On the Events in Dallas

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Anyone who lives in America, loves America, or places hope in its example and leadership will have lost a considerable amount of sleep these past few days. The  ghastly news from Dallas, Texas that five police officers have been shot and killed, apparently in revenge for the deaths of two African-American police suspects in Minnesota and Louisiana, has shocked the nation to its core.

“Suddenly,” NYT correspondents Timothy Williams and Michael Wines observe, “the panoply of fears and resentments that have made this a foreboding summer (have) been brought into sharp relief… Police officers and sociologists alike say that racial tension is approaching a point last seen during the street riots that swept urban America in the late 1960s when disturbances erupted in places like the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts and Detroit and Newark, during summers of deep discontent.”

I won’t detail the specific incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota here. They have already been exhaustively covered by the press. Instead, I will ask the general question: Why is this still happening in America? Why is an ethnic rivalry that should have disappeared decades ago persisting in defiance of the current of political progress? 

The answer, I believe, is incitement.

For as long as I care to remember, the insinuations of American news personalities, cynical politicians and radical ‘community leaders’ have issued without qualification or fact-checking from every form of US media. As a direct result of this, a whole generation of Black Americans has been exposed to an unremitting deep-tissue massage of poisonous miseducation and political conditioning, the fruits of which are now ripening into a terrible, violent greenness on the streets of American cities.

The narrative pushed by these crooks, it would seem successfully, is that American law enforcement (and by logical extension – the US Government itself) is institutionally racist, if not nakedly White supremacist, and dedicated to the perpetual oppression of all US minority groups. If you think I’m exaggerating these exaggerations, I would refer you to any of the hundreds of blogs written in support of the criminal network ‘Black Lives Matter’, all of which have advanced this nonsense consistently ever since the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012.

The ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement has been active across America this past week

It would appear to matter nothing to the preachers of this false gospel that the available evidence suggests no such campaign has existed in America for several decades; that the police, far from being dedicated to offending or harming the African-American community, are increasingly required to be particularly cautious in their dealings with them, perhaps even more cautious and light-handed than with any other racial group. Truth, however, has never been a concern of propagandists. It only gets in the way.

As I wrote in an earlier article on this blog regarding racial tensions in America, there is actually a very simple explanation for the frequency (which can sometimes seem remarkable) of police abuses against Black citizens:

“Black people (on average) commit more crime in America than any other racial group. This is why there is more police action against Black people than against members of other races. This is also why there is more police brutality against Black people than against other races. Since there will always be bad apples in a national police force, and given the greater priority that force is compelled to give to one race, it is statistically more likely the bad apples will fall on them.”

Alton Sterling was killed by police officers after resisting arrest in Louisiana, prompting national outrage

Now, and of course, no-one with a heart and mind would dispute that the shooting of unarmed Americans is morally unacceptable. It is. Nor would any right-minded person dispute that the American police – in some cases, not in all – have taken to behaving more like an occupying military than a protective social service. Just type in ‘militarisation of the police in America’ into Google images and you will be treated to universally unappealing photographs of SWAT teams riding down democratic streets in infantry-fighting vehicles and modified tanks.

American police

This isn’t natural, nor necessary, nor proportionate. America is the greatest country on Earth, with a spirit and philosophy of freedom envied the whole world over. It would be a world-historic tragedy were such a beacon of hope to be snuffed out under the leather boot of authoritarian statism.

But again we must strive to make clear that there is no institutional crusade against Black people ongoing in the US. The excesses of the police affect all races in proportion. Indeed, just a few weeks before the death of Mr Sterling, a 17 year-old White youth in Missouri was left with permanent brain damage after being repeatedly tasered for failing to exit his vehicle after a traffic stop. There are many other examples one could furnish, but the point is already made. America has a problem with police overreach, not Black America.

I truly hope that the prophecies being made of a coming ‘race war’ in the United States are as daffy as they sound, but I cannot be sure at this point. The tensions revealed over the past few days in online forums and on social media have been shockingly, burningly hot. Many young Blacks, though they should rightly be ashamed of what has been done in their name, have instead taken to actively glorifying Micah Xavier Johnson online, referring to the killer variously as a ’hero’ and a ‘resistance fighter’, as well as setting up facebook tribute pages in his honour.

Micah Xavier Johnson – one of the confirmed perpetrators of the massacre in Dallas, Texas

And many Whites have been busily striving to equal this bigotry, with some calling for a violent civil conflict to re-establish a segregated America; others proposing the wholesale murder of all non-Whites, and still others blaming the entire problem on the Hebrews,

This is the Middle Eastern style of politics. It is, or should be, beneath the West, especially America; but the poison is now in the bloodstream. The Leftist crooks and inciters have achieved their desired outcome. The United States population is fragmenting as we speak into warring tribes, each of them armed to the teeth and readied for a fresh era of endless, pointless combat. There is no way of putting the toothpaste back into the tube now. I hope the media are happy. The Muslims certainly are.

That’s right – ever since the killings in Dallas were first reported, Muslims (or people with Muslim names) have been openly gloating on social media and in the YouTube comment section.

“America is like third world! Hahahahaha!” One illiterate message read. – “You say you are civilised and we are backward. You are worse!” Another jeered. – “America is doomed!” – “Time for you to suffer like the Syrians.” – And so on, and so on.

It is of course obvious why Muslims are so enraptured by America’s latest troubles. In an age when the Islamic world is collapsing into fiery embers, the stability and affluence of Allah’s arch enemy (the US) has long seemed a taunting and persuasive reminder of Islam’s fundamental cultural inferiority. As Syria and Iraq, once gold-plated centres of Islamic power and cultural dynamism, burn unceremoniously down to the ground, Americans watch football, drink cold beer and laugh at sitcoms. This hurts the Muslims. It gnaws away at them, making them think critically (and you know how much they hate doing that). American popular culture is a constant (and free) propaganda loop, effective because it advertises a peaceful, functioning society its enemies can never hope to replicate or compete with.

It was with this bitterness in mind that Osama Bin Laden once suggested weakening America by forming a destructive alliance with its radical minority populations, especially with disenfranchised Blacks. Being a man of some intellect (though not culture), the terrorist leader saw all too keenly how fragile America’s infuriating success could be made with the right amount of cynicism and professional manipulation.

I hope devoutly that his vulgar ambitions are not about to be realised.

D, LDN

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Black Lives Matter: A Study in Fanaticism

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America, America 911, American Liberty, Barack Obama, BBC, Black Lives Matter, black lives matter movement, black matters, blm, Civilisation, Coffee, Defend the modern world, Facebook, Glenn Beck, Multiculturalism, Obama, politics, race, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, race issues, racism, trayvon, Trayvon Martin

Black lives matter. It’s not a sentence easily disagreed with. Indeed, when it first went viral (after a spate of controversial police shootings) I found it rather articulate. The only improvement perhaps would have been the addition of ‘too’ at the end. But that didn’t really matter. The message was still simple and direct: Black lives are not inherently less valuable than white or Hispanic lives, and so the police shouldn’t feel more entitled to fire at black criminals than criminals of any other background. Fair enough.

The best part of a year on from its inception, however, and Black Lives Matter has become something far less reasonable. Despite any noble beginnings, BLM is now a barely-organised cult of anger, of random society-bashing and raging self-pity. Its proponents are motivated more by hatred of white people than by sympathy for vulnerable blacks. Some on the political right have gone so far as to designate it ‘racist’ and a ‘hate group’; the mirror image of the KKK. I am not compelled to disagree with them.

Whether on college campuses, at political rallies, or in the street, BLM activists have been causing a riotous disruption to American intellectual life, and for no reason greater than the exercise and development of an industry of phoney grievance and community self-denial.

In the words of Wall Street Journal columnist Jason L Riley “(BLM) is not about the fate of blacks per se but about scapegoating the police in particular, and white America in general, for antisocial ghetto behavior. It’s about holding whites to a higher standard than the young black men in these neighborhoods hold each other to. Ultimately, it’s a political movement, the inevitable extension of a racial and ethnic spoils system that helps Democrats get elected. The Black Lives Matter narrative may be demonstrably false, but it’s also politically expedient…It’s the black poor—the primary victims of violent crimes and thus the people most in need of effective policing—who must live with the effects of these falsehoods.”

Mr Riley’s comment about black victims of violent (black) crime deserves extended analysis. It is still acceptable in liberal academia to blame the failings of African Americans on the existence of ‘institutionalised’ or ‘structural’ racism. A more honest and pro-black narrative would highlight the pitifully high rates of black-on-black crime in the neighbourhoods in which the acts of police ‘brutality’ are alleged to have occurred. Could it be that the police are merely trying hard to save black lives? Could it be that police excess in these neighbourhoods is the unfortunate overspill of a desire to protect black people?

No. It couldn’t be that. Well, not according to BLM anyway. Crackers, they reason, are just being crackers. White people love the sight of a puddle of black blood expanding on a pavement. It’s what got them to enrol in the first place.

Falsehoods cannot persist indefinitely. Sooner or later even the most doctrinaire bien pensant will end up reading forbidden arguments, or hearing unapproved statistics. Given enough time, and enough rope, the BLM cult will burst like a bubble.

And American Blacks will be all the better off for it.

D, LDN

The Second Republican Debate

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America, america 2016 presidential election, America 911, American Liberty, Barack Obama, ben, Civilisation, clinton, CNN, cnn republican debate, Counter-Jihad, debate, Defend the modern world, donald, Donald Trump, donald trump ted cruz, election 2016, Facebook, jeb bush, Multiculturalism, NBC, newt, Obama, President, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, scott walker, ted cruz, the donald, Twitter, United States, white house 2016

So, did he blow it? Is Trump-mania beginning to die away in the wake of disastrous 2nd debate? That’s certainly what the press seems to think. Take this from The Atlantic: “Trump turned in a remarkably listless performance, buffeted by his rivals’ attacks, frequently sputtering or struggling to respond. His trademark bluster repeatedly failed him; the celebrity who has coasted to first place thanks to his larger-than-life persona seemed decidedly life-size. Pundits across the political spectrum unanimously pronounced him weakened and diminished.”

Or this from the Washington Post: “In the middle of Wednesday night’s main Republican presidential debate – that is to say, well over an hour into it – Donald Trump seemed to vanish. The voluble businessman came out of the gates punching everything in sight and then just… stopped. He didn’t literally leave the stage. But it was like when you only notice that the air conditioning has been humming loudly after it’s been shut off.”

Or this from CNN: “It was a wild night at CNN’s GOP debate.. and it took a toll on Donald Trump as he sparred with Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush and sustained attacks from just about everybody on the stage.”

I don’t disagree with the basic gist of these points. Trump did have a sub-par debate compared to his first appearance, and other candidates have gained ground as a result. I don’t believe, however, that Trump is ‘finished’ as a candidate. Far from it.

The attempts to humiliate Trump during the debate fell rather flat, I found. Even Carly Fiorina much celebrated put-down – relating to an admittedly stupid comment Trump had made about her appearance – did little to reduce his popular advantage. I remember no comment made by the tycoon that did not attract raucous applause (and often vocal endorsement from identifiably female members of the audience). What’s more, since the debate, Trump’s poll performance has not declined but improved across the board. If this was supposed to be the car-crash of Trump’s campaign, it failed to scratch the paintwork.

Trump will continue to gain in the polls for as long as his rivals choose spin over emotion, and political correctness over honesty. Millions of ordinary people find Trump’s no-nonsense approach exhilarating, liberating and entirely appropriate to the times we find ourselves in. This is, as Trump notes, a world in which Christians are fed to dogs, beheaded and often crucified, in which Mullahs seeking the end of days are actively developing the tools needed to bring it about, and in which challenges to liberal democracy are flourishing on the back of amoral Chinese investment policies. This is an age that requires the old American way of doing things, the way of Macarthur, Patton and Eisenhower. And of the republican candidates featured at last week’s debate, only Trump would appear to offer anything resembling that approach.

Obama has given the enemies of America 8 years of weakness to take advantage of, and in Russia, China, Mexico and elsewhere they have taken it. Trump promises to make up for this. He promises to ‘Make America Great Again’. And with the right support and advice, I believe he may be up to the task.

D, LDN

Dixie Under Siege

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Civil War, confederate, confederate flag, confederate flag debate and scandal, confederate flag represents, cultural transformation, dixie, dylann roof, Dylann Storm Roof, Facebook, florida, Georgia, Glenn Beck, heritage not hate, Obama, Peace, racial change in america, racism, south, South Africa, southern american, sweet home alabama, the south, white america

It’s been over a month since the Charleston church massacre and the debate over the Confederate flag continues to scale the virgin peaks of public anger and politico-philosophical absurdity.

“It’s a symbol of White supremacism!” – The Leftists are yelling – incorrectly.

“It’s a symbol of White heritage!” – White people from Oregon, Idaho, Ohio, Wyoming and Michigan are retorting – also incorrectly.

Only a rational (and it would seem, silent) minority correctly identify the confederate flag as being a symbol, not of ‘White America’, but of a limited, poor, neglected, derided (and multiracial) district of America – Dixie, or the ‘South’.

This cultural blanket (although subject to frequent redefinition) is generally said to cover the states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi (thank you, spell check!), Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Texas, Florida (minus Miami), Kentucky and (occasionally) Missouri. A considerable slice of America, and a very influential force in its history.

Of course, it is no secret that this cultural domain once fought a war to uphold the moral abomination of slavery, and nor is it taboo to acknowledge that the flag under dispute was used as battle regalia in that war. But as times change, so does the meaning of symbols. Over the past 100 years, the Confederate flag has been slowly transformed into a symbol almost devoid of racial connotation. Indeed, before the Charleston massacre so horribly re-politicised it, the Southern Cross was broadly recognised as a symbol of cultural continuity and self-respect, of working class pride in the face of a sneering middle and upper class establishment and media.

That last point needs some detail. How many times have you heard a joke like the following –

Q. “How do you circumcise a Redneck?” A: “Kick his sister in the chin.”

Q: “What’s the last thing you usually hear before a redneck dies?” A: “Hey y’all.. Watch this!”

Q. “How did the redneck die from drinking milk?” A. “The cow fell on him!”

I have heard a hundred similar jokes and I’m an Englishman. One simply cannot avoid them. If you watch the Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, Friends, the West Wing, Dexter, the Sopranos or any other mainstream US production, you will at some point hear a cruel and bigoted jibe at the ‘South’ and at the disadvantaged folk who reside there.

This bigotry has a long and complicated history. The most disadvantaged sub-region of the South has always been the region of Appalachia – a long broad zone of mountains running up from the Deep South to the southern tip of New York State. For centuries, the denizens of this region were defamed with the most horrible speculation in the developing American press. Indeed, so prevalent was this popular cruelty that it now has the character of a national tradition. The ‘Hillbillies’ (as they have long been known) are said to be habitually incestuous, illiterate, violent, alcoholic and reactionary. Over time the Hillbilly stereotype merged with that of the Redneck, and has since become the singular source of hatred against poor White Americans.

Hatred of poor Whites is the last acceptable prejudice in American life. You can no longer make unkind comments about Blacks, Mexicans and Asians without inviting a storm of condemnation. Poor White have no such protection.

I understand that the Confederate flag has a long and infamous history, chequered with moral whiteness and blackness, heroism and sadism, aspiration and poverty. But it is simple-mined and lazy to imagine only the negative meanings are represented by it today.

D, LDN.

Looking Ahead: Republican Candidates for the 2016 Election.

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2016, 2016 American elections, 2016 Presidential Elections, 2016 Republicans, America 911, American Liberty, Barack Obama, BBC, Bill Maher, Civilisation, Defend the modern world, Democrats and Republicans, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Obama, Pat Buchanan, politics, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Sarah Palin, The Blaze

The long, dysfunctional reign of Barack Hussein Obama is drawing at last to its close. Almost 8 years have elapsed since the whooping coronation of America’s first mixed-race President, and in those years, little has been achieved that could possibly justify the initial hype.

Immigration rates are much as they were in 2008. Guantanamo Bay remains open, despite the promises of 2008. The Iraq debacle has plainly not been resolved (despite bewildering Obamanoid claims to the contrary). New, frightening zeros have been added to the National Debt. ‘Obamacare’ has been so unpopular that it looks certain to be revoked on the next regime’s first day of term. Bin Laden, as we are never allowed to forget, was put out to sea on Obama’s watch, but really this only represents a shameful theft of credit from the United States military.

All in all, Obama has not lived up to his initial promise. The spreading realisation of this fact means that the contest to succeed him is destined to be a bombastic and emotional ride. Republicans, from the globally famous (and notorious) to the nearly unknown, are elbowing furiously for media coverage and endorsement.

Given the critical and violent days we live in, the choice of Republican runner will have great international consequences, including for Britain. For that reason I offer here my opinions on the current pack….

Mike Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee isn’t particularly well known outside America, but within the country, he is widely regarded as the most religious Presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter. A folksy southerner, Huckabee’s election book is (I think/hope humorously) entitled “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy” and the Senator is vocal in his commitment to traditional conceptions of the family, gun rights, and brash, uncomplicated patriotism.

Huckabee is a naturally divisive figure, as are all overtly religious politicians. Given this reality, I doubt he has the popular support to win a nomination, much less a national election.

DTMW Rating: 6/10.

Jeb Bush.

A member of the politically lucrative Bush dynasty, Jeb Bush should be familiar to most foreign observers. Like his brother and father, he is a middle-ground, compassionate conservative, open to reform of immigration and willing to spend money on public services. On foreign policy, he is tediously conformist – pro-democracy, pro-two state solution, tactful with Russia etc…

There is really nothing to recommend Bush beyond his ability to appeal to a broad selection of Americans. He is not a favourite of the right-wing establishment, and if he is selected as runner, grassroots support may be thin on the ground.

DTMW Rating: 6/10.

Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio is a telegenic, Hispanic neoconservative with opinions and standpoints torn right out of an issue of the Weekly Standard. He is loudly pro-Israel, hostile to the nuclearisation of Iran, committed to halting Russia’s consumption of Eastern Europe, and full-square in opposition to communism and socialism.

For these reasons I rather like him. He might have a shallow, car salesman-like, professional sheen, but he also has an ‘American Dream’ backstory and the right sense of priority to keep that dream alive.

DTMW Rating: 8/10.

Rand Paul.

While most conservatives want to scale back the power of the state, Rand Paul wishes to make it all but disappear. Son of ancient populist Ron Paul, Rand is the young, handsome, smooth-talking and hugely radical driver of the libertarian tea-party movement. He is by a very great distance the most popular candidate with the grassroots of the Republican party.

The only reservations I have with Paul relate to his isolationism. Unlike Rand, I resolutely do not want America to ‘mind its own business’ (as his father would put it). On the contrary, I want the American military to remain the spearhead and shield of modern, democratic civilisation. For that reason alone I would advise voters to look for another candidate.

DTMW Rating: 6/10.

Ted Cruz.

And that candidate might look a bit like Ted Cruz.

Texan Senator Cruz offers a bracing synthesis of neo-conservatism, domestic libertarianism and compassionate social conservatism. Right about most things, willing to use the great American military to protect our friends and punish our foes, anti-government in spirit, compassionate on questions of race and with a long and proven record in practice, I believe that Cruz would make a very competent successor to Obama’s failed regime.

DTMW Rating: 9/10.

Others.

Other candidates running or likely to run include Donald Trump, Rick Perry, Scott Walker and Rick Santorum. I don’t believe any of these outliers has the charisma or substance to beat the runners mentioned above.

D, LDN.

Counter-Jihad is Not a Crusade.

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America, America 911, America vs Islam, American Liberty, Barack Obama, BBC, Britain First, Christianity and Islam, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Miley, Multiculturalism, Muslims, No to Turkey in the EU, Obama, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, US, War with Islam, War with Muslims

I was walking through an underpass the other day when I noticed some bright yellow graffiti on the sloping wall above me. It was an unidentifiable but medieval-looking shield, above which the ferocious statement (in English) ‘Death to Islam!’ was scrawled in capital letters.

Walking on, I wondered whether the shield was some sort of Crusader symbol, or perhaps a coat of arms connected to the Reconquista (I am still in Spain). The former is not unusual in counter-jihad society, where veneration of the Knights Templar and Teutonic Order has long been popular.

I don’t personally venerate the Crusaders. They were brutal anti-Semites and religious fanatics. They killed without mercy or planning, and the mission with which they charged themselves was little different to the Jihadism of today.

And the crusader worship so prevalent in Counter-Jihad circles seems to me generally wide of the mark. I don’t want a war with Islam. I want Islam out of the West and a segregation of cultures enforced by a large, well-organised transnational military. I don’t much care if Indonesians or Sudanese people want to practise their faith. I don’t think that’s part of the West’s concern.

Whilst an entity like ISIS, which has declared war on the civilised world, must be vanquished from the air as soon as possible, the existence of the Islamic religion itself is not something we can do much about. ‘Death to Islam’ consequently has no meaning for me, unless it is followed with the limiting clause “…in the West.”

One of the greatest myths in modern political discourse holds that Islam (and Muslims) are ‘weak’. Designed to manipulate opinion, the idea is typically advanced alongside the observation that the West is strong, thus making for an asymmetry of power conducive to a view of Muslims as the ‘underdog’.

We don’t have to place much stress on the imagination to bunk that concept. Simply think of the political, economic and military capabilities of 1.6 Billion people acting for a common goal. Think of a civilisation which together controls 70% of the world’s oil supply. Think of the combined might of the Turkish, Egyptian, Iranian, Algerian, Moroccan, Saudi, Pakistani and Indonesian militaries. Think of the disruption that would be caused if the Muslims of Europe and India violently turned on their host societies.

No, Muslims are not weak, and nor is the Muslim world. It is formidably powerful and a condition of total war between Islam and the West would plunge both coalitions into bloody oblivion.

This is why, in reversing the Islamic conquest of Europe, we have to be careful not to redevelop a crusader mind-set. We would be fools to try to defeat the Muslim world entirely. Even if it were possible, we’d gain little from doing so.

Let us stress instead the benefits of a peaceful separation of Islam and the West. A peace that would allow for both cultures to develop as they wish.

D, LDN.

Are Terror Groups Becoming More Powerful Than Nation-States?

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4chan, America, anti-tank missiles, Assad, Britain First, Caliphate, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, Hezbollah, IS, ISIS, Islamic State, Lebanon, Obama, Russia nuclear, Russians, Serbs, Syria, Terrorists, Ukraine, US, War, War with America, War with Islam, War with Syria, War with Turkey

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.

Malala: A Question of Credibility.

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Barack Obama, Civilisation, Coffee, Counter-Jihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Malala, Malala Criticism, Malala Yousefzai, Nobel Peace Prize, Obama, Oslo, puppet, yousafzai fraud, Yousefzai cult, Yousefzai Fraud, Yousefzai Nobel Peace Prize, Yousefzai Puppet

So, the world’s favourite teenager Malala Yousafzai can now add a Nobel Peace Prize to the Taliban bullet as things she has famously received and which qualify her as a global political sage. Does her talent for passively receiving things ever end?

Perhaps Yousafzai might next get run down by a lorry driven by a White Supremacist and immediately become spokesperson for Western race-relations.

I don’t enjoy having to use this silly tone to speak of someone so young. I must use it though because feelings are being demanded of me that I don’t have. I am being ordered to feel awe for someone who hasn’t achieved anything and who is being fattened by book-deals and political funds.

The institution responsible for the latest cheque in Yousafzai’s swelling bank account comes as no great shock. The Nobel Peace Prize committee has suffered for many years now from a dire lack of credibility. Ever since the awarding of the honour to (the then virginal) President Barack Obama, the honour has had a light, floaty, cosmetic feel to it – almost as if it was a means of political expression rather than of reward.

The choice of Yousafzai belongs undoubtedly to the same downward trend.

I should clarify that I don’t have anything personal against Malala. Or at least no more than I have against professional psychics, internet healers or astrologers. She is the kindly target of a storm of stupid emotion. That’s all. It’s not something I can either encourage or endorse.

Nevertheless, it has been uncomfortable to witness people I respect (friends among them) fall for Yousafzai’s sweet-smelling hypnotic. There have even been arguments put to me that I am somehow ‘jealous’ of the political starlet, or that I resent her for other base motivations. That is the purest nonsense. Malala is obviously cashing in at a furious pace, but this is no more offensive to me than the success of any other celebrity. What does miff me is that while Victoria Beckham or Miley Cyrus do not (rightly) enjoy either moral respect or political credit, Malala receives them by the bucketload. And for what?

If Yousafzai truly wanted to earn the respect and power she already possesses, she would leave Britain and return to her native Pakistan. She would stand as a Pakistani MP or set up a local organisation dedicated to the right of children to attend school there.

What possible use can she be to her professed cause in Birmingham or New York? The West is in no need of being lectured on the right of education. We already have that in place and have for some time.

Perhaps behind all the public virtues presented by Ms Yousefzai there is just a normal girl growing steadily accustomed to the pleasures of money, silk curtains and chauffer driven limousines.

D, LDN.

Oh What a Lovely War.

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American Liberty, Barack Obama, Bombing ISIS, Bombs Syria, Counter-Jihad, Cruise Missiles, Defend the modern world, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor, Iraq, ISIL, ISIS, ISIS Beheading Video, Left, Middle East, Muslims, Obama, Right, War

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