What the Paris tragedy reveals -- aside from the unspeakable brutality and utter intolerance of radical Islamicists (and their friendly allies in the worldwide Left) -- is the extreme danger inherent in a misguided and sentimentalized compassion. In just a few short weeks the refugee invasion of Germany has thrown the daily life of the people there into a topsy-turvy twilight zone. For some, it's a nightmare of near biblical proportions.

Predictably, there are those who cry foul, blaming this social upheaval on a xenophobic reaction akin to the frenzied Nuremburg rallies of the '30s and '40s. Or they make the unhistorical argument based on an absurd moral equivalence, namely, that Europeans did the same to Muslims a thousand years ago.

These critics on the left conveniently ignore the fact that the evil Crusades were in their best attempts defensive wars and wars of liberation. They were not wars of conquest as were the Islamic aggressions across northern Africa and southern Europe. Spain especially bore the brunt of the terrorizing sword of Islam. Today, however, this resurgent religious violence threatens to destroy whatever is left in the cultural heritage of the West. It remains to be seen if the Europeans (and Americans as well) can stem the tide before Sharia dominates the civilized world. 

Peter Wilson

Groton