[Federalist] On Tuesday, Leighton Woodhouse wrote for The New York Times that conservatives are "spinning" a "mythology" that is "historically delusional."
The delusional mythology Woodhouse is referring to? The belief that Americans are a "group of people with a shared history."
According to Woodhouse, "The founding fathers were an assortment of people from different histories and backgrounds who coexisted — often just barely." These "different" histories, however, were all rooted in Christianity. But Woodhouse wants readers to believe that this type of variety in Christianity proves America was born out of a multicultural diversity experiment.
Of course it wasn’t. The colonists shared a common language, moral framework, and writ large, a lineage. Yet Woodhouse insists otherwise.
The United States isn’t exceptional because of our common cultural heritage; we’re exceptional because we’ve been able to cohere despite faiths, traditions and languages that set us apart, and sometimes against one another. The drafters of the Constitution tried to create that cohesion by building a government that could transcend our divisions.
In other words, Woodhouse is arguing that America is not the product of Americans at all. Rather, it’s just a cosmopolitan conglomerate held together by particular processes but not people. It’s why Woodhouse invokes "Mexican, Korean, Somalian" "anestries" as similar examples of American heritage just like English, Irish, and Scottish settlers. The implication of course is that America would be just as American even without "heritage Americans."
#3
This — America would be just as American even without "heritage Americans." Would be visible today if the migrants wanted to be American —- obviously that is not happening!
But the White House is a national historical site.
Should ANY president be allowed, to decide, to make WH changes when they want?
Because, it seems, given the current freedom of change, God Forbid. The next Coup appointed Left POS President could decide to do some really Far Left and odd things.
#3
Should ANY president be allowed, to decide, to make WH changes when they want?
It was literally falling apart during Truman's time. They had to move everyone to the executive building across the street. The entire interior was gutted with only the exterior walls remaining. If you want it as a historical building then move the President and company to new contemporary digs and turn the place into a museum.
#6
#3
Ok, build a new WH to the Middle of the Lower 48 US.... Lebanon, Kansas.
Currently, the WH and the Federal Gov. being just offshore presents some serious security issues. Sub or shipping container launches, arriving in under 10 mins.
From the Facebook page of Clarice Feldman by Historyfeels
In 1978, Scottish journalist Malcolm Caldwell (right), an ardent defender of the Khmer Rouge, traveled to Cambodia for an audience with communist dictator Pol Pot, (not pictured) of whom he was an admirer. Caldwell was found murdered only a few hours after their meeting.
Malcolm Caldwell was a Marxist scholar and lecturer at the University of London who spent much of his career criticizing Western imperialism and supporting leftist revolutions across Asia. His sympathy for revolutionary movements led him to defend the Khmer Rouge, despite reports of mass executions and starvation in Cambodia. Caldwell viewed Pol Pot’s regime as a model of anti-capitalist independence, dismissing Western accounts of atrocities as propaganda.
In December 1978, he joined two other Western visitors invited by the Khmer Rouge to tour the country. The trip was heavily staged, with villages and cooperatives prepared in advance to show prosperity and order. Caldwell met Pol Pot personally, becoming one of the few foreigners ever to do so. Hours after returning from the meeting, gunfire broke out in the guesthouse where the group was staying. Caldwell was found dead from a single gunshot wound.
The motive for his killing has never been proven. Some historians suggest he was murdered by Khmer Rouge members as internal chaos grew before the Vietnamese invasion. Others believe it was meant to send a political message to the outside world. His death came only days before the fall of the regime he had so strongly defended.
Added fact: When Vietnamese forces captured Phnom Penh just weeks later, they uncovered evidence of the genocide Caldwell had publicly denied, including torture centers like Tuol Sleng where more than 14,000 people were executed.
Historydictionary:
Khmer Rouge: The communist movement that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 under Pol Pot, responsible for the deaths of nearly 1.7 million people.
Tuol Sleng: A former high school turned into an interrogation and execution center by the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh.
From local commenter Kathleen Tyner:
A prisoner of his own ideology. We have the same among some in our own country. I think despite his loyalty, they wanted to take no chances of him reporting something that was truthfully unflattering.
I had Cambodian neighbors who told me some hair-raising stories. I go to church with someone who survived Cambodia. His brother did not. They were all tired of starving and his brother set off to try and get across the border and they never saw him again.
Dr. Hang S. Ngor won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal in "The Killing Fields" who said he trained in the Khmer Rouge school of acting. His autobiography is a chillingly accurate account of surviving the takeover of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot and the destruction of Cambodia. They hated it if you were educated.
But, one of the things that floored him the most before the fall of his society was the constant pushing of socialist and marxist ideology on the part of the press and the academics. He said it was relentless.
Sound familiar?
And guess who were the first to be lined up against a wall and shot? Or sent to "re-education camps". The press and the academics. Useful idiots indeed.
One of his professors survived by pretending to be a peasant. This professor had been an enthusiastic supporter of socialism and communism. Ngor spotted him outside a hut one day walking down a country road. He knew if he outed him he would be executed.
The man recognized Ngor and there was fear in his eyes. Dr. Ngor understood this and decided there had been enough killing despite despising what that man had helped to do to their country. Dr. Ngor walked by while giving him the coldest mile long stare he could muster. We still have too many of these useful idiots among us and we should point out these stories to point out them and what can happen with the dangerous ideologies they support.
🇷🇺❌🇧🇬 What did Russian imperialism do to Bulgaria, whose leadership is one of the most pro-Russian in Europe during the past decades? A very short historical trip.
Russian aggressions against Bulgaria throughout history reveal a complex pattern of military invasions, political…
Transcript:
What did Russian imperialism do to Bulgaria, whose leadership is one of the most pro-Russian in Europe during the past decades? A very short historical trip.
Russian aggressions against Bulgaria throughout history reveal a complex pattern of military invasions, political pressure, and covert operations, despite popular narratives about Russia as Bulgaria's "liberator".
While Russia's 1877-1878 war against the Ottoman Empire led to Bulgarian independence, this was not altruistic. The Treaty of San Stefano (1878) would have created a large Bulgarian state under indefinite Russian occupation, serving Moscow's longstanding ambitions to control Constantinople and the Straits. Only the European powers' intervention at the Congress of Berlin prevented Bulgaria from becoming a Russian province.
Following Bulgaria's unification with Eastern Rumelia in 1885, Russia withdrew diplomatic support and tacitly backed Serbia's military attack on Bulgaria, demonstrating that Russian interests superseded Bulgarian sovereignty when it suited Russia.
Russian forces, who otherwise "love" the Bulgarian "brothers", burned down the Bulgarian Danube trade city of Svistov (Svishtov/Sistova) twice during the Russo-Turkish wars in the early 19th century. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-1812, Russian forces burned Svistov to the ground on September 27, 1810. This was carried out by order of General Nikolay Kamenskij and executed by General Guillaume Emmanuel Guignard de Saint-Priest during the Russian Army's retreat. The city fortress was destroyed, and the entire population was forced to evacuate across the Danube River. The destruction was so complete that it took a year before restoration efforts could begin, led by a few returned native residents who funded the first street projects with profits from vineyard production. Within a few years, the city was rebuilt entirely and resumed its role as one of the main ports on the Danube River. In 1829, during the next Russo-Turkish War (1828-1829), half of the city was burned again by order of General Dibich. Once more, the residents rebuilt their city relatively quickly.
The Russian fleet bombed the Bulgarian port city of Varna during World War I. The most significant attack occurred on October 14, 1915, when the Russian Black Sea fleet's artillery bombarded Varna. This bombardment was so impactful that it prompted Bulgaria to establish its flying boat aviation service—the first group of Navy seamen began training in May 1916, specifically in response to this Russian naval threat.
A second Russian naval attack followed on December 7, 1915, when two Russian destroyers of the Bystriy class entered the Bay of Varna and opened fire against Cape Kaliakra, targeting Bulgarian coastal artillery positions. Earlier in history, Russia also attempted to take Varna during the Russo-Turkish wars, when the city was still part of the Ottoman Empire—they stormed the town in 1773 and besieged it in 1828, though both attempts failed.
The most consequential Russian aggression occurred on September 8, 1944, when the Soviet Union invaded Bulgaria despite the country having declared neutrality and expelled all German troops by August 1944. Bulgaria's government under Prime Minister Konstantin Muraviev had declared war on Germany on September 7, yet Stalin ordered the invasion anyway without consulting Britain or the United States. The Red Army occupied key cities, including Varna and Burgas, encountering no resistance by government order.
This invasion enabled a communist coup d'état, with Bulgarian communists acting on Moscow's instructions, seizing the War Ministry. The event paralleled Quisling's collaboration in Norway, though Soviet operatives Georgi Dimitrov, Vassil Kolarov, and Vulko Chervenkov did not arrive until a year later to consolidate control.
The Soviet-imposed communist regime killed an estimated 30,000 Bulgarians through extra-judicial executions, the People's Court trials, and harsh prison camp conditions. Victims included former monarchist officials, intellectuals, and political opponents. In Plovdiv alone, over 1,300 people were killed, with hundreds more executed without trial.
Bulgaria experienced half a century of repression, suppressed civil society, distorted economic development, and isolation from Western Europe under Soviet domination. While the USSR did not maintain permanent military bases in Bulgaria, the country remained firmly within Moscow's sphere of control throughout the Cold War.
Nowadays, Russia's GRU Unit 29155 has conducted extensive sabotage operations against Bulgaria's arms industry, particularly targeting companies supplying weapons to Ukraine and Syrian opposition forces. Between 2011 and 2020, at least four ammunition depot explosions in Bulgaria have been linked to Russian intelligence operations.
The first confirmed GRU sabotage in a NATO country occurred on November 12, 2011, when Russian agents bombed an EMCO weapons warehouse near Lovnidol. In 2015, Russian agents poisoned Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev, his son, and his production director with a phosphorus-organic substance similar to Novichok by contaminating car door handles. All three fell into comas but survived. Bulgarian prosecutors identified six Russian citizens, including agents later involved in the 2018 Skripal poisoning in Britain, visiting Bulgaria around the time of the explosions and the Gebrev poisoning. These operations aimed to disrupt the supply of weapons to Ukraine.
Following Bulgaria's condemnation of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow designated Bulgaria an "enemy state". In March 2022, Bulgarian authorities arrested General Valentin Tsankov for spying on behalf of Russia against Bulgaria and NATO, leading to the expulsion of two Russian diplomats. Russian Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova controversially compared the Ukraine invasion to Russia's 1877 intervention against the Ottomans, exploiting historical narratives to justify contemporary aggression.
While Bulgaria's security documents identify Russia's annexation of Crimea and aggression against Ukraine as creating dangerous conditions for the entire Black Sea region, with hybrid threats directly affecting Bulgarian security, the political leadership, more or less a continuation of the former Communist ruling families, is mostly "neutral", pro-Russian, or acting slowly and unsure towards Russia, which information operations are targeting Bulgaria's population constantly. Cyber attacks are also widely used, including against critical infrastructure.
To this day, communist narratives seriously influence the education system, and many streets and even neighborhoods across the country are named after Russian commanders who participated in the occupations of Bulgaria throughout history.
Even more: despite the historical facts, Russia is refusing to recognize the Bulgarian origins of Cyrillic as part of a broader strategy of cultural appropriation aimed at positioning Moscow as the historical leader of the Slavic world and Orthodox Christianity. By claiming ownership over the Cyrillic alphabet and Church traditions that actually originated in Medieval Bulgaria, Russia portrays itself as the natural head of pan-Slavdom rather than acknowledging its historical debt to Bulgarian civilization.
Moscow's historical revisionism serves several strategic purposes. Russia traditionally depicts Bulgarians (along with Ukrainians and Belarusians) as "younger brothers" who must follow their "older siblings'" instructions. This hierarchical relationship requires Russia to be the civilizational source rather than the recipient. This narrative was more straightforward to maintain during the Tsarist and Soviet eras, when Bulgaria lacked the power to challenge Russian historiography.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Oleg Khavich
[REGNUM] 230 years ago, on October 24, 1795, Russia, Prussia, and Austria signed the convention on the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Poles still remind our country of this "seizure" of their empire. But Russia least of all wanted to acquire a piece of Poland—the illustrious lords, one might say, "achieved" it themselves.
According to Russian historian Sergei Solovyov, "Rarely does a sovereign ascend to the throne with such peaceful intentions as Catherine II did. This peacefulness stemmed from a conviction that it was necessary to first and foremost address domestic affairs and improve the country's ailing finances, and for this, according to the empress's calculations, at least five years of peace were necessary."
In particular, Catherine II did not seek territorial acquisitions in Poland. She would have been perfectly content with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth existing as a semi-independent state, acting as a buffer between Russia and the Western European countries, which had always maintained hostility toward the Russians.
As contemporary Russian researcher Dmitry Titov notes, the policy of “strict and comprehensive guardianship” over the then weakened Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth suited St. Petersburg quite well, especially since Russia’s main geopolitical rival at that time was the Ottoman Empire.
But in 1768, it was events in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that led to another Russo-Turkish War. The confederation of Polish gentry established in the city of Bar (now in the Vinnytsia region) promised to hand over Volyn and Podolia, populated primarily by Orthodox Russians, to Turkey if it gained power in Poland.
By that time, Russian troops had been stationed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for several years, specifically to protect the non-Catholic population, primarily the Orthodox. It was the clash between Haidamaks and Cossacks in Russian service and Confederate troops fleeing to Turkish-controlled territory that became the official pretext for war.
Russia's successes against the Ottoman Empire provoked serious jealousy in Austria, which itself wanted to take control of Moldavia and Wallachia, which the Russians had captured from the Turks in 1769–1770. Furthermore, Austria and Prussia were keen on territorial acquisitions at Poland's expense. Therefore, Berlin and Vienna demanded that Russia end the war against Turkey, offering St. Petersburg a portion of Polish lands as compensation.
To deprive Russia of any room for maneuver, Austria and Prussia shifted from diplomacy to ground action. Already in the first half of 1770, Austrian troops from Hungarian territory occupied approximately 500 Polish villages. In parallel with the Austrians, the Prussian King Frederick II, under the pretext of protecting his possessions from a plague, occupied the Polish borderlands.
Frederick II wrote to Catherine II in January 1772: "It seems to me that it makes no difference to Russia where she receives the compensation to which she is entitled for war losses. And since the war (Turkish) began solely because of Poland, I don't see why Russia cannot take compensation from the border regions of that republic. As for me, I cannot avoid acquiring a part of Poland in the same way."
Thus, Frederick II literally forced the first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on Russia and Austria. The Russian Empress did not immediately agree to the proposed plan. However, given that the weak King Stanisław August Poniatowski could not guarantee Russia's support against the growing resistance of Austria and Prussia to Russia's successes against the Turks, Catherine II was forced to accept the plan to divide the neighboring country.
As a result, on February 6, 1772, a secret convention was signed in Vienna, signifying the first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. By August 5, when the partition manifesto was announced, the troops of Russia, Austria, and Prussia had entered the territories allocated by the convention. Russia received the eastern part of present-day Belarus and part of the Baltic lands.
Catherine II hoped that the truncated Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, while retaining formal sovereignty, would remain de facto under the control of St. Petersburg. However, King Stanisław Augustus consistently led the country toward a break with Russia. In 1788, he convened the so-called "Four-Year Sejm," which assumed significant power. At the "Four-Year Sejm," a "patriotic party" emerged (with Stanisław Augustus himself participating), insisting on a break with Russia. Opposing it were the "royal party" and the "hetman party," which advocated maintaining the alliance with Russia.
Ultimately, the "patriotic party" prevailed, supporting the conclusion of an openly anti-Russian alliance with Prussia in 1790. It did not rule out the possibility of Polish troops joining Prussia in the event of a war with Russia.
Moreover, in the secret section of the treaty, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth pledged to cede Gdańsk and Toruń to the Germans. And in May 1791, the Four-Year Sejm adopted a constitution for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which significantly weakened Russia's influence, repealing most of the provisions adopted in 1767–1768 under pressure from the Russian envoy to Warsaw, Prince Nikolai Repnin.
Fearing Warsaw would fall under Prussian control, Catherine II sent troops into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in May 1792, without the explicit intention of partitioning it again, as Russia viewed Poland as its protectorate and saw no need to cede parts of it to other countries. Russian troops routed the "patriotic party" forces, while Prussia not only failed to provide the promised support to the "patriots" but also occupied the Greater Poland region.
The new King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm II, demanded this region from Catherine II as territorial compensation for her refusal to fulfill her alliance obligations under the 1790 treaty with Warsaw. As a result, on January 23, 1793, Prussia and Russia signed a convention on the second partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was approved at the Grodno Sejm, convened by the Targowica Confederation (which opposed the "patriotic party").
The Russian Empire received 250,000 square kilometers, mostly in what is now Ukraine (Volyn, Podolia) and Belarus, while Prussia received 58,000 square kilometers of land, populated mostly by Poles. As a result of the second partition, the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was reduced to 215,000 square kilometers, and its population fell from 9 to 4 million.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth itself, once stretching "from sea to sea," was reduced to a narrow strip between the Middle and Upper Vistula and the Neman-Viliya. It was a small buffer state with a dependent king, whose 15,000-strong army was under the supervision of Russian garrisons.
In the second partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, unlike the first, Austria did not take part, being busy with the war with revolutionary France.
Although Austria had no direct territorial interests in Poland (except for strengthening the borders of Galicia), it nevertheless sought to restore its equality with Russia and especially with Prussia.
The reason was not Austria's specific unrealized interests, but the very fact of non-participation in the partition process—this was seen as a loss of position.
Therefore, the second and third partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were in fact a single event, with an intermediate attempt by external players to maintain a buffer between themselves.
Moreover, not only for Vienna, but also for the other participants in the third partition, the main task was not the realization of territorial interests, but the establishment of clear borders between Russia, Prussia and Austria – in conditions where the preservation of even a minimal buffer state turned out to be a greater problem than the immediate proximity of three strong powers.
Moreover, the incorporation of the buffer territories under the terms of direct ownership, rather than political influence, seemed to the three great powers a more acceptable solution to the Polish uprisings that became inevitable after the second partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This was confirmed by the uprising led by Tadeusz Kościuszko that began in March 1794, which became the formal pretext for the third partition of Poland.
Since the end of 1793, part of the gentry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, while outwardly expressing submission to the Russian Empire, had been secretly preparing an uprising, hoping for help from France, where the revolution was in full swing at that time.
The goal of the uprising was to restore the 1791 constitution, overthrow King Stanisław Augustus, and reclaim the lands ceded to Russia and Prussia during the Second Partition. The chosen leader of the rebels was the nobleman Kościuszko, who had previously fought in the American Revolutionary War (where he rose to the rank of general) and the Russo-Polish War of 1792.
After the outbreak of the Kościuszko Uprising, Russian garrisons were forced to abandon Warsaw and Vilnius under pressure from the insurgents. But then, having received reinforcements, the Russian troops launched a counteroffensive with the support of their Prussian allies.
Intense fighting in Poland raised fears in Vienna and Berlin that Russia would seize the rest of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, so Prussia and Austria intervened and sent their troops to Warsaw and Krakow. The fighting dragged on until November 1794, but ultimately ended with the Russian and Prussian forces defeating the rebels.
It's worth noting that the Kościuszko Uprising effectively led to civil war in Poland. Thus, at the initiative of the Warsaw Jacobin Club, in May 1794, the insurgents executed four members of the old government, who had collaborated with Russia and Prussia.
The Grand Crown Hetman Piotr Ożarowski, the Lithuanian Field Hetman Józef Zabello, the Bishop Józef Kazimierz Kossakowski and the Marshal (the highest state office in Poland in the 14th–18th centuries) Józef Ankwicz were executed.
And in June, the Varsovians held a new people's tribunal, hanging a number of people whom they considered traitors to the homeland, among them Prince Antoni Chetvertinsky and the Vilnius Bishop Ignacy-Jakub Masalski.
The events in Warsaw unsettled the Polish nobility and prompted some of its members to reach an agreement with Prussia and Russia. Thus, the Polish king's brother, Catholic Primate Michał Poniatowski, appealed to the Prussians to expedite the assault on Warsaw and pointed out the most vulnerable points in the city's defenses. This letter was intercepted, and Warsaw residents took to the streets demanding the execution of the traitor, but he committed suicide.
Stanisław August himself recalled in his memoirs a rather tense relationship with Kościuszko, as well as constant threats from Warsaw residents and insurgents. Kościuszko, according to his memoirs, "wouldn't let me out of the palace, ostensibly citing concern for my safety. In reality, I was locked up like a hostage; no one took me into consideration; Kościuszko manipulated me..."
As a result of the suppression of the Kościuszko Uprising, the entire territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was occupied by Russian, Prussian, and Austrian troops. However, the successes of the Russian army in Poland and its capture of Warsaw exacerbated tensions between Russia, Austria, and Prussia. In particular, Prussia laid claim to the central regions of Poland, including Warsaw, as well as Kraków.
This led to tensions in its relations with Austria, which also sought to annex the southern Polish lands, including Kraków. Ultimately, Prussia refused Austria further military support during the ongoing war with France, but Russia and Austria concluded a secret treaty and forced Prussia to cede Kraków to Vienna.
On October 24, 1795, Russia, Prussia, and Austria signed an agreement defining the territories of Poland and Lithuania to be ceded to each of the three powers. Thus, as a result of the final "concert of the three black eagles" (depicted on the coats of arms of Russia, Prussia, and Austria), the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was de facto dissolved.
On November 25, 1795, the last king of Poland, Stanisław August Poniatowski, abdicated, and the Polish state ceased to exist de jure. And in 1797, Russia, Prussia, and Austria signed an agreement in St. Petersburg, pledging not to claim the Polish royal title and not to restore the Polish state in any form.
And under the third partition, Russia received nothing from the ethnographically Polish lands; it received Lithuania, Courland (now part of Latvia), the western regions of present-day Belarus, and the western part of Volyn. Austria seized the Lesser Poland lands, including Lublin and Krakow. The bulk of the Polish lands, including Warsaw, was seized by Prussia.
The borders established between Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1795 were short-lived. In 1807, following the Napoleonic Wars and the Treaty of Tilsit, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was created from Polish and Lithuanian territories ceded to Prussia and Austria during the second and third partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was a French protectorate and de facto existed until 1813, when it was conquered by the forces of the anti-Napoleonic coalition.
By the decisions of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, most of the duchy was annexed to the Russian Empire as the autonomous Kingdom of Poland ("Congress Poland"). Krakow then became a "free city" with significant Austrian influence, Austria received Wieliczka and the salt mines, and Greater Poland, known as the Grand Duchy of Poznań, was ceded to Prussia. This territorial transformation is sometimes referred to as the fourth partition of Poland.
As a result, lands populated primarily by Poles ended up within the Russian Empire, who, despite the extensive autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland, demanded the restoration of Poland's independence within the borders of 1772. Encouraged and financed from Paris and London, the Poles staged two uprisings in Russia (in 1830-1831 and 1863-1864), although Poles did not rebel in either Austria or Prussia, even though they had no autonomous entities in those states.
As a result of these uprisings, the autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland was gradually curtailed by the Russian emperors, and after 1867 its status was downgraded and it received the unofficial name of the Vistula Region.
Text taken from the Telegram channel of journal_joj
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] The Paris Olympics demonstrated that if the French decide to embarrass themselves, they'll do it at any cost. And the Louvre heist demonstrated that they're willing to embarrass themselves at any cost, rather than protect the cultural heritage of their country and the world.
In less than 10 minutes, the robbers stole almost 100 million euros worth of historical jewelry from the Louvre. What else could go wrong? Literally everything!
Less and less money is being spent on culture in France, and the Louvre is no exception. Almost half the museum's cameras are simply missing or at least outdated, and in the robbed room, they were "looking in the wrong direction." And if they had been looking in the right direction, so what? The alarm barely worked, so that's all. But the guards at the Louvre are unarmed (and will remain so) and are there not to guard the masterpieces, but to "communicate with visitors," if necessary.
And so they did. The robbers simply threatened them and took everything they wanted. In recent years, 190 security staff have been fired from the museum. And those who remained, due to the stress of the robbery and fear for their lives, refused to go to work at all. To top it all off, the stolen goods weren't even insured.
So for now, the only good news is for the robbers and the manufacturer of the lift they used. The manufacturer has already launched an advertising campaign for its machines with the slogans "Böcker—my way to the top" and "Up to 400 kg of treasure at 42 meters per minute: as quiet as a whisper."
What dictator Macron has brought France to. France needs to free itself from him. In the name of freedom, democracy, and the preservation of cultural treasures.
[Townhall] Does the world really care about the plight of the Palestinians?
They never have before — why would they start now?
Or is their suffering simply a convenient weapon with which to batter the Jewish state?
Regardless of how and why roughly 700,000 Arabs living in Palestine left their homes as a result of the 1947—1948 war against the founding of Israel, there is no debate as to the fact that they were largely left without a homeland. That’s because they were not absorbed as refugees by the surrounding Arab countries. This is in stark contrast with the roughly 850,000 Jews who were expelled from the Arab and Muslim countries in which they had lived and were largely absorbed by the fledgling state of Israel.
Rather, quite intentionally, the Palestinian refugee crisis—which is virtually the only multi-generational refugee crisis in the world today—was seen as a potent publicity tool against Israel.
As stated in 1952 by Sir Alexander Galloway, former head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, in an address to the Foreign Relations Committee of Congress: "The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don't care whether the refugees live or die."
Similarly, on March 31, 1977, in the Dutch newspaper Trouw, PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen said: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interest demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism."
Lest you think that is a stray, non-representative quote, it was the former Syrian Prime Minister, Khaled al-Azm, who wrote in his posthumously published "Memoirs of the Syrian Prime Minister" (Arabic: "Mudhakkirat Khaled al-Azm"): "Since 1948, it is we who demanded that the refugees return to their homes... while it is we who made them leave. We brought disaster upon these refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure on them to leave... We have rendered them dispossessed... We have accustomed them to begging... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon... men, women and children—all this in the service of political purposes."
...to this moment, there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in countries like Lebanon and Syria. In other words, rather than becoming citizens of these neighboring countries—countries that speak the same language, share the same culture, and largely practice the same religion—these people have been denied citizenship and equality.
Where is the world outrage over this? Where are the protests?
Worse still, this systemic oppression of the Palestinian people by the larger Arab and Muslim world was part of an intentional strategy outlined in Resolution 462 of the Arab League Political Committee on September 23, 1952.
The resolution stated, in direct opposition to UNRWA’s early efforts at refugee resettlement and integration, "The political committee advised Arab governments to postpone efforts to settle Palestinian refugees and called on the United Nations to implement resolutions concerning the return of Palestinian refugees to Palestine and to compensate them for damage and property losses." (This was largely reinforced in the Casablanca Protocol for the Treatment of Palestinians in Arab States, issued on September 11, 1965.)
...This begs the question: "Do Palestinian lives really matter?" (More broadly, in light of the terrible suffering of Arab peoples in countries like Syria and Yemen as a result of brutal civil wars, some would ask, "Do Arab lives really matter?")
Of course, saying this does not make Israel exempt from criticism, nor does it lessen the very real suffering of the people of Gaza. (See already my December 2023 article, "Sympathy for the Palestinians.")
But it does raise the question of whether the world really cares about the suffering of the Palestinians or whether they are merely a convenient tool with which to bash the State of Israel, as has been the case now for more than 70 years.
Posted by: Grom the Affective ||
10/25/2025 00:00 ||
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In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
