by Richard T. Ritenbaugh
CGG Weekly, August 30, 2002
"[I]t is better to be alone than in bad company."
George Washington
It has been interesting to observe the reaction of Western European governments and politicians to the saber rattling of the George W. Bush administration against everyone's favorite dictator-they-love-to-hate, Saddam Hussein. Except for a few squeaks of support from Number 10 Downing Street in London, Europeans have generally been condemnatory of military action against Iraq.
They say, first of all, that the U.S. should get UN Security Council approval before it takes any action. Interpretation: We want the ability to veto your proposal. Secondly, they say, President Bush has not shown any proof that Saddam Hussein has any ties to al-Qaida. Interpretation: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. In this latter case, every time the Bush camp raises another reason why Hussein and his regime need to be removed, the response is a variant of, "We refuse to believe that. Give us some proof that we can accept!"
Beyond this, however, is the hypocrisy of it all. It is well known that several European governments have been "helping" Iraq throughout the UN-imposed sanctions to the tune of billions of dollars in aid and purchases. Perhaps the greater hypocrisy, though, is their unwillingness to admit that they have an acute and growing Arab/Muslim problem within their own countries.
Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and other European nations have experienced a massive influx of Arab or Turk immigrants over the past few decades, for much the same reasons as the U.S. has seen so many Hispanic immigrants from Central America. Economic conditions in their home countries are so depressed and hopeless that Western democracies look like the Promised Land. Add in a heavy dose of multiculturalism and socialist welfare policies, and the result is a burgeoning foreign population that refuses to integrate and abide by common standards.
Denmark is a good example. It has about 200,000 Muslim immigrants in a population of roughly 5½ million, or about 3.5% of the population. More than half of these are crammed into urban areas because of the possibility of employment, but many are unemployed. In Denmark, these immigrants account for more than 40% of welfare spending.
It gets worse. Muslims make up a majority of the nation's convicted rapists; non-Danes commit three-quarters of the rapes in Denmark. In other categories of crime, lesser but similarly disproportionate figures prevail. They have also brought in several unacceptable and illegal practices, for instance, forced marriages—promising a baby girl to a male in the home nation, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death—and threatening to kill Muslims who convert out of Islam.
On another area of Danish concern, commentator Daniel Pipes writes:
Muslim violence threatens Denmark's approximately 6,000 Jews, who increasingly depend on police protection. Jewish parents were told by one school principal that she could not guarantee their children's safety and were advised to attend another institution. Anti-Israel marches have turned into anti-Jewish riots. One organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, openly calls on Muslims to "kill all Jews . . . wherever you find them." ("Something Rotten in Denmark?" New York Post, August 27, 2002).
Muslim clerics have also called upon adherents to take over Denmark and impose Islamic law once their population has grown large enough. By one estimate, in about forty years, Muslims will comprise one-third of Denmark's population.
This brings to mind God's prophecy concerning Ishmael in Genesis 16:11-12: "Behold, you [Hagar] are with child, and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of his brethren."
The world has certainly seen a great deal of "his hand shall be against every man," which has been institutionalized in Ishmael's belief system, Islam. Winston Churchill once said of it, "That religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword—the tenets and principles of which are . . . incentives to slaughter and which in three continents had produced fighting breeds of men—simulates a wild and merciless fanaticism."
And now we see that he indeed is dwelling in the presence of the descendants of his brother Isaac and his nephew Jacob, fomenting problems while reaping the benefits of living among the blessings of God given for Abraham's obedience. It also sets up the fulfillment of the prophecy of Israel's downfall in Deuteronomy 28:43: "The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower." Keep these trends in mind as time hastens toward the return of Jesus Christ.