On a small scale in the French Army.
le Figaro carries the story in the French, and while my own is a bit rusty, I’ll give it a go:
Plusieurs soldats musulmans ont refusé de combattre en Afghanistan, invoquant leur confession, selon des informations du blog de libération “Secret défense“, confirmées par l’armée de terre.
A number of Muslim soldiers have refused combat in Afghanistan by invoking their faith, according to information from the blog of (the newspaper) Liberation, “Secret Defense,” and as confirmed by the army.
Il s’agit de jeunes musulmans qui ne voulaient pas aller combattre d’autres musulmans en Afghanistan, écrit le journaliste de Libération Jean-Dominique Merchet sur son blog.
It was an issue of young Muslims who would not go to combat against other Muslims in Afghanistan, wrote the Liberation journalist, Jean-Dominique Merchet on his blog.
“Le refus de partir en mission pour raisons confessionnelles est un micro-phénomène qui concerne moins de cinq cas par an”, a dit le colonel Benoît Royal, chef du Service d’information et de relations publiques de l’armée de terre (SIRPA-Terre), interrogé par l’AFP.
The refusal to go on mission for reasons of faith is a micro-phenomenon which occurs less than five times per year, said Colonel Benoit Royal, chief of the public affairs office of the the army.
Il traduit selon lui, “au-delà de la raison invoquée par les soldats, une erreur de compréhension du sens de leur engagement qui consiste à porter les armes de la France pour défendre ses intérêts et ses valeurs en tous temps et en tous lieux”.
According to him (Royal) “the reason invoked by the soldiers is an error in understanding the sense of their commitment which is to bear French arms to defend France’s interests and values in all times and all places.
Toujours selon le colonel Royal, “une procédure disciplinaire est systématiquement engagée en cas de refus de partir en opération, aboutissant dans la plupart des cas à une résiliation de contrat”.
Again according to Colonel Royal, “a disciplinary process is systematically engaged in case of refusals to go on operations, resulting in most cases in a cancellation of the employment contract.”
Le blog de Libération précise qu’un cas a été signalé en dernier lieu en octobre au 1er régiment d’infanterie de Sarrebourg (Moselle). Le soldat est toutefois revenu sur sa décision après avoir rencontré un aumônier musulman des armées.
The Liberation blog says that the last such case took place in October in the first regiment of infantry of Sarrebourg (Moselle). The solder reversed his decision after having met a Muslim army chaplain.
Tombé malade alors qu’il devait partir au stage de préparation, le soldat ne sera toutefois par envoyé en Afghanistan comme prévu le mois prochain, information également confirmée par le colonel Royal.
Having fallen sick when he should have gone to deployment preparation (training), the soldier will only to be sent to Afghanistan as previously intended next month, Colonel Royal also confirmed.
Le nombre de militaires français de confession musulmane est inconnu, rappelle “Secret Défense”, la loi française interdisant toute comptabilisation de la religion.
The number of Muslim soldiers in the French army is uknown according to “Secret Defense”; French law forbids any accounting of personnel by religion.
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Well, I guess it could have been worse.
re: it “could have been worse.”
Yeah, it coulda. My, how times change. It’s an open question whether the changes in La France are better or worse.
With a Mother whose name is “Quran”
Bilal, sgt Hassan Karim Ackbar never had a chance–although I somehow think his adopted name was still an improvement over Mark “Fidel” “Kools.”
BTW, I fell compelled to remind one and all of the way this story was “disappeared” from American public view by the Dhimmi MSM even unto this day. I mean, a black AND a Moslem?–that’s a twofer in the protected species category for the MSM.
This is only the first hint of the catastrophe that will result from the demographic bomb that is planted in Europe. Why worry about the primitive Iranian nuclear weapons when all the advanced weapons possessed by England, France and Germany will be in the hands of the new population within 20 years.
Edward, dear, if your (US) government gets its way and Turkey becomes a full-scale EU member (for which the USA has pressured since years) it will happen even faster. From that moment on there will be more Muslims in “Europe” than Catholics.
This is one particular reason why I find the American “Eurabia” bashing so repulsive.
Hajo, it helps that the Turks, culturally, are quite independent of the Arab realm, being turks and all that. Traditions of secularism are still holding, although even they are trending for the worse. I also doubt that they will be inducted anytime soon, as their reluctance in recognizing certain events will prevent/delay the EU from allowing entry.
Not to mention Cyprus.
I think the flashpoint will be Western Europe, but any issues will be internal, with immigration being the key issue. If this economic downturn lasts, the bread and circuses routine found in socialist countries like the UK and FRA will fall apart, leading to unrest. With groups not assimilating, yet given the same if not more rights and support than the natives, a very ominous cloud is on the horizon for the EU.
Keep a watch on UK politics, that will indicate the direction of the fall.
This is why I find the typical European “treating Americans as if they were simplistic colonials with no view of history, cultures, and demographics of nations not their own” a bit repulsive.
With that aside, what possible punishment is possible for these… “soldiers” and will the French enact it?
Well that’s interesting. What in the heck is going to happen as France becomes more and more Muslim and their military become predominantly Muslim, and they are attacked by a Middle Eastern country?
Will they be relying on the US to save their hides? Again? Been there done that…
Take this problem and compare it to the “don’t ask don’t tell” or “non-fraternization” problems we had before.
At least if I’m, you know, a buddy in more than name only with the guy next to me I’m pretty much motivated to save his hide.
If I’m more concerned about not killing any of the enemy, because I believe I follow an order from the highest chain of command?
Yeah, not going to be much use to my unit or my country.
It will be, um, interesting to see how the Europeans deal with their armed forces and demographics in this regard. Meanwhile, we made a mountain out of mouse-droppings.
Shows we’re in better shape than they are.
– Max
Any that did this in Afghanistan should face a firing squad. Refusal of orders on the battlefield during time of war. Those who did it in France should face prison or deportation.
They mean to convert or kill us all. There are not a lot of nuanced responses to that sort of threat. Sooner or later we will fight or we will be overwhelmed.
GeoSTI, whenever looking towards UK or France I actually find Germany lucky that our Muslim minority is almost exclusively Turkish. They are usually decent people.
Know what? If our social-conservative party, the “Christian Democratic Union” would jump across its shadow and admit that Germany is effectively an immigration country, they would enlarge their base by loyal supporters, focused on family, decent living and other conservative values as e.g. making money for a living.
That is however yet something else than having Turkey as a full-scale member with no borders and thus supposedly massive migration.
My problem with “Eurabia” is that Americans seem only often to use it as a specter for something they fear inside their own country: the USA becoming a secular society and a society shaped by new waves of immigrants. This is then accompanied by a list of shocking examples, which may all well be true for themselves, but do not describe what living on the old continent actually is like.
Take for example the title of this piece: “Mutiny”. What mutiny? A “number” of seemingly unrelated people refused to do their duty because they believed they were entitled to be treated specially. It’s not that a platoon or a company refused to fight. If this a mutiny, what word do you then have when regiment or a division as a whole refuse to follow orders?
P.S.: I did not want to argue “Eurabia” through in this post, but I’d like to give some numbers. These are for Germany (every European nation has a different set of immigrants), but it is similar in other continental nations (with different nationality for the minorities):
a) 19% of German population are immigrants. 10% of them have German nationality, 9% are foreign nationals.
b) The largest groups are around 5 million Russians of German ethnicity and more then 2 million Turks.
c) People who migrated to Germany in the last 6 years (in thousand) 1.660
(Breakdown according to statehood is (numbers in thousand))
Geografic Europe 956
* core EU 361
- Greece 12
- Italy 25
- Poland 111
* other Europe 595
- Bosnia and Herzegowina 19
- Croatia 14
- Romania 29
- Russia 244
- Serbia and Montenegro 40
- Turkey 110
- Ukraine 75
Africa 76
America 75
- Northern America 32
Asien, Australia und Oceania 344
* Near and Middle East 177
- Kasachstan 75
* South and South-east Asia 88
could not be traced 209
Now, if we assume that “could not be traced” is similarly distributed than the other numbers (though I expect it to be predominantly African), than people from Arabia are around 100 million contrasted with 250 million from Russia. Sounds more like “Eurasia”
Hijo,
A mutiny is a mutiny, regardless of the number of people involved. Captain Bligh lost his command to a mutiny. The French in WW1 almost lost a whole war to a mutiny (1917). The crime is in the refusal of proper orders, regardless of combat status of the unit. What these soldiers are saying is that they have no problem obeying the rightful authority in Paris – so long as the enemy isn’t even remotely possibly coreligionists. This sets up a conflict of interest – to whom does the soldier owe his loyalty? If to his religion, then let him resign and become a priest. If it is to the state as a whole, then he must examine if those he faces in the field represent his religion, or not. For the record, there are thousands of muslims in both our military and in the French forces. The overwhelming majority of muslim troops do not have an issue with taking the fight to our opponents, regardless of religion. From the perspective of the state, however, there may be only one correct answer – and the soldiers in question have not selected it.
As to the notion that the United States is a non-secular nation, we have been a secular nation in our governance since 1787 – longer than any other nation now in existence on this Earth. Various religious elements have a certain amount of cultural influence – but influence is not the same as power. As any association (including religions) gains what appears to be too much influence here, it finds that influence begin to wane. This is a cultural reflection on the nature of power and influence, over here. Even the fever-dream curtailing of liberty from our farthest-gone who claim to be religious (I’m thinking here the “gentleman” who protests funerals of troops due to DADT, and others of his ilk) pale in comparison to nations now and in the recent past where a religion has held full power to enforce its tenets – by which I mean everything from Iran’s mullahs on one end, to various acolytes of Marx and Lenin on the other. As an aside, it is very possible that the influence of religion in the US is on the wane at the moment. It cycles here, with a period of roughly 20-30 years. As the last maxima was approximately 25-30 years ago, we’re about due for a dip until the next cycle. What we fear in the case of EUrabia is that it will become a neo-Caliphate, where religion crosses from having significant influence to having outright power – and the means to go with the current will to project that power. The plain fact that there are “no-go zones” for the authorities in Europe means that this is already happening.
There is simply nothing comparable in the States – people may not be fully cooperative with the authorities in our slums, but nowhere do the authorities fear for their very lives, regardless of numbers, on general principles – particularly in the midst of providing first-response to emergencies. France does not exist in the Banlieus of Paris the way that America exists in Chicago’s South Side. Our concern is meant as a “friendly warning,” as one would expect when a neighbor’s roof is on fire. What you do from there is entirely up to you. You’re telling us you’ve got it covered; ok, we’ll leave the problem to you then. Having helped fight 3 such fires and paid to rebuild a house nearly from scratch twice in the last hundred years, I’m sure that we’ll gladly let you guys take care of this one entirely. It’s not our necks on the line, at this point.
What Blacksmith said.
Western civilization has prospered because we have come to recognize that progress comes from a separation of powers. Religion provides guidance for the spiritual being, while secular law provides guidance for the physical being.
Islam considers itself a complete system which needs no secular world. The observant muslims see the various states as artificial constructs, a convenience of sorts, with the Umma being the primary means of self-identification. Muslims are Muslim first, and something-else second.
Can you imagine returning to a world where people identified themselves as Protestant first, claiming that every utterance from their Synod took precedence over secular law? That’s a frightening vision, but that’s exactly what Islam is.
France needs to require a loyalty oath, and a signed and sworn declaration from every citizen and immigrant that they recognize secular law above all other religious or spiritual beliefs, and that France’s laws trump all others while they remain in France. Hard punishment, of the most Draconian means, should accompany infractions of that oath, meted out swiftly and publicly, with expulsion to follow.
It helps to remember that Islam means “submission”.
“Hey Abbud, you got my back??”
“Yea, Alphonse…I got your back…”
Thou shan’t get it and should not expect it. Sane governments do not recruit the insane or madmen.
In the world of USN aviation; the aviator, everyday, straps on that thing with wings and has the bedrock confidence that every soul that maintained that bird did so with the best interests of him/herself and that of the United States in mind.
Now just as a mental exercise, pretend that one of those petty officers had a secret place in his heart and wanted to kill mericans. How much oversight and QA are going to be necessary to keep the aircraft flying?
By their words you will know them
By their deeds you will judge them
My mask may have slipped over the last couple of weeks but I have the most profound admiration and respect for the aviators, aircrew, pilots and NFOs that fly for this country.
“Can you imagine returning to a world where people identified themselves as Protestant first, claiming that every utterance from their Synod took precedence over secular law?”…that’s kind of Al Gore’s position, when he tells people to illegally shut down the construction of coal-fired power plants in accordance with the precepts of the Gaiian religion.
david foster/
Amen, brother, and btw, isn’t Gore and similar types skating close to “incitement to riot” when they urge such courses of action?
“A mutiny is a mutiny” (Blacksmith)
Of course. And an egg is an egg.
“What we fear in the case of EUrabia”
There is no such thing as Eurabia except in the mind of conspiracy theorists and Europe-haters.
“The plain fact that there are “no-go zones” for the authorities in Europe means that this is already happening.”
Really? How many of those no-go zones?