RUTHFULLY YOURS

Why shouldn’t Islamists believe that just a few more bloody nudges will see the West teeter, topple and surrender the last of the values it has not already repudiated in the name of “diversity” and non-judgmental amity? If we won’t defend liberty’s core principles the game is as good as over

The shocking events in Paris should come as no surprise. The earlier massacre at the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo achieved strategically all that the Islamic Jihad would have desired. That was the climax of Stage I. Mission accomplished.

Hang on there, you may object. Yes, the massacre was awful, but then Charlie Hebdo had overstepped the bounds of polite discourse. Maybe those cartoonists and writers provoked the attack? This, so the reasoning goes, was a warning to others not to engage in “hate speech”, whatever that is supposed to mean. In Western countries, supposedly the bastions of free speech, the definition has been left in the hands of un-elected quasi-judicial bodies, which are ever-so-sensitive to the hurt feelings of Muslims. As we should recall, the staged march of solidarity on a Paris street by world leaders in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre included not only representatives from Islamic states committed to the advance of Sharia and the elimination of free speech, but also Western leaders, who despite their hypocritical protestations for the occasion had presided over a shrinkage of Western freedoms and values — curtailments of traditional liberties inflicted in the interests of appeasing a vocal and permanently aggrieved minority.

France’s President Lied, Frenchmen Died

Last month, French President Francois Hollande ridiculed the idea that the massive numbers of Muslim migrants entering his country were any kind of threat.

“Those who argue that we are being invaded are manipulators and falsifiers, who do this only for political reasons, to scare,” the left-wing politician huffed.

And then the pudgy little Socialist had to be rapidly evacuated from France’s national soccer stadium after one of those refugees blew himself up trying to reach Monsieur le Président, and Merkel’s Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Minister Steinmeier had urged rejecting “barriers, fences” when it came to the Muslim migrants, but it was a barrier and the security in front of it that kept one of his beloved refugees from reaching him.

The ordinary people who didn’t have and don’t have the security measures that protect Hollande and Steinemeier died in Paris, blown up and gunned down where they sat, lay and stood.

Before the man carrying a passport in the name of Ahmed Almohammad blew himself up at France’s national soccer stadium, he came on a boat from Turkey with hundreds of other refugees. He passed through Greece, Serbia and Croatia, along with countless other migrants, accompanied no doubt by journalists and human rights workers eager to document the plight of the “refugees”.

French President François Hollande declared the Nov. 13 terrorist attack in Paris an “act of war” by Islamic State, and he was right, if belated, in recognizing that the jihadists have been at war with the West for years. Islamic State, or ISIS, is vowing more attacks in Europe, and so Europe itself—not just France—must get on a war footing, uniting to do whatever it takes militarily to destroy ISIS and its so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Not “contain,” not “degrade”—destroy, period.

But even if ISIS is completely destroyed, Islamic extremism itself will not go away. If anything, the destruction of ISIS would increase the religious fervor of those within Europe who long for a caliphate.

European leaders must make some major political decisions, and perhaps France can lead the way. A shift in mentality is needed to avoid more terror attacks on an even bigger scale and the resulting civil strife. Islamic extremists will never succeed in turning Europe into a Muslim continent. What they may well do is provoke a civil war so that parts of Europe end up looking like the Balkans in the early 1990s.

The Paris attacks are transforming Europe’s migration crisis into a security debate, spurring calls for a clampdown on free movement across borders, and putting proponents of an open door for refugees on the defensive.

France’s firm belief that Islamic State militants planned the attacks—and the possibility that at least one assailant may have posed as a Syrian refugee—are fueling arguments over whether Europe is doing enough to protect itself from terrorists who might infiltrate the thousands of migrants arriving daily from the Middle East and elsewhere.

Evidence that some of the attackers crossed internal European Union boundaries to get to Paris have also brought more demands from EU-skeptic politicians to abolish the continent’s system of open borders.

To proponents of European integration, the attacks highlight the need for more EU cooperation on security and better joint protection of the bloc’s external frontier. But those voices, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, are now likely to face even stronger opposition from politicians who want to show they are taking national security more seriously than lofty European ideals.