Blood Atonement II.

This is coolbert:

"And without shedding of blood is no remission." - - Hebrews 9:22.

Remission for SIN!

[this blog entry was originally part of a previous blog on Gunboats. I have edited the Gunboat entry and created this blog.]

Just as the American Civil War can be considered to have been blood atonement for the crime of slavery.

Just as the deportation of the Crimean Tartars can be considered to be blood atonement for the crime of slavery.

Perhaps the suffering of the Algerian people in their War of Independence from France can be considered to be blood atonement for the crime of slavery.

Consider the level of casualties the Algerians suffered during their eight year war, before independence was won from France:

"War dead

The FLN estimated in 1962 that nearly eight years of revolution had cost 300,000 dead from war-related causes. Some other Algerian sources later put the figure at approximately 1 million dead, while French officials estimated it at 350,000 . . . According to French figures, security forces killed 141,000 rebel combatants, and more than 12,000 Algerians died in internal FLN purges during the war. An additional 5,000 died in the "cafe'" wars" in France between the FLN and rival Algerian groups. French sources also estimated that 70,000 Muslim civilians were killed, or abducted and presumed killed, by the FLN.

Historians, like Alistair Horne, Raymond Aron, consider the actual figure of war dead to be higher than the original FLN and official French estimates, but far below the 1 million adopted by the Algerian government. Uncounted thousands of Muslim civilians lost their lives in French army ratissages [rat hunts], bombing raids, and vigilante reprisals. The war uprooted more than 2 million Algerians, who were forced to relocate in French camps or to flee to Morocco, Tunisia, and into the Algerian hinterland, where many thousands died of starvation, disease, and exposure. In addition large numbers of pro-French Muslims were murdered when the FLN settled accounts after independence."

Those casualty figures are just enormous for a nation with a small population as had Algeria at the time. At the time, the population of Muslims around 10 million??!!

HOW could this be considered to be blood atonement?

Well, consider the accounts of the slave trade as practiced by the Barbary pirates. Piratical Muslims capturing slaves from "white" countries. The lands of Europe.

The Barbary pirates. Muslims from north African lands such as what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya. Ruled by folks called the beys and the bashaws. Engaged in the slave trade in the many decades leading up to Algeria becoming a colony of France [1830].

Corsairs of the local rulers [called the Beys or the bashaws], raided European lands in the hunt for "white" slaves.




[again, in some quarters, there seems to be a lot of fascination with the idea of "whites" being enslaved by dark skinned persons.]

These would have been persons taken from southern European countries, such as Spain, France, Italy, the various "Christian" Mediterranean islands.

IT IS ESTIMATED THAT DURING A FIFTY YEAR PERIOD CENTERED AROUND THE YEAR 1800, ONE MILLION TO TWO MILLION "WHITE" EUROPEANS WERE CAPTURED AND ENSLAVED BY THE BARBARY PIRATES!!!

[sounds like figures almost identical to the numbers of slaves taken out of the Ukraine by the Crimean Tartars during a similar period!!]

[the "overseas" wars fought by the U.S. Navy during the administrations of Presidents Adams and Jefferson were fought to suppress and punish the Barbary Pirates for raids against American shipping.]

So bold were the Barbary Pirates of the era that slave raiders ranged as far north as Ireland and EVEN ICELAND, in search of "white" captives to be enslaved.

All this evil behavior on the part of the Islamic rulers came to a screeching halt in the 1830's when a mixed fleet of the European navies, a fleet to include gunboats, bombarded the cities and palaces of the Beys and bashaws with 30,000 rounds of naval cannon fire, "convincing" the Beys to cease and desist in their villainous behavior.

NOT only naval attack, but colonization. Subjection to foreign rule. A foreign rule [France] that lasted for about 130 years and then terminated under the traumatic circumstances of a bloody war.

Blood atonement for prior sins?? You decide.

coolbert.