Tea at Trianon: ISIS in Europe

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, March 25, 2016

ISIS in Europe

We are in a war. From Town Hall:

In light of the Brussels attack, it's important to emphasize that the ISIS terrorists who carried it out didn't get to the city from Syria or Iraq, but were in fact born and highly-educated there. The bomb maker who constructed suicide belts detonated in the Paris attacks last November, held a degree in mechanical engineering and was born in the Brussels, not in a far away and foreign terror hot spot of the Middle East. He's likely the same person who made the suicide belts for the Brussels attack.

A senior Iraqi intelligence official who was not authorized to speak publicly said people from the cell that carried out the Paris attacks are scattered across Germany, Britain, Italy, Denmark and Sweden. Recently, a new group crossed in from Turkey, the official said.

The latest new name to surface this week, Najim Laachraoui, turned out to be a Brussels resident with a degree in mechanical engineering — the bombmaker who made the suicide vests used in the Paris attacks, according to French and Belgian officials. Attackers used an explosive known as Triacetone Triperoxide, or TATP, made from common household chemicals.

Fifteen kilos of TATP were found in an apartment linked to the Brussels attackers, along with other explosive material, although Laachraoui has not been publicly linked to the latest attack.
According to intelligence estimates, more than 5000 Europeans have left for Iraq and Syria as ISIS continues its march. Closer to home, the State Department came under fire last year after it was revealed the passports of Americans who have joined ISIS in Iraq and Syria were not revoked. Today, nothing has changed.

The FBI confirmed last fall it is investigating more than 1000 ISIS leads inside the U.S. and at a hearing in January, directors of a number of U.S. intelligence agencies expressed concern ISIS will attack inside the country within the year. (Read more.)