Morning in Vienna

By Aussiegirl

The painting is entitled "Sobieski at Vienna", a depiction of the great Battle of Vienna that Tim Birdnow discusses in this wonderful article. We have to understand the vital role that anniversaries and dates play in the Islamic world. This is a long article and well-worth a complete read. I've excerpted some portions, but don't miss the link to read it all.

The American Thinker

There are pivotal moments in history, events in which the course of human affairs is altered forever. One such moment occurred along the Danube River in 1683. On that fateful morning in the later 17th century, the fate of Western Civilization was sealed by the determination of those brave defenders who stood their ground against the might of the Ottoman Turks.

We face a similar crisis today, and the fate of our civilization likewise hangs in the balance. How we handle the current situation in Middle East in the next few months or years may well decide our future for good.

Three centuries ago, the Turks were in their final push against Christendom, the last expansionistic act by the spear of Islam in their jihad to conquer Europe for Allah. It was second big push for the jihad against Christendom

The Saracens had fallen 900 years before to defeat by the Franks under Charles Martel in 732, and had been confined to the Iberian Peninsula until 1492 when their last outpost at Granada fell to Aragon and Castille. In the East the Turks had fought to retake and hold Palestine during the Crusades, and, despite the brief establishment of a Christian Kingdom in that land, had managed to force the Crusaders back into Europe, but had not been successful in penetrating into their heartland.

Constantinople proved far more difficult to conquer than the Muslims had expected, and did not fall until 1453. The great expansion of Islam had obviously lost steam, and the final battle would be fought by a ragtag group of defenders: Lithuanians, Hapsburgs, Saxons, Bavarians, and Poles against Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha and the might of the Ottoman army. Vienna would be the decisive battle.

The Battle of Vienna ended in defeat for the Muslims, and began the long slide by Islam into near irrelevance, as far as the Europeans cared. The battle opened after a 2 month siege of the Holy Roman Empire’s capital city on September 12, 1683 in the pre-dawn hours. It ended that era of Islamic expansion with a defeat at the hands of Jan Ill Sobieski and Charles V of Lorraine.

When the World Trade Center was destroyed in 2001, nobody in the news media seemed to understand the choice of September 11 by al Qaeda as their attack date. It has often been suggested that this was merely a random date chosen for convenience. I beg to differ. It seems clear to me that bin Laden was sending America and the West a message. Al Qaeda had an old score to settle, and was putting us on notice that the era of expansion is resuming after the interruption of Vienna. Night fell on September 12 for the soldiers of Allah, and so our towers fell on the preceding morning three hundred and eighteen years later.

It is important to understand this history in order to understand what we are up against; our enemy has a long memory and seeks to avenge this defeat of its ancestors. The radical Islamists are not upset about our presence in their lands, nor are they upset about Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, nor about our “exploitation” of their oil fields, nor our invasion of Iraq. They are taking a much longer view, a view with vengeance in mind! Vengeance for Tours, vengeance for Granada, vengeance for Vienna. They want to reinvigorate Islam, return to the days of pride and victory and submission by their foes. They want to establish the Caliphate and place the entire world under Sharia law. If we in America fail to understand this, we have failed to understand our enemy.

[...]Time is clearly not on our side. The longer we wait to deal with the problems of terrorism and state sponsorship, the greater the danger grows. Our enemy continues to develop its technological capabilities, and the longer we wait the stronger they will be. We have to act far more quickly and effectively today.

We are at the critical moment in history. We are now the defenders with our backs to the walls of Vienna! We are the soldiers upon whom everything depends! Our courage or failure will set the course for the rest of human history; we have to act! We have the power to do what is necessary, we have the means, but do we have the will?

Timothy Birdnow is the proprietor of Birdblog.