Muslim Gunmen Attack Bus Carrying Coptic Christians - At Least 28 Dead, Including Children

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Ramadan - a "holy" period that usually brings with it increased levels of Muslim violence - started today. 

From the Daily Mail:

Masked gunmen attacked a bus carrying Coptic Christians on a visit to a monastery south of the Egyptian capital on Friday, killing at least 26 people including many children, officials said. 

The assailants in three pick-up trucks attacked the bus as it carried visitors to the Saint Samuel monastery in Minya province, more than 200 kilometres (120 miles) from Cairo, before fleeing, the interior ministry said. 

It was the latest attack on Copts after Islamic State (IS) group jihadists bombed three churches in December and April, killing dozens of Christians. 

Pictures of the bus aired by state television showed the vehicle riddled with machine-gun fire and its windows shot out. 

State television quoted a health ministry official as saying a "large number" of the victims were children. 

"They used automatic weapons," Minya governor Essam el-Bedawi told state television. 

Bedawi said police were fanning out along the road where the attack took place and had set up checkpoints. 

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said 26 people were killed and another 25 wounded.

The Pope's Racist New Video

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Africans have a certain joie de vivre. God bless their little hearts.

This blog previously noted the odd absence or rarity of black people in many of the Pope Videos, as well as the cringeworthy stereotypes - one video features a white family swimming in a nice pool vs. a black family wearing grass skirts and standing in front of a hut (the father is clutching a spear).

The new Pope Video features mostly black people.

Black people fighting each other.

The video condemns the "fratricidal wars" in Africa, and asks Christians in Africa to "give prophetic witness to reconciliation, justice, and peace.”

That Christians anywhere should always bear such witness is obviously a given.

But, believe it or not, the continent of Africa is actually a more peaceful place than it has been at any time in recent history.

The four most horrific wars, in terms of the number of casualties, of the last 50 years were fought in Africa, and that continent also played host to the worst incident of genocide in a generation.

Those conflicts came into being due to a variety of different causes, and involved a number of different ideologies and motives, including Marxism, anti-colonialism, Islam, ethnic differences and outright bloody non-ideological competition to capture or hold onto government power.

• 2nd Congo War (1998-2003) - 2.5 to 5.5 million dead
• Biafra (1967-1970) - 1 to 3 million dead
• Ethiopian Civil War (1974-1991) - 500,000 to 1.5 million dead
• Angolan Civil War (1975-2002) - 500,000 dead
• Rwandan Genocide (1994) - 500,000 to 1 million dead

See, black people are pretty violent.

Almost as violent as white people.

Though the Asians have often given both of them a run.

Thankfully, those African wars are now in the past.

But, as we all know, Africa is currently far from peaceful.

What the Pope did not mention is that the common denominator of most of the current wars, civil wars and terrorist insurgencies in Africa is radical Islam. The growing or ongoing conflicts in North Africa, North-West Africa, Nigeria and Somalia all pit Islamic rebels and terrorists against non-Muslim, mixed religion or more "moderate" Muslim governments. And perhaps the most prominent conflict to not include a large Muslim element - the civil war in South Sudan - grew out of hostilities initiated by Islamic forces.

• The Muslim Brotherhood and now ISIS in Egypt
• Al Qaeda and ISIS in Libya, Tunisia and Algeria
• Al Qaeda, ISIS and Muslim rebels in Mali, Mauritania and the Central African Republic
• Boko Haram in Nigeria, Northern Cameroon, Niger and Chad
• Al Shabaab in Somalia and Kenya

If Islamist fighters across Africa were to suddenly throw down their arms and renounce their claims to forcibly impose Sharia (or, a much more likely alternative, were, by some miracle, to be simultaneously defeated), Africa would experience an almost unprecedented era of relative peace.

Would there still be violent conflicts in Africa, as well as the threat of new ones? Of course. Unfortunately, even just victories over evil ideologies - the defeat of the Nazis in WW2 and of Soviet Marxism in the Cold War being among the most famous examples - don't guarantee permanent justice and peace. New evils will always arise.

But standing back from the current conflicts in Africa and merely labeling them all "fratricide" is grossly ignorant at best and racist at worst.

As if they were all caused by arms merchants.

Or, you know, the untamed impulses of those primitive darkies.

Though in that same video, the Pope does claim that Africans also have a certain "joie de vivre."

I'm not making that up.

And here's another thing I'm not making up - the words of then Archbishop Bergoglio, speaking on the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War:

We come to pray for all who have fallen, sons of the homeland who went out to defend their mother, the homeland, and to reclaim what is theirs, that is of the homeland, and it was usurped.

White people often fight good wars, you see. Or, at least, white Argentinians do.