Blood on the Snow.

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Caucasus, Christianity and Islam, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Moscow, North Caucasus, politics, Putin, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Russia, Sochi, Suicide attack, Train station, United States, Vladimir Putin, Volgograd

In the past week, Russian civil society has twice come under attack from violent Jihadists. First, a female suicide bomber struck a train station, killing 17 people. The next day, a second bomber hit, this time on a trolley-bus, the details and death-toll of which are only just emerging as I write.

In both instances, the perpetrators are suspected to be radical separatists from the perennially unstable Caucasus region. Their aim, established many decades ago, is to forcibly secede from the Russian Federation and form a Turkic Muslim state on its southern borders.

Russian policy on such groups has changed over the years, but famously became rather more certain of itself following the ascension to power of Vladimir Putin. Under Putin’s command, the Russian Air Fore reduced vast swathes of the Chechen capital to rubble. Needless to say, there is next-to-no chance the bombers’ wishes will be granted as long Putin remains in the Kremlin.

Hooray! then…. Well, maybe not.

If one looks at the future of Russian demography, with its shriveling Muscovite population, and most of its growth (and future human content) supplied by the regions discussed above, an argument can be made that Russia would actually be better off without some of these areas, at least from a perspective of culture and social-cohesion.

Russia is – after all – hardly lacking in territory. The cessation of Dagestan and Chechnya would be a small price to pay to prevent the Islamisation of a state with enough nuclear weaponry to fulfill some of al-Qaeda’s wildest fantasies.

D, LDN.

So Who Won Syria?

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Barack Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Christianity and Islam, Civilisation, Coffee, Counter-Jihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, English Defence League, John Kerry, Obama, Obama Humiliated, Putin, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Syria, United States, Vladimir Putin

It appears the attack on Syria has been indefinitely postponed. Russian pressure on both Damascus and Washington has yielded a peaceful solution based upon the destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal. To this, it seems Mr. Assad has consented.

As to what to make of this turnaround, there are three popular interpretations:

1. America’s power has declined so far that it cannot now enforce its will on the international stage.
2. Barack Obama is a tactical genius who has shown how to deal with tyrants via the threat – not use – of military force.
3. Obama has been roundly humiliated by the wily and superior Putin.

The first, I believe, isn’t entirely baseless. American power is in relative decline, and has been so for many years. We would be wrong however to view a case like Syria as typical. Had the case for the intervention been more clean-cut and had it attracted support from the American public, there is every reason to believe that missiles would have been launched regardless of Chinese and Russian opinion.

The second interpretation has inevitably been promoted by the American Left, for whom every positive event in the world is part of Obama’s secret agenda. According to these folk, the Putin solution was what Obama wanted all along, and he was only threatening force to bring it into being. This is abject nonsense and can be dismissed without further analysis. If Leftists now believe Obama is imbued with powers of clairvoyance, that is their psychosis, not ours.

The third analysis here is the correct one. Obama and his government have been totally humiliated. The cause of intervention was wrong-headed from the start and both Liberals and Conservatives knew it. John Kerry’s stomach-churning speeches in favour of war were every bit as fake and shameful as Colin Powell’s notorious UN presentation in 2003.

We should be grateful to Russia for the outcome we now have. It would have been a moral disgrace to fire a single democratic bullet in the aid of Islamists. The US army could furthermore have been drawn in ever deeper, possibly tying up defence resources for many years to come. And this brings me to my next point:

There is a country the US army should be engaging, but it isn’t Syria, it’s Iran.

We are now perilously close to a nuclear Islamic regime in the heart of the Middle East. Such a regime would not only threaten Israel, but Europe, India and even China. We must never allow this. At the very least there must be a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, if not on its entire military infrastructure.

It’s a tricky situation, but the longer we wait, the greater the fallout will be.

D, LDN.

Don’t be silly, Vladimir.

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America 911, Barack Obama, BBC, BNP, Britain, British comedy, Christianity and Islam, Christopher Caldwell, Civilisation, Coffee, David Cameron, England Pride, Europe, George Orwell, John Donne, No to Turkey in the EU, Putin, Russia, United States, Vladimir Putin

I have some respect for the Russian President Vladimir Putin. His leadership, though authoritarian and often cruel, has greatly improved the lot of ordinary Russians, among whom the President enjoys considerable affection and support. On Syria too, the President has taken a uniquely rational and firm position, much to the benefit of us all.

That being said, at this weeks G20 summit, Putin made a silly, offhand comment that has offended many in the UK. Talking to a reporter, the President is alleged to have described Britain as ‘a small island nobody listens to’.

Whatever motivated him to say it (almost certainly the Syrian debacle) and though it isn’t technically-speaking a slight on British culture, I must join with the Prime Minister in defending my little island from such a patronizing and ignorant assessment.

David Cameron’s rejoinder has so far met with mixed reviews. Shortly after Putin made the gaffe, our Prime Minister gave a bizarre speech intended to list the glories of British achievement, historic and current. Among the examples he chose were the Beatles and One Direction.

Can’t we do better?

The nation of Russia has roughly 143 million inhabitants and a land mass of 17,000,000 square kilometers. Britain has 60 million citizens and a land mass of 230,000 square kilometers. That is indeed a great difference in size, so hats off to Mr Putin for noticing this. The difference in cultural achievement however is equally large, but this time exactly inverted. Despite its size, Britain can make a claim to be the most inventive country the world has ever known.

The following list is an excerpt from an even larger list of British inventions compiled by the Radio Times:

Light Bulbs, Telephones, Steam Turbines, Electric motors, Cement, Fire Extinguishers, Photography, Chocolate Bars, Television, the Jet Engine, the Kettle, Hovercraft, Vacuum Cleaners, Stainless Steel, the Torpedo, Hypodermic syringes,  the World Wide Web, ATM machines, Carbon Fibre, the Programmable computer and the Military Tank.

Britain’s musical exports have included David Bowie, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Radiohead, Oasis, Blur, the Smiths, Joy Division, New Order, Pulp, Adele, Massive Attack, Coldplay, Muse, the Who and the Kinks.

British writers, past and present, include Shakespeare, Martin Amis, Phillip Pullman, Byron, Coleridge, Samuel Johnson, Keats,  EL James (sorry), JK Rowling, CS Lewis, De Quincey, John Donne, George Orwell, Thomas Carlyle, Aldous Huxley and Samuel Pepys.

It’s never a bad thing to pat one’s country on the back, especially in the midst of such a bleak political and economic landscape. Whatever else Britain may be, its people are of the profoundest creative quality and without them the world would be considerably poorer.

D, LDN.