Category Archives: The Middle East

Syria

Before Donald Trump got elected to be American president last week and caused generation snowflake to go apoplectic I started to pen a letter to Theresa May on Syria. Well what a surprise but Mr Trump seems to have the same views as me on this subject. Perhaps he should elect me as his advisor!

Looking at the headlines in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph we see that Mr Trump is taking the line that we should be more alongside Russia in their Syria policy rather than helping the Syrian ‘opposition.’ I would have advised the British government to take Trump’s line ages ago, even before this present conflict started. We might have saved ourselves an awful lot of trouble, notably perhaps some of the massive migrant flows into Europe which are now destabilising the continent.

Under Assad Syria was a reasonably stable entity up to the recent conflict. Indeed it was perhaps a bit of a beacon for the Middle East where Christians and Yazidis were free to practice their faith and basically protected by Assad. How many Middle Eastern states can you say that of? Admittedly Syria was no western liberal democracy but is was not a bad imitation of being the least worst option in terms of decent government in that part of the world. Again Assad might not be your favourite uncle who you’d look forward to having a pint with down at the ‘Dog and Duck,’ but he understood a little better the threat that Islamic extremists posed to his country and would have a little more clue than the west about how to deal with them. I daresay his opponents have one language for Europe and another for the Middle East, it was ever so.

So what I am saying is perhaps let’s help Assad deal with these opponents of his rather than doing everything possible to oust him from power, because I venture to suggest that what we will get in his place will be far, far worse. Shades of the Shah of Iran anyone? Thank God David Cameron lost his vote in the Commons in August 2013 to take military action against Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, fuelled I seem to remember by his wife’s Syrian experiences. I think a few angels hanging around in the chamber that day may have whispered in some MPs ears which way to vote. The least worst option in the Middle East is often to help some of these regimes stay in power for a modicum of stability, cue Egypt, Libya and so on, rather than indulge in regime change. Bit of discernment needed here of course as you can’t make it a rule for every situation, but I think we should be very slow to get involved in the Middle East unless it directly affects our interests and there is overwhelming clamour for these countries for our help. We would get more support from the Middle East if countries there knew that their people had begged us to help them dealing with intractable situations.

So I am somewhat aghast at the latest rumblings from the government that Mr Trump should be persuaded not to get too close to Russia on this issue. To think that the whole government machine, the Cabinet, the Foreign Office and all those advisory civil servants will be busy trying to persuade Mr Trump not to support Mr Assad, that’s our taxpayers money folks. It won’t be the best start to a new relationship with our strongest ally.

I can’t help thinking that most of Mr Assad’s opponents in Aleppo and elsewhere are of the ‘bearded extremist’ type who will behead you or worse if you can’t quote a couple of ready verses from the Koran in case they query your Moslem credentials, and are busy constructing the worldwide caliphate beloved of militant Islam. Why we should be supporting such people I have no idea. We should be doing everything we can to wipe them from the face of the earth if it comes to military conflict. There is huge concern about how people are suffering because of the Russian/Assad bombardment of Aleppo, but this is where the US and UK could perhaps bring a little more finesse to the campaign with more precision targeting of the real enemy.

If Mrs Clinton had got in we would be cosying up to her as she pulled full steam ahead with her Syrian policy, perhaps arming the opposition more? No fly zones? A bit of sabre rattling in Putin’s direction? It would only need one or two near misses between Russian Migs and American F35s or Her Majesty’s Tornados in a no fly zone and we could see the start of World War 3, not something the liberal west wants to wake up to as it munches its raisin flavoured porridge in the morning.

Sure, Putin is no angel and may be a leader geared for war, but it sure is wiser to accommodate the Bear rather than poke it with a great big massive stick, especially in the cauldron of the Middle East. This is why I think we have a little less clue than Trump’s pending administration, so I bow to my American cousins on this issue. I by no means condone Putin’s authoritarianism and some of the ruthless actions of the Russian state machine, but in Syria it might be a case of holding your nose to help the Russians destroy ISIS. After all, in the Second World War the Soviet Union and  US were fighting on the same side. Perhaps the Brits can join them to help out.

Meanwhile I must finish my letter to Theresa May. But what do I know compared with those armies of civil servants in Whitehall?

Viktor Orban – a hero for our time

The political class in Europe and their acolytes are now an extreme danger to their own people. The papers are full of it. Under Angela Merkel Germany has agreed to take in 800,000 migrants this year. This is a country I have grown quite fond of having visited it over the last few years. Yet I feel that they are building their own funeral pyre.

In the present migrant crisis that is facing Europe you have to be hard headed and realistic, and ask some very pertinent questions. Yes there are genuine refugees who are entitled to help, such as Syrian Christians who are being wiped out by jihadists, but to treat all migrants making their way to Europe as such would be unbelievably naive. That is why it is wise to step back from some of the hype over this issue, especially when 400,000, plus people sign a UK petition to help migrants.

I find it highly disturbing the behaviour of some of the migrants pouring into Europe. One would expect genuine refugees to have a somewhat docile demeanour and to cooperate fully with the authorities in whose country they find themselves, rather unsure of the largesse they might enjoy from their hosts. However we have had stories of migrants refusing to disembark off a ferry from Germany to Denmark unless they are allowed to go on to Sweden, throwing away provision such as water given to them, and failing to cooperate with the lawful authority in the territory they find themselves in. A Head of a UNHCR camp called Syrian refugees ‘the most difficult refugees I’ve ever seen.’ Refugees in Italy were throwing rocks at police whilst demanding free wifi. It reminds me of the attitude of some of the migrants in Calais trying to illegally enter the UK. You say they are desperate. Hmm… Desperation is no excuse for lawlessness. If so called refugees are willing to behave like that in a supposedly desperate situation, what regard will they have for the law when they come to your country?

Viktor Orban, president of Hungary speaks the truth amongst European leaders and makes the rest of Europe’s leaders look like political pygmies. He has stated the foolishness of opening European borders to the mass migration that is now taking place across Europe from the Middle East and Africa, especially the Moslem immigration. He points out that Europe is historically at least a Christian continent, although now it is busy attacking its own Christian values, and that letting Moslems in who do not integrate and may have an agenda is deeply unwise. I suggest there is a connection between Europe losing its spiritual soul and the mass immigration of Moslems of recent years. Any leader worth his salt needs one quality amongst many, and that is discernment. You always and every time have to protect your own people, so what possesses European leaders to let in so many from a totally alien culture and civilisation within the European borders?

Victor is showing qualities which are sadly lacking in European politics. Not least the quality of courage. He is prepared to say what so many politicians in Europe are not prepared to say because they do not wish to offend. Political correctness is rooted in fear. But that is not showing leadership. Viktor is demonstrating leadership by telling the truth, that Islam is incompatible with western values and will only bring trouble and strife to western lands, just as it already has. In doing so he is putting himself in the firing line against the forces arrayed against him that have built an iron stronghold of multiculturalism and political correctness in Europe. They will no doubt try to bully him into backtracking but he must stick to his guns.

Also, Viktor probably has a pretty good sense of history. In the year 1000 King Stephen 1 founded the State of Hungary as a Catholic country. Hundreds of years later in 1526 the Turkish army defeated the Hungarian royal army at Mohacs, and the country split into three parts in about 1541. It was 150 years before the Hungarians reunited and drove out the Turks. The Turkish baths in Budapest are a legacy of this period. Countries have long memories. Eastern Europe faced the hordes of the Ottoman Empire in their history and know far more about the Islamic mentality than most armchair critics in the west who have never witnessed the iron grip of militant Islam when it gains control of your territory. They have had to fight for their survival and now see the Islamic enclaves that have been established in so many western cities where there is just a failure to integrate, and they have witnessed the growth of jihad in the west aided and abetted by clueless western politicians. They do not want the same problems.

No doubt Viktor is aware that amongst the migrant hordes trying to enter Western Europe are highly dangerous jihadists who have had specific instructions from ISIS to cause murder and mayhem in Europe. And they will lie according to the Islamic doctrine of takiyya and claim to be refugees of course, taking naive westerners who think everyone else in the world thinks like they do for fools. And so the western reporter believes them when they say they are refugees from Syria. Some may be, but all of them? A great cover to dupe trusting westerners, especially. when you can easily get a fake Syrian passport.

There is one big question here that has not been satisfactorily answered. Why on earth are the other Moslem nations neither helping nor expected to help to look after their own for the Islamic ummah? Rich Arab nations like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Surely they should be looking after their own brethren rather than letting them flow to Europe. Won’t they be happier in an Islamic country rather than coming to traditionally Christian lands? Well maybe, just maybe they are committing Hijrah, Islamic migration to establish a bridgehead for the burgeoning caliphate. Surely not? Far too much of a conspiracy theory! And then you have western nations loath to take Christian refugees from nations where they are being wiped out by Islamic jihad. They now put anti discrimination legislation before doing what is right.

Of course there is another possible explanation for this, and that is that pompous and arrogant elites that are trying to build a new world order are engineering this migration as it is in their interests. This may even be beyond the dangers of islamisation that those such as Geert Wilders foresee. These so called elites are directing the politically correct left who rule in Europe. They know that it will destroy what is left of European Christian civilisation, and of course it is Christianity they must destroy to bring In their socialist/communist world utopia. The EU is just a building block. It will also help usher in their phoney counterfeit world religion that will be a syncretism of different world religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and state Catholicism, as they know they need a religion to help rubber stamp their ghastly vision of heaven on earth. The fulfilment of a truly wicked plan, the replacement of Judeo-Christian culture with a massive counterfeit system that will be rooted in coercion and totalitarianism.

Time for the warrior spirit to arise! You never know!

The Middle East is different

Today’s news reports tell us that ISIS have now established a bridgehead in Libya and their next target is Europe. Meanwhile the southern border of the U.S. is under the same threat from ISIS if they do not tighten up border control. Don’t believe that ISIS only have designs on Europe. Given Obama’s political colours tightening borders could be a tricky task.

There is a lesson here for all of us, especially politicians, and if there are any around at the moment, statesmen, that you meddle in regime change in the Middle East at your peril. One thing I have observed in my limited reading of the situation is that strongmen in power in the Middle East, even with their associated levels of nastiness, are often far better than the alternatives.

This does not mean I would always advocate keeping the strongman in power while holding your nose. I think there was an arguable case for removIng Sadaam Hussein from power by force. That was the only word he understood, and who knows what was in his heart. He certainly wanted to attack Israel and could have caused no end of mayhem in the region, especially as he had expansionary ambitions as we saw with Kuwait. But this does not nullify the extreme caution we should exercise when advocating regime change in the Middle East.

Look at the whole ‘Arab Spring’ episode, when the West was duly trumpeting the dawn of democracy in the region. One regime after another fell and mayhem has followed in many places.

Egypt was ruled by Mubarak who was overthrown to be replaced by Morsi, who proved to be a front for a militantly Islamic regime that steamed immediately into its totalitarian instincts. And this regime change was all supported by the West. When Morsi was opposed by the Egyptian people out on the streets en masse (all credit to them) there was tut tutting from the West about trying to get rid of a legitimate government. But again the liberal West has little grasp of the nuances of Egyptian politics, Islamist threats and the fear of the Moslem Brotherhood. Egypt has faced enormous upheaval since Mubarak went, something supported by the U.S. and European governments, yet would it not have been better to have tried to keep Mubarak where he was? A strong leader is what Middle Eastern nations need to keep the extreme Islamists in their place. Such leaders understand exactly what medicine is needed to keep these people in line, and that means utter ruthlessness, something we in the West left behind a long time ago.

It’s the same in Syria. The West bleats about the terrible tyrant Assad and the way he goes on. Yes, we would have issues with such a man, but under Assad Christians had more freedom than virtually anywhere else in the Middle East apart from perhaps Israel. Now that Syria is in chaos and various Islamic extremists try to gain control, Christians are the ones caught in the ensuing bloodbath. In the Middle East Christians are in danger of being extinguished as militant Islam shows its true colours, adhering to their mantra, ‘First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people’ (Jews and Christians). Thank God David Cameron’s idea of going into Syria was defeated in the Commons vote. We could have been complicit in aiding some of the nastiest radicals In the region gaining power, perhaps ISIS themselves.

And then there is Libya of course. Granted, Colonel Gaddafi was a deeply unpleasant dictatorial leaders, but perhaps he was a bulwark against something far nastier. Perhaps we should have taken the post Gaddafi vacuum far more seriously. We went in with our RAF jets to help get rid of him, and now Libya is in turmoil and ISIS are at the gates of the European continent. What did Gaddafi himself say? When he was still alive in his Bedouin tent he said, ‘If, instead of a stable government that guarantees security, these militias linked to Bin Laden take control, the Africans will move en masse towards Europe,’ adding that ‘the Mediterranean will become a sea of chaos.’

So it’s the same story in Egypt, Syria and Libya. Former tyrants have been ousted, only to open the way to something far worse. I remember a friend of mine telling me how years ago he had prophesied that if the Shah of Persia was ousted something far worse would replace him. How right he was as the Ayatollah Khomeini filled the vacuum with a hard line Islamic state imposed upon the people of Iran. When will we ever learn. Unfortunately the way it works in some of these countries is that you need someone very, very strong to keep the crazies in order. It has even been said of a country like Russia that they are an aggressive people and need a strong leader to keep them in order.

We now have to face the possibility that because of the policies of our governments aiding and abetting the downfall of admittedly unpleasant dictatorships we have opened the way for ISIS to now become a mortal threat to Europe itself, to old settled liberal societies that at present show little stomach for a fight.