Milo Yiannopoulos: The Good and the Bad

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Few stars are rising faster at the moment than that of conservative writer/broadcaster Milo Yiannopoulos. Virtually unknown just three years ago, the Greco-British journalist, 32, is now fast approaching the kind of iconoclastic status attained by such writers as Gore Vidal and HL Mencken (both of whom expended considerably more time and effort to achieve it).

What can explain this success?

Well – for one thing, Yiannopoulos is a quite formidable debater, and it is for this talent that he is primarily known. Type in ‘Milo Yiannopolous’ into YouTube and many of the videos returned to you will have titles containing words like ‘destroys’, ‘eviscerates’, ‘owns’ and so on… These are not exaggerations. Yiannopoulos has a unique way of making the people he engages seem naive, foolish and weak-minded. He is even – I have found – able to achieve this effect when the other person is in the right; and there is surely no greater testament to a debater’s skill than that.

Yiannopoulos is not merely good with words, he is good with emotions, presenting his side of any argument in a relaxed, self-assured and matter-of-fact style that naturally makes the arguments of the other side seem less certain, more bizarre and fundamentally weaker. In this sense he reminds me in speech of Mark Steyn in print. Both put to use the same rhetorical trick – the insinuation – quite deliberate – that they know they are right. Both treat contrary points of view as amusing, forgivable, even charming eccentricities. Yiannopoulos and Steyn are not trying to make the other side look stupid, so they have us believe, they are trying are help them understand reality – and by arguing this way, they do make them look stupid. There is surely no better way of wounding an intellectual’s reputation than to sympathise with his failures and politely excuse his errors.

Yiannopoulos’s writing, though less spectacular than his debating, still passes with ease any quality test for the journalistic mainstream. Here is a representative excerpt from an article taking down the goodwill-bloated ‘astrophysicist’ Neil Degrasse Tyson:

“Neil deGrasse Tyson is a philistine with no love of learning except for popularisations and oversimplifications that serve his political purposes… (He) constantly situates himself in the big brain league, but he has done nothing in his life to demonstrate that he belongs there — and a lot to suggest he doesn’t…. (He) claims to have been “mentored” by Carl Sagan, for instance. Yet it appears this “mentorship” boils down to little more than a couple of traded letters. If Tyson thinks that qualifies as mentorship, I wonder what he’d call my nocturnal liaisons with other men who share his skin colour. Adoption?… As dumb as Tyson is, his fans are even more preposterously thick, which is probably to be expected given that they’re all liberals. But the extent to which they hoover up and retweet his contradictory and brainless provocations is matched only by the hilarity of the occasional social justice car crash, in which the politics of grievance that Tyson likes to encourage comes back to bite him.”

But neither Yiannopoulos’s skill in writing or debating can fully explain his meteoric ascent. Beyond the mechanics of his profession, Yiannopoulos is himself remarkable. For one thing, he is gay. Indeed, if homosexuality can be graded, he is very gay; audaciously, flamboyantly so. He is also Greek, Jewish and Catholic. This exotic quality, brim-full of apparent contradiction (Gay, Jewish, Catholic, Conservative – are not words used to being in each other’s company), has combined with Yiannopoulos’s oratorical (and occasionally bitchy) style to produce a ready-made object of media fascination. Yiannopoulos gets ratings up in a way no other public commentator has since the death of Christopher Hitchens, a person with whom the journalist bears many important similarities.

Like Hitchens, Yiannopoulos expresses with intelligence arguments traditionally expressed with stupidity. Though I do sympathise with many right-wing concepts, it is nevertheless a fact of politics that the conservative side of the political spectrum attracts more dullards than the liberal side. Many – perhaps the majority – of those inclined to oppose Islam, for example, do so in a crude, yobbish style that puts off the discerning classes and fails to excite anyone else.

Yiannopoulos is successful precisely because he refines gut-sentiments into intelligent arguments. People watch Yiannopoulos debate Islam on television and scream ‘That’s what I think!” or “That’s what I’ve always said!”. He articulates feelings many desperately want to – but cannot – put into words.

So, that’s the good. Now for the bad.

Despite the considerable talents I have described, Yiannopoulos is not without his faults. He has, for one thing, consistently demonstrated a worrying lack of intellectual discipline; a tendency to seek controversy (for its own sake) over positive political impact. On twitter the writer has repeatedly engaged in pointless arguments with entirely apolitical pop-cultural figures, most recently Leslie Jones, the simple-minded comedienne and star of the much-maligned 2016 Ghostbusters remake. After a brief back and forth over various trifles, Milo made a joke implying that Jones (who is admittedly unfeminine looking) is actually a man. This comment then led to Yiannopoulos’s twitter account being deleted by the administrators of the site – (he is still banned).

Was this necessary? Did it serve a purpose? I don’t think so.

Like this author, Yiannopoulos is an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump’s 2016 bid for the US Presidency and has written countless articles explaining this support, most of which have been reasoned and compelling. But on this matter, too, he has a tendency to drift into inexplicable weirdness. Yiannopoulos often refers to Mr Trump in a sexualised voice as ‘Daddy’ and once stated that the “trashier” the Republican nominee becomes the more he loves him.

Now, I have no moral objection to any of this, but surely such unseriousness runs the risk of undoing the good work the journalist has done elsewhere. Once again I ask, is it necessary? Does it serve a purpose? Does Milo wish to be a neo-Orwellian truth-teller or a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother? Christopher Hitchens or Pete Burns? One cannot combine the two aspirations indefinitely.

The atheist Voltaire once remarked that the only prayer he had ever offered was ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous’. I can well imagine Islamists and Leftists offering this same plea to the Almighty in view of current political circumstances. On the issue of Islam – as on many others – we are so far in the right that a misstep on our part is probably the best the opposition can hope for. Milo and others would do well to bear this in mind.

On balance, I am of the opinion that Milo Yiannopoulos can be a very effective soldier for the anti-Islamist cause. His oratorical skill, humour and minority-status make him a very difficult target for the Left to hit with their favoured weaponry. They cannot possibly call Milo, a gay man of partially Jewish descent, irrational or paranoid for worrying about the advance of ISIS. They cannot possibly accuse him of being a Nazi, a White nationalist, or a possessor of ‘privilege’ (the Left’s favourite buzzword of the moment). Milo’s exotic qualities form a wall of confusion around his arguments, giving them a better chance of being considered for what they mean rather than as an extension of who formed them.

And while there are those who will object outright to the inclusion of an actively gay man in the conservative movement, one must strive to remember that the threat of Islam is so broad that it will necessarily require an equally broad coalition to prevent its success.

If you find the right’s embrace of Yiannopoulos strange, you’ll be even more surprised by what the future holds.

D, LDN.

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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

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

3 Difficult Questions About the Refugee Crisis

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When a photograph depicting the corpse of young boy washed up on the shore of the Mediterranean emerged last week, the world was shocked and appalled. Unlike any image before it, the photo has galvanised a massive humanitarian response, some of it deeply moving and morally impressive, from Iceland to Poland, Britain to Greece. Money is being thrown aimlessly into the air. Shelter is being offered across the continent. EU governments, including formerly hard-line and conservative regimes, are now yielding to public pressure for greater quotas of asylum seekers for their respective nations.

When emotion shouts in this way, wisdom struggles to be heard. Questions of a more cynical, less humanitarian nature are in this environment extremely difficult to ask. One risks being accused of ‘heartlessness’, ‘meanness’ or ‘xenophobia’ for casting any doubt, however light, on the official humanitarian narrative. But cast it we must.

Here are 3 questions that must be answered, however difficult and cynical they may – in the shouting short term – be considered.

1. Are the majority of ‘refugees’ actually refugees?

This is obviously the most important question at this juncture. Do the ‘refugees’ pouring into Europe deserve the label, or are they simply opportunists seeking a better material outlook for their family? While it is impossible to give a definite answer (one applicable to every different individual case), the information already gathered allows us to at least make a general estimate. Most, if not all, the refugees attempting to reach Europe are actually migrants.

How do we know this? That’s the answer to question 2…

2. Why isn’t Turkey safe enough for them?

The Kurdish child Aylan Kurdi, whose grim fate now dominates every newspaper in the world, did not have to die. He and his family were already safely in Turkey when they chose to shoot for Europe, and since Turkey is perfectly safe and reasonably affluent, Europe has no moral case to answer for his demise. Indeed, while he was been roundly criticised for it, the UKIP member Peter Bucklitsch was brave and entirely correct to place the blame directly on the child’s parents, remarking that had they not been ‘greedy for the good life’, the tragedy could have/would have been averted.

This isn’t actually a complicated matter (or at least it needn’t be). Once a refugee reaches a country of safety, he or she ceases to be a refugee. If that person then chooses to move on in search of a more desirable haven, that person becomes a migrant. It really is that simple.

3. Who is to blame for the crisis?

The answer to this last question is crystal clear. ISIS/Islamic State are to blame. Their cynical and merciless campaign against the people of Syria has sent ripples of destructive chaos across the whole of Eurasia. The everyday suffering in Raqqah and Palmyra is almost too extreme to be imagined. As we luxuriate in our peaceful suburbs, Syrian men, women and children are being enslaved, beheaded, brainwashed, forcibly conscripted, raped and robbed by a psychopathic gang of desert primitives. I fully understand why ordinary people wish to leave the nightmare being constructed. We would all do – or at least, try to do – the same.

But Europe is a not a charity. It is a continent and a civilisation. We have our own problems, our own impoverished masses and our own economic and politic disorders to contend with. In this time of Muslim suffering, the Muslim world must come to its own aid. More than anywhere else, the money-drenched kingdoms of the Arabian Gulf must allow a massively increased quota of migrants into their own territories. If they truly believe in the concept of an Ummah, let them prove it. Let them impress and embarrass the whole world with their brotherly kindness.

And if they do not, the blame is theirs and theirs alone.

D, LDN.

Yes, Women Can Be Evil Too.

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Over the past two years, a period in world history dominated by economic crisis and extreme violence, the Daily Mail newspaper has published small variations of the same story at least three times. It concerns the shadowy manoeuvres of a sub-division of ISIS called the al-Khansa brigade, notable for being made up exclusively of young women.

According to reports, the al-Khansa brigade is responsible for enforcing a harsh Sharia-compliant lifestyle upon women in ISIS controlled territories. If and when women fall short of Sharia standards (say, by wearing a veil of thin material, leaving it slightly transparent), members of the brigade are said to arrest the offending female and take her to a dungeon, wherein they pinch her, beat her, confine her and otherwise torture her within an inch of her life. If the offence is ‘severe’ meanwhile (some extremity of the body being entirely revealed, adultery, lesbianism etc..) the brigade arranges for the prisoner to be stoned to death.

While some have doubted the veracity of these reports (an understandable position when one considers the record of the Daily Mail), we have every reason to believe this brigade exists, and in the fashion described. Indeed, in an interview with Sky News (later reported in the Independent newspaper), an account of the activities of the brigade was recounted by a woman claiming to be a former member. The woman, then 20 years of age, told the journalists that her job “was to lash women who tried to escape or wore the wrong clothes” and that “the women who were caught trying to escape would receive 60 lashes, while women who simply wore heels or were not wearing the proper Islamic dress known as the abaya, were ‘given the ‘standard’ 40 lashes’.”

(Note: When reading of people being ‘lashed’ in the context of the Muslim world, one should never presume the lash to be a thin, flimsy or light, but thick and heavy like rope. People have died from being punished this way).

Of course it’s easy to understand why (among the thousands of cruelties exacted by ISIS fighters) this particular story has proven enduringly popular. Firstly, it appeals to the darkest recesses of the Western male mind – the unlit zone attracted to Sadism, Masochism and fascinated with the exotic and the forbidden. And secondly, it is because of the natural shock people feel when hearing of acts of brutality committed by the fairer sex, something seemingly incongruous and running against the universal grain.

But is it really so rare?

We in the West have become so used to perceiving women as victims of Islam that we probably forget there are women who want to be Muslim; that there are women who choose for themselves a very extreme interpretation of the Koran, often against the wishes of their spouse or family; in short, that women can be irrational and evil too.

Given this reality, I would say that dealing with Jihadi women should be no more morally complicated than dealing with their male counterparts. There is no feminine value left in the ranks of al-Khansa and so they must annihilated with the same ruthlessness (and with the same weapons) as IS’s frontline troops. If they are captured and refuse to provide information, they shouldn’t be spared ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ either. When you betray your sex to such a dreadful extent, you sacrifice the privileges of being that sex.

D, LDN.

The Demolition of Nineveh.

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When he established the religion of Islam in 630 AD, the Prophet Muhammad is said to have smashed the statues of ancient Arabic Idols in the territory now venerated as the Masjid al-Haram in Makkah. In doing so, he set an example that would ripple through the ancient Middle East like an earthquake.

Energized by the faith he imparted them, Muhammad’s followers charged the tired-out nations of humanity’s first golden-age, burning or smashing to pieces anything that attracted veneration or that stood for rival theologies. Their justification for this vandalism was the same used by the Prophet; nothing should be venerated except the qualities of God.

Wahhabis take this anti-idolatry stance to the wild extreme. In the modern city of Makkah, the Saudi religious establishment has ordered the bulldozing of numerous buildings venerated by millions of less orthodox believers. This includes the house Muhammad was born in and many other buildings connected with the Islamic Salaf (original or ‘rightly guided’ generation).

What is currently occurring in the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh is therefore completely in keeping with Islamic theology as promoted by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.

The Mail has posted pictures today depicting ISIS barbarians smashing statues in an Iraqi museum, some of which date back hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus. The surprised comments in reaction to them are shame-faced. Assyrian activists have been reporting the destruction of Nineveh for some time. The media has been pathetically slow to catch up.

The ancient city of Nineveh, whose ruins are located within the neighbourhood of the ISIS-controlled city of Mosul, was capital of the Assyrian empire and is mentioned throughout the Hebrew Bible. Its famed city walls are on the ISIS hit-list and may be blown up at any time. Should ISIS proceed all the way to Baghdad, the city of Babylon – to the South of the modern capital and an equally famed centre of ancient culture – will be treated the same way.

The question forming from the smoke of this destruction is whether we, the human collective, have any respect for our past, for the treasures that served as mileposts on the way to our present complexity. I do. I think we all should.

Death to Wahhabism. Death to the preachers of nihilism. Death to ISIS.

D, LDN.

ISIS and the SS

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Ever since ISIS/Islamic State began rapping at the doors of Baghdad and its beheadings first blackened the pages of Western print, media commentators have inevitably been searching for a way to describe the organisation to the common, apolitical everyman. It now seems they have settled on the following unconvincing and unpoetic summary:

“Like al-Qaeda, but worse.”

While faintly accurate, this really doesn’t get at the truth about ISIS. Nor (for that matter) does my own article ‘ISIS: al-Qaeda on Steroids’. The comparison with Bin Laden’s organisation I now believe to be generally misleading.

ISIS is something altogether new and its methods and aims almost unprecedented. Perhaps the only way to describe it appropriately is to use the well-worn example of the Nazis.

I would posit that the Nazi Wehrmacht – the Germany army under Nazi command – is roughly analogous to al-Qaeda, whilst ISIS is closer in spirit and practice to the Schutzstaffel or SS.

There are many reasons for this but one in particular. Put simply, al-Qaeda – like the Wehrmacht – fought for conventional, semi-rational goals. al-Qaeda sought to expel Western militaries from the Muslim world. The Wehrmacht fought to defend and enlarge the Nazi empire. Neither of these objectives are beyond comprehension to the outside observer and neither give any hint of madness in those who formulated them.

The SS meanwhile was a completely different beast. Himmler transformed the SS from an unremarkable bodyguard division into a secretive spiritual order charged with a unique, historic destiny. It became an elite racial cult, replete with rituals, codes and quirks of initiation. The SS considered themselves the appointed and rightful rulers of the European meta-race and the last hope it had against the ‘Asiatic hordes’ of Russia.

These objectives are plainly not reasonable or rooted in a rational interpretation of the world.

As with the SS, so it is with ISIS. The fighters of Islamic State believe themselves to be divinely ordained agents of the apocalypse. Their flag – the Black Banner – plays a central role in the eschatological drama of the Islamic end-times.

The Hadith most quoted in relation to the Black Banner (or ‘Black Standard’) is the following:

“Our Prophet (saas) told; “Black banners of Ibn Abbas appear from the East.” That is to say, among the Arabs those with black banners appear. After they proceed for a while, again this time a smaller group with black banners appear from the East (the Middle East). They fight against a man from the descend of Abu Sufyan and come under the obedience of Hazrat Mahdi (note: the promised saviour of Islam).”

The ‘Black Flags’ prophecy is the primary motivation of the ISIS leadership. The activities they endorse (unlike those of al-Qaeda) have nothing to do with removing the House of Saud from power or punishing America for its acts of imperialism. They are telescopically aimed at bringing on the end of the world and the mystical victory of Islam over rival religions and sects.

The Jihadis with Black flags believe they possess a divine mandate to cause chaos across the world – the bloodier and more random the better- in order to bring on the final Day of Judgement.

Irrational beliefs pave the way for acts of astonishing cruelty. The SS shot men, women and children into ditches without a moment’s reflection. Today it was reported that a phone seized from a dead ISIS fighter had photos of a beheaded baby. I’ll repeat that: a beheaded baby.

The historians have mourned for decades that we (the allied nations) did not have the knowledge of what was occurring in the Eastern territories. Had we known all the details at the time, the consensus claims, we could have (and perhaps would have) taken out the machinery of the Holocaust from the sky.

We have no such excuses today, as bearded Einsatzgruppen stalk their way through Kurdish villages and towns.

D, LDN.

Delayed Thoughts on Osama Bin Laden.

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Those who read the child-killer Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto following his misadventure in Oslo were understandably quick to accuse the murderer of hypocrisy for his stated admiration of Osama bin Laden. How could a man so virulently anti-Islam and willing to confront Islamism speak in a positive voice about the leader of al-Qaeda?

It actually makes sense the more you think about it. Indeed, I think I also feel a twinge of respect for the 9/11 ringleader (as hideous as that sounds). You only have to read his notorious ‘Fatwa against America and Israel’ to realise the wildcat millionaire was by-and-large on the money about Western-Islamic relations.

Bin Laden recognised, long before most, that Islam and modernity were (and are) incompatible and that (eventually) one must make way for the other. He knew that the only way Islam could reassert itself as an alternative to modern living was through huge waves of violence; that Islam will have to outdo the modern world in savagery if it cannot (and it cannot) compete in terms of economic growth or cultural vibrancy. Most importantly, he also knew that there is a dark place in human nature that respects violence, even of the most horrid and savage kind and that this respect can sometimes overcome the rational part of the mind that values banks, music stores and coffee shops. It is out of ignorance of this that we are shocked by the pampered London Muslims who abandon Kensington, iPhones and PlayStations for Syria and Iraq. Bin Laden understood only too well the ancient, occult lure of the primitive and all its apparent ‘purity’.

I suppose bin Laden was also (though we are loathe to admit it) something of a freedom fighter. It’s not pleasant to acknowledge, but bin Laden was exactly correct about American policy in the Gulf. It was (and is) deeply hypocritical of America to posture about democratisation in the Middle East whilst at the same time maintain a relationship with a hand-severing despotism in Riyadh. And to be sure, were bin Laden’s aims limited to the liberation of his homeland from the House of Saud, it wouldn’t have been crazy for liberals to have supported him.

He was not limited to such noble aims of course, despite what the Left occasionally argues. He wanted an Islamic superpower under his direct command, primed to target and bully the free world for outlandish demands. Those who replace him maintain those aims, but lack entirely the reason he undeniably possessed.

It serves all the while to remember this though. Bin Laden was a monster, but the sleep of reason that gave birth to him was our own.

D, LDN.

Oh What a Lovely War.

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As I write, the forces of the modern world are busily engaged in its defence. In the skies over Mesopotamia, F-22 Raptors – those beautiful, sleek monsters of war – are releasing smart bombs destined for the hide-outs of civilian-killers and child rapists.

I’m pleased and slightly surprised to see this. Obama and Cameron have had to make a tortuous about turn to arrive at the current (correct) poise. It wasn’t so long ago that these men were advocating the arming of Jihadist groups in the same region. Now they are pledging to roll such forces back into the middle ages where they belong. Hooray for common sense (at last).

The babyish pacifists are already whingeing of course. Some are warning of ‘mission creep’ and eventual ‘boots on the ground’. But why would anyone object to that? Of course I’d much rather that we could defeat ISIS entirely from the air, but it’s far from certain that we can. We must prepare for whatever this war may ask of us.

As acts of violence go, this is as close to moral violence as can be imagined. The democratic forces of the West are mowing down the ambitions of an anti-democratic evil. The edges we enjoy in technology are finally being made to count. The modern world is showing its worth and I for one am loving every minute of it.

D, LDN.

Beheaders Aren’t Britons.

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Barack Obama, Bombing, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Iraq, ISIS Beheading, ISIS Beheading Video, James Foley, Jim FOley, John, Obama, Statement, Syria, United States

Have you watched the video of James Foley’s death? I’ve only watched an edited version on YouTube. As in the original, it fades to black when the knife meets his throat. Prior to this Foley offered a (surely forced) verbal self-flagellation, climaxing with a statement of regret for being American. I’m told that in the full version (which I have no intention of viewing), the film ends with a shot of Foley’s decapitated corpse lying flat in the desert, his head resting on the small of his back.

Of course, by-itself, this episode doesn’t teach us anything new about Muslims, or about the motivating power of the Qur’an. Anyone who has even casually browsed the book will have noted a passage like the following:

“Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), strike off their heads; at length; then when you have made wide Slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives: thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens.” – 47:4

Some are calling Mr Foley unwise for having ventured into a desert filled with believers in such a text. I wouldn’t go that far. It is certainly something I would never do, and an intention I would discourage in friends. But there is an undeniably heroic quality to war journalism and – despite what his captors may have intended – Foley’s death has surely further dignified that profession.

This murder isn’t, I’m sad to say, a strictly American matter. While we in Britain had never heard of Foley before the news broke of his execution, we may have been unknowingly familiar with his murderer. In fact (altogether more chillingly), we may have rode the bus with him, sat next to him on the subway; we may have even shook the hand that slit Foley’s throat. His killer, you see, is ‘British’.

I’d like to use this occasion to take issue with something specific. Something broader than this isolated cruelty.

Having a British passport does not make you British. Being born in a Pakistanified hamlet of England does not make you English. To earn these historically illustrious definitions you must be part of the national community, speaks its language and concur with its moral standards. The butcher of Foley, as well as any other Muslim who has departed our shores for Jihad, checked their ‘British’ card at Heathrow.

No line (straight or crooked) can be drawn between these desert savages and Edward Gibbon. Don’t forget that to be called ‘British’ is in no way a small deal. This isn’t Luxembourg. Much of the modern age derives from British innovation. To make the definition of ‘British’ so cheap, to collapse its value to such an extent, betrays in one second a thousand years.

D, LDN