Syria

a far-off country of which we know little. Not. Back in 2011 I advocated air strikes to stop Assad slaughtering his own people, some of whom had risen up in the Arab Spring and were looking for freedom. It didn't happen. Obama too fearful and pusillanimous, Cameron wanted to do it, sort of, but couldn't get it through Parliament because of an outbreak of silly not-in-my-namery (they're only brown-skin Ay-rabs, so it's not our fight, says the Left). France actually did do it, and has continued to do some of it. Whatever Francois Hollande might lack, it is not political courage. And, of course, Russia has got involved. Now why might that be? Ah yes, those pesky Chechens and Dagestanis and Ossetians. Muslims, every man jack of 'em (the women don't count, natch). Putin, and to some extent his predecessors, didn't dick around when it came to dealing with those towel-heads, oh, no. Invade Georgia? Sure, why not? Did that, in 2008. The world said nothing. Crush the Chechens? Yeah, after all you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Chechnya, Dagestan and both Ossetias are corrupt hell-holes where human rights are non-existent. The world said nothing. Putin installed a tame warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov, there in 2007. He has red hair, see?

pic Oleg Nikishin/Getty

 

Kadyrov likes wrestling and Kalashnikovs. So, where was I? Ah yes, Syria. Russia wants to keep Assad in power there, because the savage civil war has allowed that thing sometimes called ISIS to rise up (funded by Saudi Arabia), which is a Bad Thing. So ISIS should be trashed, so that Muslims in Russia remember who's the Daddy and don't get any funny ideas about taking over the country, or bits of it. Oh and Russia has always been mates with Syria and the Assad family, largely because they're not mates with some of the others in the region. Do try and keep up. And ISIS, as I said, has got to be trashed. Well, of course, ISIS would not even be there if there had been proper clinical strikes and Assad had been got rid of four years ago, with a post-Assad regime (done right this time) under international control. But Obama was too pussy, and it didn't happen. So we are where we are. But ISIS have still got to be trashed. And quite frankly I don't see any way other than by (for now) keeping Assad in place until ISIS have been pulverised. And then, well, then, we'll see. Sometimes, you have to  hold your nose and take the side of the odious and the dictatorial, against some who are worse.

 

Refugees pour out of Syria. Well, you would too, if you could. But of course not everyone seeking asylum in Europe who says they are a refugee from Syria actually is. It's quite a handy way to insert Islamic terrorism into the heart of Europe, where a welcome may be found in the tougher banlieues of Paris and Marseille, and in the Guardian-reading dinner parties of Islington. I write this as JC Superstar is making his keynote speech to Labour Party conference. JC, if another 7/7, or worse, happens on your watch, who will your friends be then?

 

Make no mistake, there is a war going on. And it is a war against "us". The West. Europe. America. Those of us who think democratic values may not be perfect but are kind of a better thing to have than everything else that is out there. So, what are you doing in the war? 

Buddhist terror

seems like an oxymoron. That's largely because the likes of the Dalai Lama and his celebrity admirers in the West have given the faith good PR. But terror has never been alien to those of the Buddhist faith. The Buddhist clergy in Japan were strong supporters of the regime there in the 1930s and 1940s. Japan of course has never had a Muslim population, and even today there is almost zero immigration, so the "Muslim question" doesn't really arise there.

In Burma things are rather different. In the 1990s and during most of the first decade of this century it seemed as though intervention would be the only hope for the people of Burma, with thousands of political prisoners, the winners of the last free elections, in 1988, dead, in exile or locked up, and human rights non-existent. However, the corrupt elite still running that country have begun, in small ways, to see the light. There is a measure of democracy. Aung San Suu Kyi is out of jail, and got elected. But one minority, the Rohingya Muslims, are being subjected to terror and slaughter on a massive scale. This is not being much reported. The one Burmese leader who is known in the West, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been shamefully silent on this. (If you have not seen the rather good film about her, 'The Lady', starring Michelle Yeoh, then do.) Time magazine deserves credit for highlighting this dreadful situation, thanks Harry's Place for putting it out there too. Here is an extract from its report:

Although there has long been tension between the Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority in Arakan, the situation deteriorated rapidly after three Muslims allegedly raped and murdered a Buddhist girl in May 2012.

On June 4, 2012, not long after the alleged rape, Buddhists stopped a bus and invited non-Muslims to get off. Then they let the bus go on a short distance, stopped it again, dragged approximately ten Muslim passengers onto the street, and beat them to death. After that, the violence against Muslims became organized and genocidal. Buddhists launched coordinated attacks against Muslim villages and neighborhoods all over Arakan state. Dozens of Muslims from across Arakan told me similar stories: Buddhist mobs, protected by police, showed up screaming anti-Muslim slogans and demanding that the Muslims flee. They brought guns and knives, and the Muslims who stayed behind—in some cases because they were physically unable to flee—were shot, speared, and hacked. Some of the rest made it to other countries to start their lives over, but most of the displaced are in the dozens of squalid camps across Arakan state. The penalty for leaving these camps is three months’ imprisonment—if a Rohingya is caught by the cops. If caught by the wrong civilians, it could be lynching. The Buddhists burned the Muslims’ abandoned homes and possessions to cinders. Some Muslims eventually retaliated, and a much smaller number of Buddhists died or were driven into camps of their own after riots across the state.

So, Muslims are being slaughtered. George Galloway, where are you? Are British youth training as jihad warriors to go to Burma and save Muslims from the Buddhist terror? If not why not?

I only ask.

two hundred and twenty-three

picture: Time

that figure ring a bell? It's how many were killed in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam fifteen years ago last week, in al-Qaeda attacks on US diplomatic facilities. US diplomats may have been the target, but most of those killed were Africans, and many others were permanently maimed. So it goes, with terror. Perhaps the memory of this was overshadowed by the 9/11 atrocity three years later. Certainly, those who gloated after 9/11, Guardianistas all, had nothing to say about 7/8 (as it has never been called). For myself, I am probably still trying to recover from the shock of ostensibly well-intentioned people on the left glorying in slaughter and terror, as has been happening since 9/11. I have always been an interventionist, without always realising it. Intervention saved Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge in 1979 - it was done though by the "wrong" people (the Vietnamese). Intervention in Afghanistan the same year gave education and a measure of equality to a generation. I was a strong supporter of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and I think subsequent events have shown me to be right. But that got me called a tankie. Well, yes, probably. Anyway, let's remember those 223 people who were killed by the death-lovers, and those who still mourn them.

Anyone? Anyone?

*sound of tumbleweed*

in mourning, again

the stand-off in Toulouse took well over 24 hours, and the police did not go in until late morning today.  It is their policy not to go in without contact from the person inside, but in the end they did. 
They had heard no sound from him all night.  I think perhaps he just went to sleep for a while.  We'll  never know now.  When they did go in he came out of the bathroom with guns blazing, shot three officers, wounding one quite seriously, and jumped out of the window, still firing.  He was dead when he was found on the ground.  Suicide is not allowed in Islam, but maybe that is not what Mohammed Merah in fact intended.  All that said, seven people are dead, two of them children, most likely at Mohammed Merah's hands. The stupid left has already kicked off in the UK - apparently it was all Sarko's fault for taking France into "imperialist wars" (there are 4,000 French troops in Afghanistan, and they are due to leave next year) and for having a government which marginalises Muslims, bans the hijab etc.  Ah yes, uncovered women.  That'll turn anyone into a mass murderer.  Leonard Cohen had it right when he sang about 9/11 that it may have been done because of "our women uncovered, our slaves and our gold" but that he "wouldn't know".  Following events on Twitter earlier today I was struck by how many apparently young French people were being flippant about the whole thing, wondering if Merah's motorbike would be for sale afterwards.  I guess they're not used to this kind of thing.  Some more serious types deplored the lack of coverage of last night's coup in Mali because of this event.  Anyway, another person is dead.  And what now?  Seriously, what now?  A mad loner is one thing, but who paid for him to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan?  Where did he get the guns he used?  Aren't these fair questions?  I have been to Toulouse, "la ville rose" "the pink city" and I wonder what effect these events had on the people living in the neighbourhood.  On Saturday I saw a terrific film called "38 Temoins" "38 Witnesses" (I think it has an English version which is called "One Night") which is about silence, and the truth.  It is set in Le Havre, and I think now that this has happened I need to see that film again.  Go and see it if you can find a subtitled version if you need to, and ask yourself what you would say, and do, if a killing happened in your neighbourhood.