not that there are any stupid questions, but I 've noticed an awful lot of inquisitive idiots with college degrees.
@13travis
What do you mean?
Is it because you don't like Lincoln?
It would make more sense for Russia to be aligned with Southern rebels both having a strong Christian identity and family unit like Russian mercenaries helped the Boars fight the British in the Boar war.
But Southern Confederacy aligned themselves with the British Rothschild empire who had there own vested interest in a divided America because it was not under British credit control since Andrew Jackson’s banking reforms.
And who runs Iraq’s deaths squads that are killing the intellectuals and opposition MI6, CIA, Mossad, all three?
Starting to look like 1917 all over again.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11187
Oy Slim,
It only took three posts for you bash the Israeli conspiracy 'nonsense'. Do those puppets you mention HAVE to be "jewish" to be told what to do for the long run?
Does it not mention in that infamous book of 1904 that "they" don't give a sh*t about the lesser brethren?
Instead of "terrorists" being the cause for great powers ending up waging the wars, Pat should look at "great" powers as creators of “terrorism”.
Example: Clinton’s wars in the former Yugoslavia (Croatia; Bosnia; Kosovo – where Clinton led “coalition of willing” masterminded, trained, armed and supported Islamic terror against the Serbs. I case of Croatia – Croatian Nazi terror against the Serbs).
As for Garvrilo Princip being the cause for World War I - Please Mr. Buchanan you know better.
I forgot to mention Bejamin Freedman in relation to WW1. http://www.benjaminfreedman.net/.
How Germany lost the war and the reason behind the Balfour declaration.
This article, not withstanding it's demented reference to WW1--a scatterlogical post-modern reference--is an apologia for the nostrum of "moderate Islam" versus "small minority of extremists". The jihad attacks in India are constant and unabated because it's what the Koran orders. Unless all infidels physically seperate themselves from Islam will always, at best, be trying to keep a lid on a boiling cauldron of acid for the sake of "moderation".
"As for Garvrilo Princip being the cause for World War I - Please Mr. Buchanan you know better."
Ugh. Buchanan shows how the murder in Sarajevo set off the chain of events that resulted in the war. The murder was the reason for the actual outbreak of hostilities. It is not as though the Germans and Russians and Brits, etc., had already mobilized their troops and invaded each others' territory prior to June 28th. No, the murder was the first domino. That all the other dominoes had already been set up and were ready to fall -- that Buchanan readily acknowledges. But the assassination was the first domino to fall.
It's true that Gavrilo Princip did not single-handedly start the first World War. Lots of other stupid, venal, and short-sighted people were also to blame.
But that tubercular little pustule certainly got the ball rolling, didn't he?
Princip set in motion events that brought about the sudden end of a golden age of Western culture (the French call it "La Belle Epoque"), and prepared the stage for the immediate destruction of three European empires and the eventual dissolution of all the rest, followed by the dawning of another Dark Age, which we can now see looming before us.
Why do so many Serbs persist in seeing this terrorist as some kind of hero?
The only proZionist government that matters is the US administration; so much so that the "pro" us superfluous.
Perhaps I should not butt in, but among the hundreds, perhaps thousands of Serbs I have met and with whom I have discussed politics and history, I don't recall one who admired Princip. The principal fault, however, in the Sarajevo incident and its aftermath, would seem to lie with Austria-Hungary, first of all in permitting the Archduke to go to Bosnia, after being warned by the Serbian government of the dangers, then in imposing impossible conditions on Serbia, and finally, when Serbia attempted to comply, going ahead with the invasion. Clearly, A-H, seeing her position eroding in the rest of Europe, was determined to complete its conquest of the Balkans. Let us remember that she had pledged not to convert her protectorate over Bosnia-Hercegovina into an appanage of the Empire. Might I add that the Austrian army got its tail kicked in the opening phase of the war.
Was the Black Hand a fully terrorist organization? The objective was to drive out an illegal occupier. The Archduke cannot be regarded as a mere private person. As an advocate of a Slavic third part of the Empire, he would, had he been successful, have prevented the continued liberation of Serbian lands. Surely, if anyone was the enemy of the Serbs, it was he. Yes, I know, he wanted to be kind to the Serbs as a way of winning them over, but as much as one might respect Austria-Hungary as a stabilizing force in Europe--and I do--and regret its destruction--as I do--one does have to see the issue from the side of subjects who did not at all like Austrian rule. The gentle Austrians, so fond of their coffee, sweets, and saccharine music, also turned out to be barbaric in the conduct of the war.
I am instructing the webmaster to ban anyone who cites Larouchie propaganda on this site. If you believe Larouche, I am an agent of the British government, the pal of Prince Phillip, Conrad Black, and the late Queen Mother. I am a leader in a plot to break up the USA and feed the bits to the British Empire, and--what's more--the man who hired me was part of a murder plot against Larouche. Please, please, please, no more infantilism!
Mr Buchanan is actually saying that, had it not been for Gavrilo Princip, the War to End All Wars would never have happened. That's a dubious proposal.
Re # 22 Tobias
I know what Mr. Buchanan meant. But the concept of seeing Gavrilo Princip as terrorist and Archduke Francis Ferdinand as a victim of terrorism is false - thus that that might be the cause for attacking Serbia is also false.
Basic facts are: Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina, mistreated Serbs and (Vienna) openly agitated against Serbia in every possible way. To come to Sarajevo (where Serbs were majority) on June 28, on St Vitus Day (when Serbs celebrate battle of Kosovo) was stupid if not planned intentionally to provoke Serbs.
I think that Srdja Trifkovica wrote about Franz Ferdinand being sent to Sarajevo although Vienna knew that he would be assassinated...
I would argue that Franz Ferdinand was a terrorist (because his country illegally annexed - occupied B&H) and Gavrilo Princip a student who defended his fatherland.
Shooting an unarmed woman at point-blank range is unmanly no matter what the justification. Gavrilo Princip dishonored himself by shooting the Archduke's consort, Sophie.
# 26
...Shooting an unarmed woman at point-blank range is unmanly..."
I am not arguing whether what G. Princip did was honorable or not. I am saying that given the Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ferdinand being an official representative of the occupier, G. Princip was not a terrorist.
Example of a modern time terrorism : Clinton's unprovoked, illegal and unnecessary bombing of Serbia in 1999 when over thousand innocent people - unarmed women, men and children - of Serbia were killed.
TJF @ 34
I take your points that Austria-Hungary was a predatory power in the Balkans, and that the Serbs had legitimate grievances. And yes, it was a tactical mistake to go to Sarajevo on June 28 after the warning given by Serbia.
But the larger issue isn't the rights or wrongs of who governs a meaningless little piece of real estate called Bosnia-Herzgovina. Maybe it was overwhelmingly important to the principals in 1914, but when we look back today at the question it shrinks to utter insignificance in the context of the cultural wreckage of the Western world.
Gavrilo Princip (like Lee Harvey Oswald) was a nobody, a cipher, a zero. But he did something that had horrendous consequences for every one of us, right up to this very moment.
His assassination of the Archduke led to the eventual collapse of European world hegemony; the decimation of Western manhood and the subsequent decline of white populations (which has now become precipitous); the cultural degeneracy of the inter-war and post-war periods; the decay of our institutions, followed by the near-total historical amnesia of our citizenry and the distortion of aesthetic standards; the metastasis of mindless consumerism and hedonism; the untrammeled growth of cults of ugliness and perversion and philosophical silliness; and the degradation of millions of Western women into feminists, lesbians, or simple sluts, used and despised by non-Western males.
Oh, by the way -- I forgot Communism and Nazism. They can be added as lagniappe.
All of these horrors had their roots in the two world wars, and the cultural and moral deracination that followed upon them. Might all of this have happened without the world wars? Maybe. But I'm inclined to bet that it would have taken a helluva lot longer.
I simply cannot see that all of this was an acceptable price to pay for getting the right to issue Serbian passports in Bosnia-Herzgovina.
Sorry -- it should be TJF @ 24
President Clinton's bombing of unarmed Serbs was dishonorable and a blot on American history. I still can remember reading how a four year old Serbian boy was blown to bits by an American bomb, a boy who would never grow up to enjoy the millions of different joys this life has to offer. Only a sociopath could feel pride in the '99 bombings- Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright fit the definition.
The word terrorism seems to be one of those words that the strong use to defame the weak while at the same time the strong, when they use terrorist methods to get what they want, call their violence highmindedness.
I did not at all intend to defend Princip's action or character only to 1) try to understand his motives and circumstances, and 2) to sketch in a little content into the term terrorism. Not all assassinations, for example, are acts of terrorism. The Nazis have rolled over your country--say, Norway--and you and your skiing buddies begin attacking German patrols or sniping at them or shooting officials. Is that terrorism? No, terrorism is the deliberate targeting of noncombatants and private people in order to break down a population's will to resist. Terror bombing is terrorism, but the shooting of the heir to the throne is assassination.
Second, all the major powers had war plans drawn up. Blaming Princip for the war is like blaming the accidental electric spark that blows up the terrorists' cache of dynamite. In the latter case, we blame the people who stockpiled the explosion. Austria wanted war, France wanted revenge on Germany. It was widely remarked after the Franco-Prussian War that France would never rest until she had her revenge. Princip is not only a human cipher, but an historical accident, of no importance in himself.
I share some of Mr. Salemi's impatience with these little people who so trouble our peace, but we do wrong, I think, to denigrate their motives. You may think BH is worthless, but it is home to many people, an ancient land of considerable beauty over which people have been spilling their blood long before the Romans arrived. In the great scheme of things, who is to say that BH is less important than the USA, which has given our civilization so little. In literary terms, Ivo Andric is as good a writer as we have produced, a rather sad commentary on our education and literacy. All the great conflicts in life are about little things. The ancient Greeks knew that, as did the Medieval Tuscans, and, until recently, the Irish. This is expressed far better than I ever will in a short poem by the late Patrick Kavanagh:
EPIC
I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided, who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul!"
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
"Here is the march along these iron stones."
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.
@31 TJF "In the great scheme of things, who is to say that BH is less important than the USA, which has given our civilization so little. In literary terms, Ivo Andric is as good a writer as we have produced, a rather sad commentary on our education and literacy."
I'm sure our education and literacy have much to do with our lack of artistic flowering, but doesn't it also say something about our way of life. Even if we had a writer as talented as Chaucer or Shakespeare, what kind of fiction could he or she create out of modern America? What kind of characters or adventures could a writer tell that were not simply dream visions or nostalgia for the past? What kind of portraits could Chaucer sketch today if he were writing the General Prologue? And to where would they be pilgrimaging? What could William Faulkner use as a subject today? His later fiction was rapidly declining, and I have to think that had something to do with the decline of the "little postage stamp" world he had used as fictional subject matter. It's hard to imagine Robert Frost being able to write compelling poetry about the people North of Boston today. I like Wendell Berry's fiction but it is about a past world that becomes more faint every day. Cormac McCarthy writes good novels but they tend to be visions of a future apocalyptic world. I don't know if Faulkner is as good as Ivo Andric, but I remember Dr. Fleming saying that it does not matter as much who are the best writers, so long as they are ours. I still hold an affection for the American literary tradition but the world I live in doesn't seem to resemble the America that was once a worthy literary subject.
Speaking of illiteracy, there should be a question mark at the end of my first sentence. A great feature for these discussions would be the ability to edit a post after its submission.
Yes, indeed, we should love our literature because it is ours, though I would suggest that by ours we must include the writings of our British ancestors, which are just as much ours as theirs (the Brits today). And you are certainly right that this is no age for great literature. But there are always surprises. We are still writing good books--Iwould mention George Garret, recently deceased, Fred Chappell, and our own Chilton Williamson, whose new novel is as good as anything I have read in recent years. As for editing posts, in an earlier version I was able to edit out offensive remarks without killing an entire post, but now I cannot even edit my own writebacks.
@24 Tom
Re: LaRouche
While I don't subscribe to the man's crackpot notions, I will vote for him in democratic primaries. Since I view all Democratic Party candidates as crackpots, and Virginia has not voter registration by party, I'll vote for the local bull-goose loony! When I announce my actions the looks of horror are priceless.
Furthermore, a late friend of mine who sat on the Loudoun County bench said the trial of LaRouche was a complete farce. The feds had it in for him, just hope they don't come after the Rockford Institute the same way.
And to continue the discussion of good literature I'd like to add Georgia's own Tito Purdue, Florida's Harry Crews, and Virginia's Florence King.
Yes, I did notice the great review of Mexico Way in the last issue of Chronicles. I'll have to get it for myself for Christmas, and maybe a copy or two for my English professors.
Hitler should have been used as a growling attack dog with which to deter the greater evil of Stalin.
But Britain decided to throw a hissy fit over a country (Poland) they were in no position to defend anyway, and thus the Dobermann was released, endangering the public, for absolutely no good moral reason.
@37Etienne Gervaise
"Re: LaRouche
While I don’t subscribe to the man’s crackpot notions"
What is so crack pot about his notions?
He claims the British empirical system has encompassed the US.
But who controlled the British Empire?
The Rothschild’s.
And who controls the US?
The Rothschild’s or his brethren state of Israel which they helped create with currency and building’s like the Supreme Court financed and constructed by Rothschild.
The Major banking firms including the Federal Reserve are owned by City of London bankers.
Its Universities and curriculum are financed by institutions created by theses people like the Ford foundation who go on to work for bogus think tanks like the Jewish AEI, Heritage foundation, etc or Rothschild’s Chatham house in England.
Globalisation is just the British global economic system like the East India Company.
Although he definitely avoids the Jewish issue (fails to mention the Rothschild’s, Kissinger, Schultz, Soros, etc are all Jewish) and focuses to much on Fascism.
LaRouche is the only one for decades who has been warning about the financial system, it’s state of decline and how to solve it or at least deal with it.
I think the bogus case against him was because he and his wife who runs an organisation in Germany were proposing a new financial system back then to avoid to current situation we are in know when the USSR broke apart.
You should visit his website it has good articles and documentaries.
@40Bob Johnson
Maybe Europeans and Americans should have had some guts in the first place and opposed those who created, ran and financed Communism and the invasion and slaughter of Russia and the Czar and millions of ethnic Russians in the first place and crippled Germany after WW1.
The same thing is happening today supported by a dumbed down and brainwashed populace.
Communism and Stalin would not have gotten of its feet if the western press didn’t cover up Soviet crimes and attacked the regime as it did the Czars and western banks didn’t finance them including the Federal Reserve and industrialise it like the Ford motor company.
I’m pretty sure Britain used Poland as a pretext for war with Germany.
Germany had every right to intervene in Germany as Poland was slaughtering German civilians.
Stalin didn’t want war he wanted to control the areas he already had hence the conflict with the internationalists like Trotsky and the Purges during the 30’s.
Expansionism means he would have less control.
A non-Russia ethnic group comprising the bulk of Communist leadership had conflict with the German people and pushed for war against Germany that’s why they sabotaged the non aggression pact with Germany and the USSR.
"A non-Russia ethnic group comprising the bulk of Communist leadership had conflict with the German people and pushed for war against Germany that’s why they sabotaged the non aggression pact with Germany and the USSR."
That's true.
The sabatoge wouldn't have worked, though, if Britain and/or its people were smart enough to see the necessity of keeping the door open to an anti-soviet alliance with Germany.
Once that door was closed, by fools and traitors, the hand of the saboteurs was strengthened beyond measure.
@38-40 Was there a meeting somewhere when everybody decided to blame the British for all the evils of the modern world? Nobody informs me of these things. So I guess the new orthodox anti-orthodox position is that the peaceloving Germans should have been left alone and those reckless, stupid, cowards in England have ruined Western Civilization.
Mr.Buchanan how are the 150 Muslims being denied their place in the sun in India? How many HIndus are left in Pakistan from the 25% Hindus left in Pakistan after partition ? 1% How many are left in Bangladesh from a original 25%? How did these people dissappear? Kashmir receives the highest amount of subsidies from the Indian government. Without it the Muslims would be in a miserable condition like their Pakistani brothers in Azad Kashmir in Pakistan which the Pakistanis have done nothing to develop. The subsidies for one person in Kashmir is thousands of times more than what a citizen receives in Bihar. What is the result? Money down the tubes. What exactly are they fighting for? To create another Pakistan or Bangladese or even a purer Islamic State than Pakistan where all ethnic minorities are purged and where they can live under Sharia. Why does the press never speak of the origianl non-Muslim inhabitants of Kashmir? Is Kashmir not their land as well. But they have been killed and expelled by the Muslim sepratists. The Kashmiri Muslims have ethnically cleansed 500,000 Hindus from their ancestral lands--mind you people who had been living there before the ARab religion came into India via the sword. Are Hindus to blame because the problems of Muslims are largely self inflicted by having too many babies, by educating their children at Madrassas and not wanting to modernize? How are they discriminated against, and how are they less unfortunate than the other non-Muslim poor of India? It was their choice to live in India after partition. If there are greener pastures elsewhere why do they not migrate to Pakistan or Bangladesh? Because they know they enjoy greater freedom and rights in India than in those countries. But they wave Pakistani flags on Indian soil. In any other country this would be considered treason. But not in India. It is time that Muslim leaders start taking responsibility for why their people are backward instead of blaming others for their plight. Why are these people always portrayed as victims. Victims of what? Pakitan still portrays itself as a victim after ethnically cleansing all minorities and for not being able to practise a "pure" version of Islam. If a religion comes into a land unwanted by force and established itself by the sword and is not able to assimilate with the Majority even after 1000 years whose fault is it? That of the religion or that of the majority? What have these people done to assimilate into the Majority culture. Or do they want to create a State within a State and take over once they have increased in numbers. India has many social injustices. But they apply to all groups, not just Muslims.
Also why are Muslim dictatorships never responsible for that happens in their countries? Why must everyone treat them like children who are not fully responsible for their actions? Who created the Kashmir problem? As far as I knew Hindus and Muslims were living there as far as 89 until Benazir armed insurgents, although there was systematic discrimination of the Hindu minority by the Muslim majority. How the State became Muslim majority though forced conversions and threats is another matter. Now the area is 100% Muslim. The Muslims in Kashmir were mostly Sufis influenced by the Hindu and Buddhist religions and not radicalized like their Pakistani brothers who Mr. Hauq radicalized. Now Kashmiri Muslims are also radicalized thanks to Pakistan. Pakistan is bit by the very snake it nurtured and its national security is jeopardized by the very groups it originally nurtured and supported to gain an advantage over India. Please tell me of any happy minorities living in Pakistan or Bangladesh or any Muslim country for that matter. But I guess these regimes are not to be questioned for as children they are not responsible or they are somehow the "victims" so it is okay for them to have no protection of minorities. Why not call a spade a spade instead of beating around the bush. Why is it certain Islamic republics have no tolerance for others who do not live according to their book?
Mr.Buchanan how are the 150 Muslims being denied their place in the sun in India? How many HIndus are left in Pakistan from the 25% Hindus left in Pakistan after partition ? 1% How many are left in Bangladesh from a original 25%? Less than 7%. Do you know how Hindus are treated in these countries? How did these people dissappear? Kashmir receives the highest amount of subsidies from the Indian government. Without it the Muslims would be in a miserable condition like their Pakistani brothers in Azad Kashmir in Pakistan which the Pakistanis have done nothing to develop. The subsidies for one person in Kashmir is thousands of times more than what a citizen receives in Bihar. What is the result? Money down the tubes. What exactly are they fighting for? To create another Pakistan or Bangladese or even a purer Islamic State than Pakistan where all ethnic minorities are purged and where they can live under Sharia. How is this State going to be better than India where the right of the non-Muslims will also be protected? Why does the press never speak of the origianl non-Muslim inhabitants of Kashmir? Is Kashmir not their land as well? But they have been killed and expelled by the Muslim sepratists. The Kashmiri Muslims have ethnically cleansed 500,000 Hindus from their ancestral lands–mind you people who had been living there before the ARab religion came into India via the sword. These people are living as refugees in their own country for refusing to convert to Isalm after it penetrated into Kashmir. Are Hindus to blame because the problems of Muslims are largely self inflicted by having too many babies, by educating their children at Madrassas and not wanting to modernize? How are they discriminated against, and how are they less unfortunate than the other non-Muslim poor of India? It was their choice to live in India after partition. If there are greener pastures elsewhere why do they not migrate to Pakistan or Bangladesh? Because they know they enjoy greater freedom and rights in India than in those countries. But some wave Pakistani flags on Indian soil. In any other country this would be considered treason. But not in India. It is time that Muslim leaders start taking responsibility for why their people are backward instead of blaming others for their plight and portraying theselves as victims. Why are these people always portrayed as victims. Victims of what? Pakitan still portrays itself as a victim after ethnically cleansing all minorities and for not being able to practise a “pure” version of Islam. If a religion comes into a land unwanted by force and establishes itself by the sword and is not able to assimilate with the Majority even after 1000 years whose fault is it? That of the religion or that of the majority? What have these people done to assimilate into the Majority culture? Why is that never asked? Or do they want to create a State within a State and take over once they have increased in numbers? India has many social injustices. But they apply to all groups, not just Muslims.
"...detente Pakistan was seeking with India and pushed both toward war. "
This is too much coming from a man who is regarded to be well versed in politics. If Pakistan were to make peace with India it would no longer find any reason to exist. The country that has emotional and cultural ties (via religion) to the terrorists which it origianlly nurtured to gain an advantage over India with help from oil dictatorships which bail it out whenever it is in the danger of disintegrating. But now just as a pet tiger can turn against the hand that feeds it, Pakistan has found that its support of terrorists can bite the hand that feeds it. And of course the ogverment cannot be directly blamed because there are different centers of power in Pakistan now vying for control, and no one center in control of the country.
@47gargi
The US helped Pakistan develop nuclear weapons in the first place and they knew about it.
In fact US good relations with Pakistan go a long way.
The US was aiding Pakistan when it was slaughtering East Pakistanis (Bangladesh) when they were moving towards independence during the Nixon administration.
In 79 Pakistani, British and American intelligence were training Islamic militants 6 months prior to the Soviet invasion to lure them into a trap.
During the 90's they help train militants to fight in Bosnia, Uzbekistan IMU is partially a ISI creation, Chechnya, Dagestan, Kosovo and Kashmir including notorious Chechen Warlords Shamil Basyeav and Khattab in Afghanistan and Warziristan.
Of course moderate Turkey also help train Islamic militants on its territory.
In 97 with US present they aided the Taliban with aid of Chechen and Uzbek militants to take over Afghanistan and set up terrorist training camps.
The HIndu mindset is changing says this journalist and that change is being underestimated....
http://arunshourie.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/hindutva-and-radical-islam-where-the-twain-do-meet/
@29 Boba
Even Clinton's most rabid supporters do not accuse him of being manly. A cad maybe, virile possibly, but never manly. It takes more than broad shoulders to be a man and he won't make the grade.