A Mark Steyn tour-de-force is his column in the Spectator on the approaching death of Europe: It’s the demography, stupid (also readable without pesky reg.here at Free Republic.)

It just has to be read in full. However, I especially like this paragraph:

It’s remarkable to me how many European commentators cling to the old delusions - mocking Bush for being in thrall to his own Texan version of Osama-like fundamentalism. I look on religion like gun ownership. That’s to say, New Hampshire has a high rate of firearms possession, which is why it has a low crime rate. You don’t have to own a gun and there are sissy Dartmouth College arms-are-for-hugging types who don’t. But they benefit from the fact that their crazy stump-toothed knuckle-dragging neighbours do. If you want to burgle a home in the Granite State, you’d have to be awfully certain it was the one-in-a-hundred we-are-the-world pantywaist’s pad and not some plaid-clad gun nut who’ll blow your head off before you lay a hand on his $70 TV. That’s the way it is with religion. A hyper-rationalist might dismiss the whole God thing as a lot of apple sauce, but his hyper-rationalism is a lot more vulnerable in a society without a strong Judaeo-Christian culture. American firearms owners have a popular slogan: ‘If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.’ Likewise, if you marginalise religion, only the marginalised will have religion. That’s why France’s impoverished Muslim ghettos display more cultural confidence than the wealthiest enclaves of the capital.

It echoes something I quoted from Richard John Neuhaus the other day:

Europe, in the fine phrase of David Hart, is dying of “metaphysical boredom.” In the absence of a reason for being beyond the satisfaction of creature comforts, Europeans will continue to acquiesce in their own destruction. Call it Muslim-assisted suicide.

…

The other day, Hugh Hewitt, while referring to the by-all-accounts awful and mean-spirited film Jarhead, asked:

How much money would a well-made movie honoring the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guard and Marines of the armed services haul in?

Why hasn’t it been made?

I second that question. It is now over four years since the September 11th attacks, and the astoundingly successful war on the Taliban in Afghanistan, and there is yet to be a “major motion-picture” that deals with either of these events in an uplifting way. There was enough heroism on 9/11/2001 to fuel a hundred movies, yet, the only one yours-truly is aware of is the one that conspiracy-peddler Oliver Stone is concocting as we speak on the streets of NYC.

The Afghan campaign is supposedly uncontroversial (even those who opposed it at the time now say that they supported it; of-course that’s only so they can appear to be willing to use American force in certain circumstances, in order to lend credibility to their opposition to the Iraq war). Doesn’t everyone remember how uncertain the success of that war seemed? After a few weeks of bombing failed to defeat the Taliban, the New York Times and all and sundry were calling it a “quagmire.” Then, U.S. Special Forces on the ground, some riding horses with the Northern Alliance fighters, inserted themselves into the action and directed the aerial bombing with lethal precision, leading to an amazingly quick victory over the entrenched Taliban fanatics and thugs. Wouldn’t that make a great movie, with an enormous box-office to boot? A movie that could tell some of the stories that have yet to be aired about true American heroes? It would clean up.

As for Iraq, there are obviously countless more stories of heroism to be told, and they’re still occurring. Someone who wanted to cash-in on the natural inclination of the American movie-going public to feel good about their country could start with the story of this Medal of Honor recipient.

During WWII, Hollywood made movies about America’s bravest even as the war was being fought. The role of the entertainment industry in keeping up morale was understood, it seems, by the power players of the time.

It’s 2005, and the biggest movie we’ve had about this war is one by Michael Moore. It’s as if, in 1944, the only movie to have been made on WWII was one that portrayed FDR as conspiring to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor.

It’s not news, of-course, that the major players in Hollywood today lack any patriotism. What is most amazing to me is that they can’t even fake it for the sake of making zillions of dollars.

…

Speaking of movies, Ann Coulter takes on the sentiments behind Good Night, and Good Luck, the George Clooney film that takes the fearless stand of mocking Joseph McCarthy and deifying Edward R. Murrow. It was made, according to Clooney himself, as a response to Coulter’s defense of McCarthy in her book Treason.

Amusingly, Clooney said in an interview that Alger Hiss was “probably” a communist spy. By now, I believe even the Nation magazine has been forced to admit Hiss was more than that. But, Clooney says, the point is McCarthy “was wrong about 99 percent of them.”

If McCarthy was “wrong about 99 percent of them,” when are we going to get a movie about one of the 99 percent? I might go see that movie.

Clooney reverts to the standard Hollywood talking point, saying: “More important than that, (McCarthy) was wrong every time he denied people their civil liberties.”

Ah yes, the old civil liberties canard. Apparently, the only period worse than the BNOF ["black night of fascism"] under McCarthy is the current BNOF under President George Bush. This was followed by the usual number of specific examples of civil liberties that had been denied: zero.

Liberals churn out hysterical slander daily, but insist on acting like they are the ones under attack. Come to think of it, the current BNOF is a lot like the original BNOF under McCarthy.

The only people being tortured are those of us forced to endure the egos of Hollywood fantasists who profess left-wing views to prove they are deep thinkers.

You go, girl.

…

Follow-up to the stories from ArmyTimes.com on Operation Steel Curtain in western Iraq: The rats have slithered away again, it seems.

KARABILAH, Iraq - U.S. Marines pushed into the heart of this Euphrates River town on Thursday, a final step in a 3,500-troop operation to clear insurgents from towns near the Syrian border.

Commanders had hoped to trap scores of insurgents in Karabilah, squeezing them from the neighboring town of Husaybah against U.S. blocking positions around the city. But when 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, marched in just after noon Thursday, they found only abandoned buildings and some roadside bombs.

“Maybe tonight is bingo night,” joked Staff Sgt. J.C. Knight, platoon sergeant of 1st Platoon, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, as his platoon searched houses along a desolate alley.

Well, while they are running, they’re not doing much insurging, and, in an Iraq that is becoming a less and less friendly place for bombers and beheaders, their time will come.

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