The Breaking of Nations

Americans should pay attention to the Lisbon Treaty and the corresponding events in Europe. We're on the same road, and we're fast approaching a point of no return.

Europe -- the Europe of free and independent nations -- is no more. Sovereignty is all but dead there, and a collective behemoth, tellingly referred to as the "European soviet" by Mikhail Gorbachev, now straddles the continent, ushering in a new tyranny for the 21^st century. With the unanimous (and highly undemocratic) ratification of the infamous Lisbon Treaty on November 3, 2009, the European Union has achieved a transfer of authority that even the most aggressive military conquests could not. Even the German Anschluss can't compare to this unified surrender of freedom by stargazing Europeans.

Europe is now lost to history. In the Lisbon treaty are calls for E.U. treaty-making power (immediately "binding" on member states -- national parliamentary ratification not optional) [1], a common immigration and asylum policy (i.e., no more national control of illegal immigration flows) [2], and the most damning proposal, a requirement that individual nations receive permission from fellow member-states before military action can be taken in the self-interest of the nation concerned [3].

The agreement says, "The Union's competence in matters of common foreign and security policy shall cover all areas of foreign policy and all questions relating to the Union's security, including the progressive framing of a common defense policy that might lead to a common defense" [4]. The new pan-European High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy now commands the largest collective military force in the region.

Borders are no longer an issue, because Lisbon solves immigration problems by "ensuring the absence of any controls on persons, whatever their nationality, when crossing internal borders" [5].

Even voting rights have been circumvented. Lisbon contains provisions granting foreigners the right to vote and stand in elections in nations not their own, so long as they are European s[6]. Should Germans represent British citizens? With no authentic collective interest, this development promises to sever citizens from their leaders and neutralize political accountability. Even U.S. states don't allow non-residents to stand in local elections.

Also in the Lisbon Treaty is one of the most destructive documents in European history, counterintuitively called the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Long resisted by some member nations due to the large seizures of individual liberty inherent in the document, the charter contains a provision that reads: "Limitations [on individual liberty] may be made ... if they are necessary and genuinely meet objectives of general interest recognized by the union or the need to protect the rights and freedoms of others"[7].

The degradation of liberty has already begun. Lisbon comes complete with a European justice system, replacing centuries of Anglo-Saxon common law with the Code Napoleon -- i.e., guilty until proven innocent. European courts can now kidnap innocent British citizens to stand trial in foreign lands by way of the new European Arrest Warrant (EAW). So far, over two hundred Britons have been arrested under the EAW, and 101 have been extradited.

The unelected European Commission can revise, edit, or even remake the laws passed by the people's duly elected representatives. The "primacy of EU law," which has been compared to the American supremacy clause, has been used to overturn historic liberties in the 25 E.U. nations. In fact, significant elements of the Magna Carta were recently overturned with a simple majority vote in the European Parliament, and British leaders were obliged to conform. The exercise of British sovereignty today is a mere formality, as all European law and regulation is "binding in its entirety," leaving to the national authorities only "the choice of form and methods" [8].

The all-powerful European Court of Justice, which began as a trade court very similar to arrangements within NAFTA, has now become a virtual Supreme Court, striking down national laws and changing local cultures and identities artificially to conform to E.U. guidelines [9].

How did this happen? How did independent nations with separate identities and divergent cultures allow themselves to be bullied into submission by a gaggle of European bureaucrats in Brussels? The answer is that the attack on European nationhood was implemented brick by brick, piece by piece, bite by bite. Europe lost its sovereignty fifty years ago with the establishment of an incremental framework designed to feed Europeans an elephant one bite at a time. As the father of the European project Jean Monnet once said:

Europe's nations should be guided toward their super-state without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation.

Those responsible for these destructive steps knew what they were doing. A recently declassified Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) document reveals startling knowledge of the potential damage to British sovereignty prior to British entry into the European Common Market. FCO analysts concluded that "[t]he loss of external sovereignty will ... increase as the Community develops, according to the intention of the preamble to the Treaty of Rome 'to establish the foundations of an even closer union among the European peoples.'"

The end of nationhood in Europe offers a stern warning for the United States, because many of the same individuals involved in the creation of "Europe" are active in the U.S. And here, they won't need fifty years.

We can't comfort ourselves with the common American self-delusion of "that could never happen here," because it is happening here, and on a crash timetable. NAFTA, which was sold as a trade arrangement, has grown into something else, wielding actual power over the United States.

In 2001, a NAFTA panel required America to open its borders to Mexican trucks.

More recently, a NAFTA panel ordered America to rescind a defensive tariff on softwood lumber initiated in response to Canadian softwood subsidies. Americans are to feel comforted, since NAFTA panels have said they will "consider" the rulings of federal circuit courts when deciding cases.

Through international agreements like NAFTA and the World Trade Organization (WTO), panels can overturn unique U.S. laws and privileges. Our elected leaders have shown a willingness to comply, making indirect world government a reality. The WTO requires all present, past, and future laws to be in agreement with WTO rules governing trade. This means that when writing laws, America must bind future generations and implement policies that meet WTO requirements, regardless of whether or not these requirements serve the interests of the United States, or are even constitutional.

Since the beginning of history, national governments have provided the best means of securing people's liberty. Government's limited power is legitimized by the "consent of the governed" within an arrangement called the social contract, usually implemented through elections. National governments, when founded on the Anglo-American tradition, are repositories of liberty. Therefore, the preservation of national sovereignty must be a prime goal of those seeking to preserve liberty.

Sovereignty is a one-way street. It can be regained only through enormous bloodshed. At some point, the loss of our national sovereignty will give unelected foreign authorities the unholy power of deciding the fate of American liberty. This is not a power our government should be allowed to give away. It's time to speak up. We must not follow Europe down the path of destruction.

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[1] Jens Peter-Bonde, ed., Consolidated Lisbon Treaty, Title V, Art. 216, International Agreements, (Notat Grafisk: Foundation for EU Democracy, 2008), 142.

[2] Jens Peter-Bonde, ed., Consolidated Lisbon Treaty, Chapter 2, Art. 77, Polices on Border Checks, Asylum and Immigration, (Notat Grafisk: Foundation for EU Democracy, 2008), 74.

[3] Jens Peter-Bonde, ed., Consolidated Lisbon Treaty, Chapter 2, Art. 24, Specific Provisions on the Common Foreign and Security Policy, (Notat Grafisk: Foundation for EU Democracy, 2008), 31-32.

[4] Ibid., 31.

[5] Jens Peter-Bonde, ed., Consolidated Lisbon Treaty, Chapter 2, Art. 77, Polices on Border Checks, Asylum and Immigration, (Notat Grafisk: Foundation for EU Democracy, 2008), 74.

[6] Jens Peter-Bonde, ed., "The Charter of Fundamental Rights," in the Consolidated Lisbon Treaty, Title V, Art. 39, Citizens' Rights, (Notat Grafisk: Foundation for EU Democracy, 2008), 204.

[7] Jens Peter-Bonde, ed., "The Charter of Fundamental Rights," in the Consolidated Lisbon Treaty, Title VII, Art. 52, Scope and Interpretation of Rights and Principles, (Notat Grafisk: Foundation for EU Democracy, 2008), 207.

[8] The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, 9 May 2008, Chapter 2, Section 1, Art. 288, par. 3.

[9] See also, Open Door Counselling v. Ireland, 1992, A-246, par. 78-79, 14 Aug. 2009, , (retrieved 7 Jan. 2010).

The Last Nail in Europe's Coffin

AmericanThinker.com

Because of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership between the European Union and Islamic states in the Middle East, by the year 2050, the Islamic population of Europe will be 25% to 30% of the total population. There will be perhaps over 100 million Muslims in Europe.

Partnership? More like a suicide pact. Fifty million laborers with families. The effects on European civilization, and on Europe's relationship with the United States, are all too easy to imagine. And the U.S.-Muslim engagement document, the blueprint for the Obama administration's relationship with Muslim countries, parallels these plans. It contains the same "cross-culturalization" plans that are discussed and recommended in the Euro-Med partnership. In other words, it's a charter for our dhimmitude, our subservience to Islamic law.

It's all parsed out in a series of "Association Agreements," which delineate the concrete terms of the new relationships between the E.U. and the Islamic countries involved in the Euro-Med Partnership. One Euro-Med webpage explains that there are "certain common aspects" to all these agreements, including "political dialogue, respect for human rights and democracy, establishment of WTO-compatible free trade over a transitional period of up to 12 years, provisions relating to intellectual property, services, public procurement, competition rules, state aids and monopolies, economic cooperation," and most significantly, "cooperation relating to social affairs and migration and cultural cooperation."

Take a look, for example, at the Association Agreement with Egypt. The links in the online version significantly have all been suspended, and they are routed to a new site for the European Union that offers no information. They are hiding everything having to do with this. But surprisingly, one Euro-Med page is still up, and it explains that the agreement with Egypt will involve the "training of persons working in the cultural field" and the promotion of "cultural cooperation of a commercial nature, production, investment and marketing, training and exchange of information."

"Cultural cooperation": That's where the rubber meets the road on immigration and related issues. It means Europe will conform to Islamic norms and not attempt to challenge them. And one main arena of this cultural cooperation was formally launched on June 9, 2008 in Slovenia: a new Euro-Med University. Based in Piran on the Adriatic coast, the university invites established European universities to become partner institutions -- in Britain, the Universities of Westminister, Cambridge, and Bristol have shown interest in such a partnership.

This cross-culturization among universities and colleges will lead to education and history being filtered through an Islamic prism, which in turn will lead to institutional fascism and historical revisionism. If you go to the EMUNI (Euro-Med University) site, it gives you a clear indication of what they are up to. Front and center is the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)'s Alliance of Civilizations.

The great historian Bat Ye'or said the following of the Alliance of Civilizations in a speech given at the Counter Jihad conference in Brussels in 2007: "The Alliance of Civilizations, created to oppose the clash of civilizations, that is jihad, has also added pressure. On 13 November 2006, the High-Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations presented its report, which sums up the request of the OIC at its Mecca Summit in 2005, after the Cartoons affair. First, it adopts the Islamic view of history and politics by claiming that everything was fine between the three monotheistic religions until the 19th century, when the evil of European colonialism and Zionism destroyed this harmony."

Ye'or adds that the Alliance "affirms that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main source of Christian-Muslim antagonism, not the jihadist war and ideology that deny for others the right to exist. It proclaims that this conflict 'remains one of the gravest threats to international stability' and formulates recommendations that again echo the OIC requests. Such views mirror Hitler accusing the Jews of fomenting World War II, or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, praised in the Hamas charter, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which denies Israel's right to exist."

Why would Europe get involved again with such evil and simultaneously take in such a diabolical and disastrous immigration bomb? And that's what this is. Geert Wilders said it in a speech at Columbia University in October 2009: "Make no mistake: Islam has always attempted to conquer Europe. Spain fell in the 8th century. Constantinople fell in the 15th century. Vienna and Poland were threatened, and now, in the 21st century, Islam is trying again. This time not with military armies, but through migration and demography."

Why cause that social strain? Why expose the European Union to the inevitable violence? The Euro-Med Partnership could be the final nail in the lid of Europe's coffin.

By Pamela Geller Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website and is former associate publisher of the New York Observer. She is the author (with Robert Spencer) of the forthcoming book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America (Simon & Schuster).

Israel, EU's new FM Ashton start off poorly

By HERB KEINON

srael's relations with the EU's new foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton got off to an inauspicious beginning on Saturday, with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon saying the EU will have no more success than ancient Rome did in breaking the connection between Jews and Jerusalem.

EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton.
Photo: AP

Ayalon was responding to criticism Ashton leveled against Israel in her maiden speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg last week.

"East Jerusalem is occupied territory together with the West Bank. The EU is opposed to the destruction of homes, the eviction of Arab residents and the construction of the separation barrier," she said.

Ayalon, speaking in Jerusalem on Saturday, shot back by saying, "Just as the Romans did not succeed in cutting off Jerusalem from Israel, so too will diplomats from the UN and the EU be unsuccessful as well."

Referring to the possibility that the Europeans would recognize a unilaterally declared Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, Ayalon said such a move would open the door to similar unilateral acts from Israel.

"The acceptance of unilateral decisions will change the rules and Israel will no longer see itself as obligated by agreements and arrangements made since the Oslo agreement," he said. "Israel will then have the legitimacy to take unilateral moves of its own."

Ashton, formerly the EU's trade commissioner, has little foreign policy experience, no record on Israel and is considered a completely unknown quantity in Jerusalem. She said she hoped to travel to the region at the end of January or beginning of February.

On December 1 she replaced Javier Solana, who served as the EU's foreign policy chief for the past 10 years.

Under the EU's new Lisbon Treaty, the position Ashton assumed now has a great deal more authority, with the overarching idea being that she will serve as a type of EU foreign minister, expected to do away with the inconsistency in EUforeign policy that resulted from a different country assuming the presidency every six months, and tilting its foreign policy in different directions.

Ashton will be charged with shaping a common EU foreign policy, as well as being in charge of a new EU foreign service.

During her speech in Strasbourg, Ashton said that Israeli-Palestinian talks should have a set time frame, a position advocated by the Palestinians, and also indicated that she wanted to see changes made in the Middle East Quartet, composed of the US, EU, Russia and the UN.

"The Quartet must demonstrate that it is worth the money, that it is capable of being reinvigorated. I have talked about this with both sides inJerusalem, to [Quartet Middle East envoy] Mr. [Tony] Blair and the [US] secretary of state," she said.

The EUobserver, an independent Web site that focuses on the EU institutions, said Ashton's speech was significant as well for what it left out: She did not say Israel was the only democracy in theMiddle East , she did not mention the country's security threats, and she did not say the Palestinians should return immediately to formal talks.

Likewise, she characterized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's settlement moratorium as a "first step," an apparent step down from a statement put out by the EU's foreign ministers earlier in the month when they took "positive note" of the move.

Meanwhile, the EU presidency, held by Sweden for another 11 days, issued a statement on Friday "expressing its disapproval" of the government's recent decision to include some 90 settlements in the country's new national priorities map.

"The decision runs counter to the spirit of the settlement freeze," the statement said. "It also prevents the creation of an atmosphere conducive to resuming negotiations on a two-state solution.The European Union encourages Israel instead to continue along the path set forth by the moratorium. The European Union reiterates that settlements on occupied land are illegal under international law. The European Union urges the government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities."

One senior government official responded to the criticism by saying that the inclusion of the settlements in the new priorities map, a decision taken based on security considerations, "in no way contradicts the settlement moratorium, does not create new housing in the settlements, and is not an obstacle to negotiations."

Government officials pointed out that the settlements on the new priorities map will not benefit from any incentives for housing or for infrastructure construction.

In another diplomatic development, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is scheduled to arrive on Sunday for talks with Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. They are expected to focus both on a prisoner exchange deal for kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit and the stalled talks with the Palestinians.

Suleiman's meeting with Lieberman is significant, in light of Egypt's overall snub of the foreign minister for his harsh criticism of Egyptian policy over the years.

This will be Suleiman's second meeting with Lieberman. The two met during Suleiman's last visit here some four months ago.