Pitiless War
- November 18, 2015
- by
- Matt
The Narodnik revolutionary Vera Figner once described terrorism as a ‘very sombre form struggle.’ Figner spent twenty years in prison for her part in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II – the most high-profile assassination of the nineteenth century and an act that contained many of the essential features of revolutionary terrorism, so she knew...
Islamic State’s British Volunteers: a Useful Threat?
- June 17, 2015
- by
- Matt
I feel sorry for the Bradford husbands and other British Muslim families whose children and relatives have absconded to join Islamic State’s savage utopia, but I don’t feel any sympathy at all for the ‘radicalized’ volunteers who have gone to Syria. It isn’t as if you have to look very far to know what...
Look out Europe: the Russian bear is coming
- June 05, 2015
- by
- Matt
There is a psychological theory called projection which I have often thought can be applied to international relations. Essentially, projection describes a tendency in interpersonal relationships by which individuals project onto others certain characteristics that they fear or hate in themselves.
An obvious example might be a sexually-frustrated fundamentalist preacher who persecutes others because...
Letter from Palmyra
- May 21, 2015
- by
- Matt
Hey brother,
Greetings from Palmyra! I’m telling you bro, this has been a good week for the Caliphate, because we are LIVING THE DREAM! First we took Ramadi and you should have seen the Iraqi army run away from us! Afterwards we killed the ones we caught and anyone else who...
Lord Snooty’s Eton Rifles
- September 26, 2014
- by
- Matt
By the time you get home from work today, parliament will have authorised the RAF to begin carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq. It’s a campaign without any coherent strategic objectives or timescale.
It may last for months, years, or simply ‘quite a long time’, according to Cameron’s latest less...
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