Trump’s Best Speech (So Far)

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ICYMI, this was Trump’s best speech of the campaign so far. He placed his candidacy in the broader historical moment, justifying the extraordinary nature of his platform.

D, LDN

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The Real Ted Cruz?

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According to mainstream analysis, if Donald Trump is ultimately denied the Republican nomination for the 2016 general election, it will almost certainly be due to a late surge in support for the campaign of Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This seems accurate enough. Though at the time of writing Cruz lags over 10 points behind the billionaire favourite, he is significantly ahead of the over-hyped neoconservative Marco Rubio, who is himself significantly ahead of the swollen pool of has-beens languishing in single digits. Given how familiar this grid has become and how apparently immovable its order seems to be, commentators are justly relaxed in proclaiming a two-horse race; Cruz the evangelical vs. Trump the patriot; Faith vs. Fatherland; Social vs. Paleo conservatism.

My opinion on Cruz has flip-flopped anarchically for several months now. Back in the days before Trump dramatically belly-flopped into the competition, I confidently believed that Cruz was the best the GOP had to offer, that he was strong enough, un-PC enough and bold enough to strike back at the Islamic hordes with greater force than his competitors. Now I’m not so sure, and my doubts seem to be broadly sympathised with.

Take David Denby in the New Yorker Magazine who (in a piece entitled ‘Ted Cruz: The Mask of Sincerity’) composed the following scathing profile: “When Ted Cruz lies, he appears to be praying. His lips narrow, almost disappearing into his face, and his eyebrows shift abruptly, rising like a drawbridge on his forehead into matching acute angles…For months, I sensed vaguely that he reminded me of someone but I couldn’t place who it was. Revelation has arrived: Ted Cruz resembles the Bill Murray of a quarter-century ago, when he played fishy, mock-sincere fakers. No one looked more untrustworthy than Bill Murray. The difference between the two men is that the actor was a satirist.”

Others have chosen similar if more compact dismissals of the Texan Senator, calling him (among other things) a ‘slimeball’, a ‘scuzzball’, a ‘snake’ and a ‘liar’. In short, people don’t believe Cruz possesses any moral or political integrity. Neither frankly do I.

Though this should really have no relevance in politics, Mr Cruz’s physical appearance has played an oversized part in forming this negative reputation. His face seems naturally untrustworthy, resembling – depending on the situation – a used car salesman, a televangelist or a war-time skiv – three roles he plays with rehearsed skill and exaggerated passion. I agree with Cruz, but I’m not certain that he agrees with himself. And this is problematic, even in American politics.

Barack Obama, to make a provocative comparison, is an authentic advocate of the policies he has backed over the past 8 years. Whatever else may be said about him, he is a straight-talking gentleman with a tendency to think aloud. Cruz on the other hand seems to have two entirely distinct people concealed within his skin; one a cynical, coldly methodical politician who will do or say anything to win; and the other a devout, bible-believing servant of the Almighty, less concerned with power than with unborn babies and veteran soldiers.

Cruz doesn’t need to flip between these two personas. They work together immaculately. But are both of them Ted Cruz? It would be impolite to guess.

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

The 1st Democratic Debate

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When I sat down to watch the first Democratic presidential nomination debate, I had no great expectations. This isn’t because I’m ‘right-wing’ – because I’m not ‘right-wing’ at all. It’s because I’m a liberal – a defender of liberalism in its best and most essential form – and those seeking the nomination were and are illiberal.

By the end of the debate, I felt I had learnt very little. I imagine most of America came to the same conclusion.

It was certainly a lively affair, with much whooping and hollering from the audience. Indeed, I don’t recall any point made by any of the candidates which did not receive prolonged applause. It had the feel of a Communist rally, with no happy unit of socialism daring to stop clapping first, for fear of death.

There were five candidates in attendance on the night. Only two have chance of winning. Hillary Clinton is still by far the favourite, despite not winning the debate by any measure. Closing in behind her is Bernie Sanders, the darling of social media, and a self-confessed ‘democratic socialist’, who most certainly did win the debate (at least according to every media and internet outlet covering the event).

Sanders is admittedly a very good speaker, with a much deeper voice than his appearance would suggest. In the debate, we discovered that he has a liking for the socialism prevalent in Scandinavia. Given the well-established norms of American politics, this was a very brave (even if also foolish) thing to endorse. Clinton never went so far, and we can presume that she never will.

The debate was hosted by CNN (a reliably ‘liberal’ – i.e. Leftist – news network), and the candidates did not receive any difficult interrogations from the chair. As Jonah Goldberg (author of the splendid ‘Liberal Fascism’) noted “Anderson Cooper and his colleagues… didn’t only lob softballs at the Democrats in Las Vegas; they made little to no effort to highlight the fact that on many social issues, the Democratic Party is often more out of the mainstream than the Republicans are. Why? Because the Democrats don’t seem out of the mainstream — to the mainstream media.”

Still, as I say, it remains to be seen if any of these debates matter to the Democratic Party. As well as Sanders performed, a Clinton ticket would seem to be written in the stars.

Who can beat her? That’s the only question still worth asking. Ted Cruz might be up to the task. Marco Rubio would stand a chance. Ben Carson could (maybe). But out of all the Republican front-runners, only one can be counted on to win and deliver the goods upon winning, and that is Donald Trump. Call me crazy. Call me rash. But an increasing number of people agree with me.

D, LDN

Russia Vs America

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Russia’s intervention in Syria seems (so far) to be a very positive historical development. Seems to be , yet I cannot quite say ‘is’.

My sense of caution doesn’t derive from any hostility to Russia’s policy (which I generally support), but rather from my suspicions over the world response to it. While I personally love to see Russian bombs bursting in Islamist neighbourhoods, I am aware that members of our political elite are altogether more troubled by it. I am also aware of the reason for their unease.

Though it is the catchphrase of many lunatic characters, there really is something called the ‘New World Order’ – and in that ‘order’, things like this are never supposed to occur.

The NWO (the real one) is simply another name for the post-Soviet order, itself a slightly updated design of the post-WII order, with which it still bears many similarities. Conservative journalist Peter Hitchens (younger brother of Christopher) summed it up by rehearsing the following famous attitude – ‘Keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out.’

Put in greater detail, the order was designed to keep America as the worlds only accepted military superpower. Expeditionary exercises by states unallied to Washington were to become the stuff of history. There were to be no more Stalins, Hitlers and Nassers; no more upstart challenges to the US military’s global predominance in the air, on land or at sea. This is why Milosevic and Hussein were so quickly disposed of, why Germany and Japan’s economic growth was once so unnerving, and why Putin’s Russia is now regarded as so threatening.

In the NWO, only Washington’s opinion on world affairs matters (the UK being little more than a button on America’s shirt). Most Europeans (myself included) are fine with this. Though it tends to make world affairs rather lopsided, American hegemony plays a very positive and important role in maintaining peace. If American might was suddenly subtracted from the globe, vicious, large-scale wars would begin almost immediately. China would begin bombing Taiwan (and possibly Japan). Iran and the stronger Arab states would start threatening the Israelis. Pakistan and India would recommence their nuclear stand-off over Kashmir. The Serbs (backed by Russia) would retake Kosovo and attack Albania. The Turks would move ruthlessly against the Kurds. Sudan (backed and armed by China) would retake South Sudan and begin a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Long-simmering tensions between Venezuela and Colombia would be brought to the surface. Russia would follow through on its threats to invade the Baltic and move its forces close enough to menace Poland and other Slavic EU states. Etc…

America has thus given the world a very long and very prosperous period of calm. We should be thankful for it. But now, Obama’s astonishing weakness on foreign affairs is now threatening to undo it all. Who can accurately say how far this will unravel and with what historic effect?

As anyone could have foreseen, America has loudly condemned Russia’s activities in Syria. Only today, Obama rather idiotically claimed that the airstrikes will end up ‘strengthening ISIS’ (by weakening those charming US-backed Islamists in the Al-Nusra Front, for example).

And in Britain, the reliable, chew toy-seeking David Cameron has since barked his agreement with the Washington line, followed swiftly by the human-shaped cardboard art-exhibit known as Francois Hollande. The media has been similarly obedient. As Russia Today drily noted “No sooner had Russian planes taken off to bomb ISIS terrorists.., claims made by the West’s anti-Russia lobby (were) repeated in much of the western mainstream media… (alleging that) Russia wasn‘t really targeting ISIS but “moderate rebels” and its strikes killed scores of innocent civilians… Now there’s two possible explanations for the lightning fast way this new chapter in the “information war” against Russia has been launched… The first is that the anti-Russian lobby have fantastic sources in Syria and know exactly who has been killed in air strikes moments after the bombs are dropped, or, in some cases possess clairvoyant powers and know who the victims will be even before the bombs fall…The second explanation is that the accusations and allegations that we’ve seen were already written up – filed and saved – and ready to be posted online as soon as Russia’s parliament authorized the use of military force.”

Western government and Western media are thus united in hostility towards the Kremlin. This might not end well.

I don’t believe our leaders are ready to intervene in Syria (that is, against Russia) – or not just yet. We nevertheless have to be prepared for such an occurrence. With Russia fighting proxy wars against American security assets, it isn’t Bond-novel fiction anymore.

And just what would happen if the West did intervene on behalf of its preferred barbarians? World War III? Quite possibly, yes.

D, LDN

Wildcard: The Russian Army in Syria

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The news that the Russian military is set to intervene in the Syrian civil war will split the Western commentariat into two competing factions, only one of which will base itself in reason and a firm understanding of Near-Eastern geopolitics.

That force, the force of reason, will welcome the news with clasping hands and a full-throated cheer. At last, they (we) shall exclaim, the Russians are going to act where the West has failed to, and in doing so bring to an early close the most nightmarish act of the developing millennial epic.

The other force, that of conformity and unreason, will bemoan the collapse of international order, a cynical and world-historic victory for dictatorship over democracy, and the remanufacture of 20th century darkness.

David Cameron, who regrettably remains the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, will be a leading voice in the second cacophony. For many months now, Mr Cameron has pursued a quite dazzling campaign of defamation against the well-established reality of the Syrian civil-war. According to Mr Cameron’s private logic, Bashar Al-Assad is the ‘leading cause of terrorism’ in the Middle East, and his crumbling, half-dead regime poses a superior threat to the West than does ISIS.

There are drugs for this kind of thinking. It is nothing more glamorous than a delusion to claim that an economically barren nationalist state withholds the potential for greater bloodshed than the self-described germ of a global Islamic caliphate. It is madness, in fact. It is a protest against things as they are.

Of course I don’t believe for one moment that Cameron is actually that unstable. He is rather conforming to a Western line set many years ago in Washington. This line, now only expressible with a red face, considered the Jihadist rebels as moderates and freedom fighters. Indeed, many of the fighters currently gang-raping infidel women, beheading infidel men, and exploding priceless antiquities were initially touted as possible allies in the struggle for a reformed – even liberalised – Syria.

Fortunately for the world, Russia has no time for such delusions. The Russian military base at Latakia, one of the very few warm-water ports available to the Russian Navy, is high on the ISIS target-list. For Putin to have sat back and waited for the Caliphate to arrive was never really on the cards; thus the current intervention.

Given the scale of the reported deployment (and the heavy equipment being prepared), it is unlikely that Russia will be launching a nicey-nicey or ‘surgical’ operation against the barbarians. In fact, if the brutal example of Putin’s war in Chechnya is anything to go by, ISIS are in for a very rough ride indeed. And that’s music to my ears, it really is. ISIS deserve every bullet, bomb and warhead coming to them.

As for the West, and all its inevitable protest against this intervention, we must make our leaders understand that Russia is only doing what we said we would do, but haven’t yet found the guts for. Despite his cynical meddling in Ukraine and the Baltic, it is in our interests that Putin devotes his energies to issues like Syria. It is the biggest fight of our era, the fight for Western civilisation itself. And as far as that war is concerned, Europe and Russia will either hang together or hang separately.

D, LDN

Stop the Russian World Cup.

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After all the revelations (mostly facts already widely known) about the corruption of FIFA by Russian, Qatari and South African governments, commentators and football fans are rushing to cancel the ill-conceived (and probably unworkable) 2022 competition in Qatar – an event that would have players (mostly European) running around in nightmarishly hot conditions on slave-built playing fields.

While this is obviously the correct thing to do, I would also argue that given the its behaviour in Eastern Europe, the nation of Russia should also be denied its (corruptly gained) hosting rights in 2018.

I love Russia, both the culture and the people, and once upon a time, I even admired Vladimir Putin. But now I recognise all too keenly that the Kremlin poses a gravely serious threat to the post-war order.

Ukraine, a sovereign and peaceful country, is being mutilated before the eyes of the world. Thousands of its people have perished, including many innocent civilians. And though it continues to deny any involvement, Moscow is clearly directing events on the ground.

Football is a great tradition, an enjoyable sport and a genuine art-form. It is not however of superior importance to peace and international justice.

D, LDN.

The Question of Kosovo.

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Although considered by Western Powers to be ‘resolved’, the military conflict between Serbs and Albanians over the territory of Kosovo continues with great intensity at every sub-political level. On internet forums in particular, poetically restrained and level-headed comments like the following are uploaded almost every day:

“Fucking Anal-banian goat-herding Turks! Get the fuck out of Europe, you filthy Muslim mongols! We should fucking genocide you.” – “Serbian monkey filth, bending over and taking Russian Slavic dick. How does Putin’s cock taste, fucking bitches.” – “Albanian Pakistani Arab goat monkey Turk swine! Don’t act fucking Italian, Turkish filth!” – “Funny Slavs called us Turks! Slavs were Turkish slaves! That’s why they are called SLAVS! You are lower than sand monkeys, Slavic Serbo-degenerate peasants.”

And so on…

Needless to say, these crazed ejaculations are degrading to their authors and wholly unbefitting of European affairs.

How did this happen? How did two neighbourly European countries become charged with an enthusiasm for genocide?

The answer is the Islamic religion and the chaos caused by its introduction onto a Christian continent.

The Ottoman Empire’s European domain was maintained in the same way that it was created, with the sword and the heavy-hands of the state. In occupied Albania, proud, inassimilable Europeans were treated like second-class citizens in their own countries, and only converted subjects were entreated with privilege and the favour of the authorities. After many patriotic residents, repulsed by the Islamising trend, fled to the safety of Western European countries, the orthodoxies of Islam slowly became the norm in Albanian society, with the nation all but Islamised in two centuries of occupation.

From that moment on, Albania has been a geopolitical oddity on the European continent; an oddity whose accommodation has proven beyond the wiles of various European statesmen. It is undoubtedly true that Albania is a European country, and DNA tests on the general population have confirmed that is native to the land. But what is more difficult to decide is whether Albania is a part of the European cultural community.

This confusion would lie dormant for many centuries, eventually only coming to the fore as a result of tensions with the Serbs.

Serbian nationalists claim Kosovo as a hallowed territory in their national history. It was the sight of a destructive battle ‘The Battle of Kosovo’ in 1389 in which Serbian troops sought to repel an Ottoman invasion. Since that date, the territory has been romantically evoked by Serbian nationalists in poetry, music and literature.

When the territory eventually was secured by the Ottomans (after the Battle described above), the region was overwhelmingly Serbian. By the fall of the Ottomans in the 19th century however, the region was markedly more cosmopolitan, with Muslim Albanians now comprising a large proportion of its inhabitants.

This miserable time for Serbia was later horribly exacerbated by the long dictatorships of the Nazis and Soviets. After the fall of the latter, the region of Kosovo once again became a matter of racial dispute.

The Serbs, seeking to carve out a new state along the lines of their historic homeland naturally wanted to reverse the injustices of the Ottoman period. The Albanians, having benefited immensely from their centuries of favour with the Muslim authorities, naturally wished for the region to remain Albanian. When the conflict became bestial and corpses piled up in the forests, the US intervened on the side of the Albanians, leading to the quasi-independent state of Kosovo.

The trend for Counter-Jihadis, for obvious reasons, has been to back the Serbs and I don’t see any reason to depart from this consensus. The state of Kosovo is as illegitimate as any other entity created by force during a period of imperialism. When the Nazis carved out lebensraum from occupied Poland, throwing out the rightful inhabitants and transplanting the towns and villages with foreigners, this was understood by every fair-minded observer to be a wrong in need of righting. The Ottomans, given their treatment of the Armenians and Slavs, should be considered a fascist empire alike that of the Germans. Their Islamist project in the Balkans was designed to gain a synthetic foothold in Europe, from which to launch a later conquest. We must reject this with a united voice and a common energy.

D, LDN.

Are Terror Groups Becoming More Powerful Than Nation-States?

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The terrorist ‘rebel’ forces of Syria, who – even if combined – number less than 25,000 men, have fought the million-man army of the Syrian State to a bloody stalemate. Despite the thousands of tanks, APCs, missiles, chemical warheads, fighter-bomber jets, and trained soldiers at Assad’s command, he has failed to prevent massive swathes of his nation falling into the hands of a rugged, relatively disorganised opposition.

In Iraq, another terror group, ISIS, has held its ground against the US, Saudi and Jordanian air forces, the Iraqi army, and various Kurdish paramilitaries.

And finally, in Ukraine, the pro-Russian separatist militias of the Donetsk People’s Republic have held off the armed forces of NATO-backed Western Ukraine whose ranks, even accounting for Russian counter-measures, dwarf the resources and technologies of the opposing side.

What does this tell us about our world?

For me, it raises the vitally important question as to whether the power of terror groups are evolving to a state of parity with national armies. It certainly seems that way, looking at the evidence.

Much of the improvement in guerrilla warfare over the past ten years is due to the development of one particular weapon – the mobile anti-tank missile. Once so large, they had to be hauled about on wheels, modern variants of these weapons are so small they can be carried like a rucksack.

It is a well-grounded fact that anti-tank missiles are cheaper to produce and more efficient in operation than the vehicles they destroy. If they are effectively designed and accurately deployed, 1000 anti-tank missiles can theoretically go against 1000 tanks and triumph.

The Israelis don’t need to be told this. Their brief and unsuccessful war against Lebanon in 2006 is judged in retrospect to be a Hezbollah military victory (a military victory, I emphasise, not an abstract ‘ideological’ or ‘moral’ victory – a military victory by Hezbollah over the Israeli army).  How did the Lebanese movement achieve this? In the main, it was via anti-tank missiles, the latest, most upgraded type used by the Russian military. Hezbollah is rumoured to possess many thousands more.

To understand this requires counter-intuitive reasoning. We naturally assume that a huge, hulking Israeli tank is more likely to triumph over a single Shia terrorist, however well he is armed. But that’s not what happened on many occasions.

It is suspected that the Syrian state has passed more varieties of Russian equipment on to Hezbollah since the beginning of the Syrian implosion. This fact, along with the ghost of the 2006 war, goes some way to explain why Israel has not displayed enthusiasm for a rematch.

By way of conclusion, there is no reason, no reason at all, why a terror group cannot triumph over a modern nation state, and we are seeing them do so in many parts of the world today. That these groups are often only 10 or 20 thousand man strong, should give us all cause for concern, especially at a time when Muslims flow into Europe by the million.

D, LDN.

When Dubai Sells Dates.

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Oil is a finite resource. It is also unevenly distributed, destructive to the environment and a wildly distortionary factor in the game of global influence. With these things conceded, it becomes easy to understand the impetus behind the search for a renewable replacement.

And while that search is now commonly regarded as a failure – Wind energy, solar power and nuclear technologies have all proven inefficient and if relied upon would ruin the global economy and collapse the Western standard of life – oil is quickly becoming less of a luxury than its producers (and pricers) are accustomed to.

The technology of shale gas extraction – though as environmentally destructive as any other form of fuel – will soon make America, Canada and much of Europe energy independent, free at last from those dubious and self-destructive alliances with the states of the Arabian Gulf.

What will happen to the producing nations when their precious resource no longer sets the pace of the global economy?

The answer will heavily depend on the country considered. Some oil-producing nations never needed to become as dependent on oil as they currently are. Russia for example, could have a modern diversified economy by now were it not for the meddling authoritarianism of the Putin Regime. Venezuela could be enjoying the same relaxed, tourist-driven tranquillity as Barbados or Dominica.

On the other hand, there are nations that have done far better with oil than they should have (or could have) without it. Among these, none risk a sharper and more dramatic fall than those states of the Gulf.

Dubai – that glistening Ballardian nightmare on the Indian Ocean – is the place to watch during this period. Dubai is the Manhattan of the United States of OPEC. And when oil goes down, so do those skyscrapers.

After all, other than tourism, oil and investment, what can Dubai offer? The only answer discoverable online is dates. Like Germany and cars, Japan and electronics, the UAE is apparently the go-to source for those annoying fruits often given as gifts but which nobody has ever liked.

As oil becomes plentiful and cheap, companies in the Gulf will desperately try to plough their funds into blue-chip companies in the West. Real estate within cities like Abu Dhabi and Dubai will be promoted as a piece of tropical paradise for wealth Westerners unimpressed with the sunshine in Monaco and Cannes.

The Gulf regimes themselves will begin to use a different tone in its diplomacy. Gone (or very moderated) will be the haughty superiority they have employed in the past, replaced over time with a panicky and tremulous pleading.

What should the world’s relationship with the Gulf in the long term be – that is, after the age of expensive oil?  In my view, it should be measured to match the scant disregard with which they have treated our own geopolitical security in their time of luxury. All the time that oil went for over $100 a barrel, the Saudis felt no anxiety in sponsoring groups dedicated to wiping out their clientele.

When Dubai is reduced to selling Dates, I suggest the West remembers this.

D, LDN.