Tea at Trianon: As Iraq Unravels

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, June 13, 2014

As Iraq Unravels

From Aljazeera:

Armed fighters believed to be part of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant have seized the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh and freed hundreds of prisoners, government officials say.

Overnight, hundreds of fighters launched an assault on the provincial capital Mosul, 350km north of Baghdad, engaging in combat with troops and police, the officials said on Tuesday.

"The city of Mosul is outside the control of the state and at the mercy of the militants," an Interior Ministry official told the AFP news agency, making it the second city to fall to anti-government forces this year.

Turkish media also reported on Tuesday that 28 Turkish lorry drivers were taken hostage by ISIL fighters in Mosul, Iraq's second largest city. In recent days, fighters have launched major operations in Nineveh and four other provinces, killing scores of people and highlighting both their long reach and the weakness of Iraq's security forces.

Al Jazeera correspondent Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said: "the intelligence estimates Iraq has released suggests it's not just Iraqi fighters. There are foreign fighters who have come to fight for ISIL."

Mosul is the second city to be captured by rebels this year, after the central government lost control of Fallujah. (Read more.)

In the meantime, the Christians have fled. To quote Zenit:

Speaking today to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Amel Nona said he thought Mosul’s last remaining Christians had left now a city which until 2003 was home to 35,000 faithful.

The Christians are among 500,000 thought to have fled Mosul, which was overthrown Tuesday. That event is now followed by news today of militant attacks on the Iraqi city of Tikrit, 95 miles north of the capital Baghdad.

Describing reports of attacks to four churches and a monastery in Mosul, the archbishop, 46, said: “We received threats… [and] now all the faithful have fled the city. I wonder if they will ever return there.”

The archbishop, who in the ensuing crisis sought sanctuary in Tal Kayf, a village two miles from Mosul, described how the local community was doing its best to provide for crowds of people flooding out of the city and into the surrounding Nineveh plains, where there are a number of ancient Christian villages.

“Up at 5am yesterday [Tuesday, 10th June] morning we welcomed families on the run and we have tried to find accommodation in schools, classrooms and empty houses.”
He said: “We have never seen anything like this – a large city such as Mosul attacked and in chaos.”

He said that in the 11 years following the 2003 US-led overthrow of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein, Christians in Mosul had declined from 35,000 to 3,000 and that “now there is probably no one left.”

The archbishop said the attacks on Mosul began last Thursday (5th June) but were initially confined to the western part of the city.

He said: “The army began bombing the affected areas but later in the night between Monday and Tuesday, suddenly the armed forces and the police left Mosul, leaving it to the mercy of the attackers.”

The archbishop questioned reports claiming the militants responsible for the attacks are part of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS), a terrorist organisation linked to Al-Qaeda and in control of key areas of northwest Syria.

He said: “I do not know yet who the group is behind these attacks. Some speak of ISIS, others think other groups are responsible.

“We have to wait until we have a better understanding of the situation. What we do know is that they are extremists; many people have seen them patrolling the streets.”

BBC reports have described ISIS ambitions to create an Islamist caliphate spreading from northern Iraq across to northwest Syria. From ISIS-controlled regions in Syria have come reports of Christians being asked to pay the Islamic Jaziya tax and pressure to convert to Islam. Many thousands of Christians have fled the region. (Read more.)

HERE is Tom Woods on the fall of Mosul and Tikrit.

Some prayers for Iraq from Abbey-Roads. Share