Beslan And Guernica
By James Bowden (09/16/04)
Beslan is to World War IV as Guernica is to World War II. Pablo Picasso immortalized Guernica’s horror in art. The videos from Beslan aren’t art, but they, too, may become international memory.
On April 26, 1937 the Nazi Totalitarians deliberately bombed civilians in Guernica, Spain. On September 3, 2004 the Islamist Totalitarians deliberately murdered children in Breslan, Russia. The aerial bombing in Guernica foretold the murderous bombing of cities in WW II. The targeting of children in Beslan foreshadows the vicious terrorism against families in WW IV.
1,654 civilians were killed at Guernica. 889 were wounded. They were the targets of the new military technology – bombs from planes. 330 civilians, more than 150 children, were killed at Beslan. Hundreds more were wounded. They were hostages of the new military technology – suicide bomber belts.
Two symbols of two World Wars show the depravity of evil. The evil is real. It’s not the aerial or belt bombs. The evil is in the bombers themselves.
Guernica preceded Pearl Harbor. Beslan followed 9-11. Yet, both indications of coming evil are dismissed by more Americans than not with a fleeting sadness. Both tragedies should be captured as a personal alarms. Picasso got it. His painting speaks to people around the world long after the newspaper print yellowed and many, and much greater, evils came to pass. The source of the evil Picasso portrayed was defeated in WW II, but not until many evils, by all sides, were committed.
Evil didn’t rest for a single season before fighting in Greece and China declared a new conflict. WW III, the long Cold War, began almost immediately and lingered for decades until Soviet Communist Totalitarianism was defeated. Another evil destroyed at the cost of evil acts all around. All wars are evil, but some wars, like anti-Communist Totalitarian fights, were necessary.
WW IV will likely be decades longer than WW III. WW IV will have a savagery that butchery in Beslan only hints. It will be different from other world wars, but like the U.S. Indian wars (1608-1892). The Nazi and Soviet Communist Totalitarianisms in World Wars II and III had limits. The Nazi’s didn’t commit chemical war, when they could have. The Communists avoided a nuclear Armageddon and acknowledged mutual deterrence. Yet, the Islamists are motivated, not constrained, by their interpretations of Islam. Every non-Muslim – women, children, aged seniors – is the enemy. Anyone can be killed with impunity and cruelty by any means – nothing is too brutal, too horrible.
Well-warned of Islamist terror knowing no bounds, what then for American Civilization? Understand what ‘winning’ means for WW IV. Have the Will for the ‘how’ to win WW IV. Hold realistic expectations for how very, very long the war, how varied the campaigns, how terrible the possible casualties among our innocents as well as soldiers.
Winning WW IV means defeating the culture that produces Islamists. Victory can come from within Islam with a Reformation and Enlightenment. Or, defeat can follow outside ideas, like Christianity or Human Secular Paganism, that overwhelm and discredit the currency of Islam that creates Islamist terrorists.
The Will to win is being tested in Beslan, Russia in tougher ways than the heartache of our military losses in Afghanistan and Iraq. Two brothers and pastors, Taymuraz and Sergey Totiev, from the Evangelical Baptist Church in Beslan lost six of their eight children to the Islamists. Do these families have the will to keep living on the frontier of Orthodox Christian civilization? Can these pastors keep evangelizing Christianity to the un-churched in Russia, or will Islam be more attractive? Do these fathers offer prayers of support to Christian fighters and compassion for Muslim enemies who surrender?
Until 1.2 billion Muslims can’t count 150 million Islamists among their numbers, the Islamists must be contained. Keeping Islamist fighting troops out of America means severely limiting, or ending, immigration from every Islamist-producing land across the globe. The Liberals will call such restrictions ‘racial profiling’. The priest-king judges will legislate from the bench to open the U.S. to terrorists, but the judges can be defrocked by any Congress and President who summon the courage to do their Constitutional duties.
Someday the memories of Beslan will have a home in a museum, just like Guernica. Until then, the hearts of two Christian ministers’ families need loving balm. All Islamist victims’ families need healing. And America and Russia need to cooperate more and better against the common enemy, the Islamist barbarians, at the gates of our Civilizations.
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