Global conflict Archives | Page 3 of 10

The less than pellucid genius of the Syrian debacle

October 17, 2019October 17, 2019 MelanieErdogan, Kurds, Putin, trump

Just as Trump Derangement Syndrome has long caused opponents of President Donald Trump to lose touch with reality, restraint and reason, so its opposite pathology, Trump Adoration Disorder, has caused various folk to perform mental somersaults over the debacle in Syria. For they don’t regard his abrupt decision to pull US troops out of north-eastern Syria as a debacle. They regard it as an act of genius, just like Trump does himself. How so? Well, apparently he didn’t abandon the Kurds at all. Instead, he forced Turkey to walk into…

Culture wars Global conflict

Freedom of speech struggles not to die in Islamophobic darkness

October 13, 2019October 13, 2019 MelanieAPPG, France, Islamophobia, Policy Exchange

In December 2018, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims (APPG) published its “Report on the inquiry into a working definition of Islamophobia / anti-Muslim hatred”. This decreed that “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” The government’s response was wary. It observed that the MPs’ proposed definition “has not been broadly accepted – unlike the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of antisemitism before it was adopted by the UK government and other international organisations and governments. This is…

Culture wars Global conflict USA

How black and white thinking clouds realpolitik

October 11, 2019 MelanieDonald Trump, George Soros, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Kurds

Black and white thinking, which divides the world into absolute camps of good and evil, is associated with religious fanaticism from medieval Christianity to the Islamic world. There are now troubling signs that a secular equivalent is contributing to our current political turmoil. There appears to be an increasing inability to grasp that people are capable of both good and bad acts. There is a corresponding failure to acknowledge that just because someone is the target of falsehoods or bigotry, that person may not always be in the right. Recent…

Global conflict USA

A mirror image?

October 7, 2019October 7, 2019 MelanieIsolationism, Kurds, President Trump, Syria

President Trump’s shock decision to pull US troops out of north-east Syria confirms a disastrous slide in American foreign policy. I warned here that Trump was trapped by his own contradictory character into making bad foreign policy mistakes — such as cancelling an airstrike on Iranian targets with only 10 minutes to spare. His previous plan last December to pull US troops out of Syria was deftly modified by his erstwhile National Security Adviser, John Bolton. Alas, Bolton has now departed. So now there’s no-one to corral this most erratic…

Global conflict USA

Boltonism must not be allowed to disappear

September 13, 2019September 13, 2019 Melanieappeasement, Donald Trump, Iran, John Bolton

John Bolton’s departure from the Trump administration should have had the left cheering from the rafters. Bolton has long been a bogeyman in liberal circles on account of his refusal to appease the enemies of America and the west, a disposition that the left regard as belligerent war-mongering. When Bolton was made National Security Advisor, his liberal foes behaved as if U.S. President Donald Trump had signed up in person one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Now that Bolton’s appointment has abruptly terminated, though, there’s been no rejoicing…

Britain Global conflict

We’d rather champion dead Jews than live ones

August 27, 2019 Melanieantisemitism, holocaust, jews, memorial

Back in 2016 the prime minister, David Cameron, decided that a Holocaust memorial and learning centre should be built near the Houses of Parliament. Three years on, the scheme is mired in an increasingly bitter row. Objectors say that the memorial’s brutalist design is inappropriate for the gardens and that its thousands of anticipated visitors would destroy one of London’s green oases. Many have cited security concerns. The Victoria Tower Gardens site, however, was chosen because it was next to parliament, thus making a highly visible and pointed statement about…

Global conflict Israel

The incendiary balloon of international law

August 2, 2019November 19, 2020 Melanieballoons, gaza, human rights, international law

For months now, Israel has been attacked by aerial incendiary weapons launched by Hamas during riots at the Gaza border fence. These weapons – balloons or kites attached to flammable material – are driven by the winds off the sea towards southern Israel. In just one week in June, they started nearly 100 fires in farmland and forests, in playgrounds and private yards. By last month, Hamas had burned more than 7,400 acres of Israeli land. At the same time, Israeli communities near the border are also routinely attacked with…

Britain Global conflict Israel

Is Boris Johnson “good for the Jews”?

July 26, 2019 MelanieBoris Johnson, Iran, Israel, jews

Britain now has its first celebrity prime minister. On Tuesday, Boris Johnson was elected leader of the Tory Party following Theresa May’s resignation over her failure to deliver Brexit. On Wednesday, Johnson “kissed hands” with the Queen and thus succeeded Mrs. May as Britain’s PM. As with all social or political developments of note, the Jewish world is predictably asking about this one: “Will it be good for the Jews?” Johnson has entertained and scandalized Britain for years through his many scrapes, his jokes, his politically incorrect gaffes, his chaotic…

Britain Global conflict

The real scandal of the Darroch leak

July 14, 2019July 17, 2019 Melanieappeasement, Iran, nuclear deal, Sir Kim Darroch

Today’s papers are full of the political fall-out from the leak of undiplomatic messages which caused Britain’s former ambassador to the US, Sir Kim Darroch, to resign after President Trump went ballistic. While people are understandably focused upon the hunt for the leaker and the way in which Boris Johnson, the favourite to become Tory party leader and Britain’s next prime minister, has been attacked for failing to support Darroch before he resigned, virtually no attention has been paid to the second tranche of Darroch’s leaked remarks which appear in…

Global conflict USA

The US Army War College surrenders to intimidation

July 5, 2019July 6, 2019 MelanieCAIR, Raymond Ibrahim, US Army War College

Raymond Ibrahim is the author of an important new book about Islam, “Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West”. In this meticulously researched work, he shows how anti-western attitudes have been endemic in Islam throughout its history. He charts how, over the centuries, Muslim armies went on the offensive to “reclaim” areas of the Middle East, north Africa, southern Europe and Asia Minor – which had belonged to the Roman, Hellenistic Greek or Jewish worlds centuries before Islam was even founded. He also shows how…