Tea at Trianon: After ISIS

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, November 3, 2017

After ISIS

From The Washington Examiner:

Christians have found a new hope for a future in Iraq as the remaining pockets of Islamic State fighters continue to be defeated by Iraqi security and Peshmerga forces. However, considering the current state of the Nineveh Plains as they have been left by the fanatics known locally as Daesh, the region may not be ready for Iraqi Christians to return. The Nineveh Plains, considered by many as the cradle of Christianity, is home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Rebuilding the Nineveh Plains will require an estimated $200 million. Moreover, instability and the lack of a consistent security force have prevented many Iraqi Christians from returning to their homes.

Even though some NGO representatives and government officials want to establish a "safe zone: in the Nineveh Plains, many of the presented proposals refer to quasi or fully autonomous governorate rather than a traditional safe zone. Traditionally, safe zones are set up as secured and contained areas to protect a vulnerable population from violence and forced displacement and have nothing to do with self-governance. (Read more.)

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