Qur’an-Denial: The Foundational Error of the Appeasers

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*Originally published on this blog in May, 2016

The terror attacks in Brussels, Ivory Coast and Nigeria this past week were (if you’ll tolerate a well-worn paradox) notable for being completely unremarkable. The murders were generic, run-of-the-mill, classical and exactly in step with the history and character of the Islamic religion. As I have said previously, such violence is best understood simply as the Qur’an in action, or Applied Islam, if you prefer. This is what all those elegant Arabic characters materialize into. This is their effect.

There is no ingenious metaphor behind Quranic verses imploring Muslims to kill “unbelievers.” and “strike of their heads”. It isn’t an allegorical way of saying “Try your best in life and be proud of your heritage”. It means exactly what you think it means. Mutilate and murder people if they derive from a different religious tradition.

The Qur’an murdered those people in Belgium, Nigeria and Ivory Coast. Without it’s message, they would still be alive.

But despite that terrible reality, this notorious book of death will remain readily available at your local Waterstones or Walmart for the foreseeable future. Your children, if you have any, will be able to purchase it, read it, learn from it, perhaps even act on it. This is because, for all the chaos and bloodshed at the hands of Muslims the world over, our cultural elite still refuse to recognise that it is the text itself which inspires the carnage. Rejecting this idea as essentially ‘racist’, they offer instead tortuous sociological, economic, psychological explanations more palatable to the liberal mindset and harmonious with liberal, multi-cultural doctrine. The Muslims are killing people because they are ‘disenfranchised’, ‘outcast from the cultural mainstream’, ‘oppressed’, ‘economically deprived’ and so on. They will stick stubbornly to these explanations right up to the point a Salafist knife rests upon their throats.

Prime Minister Cameron has repeatedly claimed that Islam is peaceful

Through this prism of misinterpretation, individual terror attacks are not understood as a call to banish Islam forever from the shores of the free world, but as an opportunity to understand better the mistakes WE have made in our diplomacy with the Muslim world. Simon Jenkins, the eccentric libertarian sore thumb over at the Guardian, argued just a few days ago that the reaction of the West (to Brussels and other comparable acts of terrorism) should be to “alleviate” the “rage that gives rise to acts of terror…”, including by instigating a “wiser foreign policy than most western nations have shown towards the Muslim world over the past decade.”

The cretinous Socialist Worker newspaper struck a similar tone: “Wars launched by the leaders of the US, Britain and France” read this week’s opinion column “have created huge resentment and created the space in which groups such as Isis can grow. These same leaders back the brutal governments that have turned back the tide of the Arab Spring—which offered hope…There is nothing remotely anti-imperialist about the bombings. But the reality is that more repression will mean more attacks.”

This bewildering ignorance is the natural result of Quran-Denial. Without reference to the text demanding violence, Islamic violence inevitably seems free-floating, reactive and mysterious. It is only with reference to the text itself that such violence becomes understandable. Denial of the link between violence and the Qur’an is thus the foundational error of the Western appeasers of Islam.

It is worth noting that we rarely fail to trace the origins of other religious practices. One of the key pillars of Christian practice, for example, is the injunction to loves one’s neighbour, the poor and even one’s enemies. Christian charities are acting upon this sentiment when they do charitable work, launch missions in the third world, or stage interfaith dialogues. Only a very eccentric man indeed would try to claim that such people were not directly motivated by the text of their Holy Book. It stands to reason that they are.

Christians are directly inspired by the New Testament

When critics of Christianity and Judaism, such as Bill Maher, reference the textual origins of what they perceive as Abrahamic ‘homophobia’, Christians and Jews are never allowed to claim the verses in question are metaphors or that they discriminate only against ancient homosexuals.

Only Islam is allowed to stand apart from its own Holy Book. And yet Islam is also the faith most fanatical about the literal inerrancy of its Holy Book.

Let’s look at some of the passages which may have influenced the murders this past week. A Hat-tip is due here to the staff at the invaluable websites ‘Gates of Vienna’ and ‘Religion of Peace’ which compiled some of the following excerpts (as well as many others):

Quran (5:33) “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement”

Quran (8:59-60) “And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip (Allah’s Purpose). Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy.”

Qur’an

Quran (9:5) “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.”

Quran (9:14) “Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of a believing people.”

That should be enough to prove my point. We need only use Occam’s Razor (AKA Ockham’s Razor: the formula that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one) to discover the root cause of the carnage afflicting the civilised and developing world. Muslims are killing because their Holy Text implores them to kill. No further discussion is needed.

Dear political elite – Islam is violent because the Qur’an is violent. The Qur’an itself is Europe’s mortal enemy. Drop the mystification and start working on a fightback.

What else is there to say about the Brussels attack? Well, for one thing, it happened in a very beautiful city. I went on holiday to Brussels as a teenager with my family and remember enjoying every minute of the two weeks I spent there. If you haven’t been yourself, please consider it (especially now). The famous cobbled streets, superior booze, laid back mood and architectural grandeur repay the price of travel with generous interest.

Watching the news come in after the explosions this week, I recognised with real sadness parts of the city I had strolled through during that halcyon fortnight. One of the massed news correspondents even stood in front of a complex of buildings I once happily photographed, her sad, elongated face starkly out of sync with the pleasant memories I will try – in spite of everything – to nurture and keep pure and intact.

Brussels

Of course, as well as being a charming city in itself, Brussels is also – for now – the Capital of the European Union. Sadly, even if also inevitably, this fact has discoloured some reactions to the bombings. One couldn’t help but detect a mood of political schadenfreude on the part of the British right-wing press last Tuesday evening. From a propaganda point of view, it must have seemed too good to be true. The EU capital, machine-heart of a despised and oppressive bureaucracy, shattered by the fruit of its own myopic agenda. The heat of the explosions had yet to fade from the air when EU-haters excitedly set about refitting the tragedy to add weight to their case for Brexit. This tasteless enthusiasm, understandable but deeply regrettable, says a lot about how badly the European experiment has poisoned continental relations.

Let’s be clear: Those unlucky souls vanquished in Brussels a few days ago did not die entirely in vain. They are (and should always be remembered as) martyrs in a just war of good vs. evil, modernity vs. darkness. My heart goes out to them, their families and their friends. In their memory, I will conclude by restating my motive in writing this blog: I detest Islam. I detest it with all my soul.

D, LDN

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Justifying the Extraordinary: Trump and the Debates

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In seven days time the first of four presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will take place in Hempstead, New York State. It is probably fair to say that no such debate has been as hotly anticipated in recent memory as this one now is. The debate marks the biggest test Donald Trump has faced since the launch of his candidacy for the Republican nomination back in 2015. It represents a vital trial of the New Yorker’s presidential character, professionalism and natural wit.

Hillary Clinton, now lagging behind Trump in many national polls, will be placing a lot of her hopes on the debates. Unlike Trump, the Democrat is a natural when it comes to conventional political combat. She – and her team – will be hoping (and expecting) Trump to be suffocated by the polite constraints of traditional procedure and to show his unease by lashing out wildly at Clinton’s character, appearance, dress sense, femininity, etc. Put simply, they hope and expect Trump to suffer a meltdown.

Whilst I would love to say that Clinton’s strategy is unrealistic, I cannot, as it is perfectly feasible. Trump’s Achilles heel, as he has proven time and time again, is his volcanic and unpredictable personality, his tendency to hit back after every real or perceived slight with much greater force and immaturity than is required or appropriate. All Clinton has to do in these contests is provoke that kind of reaction. All she has to do is poke the tiger until it growls.

This is the most obvious and likely strategy for Hillary to pursue, but there are other possibilities open to her. The rabidly pro-Clinton Washington Post made the following suggestions for their preferred candidate: “Take (Trump) up on his word. He said he “regrets” certain things. Invite him to apologize to Judge Gonzalo Curiel or the Gold Star parents of Capt. Humayun Khan… Another tactic is to press him on empty and unintelligible answers. Trump rarely completes a sentence or can articulate any level of detail about his proposals. When Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and CNN’s Dana Bash tag-teamed, forcing Trump to explain what was in his health-care plan, it became patently obvious that he had a whole lot of nothing to offer. She can certainly take a page from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s book (used against Rubio) in pointing out that Trump repeats the same platitudes. Tell us, Donald, what’s your plan to reduce crime in Chicago? Have you ever sat down with law enforcement?… There are oodles of issues (such as the nuclear triad) about which Trump knows nothing. Challenge him to spell out his stance on net neutrality, the South China Sea and student loans. In other cases — the minimum wage, repayment of U.S. debt and immigration, of course — he has been all over the lot. Force him to pick a position and explain why he has said the opposite.”

The first presidential debate will be held at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York

Trump’s strategy for the debates is less clear at this point in time. When asked about his intended approach, the Republican has wisely dodged the question, explaining that he would prefer to not give anything away to the opposition prior to the event. We can thus only speculate.

I have a inkling that Trump’s strategy will hinge on portraying Clinton, as he has done all through his campaign so far, as ‘crooked’, dishonest, corrupt and in the pocket of the financial elite; an image he will then contrast with his own man-of-the-people persona.

The email scandal will undoubtedly be raised repeatedly, with Trump going off track and questioning Clinton directly about the thousands of inexplicably deleted messages. He will also link these questions to the issue of the Clinton Foundation and its highly suspicious ties to foreign leaders (including foreign and Islamic dictators).

The Clinton Foundation is coming under intense scrutiny for its ties to foreign regimes

This approach will carry Trump some of the way, but not all of it. He will need to have more strings to his bow prepared if he is to the win the debate outright.

To arrive at the best strategy for winning the debates, Trump would do best to look at what has carried him through the process thus far. I would say that, more than anything else, it is his credentials relating to the Islamist threat that have won over the hearts of patriotic American voters (including true liberals and Democrats). His positions on ISIS, Muslim immigration, Syrian refugee policy and other connected issues have been wildly popular with a broad cross-section of American society. Pushing hard on Clinton’s weakness on Islamism will pave the way for a very important ideological touchdown.

It is possible that in the days that remain before the November election there will be another Islamist atrocity somewhere in the world, perhaps even in the Western World*. This will serve as a timely reminder of how extraordinary the problems we (as a civilisation) face really are, and thus how inappropriate it would be to elect an ordinary candidate to solve them.

ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State

The Islamist challenge is so total and grave that all other issues melt under its heat. Trump and his team must realise this fact and base their approach on it. Sure, there are problems with the American economy which require ironing out; sure, illegal immigration from Mexico is undermining American sovereignty and nationhood; sure, the trade deficit with China is growing at an alarming rate.  But none of these issues are new or so extraordinary as to justify the American electorate taking a risk on a provocative and unconventional candidate (and that, undoubtedly, is what Trump is). Trump’s presidency is so unique and strange a prospect that he must build an equally strange and unique context in which it will seem appropriate and necessary. The only way he can achieve this, in my opinion, is with reference to the Islamist threat.

At the debates, Trump must be specific about how he will deal with this extraordinary issue. Soundbites, however popular they may be, should be avoided. It simply isn’t enough to say things like “We need to get tough and we need to get smart.” This is so vague as to be meaningless. Trump must map out a strategy for pulverising Islamism, demolishing it so severely that it will not dare raise its evil head for decades to come.

*Today, as I write, debris is once again being cleaned up from the streets of a Western city. In Manhattan, NYC, two bombs have exploded, injuring almost thirty innocent civilians. Meanwhile, in the peaceful, Scandinavian-American State of Minnesota, eight people have been stabbed at a shopping mall, the attacker allegedly interrogating potential victims as to their religious beliefs prior to attacking them.

These are indeed extraordinary times. They require an extraordinary leader. Next week in New York, Donald Trump would do best not to try and make himself seem ordinary, but rather embrace his uniqueness, tying it to the uniqueness of the times in which we find ourselves.

D, LDN

Staring into the Abyss: Germany’s Sad Decline

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An article in the Daily Telegraph last week reported that a group of Muslim men recently swam ashore onto a nudist beach in Germany and abused the women relaxing there, calling one of them a ‘sinner’ and a ‘slut’, and going on to threaten everyone gathered in a mixture of German and Arabic. At the foot of the same article, the reporter offered a larger context for the incident, recounting a worrying list of related events in the EU’s largest nation over the last few weeks:

“(First) a 27-year-old Syrian refugee blew himself up outside a bar in Bavaria in what was described as an attempted Islamist attack which injured twelve people….On the same day, a pregnant woman was hacked to death by a Syrian man in the German town of Reutlingen… Last week, a teenage refugee from Afghanistan attacked passengers on a regional train in Bavaria with an axe, seriously injuring four of them, after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State in a video posted online….(Finally) the worst attack was carried out by a German-Iranian teenager who gunned down nine people outside a shopping centre in Munich on 22 July.”

And shortly after the article cited was published, a suitcase loaded with deodorant cans exploded outside an immigration processing centre in Zirndorf in Bavaria. It is not yet clear whether the package was designed as a makeshift bomb or whether the incident merely represents a (very bizarre) coincidence.

This is happening, lest we forget, in Germany; an economic powerhouse and one of the most important countries in the Western World. This is happening in the homeland of Kant, Nietzsche, Heine, Goethe, Planck and Beethoven. This is not happening in Iraq or Somalia. This is happening in Germany.

In response to this unprecedented chaos, Angela Merkel, the woman to whom the most blame belongs, has been stone-facedly defiant. Against all evidence and logic, the Chancellor claimed the open-door asylum policy she initiated just requires more time to work; that integration, though a slow process, will eventually bear desirable fruit; that terrorism and the beginnings of a widespread civil conflict are simply the birth pangs of a new and better order for natives and immigrants alike.

There is no way of changing the mind of someone this deluded. If she truly believes what she is saying, Chancellor Merkel has succumbed to the kind of magical thinking rarely encountered outside of psychiatric wards and millennial cults. If she truly believes that one million Syrian and Afghan single men, almost all of them fleeing nothing more than the natural consequences of their own culture – a culture to which they remain perversely wedded – will in time blend seamlessly into Northern European civilisation, then she is ill and dangerous; unfit to lead even a scout troop.

But she is not, sadly, untypical of the German political elite.

As a recent editorial noted: “For historical and understandable (reasons), German politicians are wary of acknowledging, first, that there are questions about whether all immigrants can smoothly integrate into Western societies and accept Western values and, secondly, that some voters have legitimate worries about the arrival in their country of people whose attitudes seem far removed from their own.”

It is perhaps this historical handicap that Islamists are pinning their hopes on. And it’s a tactic that may just work.

How many times have you heard in the UK or US that anti-Muslim sentiment is ‘reminiscent’ of German propaganda against the Jews in the 1920’s/30’s? How many times have you heard in the UK or US that ‘Islamophobic’ political leaders are ‘reminiscent’ of Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler? Now think how successful such slurs have been in these countries; how they have successfully made taboos out of commonsensical concepts and obvious realities.

In Germany, a country still overcast by the chimneys and moral blackness of the Holocaust, this is a hundred times more effective. Here, the Left possesses all the trump cards they require to shut down sensible debate and set the mainstream narrative all must follow to get a public hearing. They did this successfully after Cologne, and they will do it successfully after every additional outrage. The horror of Hitlerian ideology is such that anything seems preferable to agreeing with a single part of it – even if the part in question was never Hitler’s to trademark in the first place; such as patriotism and the will to national-cultural self-defence.

The backdrop against which all this is happening is worthy of noting. Just a few months ago, the toxic pseudo-memoir ‘Mein Kampf’ was republished in Germany (albeit in prohibitively bulky, heavily annotated form) for the first time since the Second World War. After less than a fortnight, the volume found itself on the national bestsellers list, and public interest in Hitler and the Nazis spiked on internet search engines.

In a loosely related development, the leadership of the main patriotic opposition party in Germany – Alternative for Germany, or AfD – has recently been dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism, a charge that is vigorously denied by party officials, but to which much press attention continues to be dedicated.

The ghost of Hitler is rising again in Germany. And whether this ghost is illusory or substantial matters little. Its effect is all that counts. The Muslims currently terrorising the country have no greater ally than this national curse. It may well prove to be the deciding factor as to whether Germany steps back from the abyss or slips irrecoverably into the darkness.

What can be done about this in the short term? Well – for one thing, the German people must make sure to remove Angela Merkel from power. Anyone else will do for now. By removing Merkel a message will be sent from the public to the political class that the policies the Chancellor has initiated are unacceptable and democratically illegimate.

As to who would make the best replacement for Merkel, my first choice would obviously be Frauke Petry, the beautiful and strong-minded leader of the AfD. With that being said, any accusations of anti-Semitism must be fully addressed by the AfD leadership if international alliances are to be protected and maintained. Given Germany’s recent history, some back-bending by its patriots is only to be expected, even if it seems on occasion like an excessive and unnecessary exercise.

It would be hyperbolic and unconvincing to call this crisis, as some are, the ‘end’ of Germany. It isn’t necessarily the end of anything. It is however a crisis with the potential to trigger the unravelling of modern Germany’s ideological consensus; the progressive and pleasant Weltanschauung, built upon rubble and regret, behind one of the longest periods of affluent stability in Germany’s short and chequered history.

D, LDN

The Banality of Terror

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The attack in Nice, France – which resulted in the death by crushing of over 80 innocent civilians – has hardly caused a ripple on social media.

After the news had come through the place-name ‘Nice’ trended on Facebook for little more than an hour or so, after which it rapidly tumbled out of the ranking, replaced by such stories relating to the appointment of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary to the UK government, speculation over Donald Trump’s VP choice, and the latest gossip relating to the Palin family.

There have been no diaphanous tricolours draped over the profile pictures of my friends this time around. Few have chosen to mention the incident in a status update, or even to share a relevant news story. And I have been no different.

I just can’t quite bring myself to be angry over this latest atrocity. I am not shocked, frightened, or agitated by it. The news of the attack has hit me rather like a report of sleet in Scotland, or wind in Wales. Terrorism, especially terrorism in France, now seems ordinary, banal, unremarkable.

This attitude (which is largely involuntary) is especially disturbing when one contemplates the gruesome manner in which the victims of the Nice attack perished. Unlike the more professional attack of last November, the victims this time were not put out of their happiness by a painless bullet to the head. They were crushed by several tonnes of metal and rubber; flattened, deformed under wheels. As banal as the observation might be, this must have been a hellish way to die.

But still, I’m not outraged – only bitter and depressed. I want all this to stop, but I really don’t think it will. And if an anti-Islamist blogger is becoming desensitised to terrorism, how on Earth can we expect the average Joe to maintain the required level of interest?

The man suspected of carrying out the Nice truck attack: French-Tunisian – Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel

The official response to Nice has been just as lacklustre as the public reaction. Boris Johnson, (whose appointment as Foreign Secretary must rank as the worst national embarrassment in years), has expressed little more than sadness at the news. In America, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton offered only cheap, hollow solidarity on her personal Facebook page. Even Donald Trump has been more muted than usual.

The only exception to this icy disregard has been (or seemed at one point to be) former US house speaker Newt Gingrich, who used the aftermath of the attack to suggest a very sensible policy by which the US would quiz individual Muslims upon entry to America on their views of Sharia Law.

Unfortunately, if also inevitably, when this commonsensical notion received the usual abuse from the usual abusers, Gingrich promptly drained the idea of its force, over-clarifying the concept to the point of retraction. How pathetic; how telling.

The reaction of the Western media (or at least the UK/US media) was to dampen out any loose sparks of anger that might have escaped the general apathy described. The ever-reliable ‘don’t panic’ libertarian Simon Jenkins, for example, hot-footed it into the Guardian offices to inform us that: “A Nice truck driver does not remotely threaten the security of the French state, any more than such acts do the security of America or Britain. The identification of the nation state with random killings of innocent people has become a political aberration….The implication that leaders can somehow prevent such attacks by armed response is a total distraction from the intelligence and police work that might at least diminish their prevalence. It nationalises and institutionalises public alarm. It leads governments into madcap adventurism abroad and “securitises” the private lives of citizens at home…What has happened in France is tragic and calls for human sympathy. Beyond that, there is nothing we can usefully do – other than make matters worse.”

Though this argument has the flavour of reasonableness, the implication of it is surely that we should do absolutely nothing in response to terrorism; indeed, that we should actively prevent our governments from doing anything about it – on libertarian grounds.

Someone should really inform Mr Jenkins that Western states in fact need little encouragement to under-react to terrorist atrocities. Doing nothing has been standard operating procedure ever since the twilight years of the Bush administration.

I personally have no doubt that Francois Hollande’s bungled security measures (including his declaration of an extended state of emergency) will end up doing more harm than good. Nevertheless, the general preference of the public must surely be for the state to do more to address this threat, not less. Jenkins and his ilk appear obsessed with getting the masses to calm down and to put things in a rational, non-emotional, context. We have been doing that for over a decade. A bit of non-rational rage really wouldn’t go amiss at this point.

French President Francois Hollande

All things considered, Nice has been an unmitigated triumph for ISIS. Not only have the swinish degenerates managed to send dozens of unbelievers to perpetual hellfire, they have also further diminished the life-force and rage-reflex of the continent on which they resided.

(On a side note  – It is worth noting that Westerners have not become incapable of getting angry about anything. We are still liable to go ape over the unlawful killing of gorillas and lions. It is only the value of human beings, and of Western culture, that is collapsing. One might justly speculate that if a dog or a cat had been caught under the wheels in Nice the reaction would have been rather more vigorous.)

Europe seems ever more like a wounded animal, yelping and moaning, bleeding and weakening. The old spark, the energy behind colonisation and empire, has been all but exhausted. The deathly prefix ‘post’ is now attached to every formerly noble concept: post-modern, post-national, post-racial, post-Christian etc… Everything is watered down and submissive enough that even the most barbaric challenger can overcome it.

I have nothing original to say about Nice. I will simply close by reiterating that Islam does not belong in Europe and never will. It is backward, violent, boring and false down to the letter. It must be resisted with everything with we have.

If indeed we still have anything at all.

D, LDN

Islam and Petroleum: An Old Alliance and its Future

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The collapse of the price of oil over the past few months has sent shockwaves through an already vulnerable global economy, slowing the ascent of China, threatening the recovery of America, and causing stock markets from London to Shenzhen to wobble precariously on their foundations. But surely no part of the world is more affected by fluctuations in the oil market than the Muslim Middle East, specifically the nations of Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates of the Persian Gulf.

If the downward trajectory in oil prices continues for just a few more years, the economies of these countries will be plunged into crisis, their social order, military upkeep and political power undermined and potentially destroyed. And there is something else to consider in all this. Seeing as oil and Islam have been locked in a very profitable alliance for the past 50 years, what will this decline mean for the civilizational balance of power? Can Islam’s political and military ascendance survive the shock of a post-oil era?

Optimists imagine that without oil, states like Saudi and the UAE would be without influence in the world. Since their economies are based entirely on energy revenues, they reason, such countries would – in the case of an oil collapse – be reduced to the diplomatic grade of Burkina Faso or Zimbabwe. This is not entirely accurate. While it is certainly true that without oil the nations of the gulf will see a massive decline in standards of living, this will not necessarily mean the end of their mischief-making in world affairs. Saudi Arabia, to take a prominent case, has invested much of its gargantuan wealth in blue-chip Western companies – companies which will continue to reap the Saudi state considerable profit for as long as they are trading. The Saudis have also purchased an astonishing array and quantity of modern weaponry, including – according to some – nuclear missiles from Pakistan. This military power will in the short term (or with nuclear weapons, in the very long term) guarantee the country a louder voice than it deserves.

As for Iran, Saudi’s arch-enemy, the outlook is rosier in some respects, and murkier in others. Since the revolution of 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has faced the boycott of its energy industry by much of the developed world. This has meant that Iran’s state finances have remained in poor shape, and also that they haven’t managed to buy up stocks in Western companies to the extent that Saudi has. On the other hand, this long period of boycott has forced Iranians to build an economy unreliant on the energy sector – a post-oil economy, if you will – and this will give the country a very important head start in the rush to regional economic diversification. The same is also true of Iraq, which has until very recently functioned without a petroleum economy.

Taken overall, the Islamic world will only face a sub-regional decline in diplomatic power from the collapse of oil. Outside of the oil-producing area itself, many Islamic countries have high economic growth rates even without energy reserves – these include the nations of Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia, all of which also possess considerable military strength to increase their bargaining power. Thus, the collapse of oil will sink Islamic power in the short-term, only for the power lost to be replenished later in different places. Given that these places will be less extreme than Saudi and Iran, the prospect for a general moderation of Islam is very real, if hardly as curative as liberal commentators would have us believe.

Here in the modern world, the end of oil politics is surely something to celebrate. A nasty and corrupt stench is about to be cleared from the air. The Islam-Oil alliance, even in so brief a period as it has existed, wrought real damage on the world at large. It is directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks in America, as well as for the crippling of Western economies in the 1970s. It has perverted American and British politics, enriched soulless monarchs and dictators, and radicalised much of the Islamic world against its will.

Good riddance.

D, LDN

This Week in Savagery

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This past week has been an eventful one for the demonic coalition variously known as Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL or (if you feel like being politically correct) ‘Daesh’.

First, in San Bernardino country, California, ISIS members cruelly abbreviated the lives of a random crowd of unfortunate civilians, shooting them all in cold blood. A few days after this, ISIS functionaries in Syria decapitated a Russian citizen before uploading footage of the crime onto the internet. And most recently, yesterday, a degenerate Muslim in London sought to slash members of the public to death on the London Underground with a machete (in this case fortunately he failed to accomplish any fatalities).

The reaction to these crimes has been different in each case, with the distinctions generally reflecting the differences in political climate in the victims’ homelands.

America reacted with that familiar blend of indignation and fury we have come to expect from our great, patriotic ally. After the identities (and religious affiliation) of the perpetrators was finally confirmed (after much prior confusion) Fox News and other right-leaning media outlets referred to the action as ‘savage’, ‘evil’ and ‘a national wake-up call’.

In Russia, as in America, the tone was one of purple-faced rage. President Vladimir Putin vowed to spill the blood of the terrorists in a tit-for-tat calculation hugely popular with the citizenry of nations which still believe in themselves (Russia, Israel, America, Australia etc…)

And Britain, dreary, silly old Britain, we responded with a hashtag campaign aimed at dampening down the threat of an anti-Muslim backlash… What a ridiculous crèche this country has become! I’m reminded of the words of Christopher Hitchens when he said  (half-jokingly) that if a Leftist found a venomous snake in their child’s bed, their first instincts would be to phone the RSPCA.

We’ve learnt nothing new over the last 7 days. ISIS have committed evil acts, but then we knew they would (somewhere). David Cameron’s decision to use our wonderful Tornado jets against Raqqa have very quickly returned an unpleasant consequence, but then we knew that would happen. The best the commentariat can do for now is to wish RAF bombs the greatest possible accuracy and the fires they generate the greatest possible heat.

Death to ISIS.

D, LDN

The Left is Starting to Crack

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Ever since hijacked airliners made toxic dust of the World Trade Centre in New York, there has persisted an intellectual struggle in Europe and America the furiousness and range of which has very few historical parallels. As soon the smoke cleared from that gigantic crime scene (and after the criminal force behind the attack was exposed) a thousand journalists, philosophers, historians and artists set out feverishly to make sense of the event. In the blink of an eye, the global intelligentsia split down the middle into two haughtily confident factions; factions we will brand simply as the ‘Left’ and the ‘Right’.

According to the Left, 9/11 was a revenge attack for the depravities of American, British and Israeli foreign policy. In this sense, the attackers were little more than Quran-carrying Che Guevaras or Guy Fawkes’s; freedom fighters, essentially, who had been forced by cruel circumstance to choose a nasty response to past-nastiness. The Right saw things as differently as can be imagined. For them, the attacks were not revenge for anything, but simply the perpetuation of an ancient theological grudge-match between East and West. No moral case, they considered, could be made to justify the barbarism so photo-realistically witnessed.

We are now 14 years on from the attack on New York. In the intervening period, wars have been launched; numerous smaller-scale atrocities have been committed all over the globe; protest and counter-protest have gripped every Western capital; every thinking person has found themselves in some way drawn in. After all that – which set of arguments has won? Which narrative has triumphed? Or, if we allow that the debate still persists, who is winning?

If you caught me in a bad mood, I might tell you that the Left had won. For this contention I’d probably offer such evidence as the continuing Muslim immigration into the West, as well as the enduring taboo on blaspheming the holy figures of Islam.

But if you caught me in a calm, rational mood such as I find myself in today, I would likely decide the other way, and I’d be correct. The Left has lost the Islam debate and lost badly. Outside of the media crèche itself, the number of people still arguing for appeasement of Islam is infinitesimally small. Don’t believe me? Just look at the Guardian newspaper coverage of the Paris attacks of this month. Though the columns themselves were designed to promote ‘understanding’ and inter-communal ‘tolerance’, the comments made in reply to them exhibited frank disagreement, even mockery. The following comment is representative of the general trend:

“I detest Islamism. No-one is ever going to change my mind on that…The more Muslims we import into Europe the more our security services will be burdened. If the truth offends you, tough.”

Remind yourself that this is from the Guardian’s ‘comment is free’ website; a bastion of orthodox anti-imperialism and left-wing inflexibility. Most people registered to comment are Left-leaning in almost every other respect (take a look at the comments on welfare sanctions and climate change). The reorientation of such attitudes on an issue of this divisive nature is telling, shocking, encouraging.

Further evidence for this new and pleasing reality is found in online polls. Whenever a newspaper (whatever the stance of that newspaper) sets up a two-answer poll involving Islam, the anti-Islam option wins by a landslide. And not only is this trend ongoing in the general public. A similar process is underway in the intelligentsia itself. It is surely amazing from this historical distance to imagine an argument like the following being taken seriously:

“On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well…The most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course… That they (the terrorists) waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and restraint…They did not license themselves to “target innocent civilians.” There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . . Well, really. Let’s get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire – the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved.”

This quote is taken from a lengthy essay entitled “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” written by Native American professor Ward Churchill. At the time of its publication, this amoral screed encapsulated the mood and feelings of uncountable academics, both in the West and outside of it. Now, post-Iraq, post-7/7, post-Madrid and post-Hitchens, such views are weighed as wicked, childish, unbefitting of intelligent consideration.

Though the nightmare of Jihad is far from resolution, we must yield to optimism when reason allows for it. More and more people are waking up to our position. We are no longer ‘extremists’ lurking about on the half-lit fringe. We are pioneers. We are being followed.

D, LDN

Western Attention Deficit Disorder

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Just over a year ago (last October) I wrote an article entitled ‘Is Jihadism Becoming Accepted?” (google to read it in full). After the Paris attacks of last week, and given the length and intensity of the reaction to them, I believe I am justified in recycling some quotes from it.

“During this process of Islamisation…” I began “…a good way of gauging the will to resist in the general population is to monitor the speed of recovery after each individual Muslim outrage; that is, how long it takes for the public to resume its usual apathetic mood after being shocked anew by a terror attack or comparable scandal involving Muslims…”

I then gave a brief history of terror outrages (against Western targets), noting that each reaction was briefer than the one before… “The pattern here is obvious: Years, then months, then weeks, then days… Jihadism – it seems – is becoming assimilated into everyday Western life. This is potentially devastating and for several reasons…Most of all it is because shock and anger are integral to the psychology of human resistance.”

Now, a question: Do you believe the reaction to the Paris attacks of this month has been more proactive, severe or long-lasting than the reaction to the Charlie Hebdo shootings of last January? Personally, I don’t believe so.

Indeed, facebook gimmicks and a few cruise missiles aside, there has been very few political consequences. While, for 24 hours or so, the world was undoubtedly transfixed on the Bataclan carnage, a few days more reduced the event to fish and chip paper. Compare this to the years of outrage over 9/11, the months of outrage over 7/7, the weeks of outrage over Lee Rigby, and the 5 or 6 days of outrage over Charlie Hebdo. While more people dislike – even hate – Muslims than ever before, there is a diminishing vibrancy and intelligence in their emotions. Perhaps needless to say, this is gravely worrying.

Whatever else can be said about Muslims, one cannot say that they are forgetful. Indeed, we are still being attacked in retribution for the re-conquest of Andalusia, the Balfour declaration and the publishing of the Satanic Verses. Muslims remember. They hold grudges. The Western mind, by contrast, is easier to distract than the mind of toddler loaded up on Jelly beans. Whether to facebook, twitter, youtube, xbox or football, Western attention flees from unpleasant realities, having given them only the briefest glance in the first place.

This must change if we are to survive. If terrorism becomes an accepted part of our culture and everyday lives, we will lose the will to do anything decisive or conclusive about it. Religious violence is not acceptable in the modern world, and nor is it inevitable, natural or ‘the way things go’. It is exceptional, horrid and shocking and must remain so to our imagination.

D, LDN

Islam in Europe Can’t Work

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What a breathless charge of hatred Friday evening saw… The sheerest malevolence driving towards the innocent at a hundred miles an hour. The chaos left behind is nightmarish. Bodies strewn on the streets; sporting events and classical concerts cancelled, morgues inundated with cooling bodies, clouds of gunsmoke and burnt explosives washing over the streets of Sartre, Husymans and De Beauvoir. 127 people (this is the figure at the time of writing) have perished, most of them young, most of them middle-class. We can assume from such data that many of them will have been liberal, even towards Islam. How cruel, how very awful it is that they have been made to depart in the process learning the vital truth of our age.

What truth? The truth that Islam is violent – and that Muslims are themselves violent in proportion to how much credence they give their religious beliefs. This is the unvarnished reality. I am very tired of hearing the ‘not all Muslims are terrorists’ talking-point. While terrorists don’t yet comprise a majority in the Ummah, the true proportion is markedly higher than the 2-3% fabricated by our political elite. You don’t need to be dead on the ground, surrounded by shards of glass and puddles of blood to be called a terrorist. All suicide bombers were alive once. They smiled once. They had jobs once. Likewise, many ‘ordinary’ Muslims walking beside us today will end up trying to kill us. As to why they behave this way, the lies simply won’t work anymore. Beyond all those block-headed and absurd analogies with abortion clinic bombings, the truth remains that Islamic violence really has no equivalent in other faiths. Most religions have modernised, re-examined their doctrines and tamed their believers. Islam, by terrible contrast, actively resists even the most moderate alterations to its foundational dogmas. For this reason, the modern world must resist its incorporation as actively as one would resist imbibing a fatal poison.

Have we learnt anything new from Paris’s nightmare? Not really. ISIS has today claimed responsibility for the attack, but this was largely a waste of energy. We knew who was responsible from the moment the story broke. Indeed, since we have opened our borders to ISIS-infested Syria for the best part of a year, the only wonder is why this hasn’t happened before now.

While some of our head-in-the-sand celebrity class may have learnt a lesson, the chances are it’s already been beaten out of them. The respected comedian Jason Manford, a very liberal personality, had his whole Facebook profile deleted after posting the following ‘outburst’:

“Slaughtering innocent unarmed people for what? Families and children enjoying life, theatre, meals? For what? In whose name? Are you doing this in the name of your God? Cos I’ve got news for you. If you think your ‘God’ is gonna reward you for this type of atrocity then your God is a massive cunt. I hope you are all caught and murdered in a similar agonising way you fucking scumbags.”

I can’t see much to be ashamed of in Manford’s reaction. Can you? But that doesn’t matter. We are expected – commanded even – to forget the facts, overlook the well-established reality, and make sure not to offend the people cocking AK-47s in toilets waiting to launch massacres. All else is fascism.

This kind of mass-folly is unsustainable. Europe will always be incompatible with Islam. On this matter, the people already know better than the government. Moderating propaganda will always be futile. Instead of lying to us, our elected representatives (in step with the public) must be brave, come together and talk without censorship about the unpleasant realities of Islamic immigration.

Only when we admit to having a problem can we begin to do something about it. And after Paris, Rotherham, New York, Washington, Madrid, Jerusalem, Tunisia, Benghazi, London, Glasgow, Moscow, Mumbai, Sydney, Beslan, Fort Hood, Stockholm and Argentina… anyone who denies that we have a problem is a fool at best, an enemy at worst.

D, LDN

ISIS: After the Fall

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Friday’s attack did not occur without a greater context. Though it’s too soon to speak with certainty, it would appear that ISIS (aka Islamic State, aka ISIL) is beginning to weaken and may soon collapse. The evidence for this proposition is plentiful. After years of superhuman military performance in which towns fell to the group in a matter of hours, often having been emptied of resistance beforehand by the sheer (justified) terror of remaining, great swathes of IS-held territory are now falling (just as rapidly) to Syrian and Kurdish troops. The controversial Russian intervention seems to have greatly diminished ISIS morale and the US and UK drone strikes (which today disposed of a particularly vicious fool known as Jihadi John) are steadily picking off the group’s here-today, gone-tomorrow leadership. And while ISIS boasts of being the penultimate destination of all Muslim believers, the number of ‘Western’ Muslims travelling to Syria to join the nascent Caliphate has been falling consistently for months, perhaps a reflection of a declining reputation on its part.

Let’s be optimistic and presume this is the case. Let’s presume that ISIS has but a few more blood-soaked months of life left in it. What happens then? What should happen to the thousands (and there are still many thousands) of ISIS members when their protective unity is no more? Obviously, this will initially require one of the largest mass arrests since the fall of Nazi Germany. But what comes after that? What sentence or punishment would be sufficient for the crimes these savages have delighted in committing over the past five years?

You’ve probably guessed my answer already, but I’ll detail it regardless. If an ISIS militant is captured in the midst of combat, he should face the death penalty. If this sounds excessive (and I’m sure you don’t think so), remember that had any of the medieval crimes ISIS members have committed over the last few years been committed in America, a death sentence would have been issued in every case. This really is no different. Furthermore, we’re already issuing death sentences from the air with our drone strikes. I can think of no valid counter-argument to this.

After the fall of ISIS, captured fighters should not be extradited to their home countries, but promptly turned over to the Syrian military (the Kurds, Russians and Jordanians are too humane). Given the moral standards of the Assad regime, we can be sure the correct action will be taken, and with little compassion or fanfare. ISIS members have lived by the sword, and they shall die by it, too. For over half a decade, they have massacred uncountable civilians, beheaded them, cut their arms off for ‘witchcraft’ and other imaginary offences, thrown gays from the top floor of bombed-out buildings, gang-raped non-Muslim women, and sold others into sexual slavery. They have recently shot 200 CHILDREN in the head and uploaded footage of the crime onto the internet. Before that, they butchered Christians on the shores of the Mediterranean, turning the sea a dark shade of red. They fed other Christians to dogs, watching gleefully as they were agonisingly ripped apart.

Just as the Nazis were hung for their crimes, so must ISIS hang for theirs.

D, LDN