Ten years ago today, the Paris massacres still horrify us

 

On November 13, 2015, a series of terrorist attacks took place in Paris, France.  Nine attackers, assisted by a tenth who escaped, used suicide bombs and assault rifles to strike a stadium, several restaurants, and the Bataclan theater.  137 victims died, most at the Bataclan, with a further 416 injured.

The echoes of the attacks continue to this day.  France commemorated them with public memorial services and other functions;  extremist Muslim terrorist groups celebrated them with paeans of praise to the "martyrs" who carried them out.  They are, in a sense, France's equivalent to the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States:  a landmark in our history that will never be forgotten.

As was only to be expected, the attacks inspired a wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric in France and elsewhere, and also inspired would-be fundamentalist terrorists to intensify their efforts.  Incidents like this always do that - they make the extremes more extreme, whilst driving most of society from the center towards those extremes.  The day after the attacks, I wrote:

The terrorists haven't thought about it, I'm sure, but they're going to produce a similar and even greater tragedy for their own people than they've inflicted on France.  The reaction from ordinary people like you and I won't be to truly think about the tragedy, to realize that the perpetrators were a very small minority of those who shared their faith, extremists who deserve the ultimate penalty as soon as it can be administered.  No.  The ordinary man and woman on the streets of France is going to wake up today hating all Muslims.  He or she will blame them all for the actions of a few, and will react to all of them as if they were all equally guilty.

One can't blame people for such attitudes.  When one simply can't tell whether or not an individual Muslim is also a terrorist fundamentalist, the only safety lies in treating all of them as if they presented that danger.  That's what the French people are going to do now.  That's what ordinary people all across Europe are going to do now, irrespective of whatever their politicians tell them.  Their politicians are protected in secure premises by armed guards.  They aren't.  Their survival is of more immediate concern;  so they're doing to do whatever they have to do to improve the odds in their favor.  If that means ostracizing Muslims, ghettoizing them, even using preemptive violence against them to force them off the streets . . . they're going to do it.

I've written before about how blaming all Muslims for the actions of a few is disingenuous and inexcusable.  I still believe that . . . but events have overtaken rationality.  People are going to start relating to 'Muslims' rather than to 'human beings', just as the extremists label all non-Muslims as 'kaffirs' or 'kufars' - unbelievers - rather than as human beings.  For the average man in a European street, a Muslim will no longer be a 'person'.  He's simply a Muslim, a label, a 'thing'.  He's no longer French, or American, or British, no matter what his passport says.  He's an 'other'.  He's 'one of them' . . . and because of that, he's no longer 'one of us'.  He's automatically defined - no, let's rather say (because it's easier to blame him) that he's defined himself - as a potential threat, merely by the religion he espouses.  He may have been born into it, and raised in a family and society and culture so saturated with it as to make it literally impossible, inconceivable, for him to be anything else . . . but that doesn't matter.  It's his choice to be Muslim, therefore he must take the consequences.  We're going to treat him with the same suspicion and exaggerated caution that we would a live, possibly armed hand-grenade.  He's asked for it, so we're going to give it to him.

That's the bitter fruit that extremism always produces.  It's done so throughout history.  There are innumerable examples of how enemies have become 'things'.  It's Crusaders versus Saracens, Cavaliers versus Roundheads, Yankees versus Rebels, doughboys versus Krauts . . . us versus them, for varying values of 'us' and 'them'.

. . .

And in the end, the bodies lying in the ruins, and the blood dripping onto our streets, and the weeping of those who've lost loved ones . . . they'll all be the same.  History is full of them.  When it comes to the crunch, there are no labels that can disguise human anguish.  People will suffer in every land, in every community, in every faith . . . and they'll turn to what they believe in to make sense of their suffering . . . and most of them will raise up the next generation to hate those whom they identify as the cause of their suffering . . . and the cycle will go on, for ever and ever, until the world ends.

There's more at the link.

And, sure enough, the cycle of the Paris attacks has produced yet more bitter fruit.  The BBC reports:

A former girlfriend of the only jihadist to survive the November 2015 attacks has been arrested on suspicion of plotting her own violent act.

The woman - a 27 year-old French convert to Islam named as Maëva B - began a letter-writing relationship with Salah Abdeslam, 36, who is serving a life sentence in jail near the Belgian border following his conviction in 2022.

When prison guards discovered that Abdeslam had been using a USB key containing jihadist propaganda, they traced its origin to face-to-face meetings that the prisoner had with Maëva B.

. . .

With France commemorating 10 years since the worst attack in its modern history, the arrest has focused minds on the enemy that never went away.

Six plots have been thwarted this year, says Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, and the threat level remains high.

Again, more at the link.

Say a prayer today for those who died in Paris that day, and their survivors, who live with the burden of their loss.  Pray, too, for those who work day and night to protect us against more such attacks.

Peter

Antifa: smoke and mirrors, gaslighting and astroturfing

 

All the attention being paid to Antifa and its minions and associated organizations is clearly making the organization very uncomfortable indeed.  One of its leading lights (such as it is), Prof. Mark Bray, has fled to Europe to avoid what he will doubtless categorize as "persecution", and other leaders are either "taking the gap" with him or trying to avoid public identification in the USA.

Another tactic is to issue "talking points" to left-wing commentators to deny that Antifa even exists.  It's so blatant it would be funny, if it weren't so dishonest.  See for yourself in this montage of TV commenters all agreeing with each other.  It's a tactic we've seen many times before - gaslight the opposition, pretend something isn't so when it very clearly is, and try to obfuscate the issue at every turn.  (A helpful question to deniers:  if it doesn't exist, why is Prof. Bray's book about the organization still a best-seller?)

As a general rule of thumb, I think the safest approach is to assume that any far-left-wing progressive source, or claim, or allegation is a lie from start to finish.  They can't be trusted, because they can't be truthful.  It's like some pathological obsession with them.  When presented with conclusive video evidence and eye-witness confirmation, they simply reject it as false rather than engage with it.  They're what Robert Heinlein would have referred to as "yammerheads", trying to talk over and drown out the opposition and defy reality.

The lies and confrontations are only going to get worse from now on.  We have a very difficult period ahead of us as the present Administration tries very hard to remove the excrescences that have defiled the US body politic, and return us to the rule of law.  Let's not allow excrescences like Antifa to disrupt public understanding of what's really happening out there.

Peter

Sometimes one can only nod in agreement

 

Arthur Sido is what I would consider a right-wing blogger (some would say he's extreme right-wing, but I know of others much further along that spectrum than he is).  I disagree with many of his views on race and culture.  However, sometimes he hits the nail on the head, as he did yesterday.

Back in the years following Obama we saw a less than subtle shift taking place, one that really took off with the death via heart failure of George Floyd. It was in place and just waiting the right trigger, and the carefully edited video of Floyd’s death was just what the doctor ordered. No longer was it sufficient to be “color blind” or “not racist”. Now we were told “silence is violence” and that failure to be sufficiently outspoken in condemning “racism” was no different than lynching.

It wasn’t enough to simply not disagree with them, instead you were required to vocally agree with whatever they said. I recall vividly mobs confronting timid Whites in restaurants and forcing them to repeat “black lives matter” . It didn’t matter whether they agreed or not, the point was intimidation and humiliation.

We have moved into a new stage, one where you can now be forcibly silenced through violence, and a significant number of people on the Left seem to have no problem with using assassinations, whether the target was Trump or Charlie Kirk, a decidedly mild conservative ... Kirk for his faults was out there in the open. Even with Trump already in the White House he was outspoken and doing events, and because he was known he was able to be targeted. They couldn’t defeat even a fairly genteel conservative in debate so they shut him up the same way the Bolsheviks and their bastard offspring always have done: by terror and murder.

My general rule of thumb in the past was to say that the last thing I wanted was for the Left to be silenced or censored. Letting those idiots talk conveyed my arguments far better than I could dream of by blogging. Let them speak and let people see how stupid and vile they are.

Maybe that was a mistake, and maybe I am guilty of some of the same naive thinking that normies are guilty of ... The one thing that has marked leftist politics from the beginning is violence to overcome resistance to their retarded ideas. They are returning to form in America and Kirk won’t be the last to fall.

There's more at the link.

We can already see deliberate attempts from the progressive left to portray Charlie Kirk's murderer as a young man driven to extremes by his youthful love story.  Walter Kirn put it like this:

Here's how this will play out, here's the meta-script, and please don't laugh it off.

How this all started is not how it will end. A story that began with a clear traditional moral shape, an innocent victim, a vile perpetrator, will be transformed using secondary characters, new revelations, and other dramatic elements into its very opposite -- a story of forbidden love, persecution by religious bigots, a  poignantly rebellious heartfelt protest against a World that Doesn't Understand.

There will then be a total split, far deeper than mere "politics," between the segments of the public that were captivated by two incommensurate tragedies.

Rod Dreher explodes in righteous anger at such a mischaracterization.

Sure enough, look at Montel Williams on CNN, saying that poor sweet Tyler was simply trying to “defend his lover,” not attack an ideology. This is the play now.

Like I said, trying to keep a cool head, but … what world do these freaks live in?! Tyler Robinson blew a hole in Charlie Kirk’s throat because he despised what Charlie Kirk said, and this ABC News reporter has a sentimental boner about how sweet their gay-lover chit-chat is?!

. . .

I am seriously, seriously shaken up about the country. People don’t even know what reality is! These left-wing people will believe whatever they need to believe to maintain their narrative. Do I need to remind you that one of the signs that a country is ready to receive a totalitarian dictatorship is a refusal to believe in Truth, only “truth” as what satisfies you emotionally?

These people who are turning to their AI lovers for emotional gratification, while knowing full well that these things aren’t real — it’s a sign, y’all. It’s a sign of ever-growing detachment from reality. They prefer the “truth” of the way the Machine makes them feel to actual reality.

Again, more at the link.

Tyler Durden observes that the "woke" news media are marching in lock-step on this one.

The people dancing on TikTok and laughing about the murder come from all walks of life, from teachers to social workers and, of course, mainstream journalists.  The widespread vitriol has debunked the longtime claim that such psychopathy is relegated to a fringe minority. 

In reality, violent bloodlust is a feature of the political left, not an anomaly.  We saw it after the multiple assassination attempts on Donald Trump and we see it even more after the death of Charlie Kirk.

The justifications are rampant, with leftists claiming (falsely) that Kirk was a "fascist, misogynist, racist, homophobe, etc.", thereby absolving themselves of their elation over his shooting.  The real issue is that Kirk told the truth, on DEI, on transgender cultism, on feminism - And because they could not win against him in open debate, they wanted him dead.

. . .

Being a left-wing journalist, [Washington Post columnist Karen] Attiah's comments are strategically open to interpretation.  In the worst case, she appears to be justifying Charlie Kirk's killing because continuing to allow him to live is the same as absolving "white" American violence.  In other words, Kirk's words are the same as violence, therefore killing him is an act of self defense.

However, like most leftists in the media, Attiah is unable to produce any examples of Charlie Kirk actually espousing violence, or calling for violence.

. . .

Woke activists have been scrambling to control the narrative on Kirk's assassination for the past several days, at first applauding the incident as righteous vengeance, then claiming that the shooter was "right wing" (a false narrative), and now calling for conservatives to "cool things down" as if conservatives are the source of the problem.

More at the link.

We've seen this barrage of lies, propaganda and vitriol erupt and expand over the past week.  It's going to go on, and get worse, because the progressive left has to have a cause around which to gather.  If they can persuade people that "We're the oppressed ones here!", they can generate renewed and increased resistance to President Trump and his policies.  In reality, of course, they'll be relentless and merciless in pursuing those who expose their falsehoods and fanaticism.  I doubt very much whether Charlie Kirk will be the only martyr to their efforts.

Those of us who believe in our constitutional republic and the rule of law would do well to read the words of those I've quoted above, and gird our loins, both physically and metaphorically.  If we live in areas infested by such radical leftists (or even within striking distance of them), we should be prepared to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and our homes.  That may be more of a reality than we'd like to admit.

Peter

The murder of Charlie Kirk and the World Trade Center attack

 

The founder of Turning Point USA and key supporter of President Trump, Charlie Kirk, was shot dead yesterday while speaking at Utah Valley University in that state.

There's already been an immense amount of verbiage spouted by all the usual suspects on both the left and the right of US politics.  I'd just like to point out that Mr. Kirk's murder is merely the latest act in the growing intolerance, sectarianism and naked violence that's become a feature of our political debate since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

So much changed in America on that day, and in the months and years that followed.  Life became more precarious, less insulated from the violence of the modern world.  We went to war, and spent thousands of lives (and tens of thousands more wounded and maimed servicemen) in an ultimately failed effort to combat terrorism and reimpose what our politicians saw as US dominance.  The scars of that conflict are visible all over the world to this day, in countries that have become unstable, violent and brutal - including our own.

Inevitably, that failure has had its impact on our internal politics.  Far too many of us are all too ready to lash out, less willing to talk, not amenable to compromise.  It's "our way or the highway", and we're ready to consign to the highway anyone with whom we disagree.  That's what somebody did to Charlie Kirk yesterday.  His very existence, and the message he proclaimed, threatened their own views of and desires for this country, so they killed him.

I knew almost nothing about Mr. Kirk before yesterday.  I've never followed Turning Point USA, and didn't pay much attention to his electioneering.  Nevertheless, his murder is a body blow to political discourse and sanity in America, because right now there are undoubtedly many on the conservative side of our political divide who are more than willing to see murder committed against a Kirk equivalent on the liberal/progressive side.  Any prospect for tolerance and discussion is, for the time being, almost certainly dead in the water.

That means, whether or not we agreed with Mr. Kirk or President Trump, we're all damaged by this murder.  What will its wider, long-term impact be?  Nobody can say . . . but I suggest we'd better be thinking and praying very hard about it.

Rod Dreher has some very faith-filled and insightful commentary on this tragedy.

Charlie Kirk was no friend of the extreme right. But I fear that the gruesome slaying of Iryna Zarutska by a deranged black man, and now the assassination of Kirk — interesting that both bled out from a wound to the same place on their necks — will be a signal to militant far-right groups to go active. I hope I’m wrong. The urge to do something is powerful. I feel it too. But do what? White people and conservatives don’t burn down cities. Yet the capacity to absorb leftist violence is not infinite.

. . .

I suspect that today and in the days to come, there will be some people online cheering on the prospect of civil war, of violence to settle scores ... the fractures are so deep in America today. True, we are nowhere remotely close to the political violence that savaged the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s; reading Days Of Rage is a necessary corrective to fevered speculation about today’s climate. Nevertheless, there was at that time deep tissue connecting Americans, and that gave the country resilience. I fear that has gone now ... something wicked this way comes. We all know this. Prepare.

There's more at the link.  It's worth reading in full.

May Mr. Kirk rest in peace, and may his family receive what comfort they may;  and may his murderer(s?) be swiftly brought to justice.

Peter

The Minneapolis shooter's insane "mandate"

 

Fellow blogger Big Country Expat has taken the time and trouble to photograph every page of the Minneapolis church shooter's ramblings (I refuse to use his name - let him be forgotten!), and has published them on his blog, along with a translation of the weird mixture of English and pseudo-Russian, Latin and Cyrillic script in which they're written.  Click here to go to his place and take a look.

I think he's done us a public service by putting this stuff out there.  I suggest each of us bookmark his post, and if possible save a copy to our own computers, because sure as hell the progressive left is going to try to deep-six the "manifesto" in order to "protect" the trans community.  We need to remember, and be aware every day, that the proportion of mass shootings and other such crimes committed by trans people is out of all proportion to their actual numbers.  It's getting to the point where I think we might start classifying all trans people as at least potential criminals of this sort, purely to protect ourselves against the larger-than-usual proportion of mass murderers coming out of their number.

Also, it's long gone time to improve our school security.  I suggest training and arming teachers, since they're the people on the spot if trouble starts.  I know this latest shooting occurred at a school church service - but that can be catered for, too.  I knew more than a few priests in Africa who routinely carried a gun beneath their vestments as they celebrated Mass, and for good reason.  They lived in parts of the continent where inter-religious violence was the rule rather than the exception, and they saw it as part of their duty to protect "the flock of God which is their charge".  I'm sure their successors are continuing the same policy today.  More power to them!

Peter

Is left-wing terrorism to be the "new normal"?

 

John Farnam thinks so.

Overshadowed by the tragic flooding in TX, there was an well-funded, violent attack, a “planned ambush,” by at least ten heavily-armed leftist terrorists on Federal Officers at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, TX on Friday, 4 July 25.  At least one officer was injured by gunfire.

This incident began with vandalism, graffiti, and fireworks.  It was all clearly intended to draw Federal Officers outside and into a deadly ambush.

Terrorists used M4 rifles (with “high-capacity” magazines), were equipped with body-armor, radios, and other military equipment, and the selection of a national holiday to stage this attack was no accident.

There was a simultaneous, separate shooting-attack on Federal Officers at the  Border Patrol Facility in McAllen, TX.  At least one armed terrorist was fatally shot by officers during that armed assault.

As expected, no Democrat politician has publically condemned these shooting attacks on our Federal LEOs.  In fact, Democrats are self-righteously calling our courageous ICE Officers “terrorists.”

. . .

In 2020, these same leftist terrorists, openly incited by Democrat politicians, destroyed historic statues and burned large swaths of business districts (in an effort to punish “hated capitalists”).

In 2024/25, these same terrorists violently attacked Jewish students and trashed college campuses, all with the approval of leftist-supporting college administrators, who simultaneously exclude Christians and Jews from being hired (in the name of “DEI”)

Today, these same leftist terrorists, now using “assault weapons,” are openly shooting at our police, all as their supporters (which includes most Democrat politicians) remain silent, or in some cases cheer them on!

This all precisely fits the Leninist pattern for the violent seizure of power, as the DNC’s current spokesman, Zohran Mamdani, so candidly articulates.

Nothing is beneath them!

Why should any of us be surprised?

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

I can't disagree with Mr. Farnam.  I fear we're going to be sending out patrol cars in pairs, at least, in our more dangerous cities, and probably in larger groups where hot-button issues such as illegal migration or other left-wing shibboleths are concerned.  Where I live, this hasn't been a problem (yet), but I understand from talking to a couple of cop friends in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and Houston that they're already preparing for that.  Unfortunately, their city governments are more inclined to pander to the extremists than crack down on them - which means that ordinary citizens are probably going to have to shoulder more of the burden of keeping their neighborhoods crime-free and regressive (as opposed to progressive, you understand).

Fair warning.  Take a close look at the political and social environment in and around the area where you live, and plan accordingly.

Peter

Hamas asked for it, and it looks like they're going to get it - good and hard

 

Two interesting developments may offer a solution to the hitherto intractable problem of Gaza and its Palestinian residents.

First, Israel is reportedly arming "anti-Hamas militias".

According to Israeli news outlet Ynet, “one group is active in Gaza City, and the other in Khan Yunis” – where the Israeli military is currently present. 

Ynet had previously reported, citing sources affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA), that “new Fatah-aligned militias would soon begin operations in the strip.” The same sources told the outlet this week that “these are the very groups now coordinating directly with the IDF,” with both receiving salaries from the PA [Palestinian Authority]. 

. . .

One of the groups is based in Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood – an area known historically as a hotbed of resistance, where Israeli forces are currently preparing to escalate operations. This faction is reportedly linked to Rami Halles, an anti-Hamas activist in Gaza linked to the PA Fatah party. 

The Halles clan has had bad blood with Hamas since the resistance movement’s takeover of Gaza years ago. 

“Halles and his men are heavily armed and are now receiving Israeli protection and operational cover,” sources cited by Ynet say. 

The second militia, based in the southern city of Khan Yunis, is said to be led by a man named Yasser Hnaidek, who “is receiving Israeli aid – both in weapons and humanitarian supplies – as well as a salary from the PA.” He also hails from a Fatah-linked family in Gaza, according to what has been circulating. 

. . .

The Ynet report follows recent information about an Israeli-backed gang operating in the southernmost city of Rafah – led by the Fatah-linked Yasser Abu Shabab, also allegedly linked to ISIS. 

There's more at the link.

I don't know why some people are surprised by that news.  One of the oldest and most sacred (?) tenets of life in the Middle East is that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".  I think Israel is following that principle very closely.  Furthermore, the "Fatah-aligned" aspect of the militias is interesting, because Fatah is the biggest faction in the Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank but was expelled from Gaza (amid much bloodshed) by Hamas years ago.  Fatah might be more than willing to help Israel by joining forces with it to sponsor anti-Hamas militias.  See the principle quoted above for the reason . . .

The second bit of news is that traditional Arab leadership may be resurgent in another Palestinian region.

A group of five leading sheikhs in the Palestinian Authority’s Hebron district sent a letter to the government expressing a desire to join the Abraham Accords and to have peace with Israel, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The letter, addressed to Economy Minister Nir Barkat, expresses the sheikhs’ desire to break off from the Palestinian Authority and establish Hebron as an emirate that “recognize[s] the State of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.”

Then, “the State of Israel shall recognize the Emirate of Hebron as the Representative of the Arab residents in the Hebron District.”

Again, more at the link.

Hebron is part of the West Bank, not Gaza.  If it "defects" to an independent arrangement with Israel, this will undermine the Palestinian Authority itself, as well as offering an interesting example to other regions with their own authority structures.  Furthermore, it would offer a counterweight to the so-called "two-state solution" that's been touted for so long as the only possible solution to the Palestinian problem.  If Palestinian regions are divided into self-ruling "statelets" or Emirates or whatever they want to call themselves, there will no longer be just two Palestinian regions - and none of the smaller entities will want to give up their own authority (and lucrative rake-offs) to ally with others.

If Hamas won't make peace, Israel will be more than happy to make sure Hamas has nothing and nobody left over which to rule.

Peter

"The nature of the enemy"

 

HMS Defiant warns us that our fundamentalist enemies in the Middle East and elsewhere are very likely to take advantage of public celebrations to attack those attending.

The deranged lunatics who make up the foot soldiers of the enemy invasion do not need to turn to guns and mass shootings in order to slaughter thousands of innocent people who are out enjoying the 4th of July, they merely have to get behind the wheel of a big SUV or a truck and drive endlessly through an unwary and completely unprotected crowd so this year, protect yourselves and your families.

If you line a parade route as I did for so many years, make sure the barricades preventing vehicle access are meaningful and placed with care and attention to detail by a man who KNOWS that they are the only thing that will stop a maniac from driving into a peaceful crowd looking the wrong way.*

Make sure that you have a safe haven selected for you and your family and that you can get to it safely when the entire crowd bursts into panic and flight. Be ready to deal with avoiding trampling and keeping safe from the panicked crowd.

Know that the enemy we have in the middle east is one that really and truly does like to strike back on days that are already memorialized in one way or another and they will take days like the 4th of July in a heartbeat over even attacking on 9/11 or Christmas or New Years and take note that none of them are holidays in their religion. 

Evil doesn't take holidays.

There's more at the link.

He's absolutely right, of course.  We've all seen such attacks in Europe, and a few that came close in our own country (although, thanks be to God, most of what we've seen here has been smaller-scale and/or less motivated).  There are a lot of raw, humiliated, angry people in the fundamentalist Islamic community right now, furious that Israel has destroyed their compatriots in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and outraged that the USA has supported Israel in its efforts.  As far as they're concerned, we all share the guilt for such actions, and they're entitled to seek revenge against us.

Bear in mind, too, that a firearm is often far from the most useful response.  Sometimes it can help defend one's life and loved ones, but if a wannabe terrorist martyr is barreling towards a crowd in a heavy truck, gunfire is unlikely to stop him before he runs right over you.  By all means carry a gun - I do, almost all the time - but having a head on a swivel, constantly evaluating the situation around you, looking for potential choke points and escape routes, and watching for suspicious behavior, will do more to save you in most situations than pulling out a gun and starting shooting.  That's even more true when you consider that, if such a situation goes down, the authorities - and many other armed civilians such as yourself - are highly likely to regard anyone waving a gun around as part of the problem, not the solution.  They may start shooting at you on general principles (i.e. the modified Golden Rule:  "Do unto others before they have a chance to do unto you, only do it first").  There are seldom happy endings to that.

Fair warning, folks.

Peter

Israel strikes Iran, and the "little people" pay the price

 

I'm not going to get into finger-pointing over who did what, with which, to whom, and who did it first.  The facts appear to be that Iran had refused to give up its uranium enrichment program.  According to Israel, Iran had, in fact, gathered enough enriched nuclear material to make up to 15 nuclear weapons, and was in the process of trying to assemble them over the past week or so.  Israel felt it had no choice but to interrupt the process.  As a result, the bombs and missiles (so far, thank God, non-nuclear) are flying again.

The problem with a nuclear weapon is that it changes the dynamic permanently if, and only if, it's used.  Israel has had nuclear weapons since the 1960's, if rumor is correct, and (based on the Vela incident in 1979, of which I had more than passing knowledge) probably upgraded much of its nuclear arsenal to thermonuclear weapons in the 1980's and beyond.  However, because it's never admitted to having them, and has never been proved to have detonated one, it's been able to stop further nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.  Let that "plausible deniability" curtain be torn down, even by a nuclear test, and every nation in that part of the world will have nukes before you can say boo to a camel.  Let a nuclear weapon be used against an enemy, and that'll happen even faster.  (For example, I understand Saudi Arabia has bankrolled part of the Pakistani nuclear program, and Saudi has Chinese ballistic missiles that can carry such weapons.  I think it'd take only as long as transport aircraft would need to fly from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia for the latter country to have its own nuclear arsenal.)

So far, Israel's strikes against Iran have used only conventional weapons.  One hopes that'll continue . . . because if one of those strikes should (God forbid) actually set off one of Iran's nukes, or blow up a reactor causing massive radiation pollution of the area and everything (and every country) downwind, then hell's come to breakfast.  If Israel uses a nuclear weapon against Iran, hell will be there for lunch and supper too.

The real tragedy of these strikes, and any Iranian retaliation, is that the "little people" nearby - the ordinary citizens who live close to the targets - are going to suffer very severely.  Bombs don't care if you're innocent or guilty;  they'll kill you anyway.  There may be thousands killed and wounded in these strikes, on both sides.  Nobody is thinking about them, and they'll get precious little help from the authorities, who are preoccupied with preserving their weapons and related programs, and with hitting back.

I have all too intimate personal knowledge of the victims of violence, those caught in the crossfire between two enemies.  I've tried to stop the bleeding from their shattered limbs, and held them in my arms as their lives fled their tortured, tormented bodies.  I've picked up the pieces of their corpses (and yes, I mean that literally).  They are not responsible for the evils being done around them, but they pay the greatest price for them.  Nobody cares about them.  Those giving the orders and wreaking the havoc are focused on "bigger" problems.  The innocent who are caught up in the violence are just "collateral damage".

That may sound OK to those killing them, but it's very cold comfort indeed to those doing the dying.  Try telling a shrieking, wailing two-year-old whose mother has just been decapitated by a burst of fire from a machine-gun that "everything's going to be OK".  It's not.  She may not be able to reason at all, at her age, but she knows that the face that's looked down with love at her all her little life is now unrecognizable raw red blood and brains and fragments of bone splattered against a wall.  She knows - but cannot understand why - the arms that have always cradled her when she needed comfort are now limp and lifeless.  A strange man she's never seen before is trying to take her away from her mother to whom she's desperately clinging, whose love and reassurance she desperately needs but will never know again.  How do you tell that child that she's just "collateral damage", and that she should suck it up and get on with life?

Those are the people I'm thinking about this morning.  Once you've seen their suffering, you can't forget it.

May Almighty God have mercy on them all . . . because nobody else is going to.

Peter

Reverse 9/11???

 

From user A New Pope on X.com:

Peter

"Taking a life is a terrible thing. Sometimes not taking a life is far, far worse."

 

Lawdog has some trenchant thoughts on the terror attack in Boulder, Colorado last weekend.  I endorse them wholeheartedly.

Go read, and ponder.

Peter

Anti-white racism in South Africa? Decide for yourself.

 

Readers have doubtless been following the diplomatic brouhaha between the USA and South Africa over the treatment of Afrikaner farmers there.  The progressive left and its lapdog media have been shouting until they're blue in the face that there is no racial oppression or discrimination against them, that it's all some right-wing propaganda chimera.  See for yourself:  click the image for a larger view.

Well, yesterday President Trump received South African President Ramophosa and played him a video of news clips showing precisely such discrimination.  To make matters worse, one of the more extreme politicians in South Africa, Julius Malema, re-emphasized his stance (i.e. calling for death to the farmers), and his party came out flat-footed in his support.  In case you've missed Malema and his ilk, here's a video clip.

Decide for yourselves who's on the right side of this issue.  I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Peter

Some good news from the recent India-Pakistan clash

 

Readers will recall that last week, India launched air strikes against places in Pakistan that it claimed were terrorist bases or support areas.  It seems that at least once, they got their target identification right.

India’s governing BJP party said on Thursday that its “Operation Sindhoor” counter-terrorist airstrikes on Pakistan “eliminated” Abdul Rauf Azhar, the operational commander of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist group and the mastermind behind American journalist Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping and beheading in 2002.

Rauf Azhar was the younger brother of JeM founder Masood Azhar, who was also targeted by India on Tuesday night. Masood Azhar survived the airstrikes, but said ten members of his family were killed.

. . .

The kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl is one of many heinous acts JeM has been linked to. Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), was abducted by terrorists from a hotel in Karachi, Pakistan, in January 2002. He had moved to Pakistan from India to investigate Islamic terrorism after the 9/11 attack on America.

Abdul Rauf Azhar was one of the kidnappers, working with a group that called itself “The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty.” They claimed Pearl was an Israeli spy and send the United States a long list of demands for his freedom. When those demands were not met, they forced Pearl to film a video in which he identified himself as a “Jewish American,” and then chopped his head off. 

The terrorists released the video to the public under the title “The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl.” His body was dumped in a shallow grave near Karachi.

There's more at the link.

JeM has long been regarded as a state-sponsored terrorist organization, backed by Pakistan.  Wikipedia reports:

JeM was allegedly created with the support of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which is using it to carry out terrorist attacks in Kashmir and [the] rest of India. Due to sustained international pressure against Pakistan sponsored terrorism, JeM was banned in Pakistan in 2002 as a formality. However, the organization was never seriously disrupted or dismantled. Its arrested leaders were subsequently released without any charges and permitted to re-form under new names. Its variants openly continue operations under different names or charities in several facilities in Pakistan.

Thanks to India for delivering a good shellacking to JeM.  I daresay that somewhere, the ghost of Daniel Pearl is feeling a little better today . . .

Peter

Learning from the enemy: personal and property security

 

DiveMedic has posted an excellent article about the current internal terrorism threat in the United States.  Go read it before you continue here.  I'll wait.

Among other things, he links to a Web site catering to those internal terrorists, advising them how to avoid or evade surveillance, police investigations, etc.  You'll find it here.  As one with more than a few years of anti-terrorist and civil defense experience, in one of the more dangerous parts of the world, I highly recommend that all law-abiding citizens, particularly those planning to defend their families and homes against domestic terrorism, click over there and read through it.  You'll learn a surprising amount about how our enemies plan to avoid being held responsible for their actions . . . and that, in turn, can inform how you plan and train to defend yourself against them.  It might even aid you if you have to act against them, and don't want to be targeted for doing so (by the authorities or anyone else).

For example, I've written in the past about the problem of defending ourselves in a non-permissive environment, where the authorities may not be entirely on the side of law and order.  Here's one example of my articles - again, it's worth reading if you haven't already done so.  In it, I talked about gait recognition and gait analysis;  the study of how we move, and how our movements can help to identify us if they're caught on camera, even if our faces can't be seen.  That's become a common investigative tool for law enforcement, and also for better-informed agitators and activists, who've learned to use video cameras and analyze the film just as the police do.  The Web site in question has an entire article about it.  If we read that in order to understand what they're doing, and why, we can turn that knowledge against them by making it more difficult - even impossible - to identify us through gait analysis.  There are many methods of doing so;  faking a limp (including putting a stone in one shoe), using a cane or crutches, adopting a rolling gait as if we were unsteady on our feet (like a sailor who's just set foot ashore after two or three weeks at sea), and so on.  We might even use roller skates or skateboards for a complete change of pace (you should pardon the expression).

I'm sure the enemies of our society thought they were being very clever by setting up a Web site to teach their hangers-on how to avoid the consequences of their actions.  They failed to realize that the same Web site can teach us exactly the same thing, and also how to recognize their presence by their actions, so we can plan our own actions to defend against them.

A very useful tool for our purposes, and highly recommended.

Peter

Is Ukraine selling US weapons to cartels and on the black market???

 

Tucker Carlson thinks so.  Here he discusses the possibility with retired LtCol Daniel Davis.  The video is keyed to start and end at the appropriate segment of their conversation, which is about five minutes in length.

That's a terrifying thought.  What if a drug cartel, or a well-funded terrorist movement, bought a few MANPADS (man-portable ground-to-air missiles) and used them to bring down an airliner or two?  They could shut down the entire commercial air market in a country, or even more than one country.  The damage that would do to the world economy is catastrophic, to say the least.

I'm looking for more evidence to substantiate Mr. Carlson's claim that Ukraine is selling weapons on the black market.  I'm not talking about rumor or innuendo - I mean hard evidence, like matching up serial numbers of weapons against shipments.  If any reader has more information about that, please let us know in Comments.

Peter

Life imitates art (well, advertisements, anyway)

 

How many of you remember this German advertisement for Volkswagen's Polo?

Well, the terrorist who detonated an explosion in a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump Tower in Las Vegas yesterday clearly hadn't seen it - or, if he had, he didn't learn anything from it.

You'll note the comment from law enforcement in that last video clip.  The Cybertruck was strongly enough built to contain most of the blast, and vent it upward rather than outward, with the result that (as far as I know) not a single window in the building was broken and no bystanders were hurt.  That can't be said of the wannabe terrorist driver of the rented Cybertruck, who was apparently very comprehensively broken indeed - a consummation (or should that be conflagration?) devoutly to be wished.

Elon Musk should think about using that video clip in an advertisement for the Cybertruck.  It speaks very well of the vehicle's toughness.

Peter

"A passing bomber"

 

Heard an interesting "rumor" from a friend yesterday, one of whose relatives is said to be with an unnamed outfit, from an unidentified armed force, that's doing interesting things in western Syria, sending out reconnaissance teams to keep an eye on who's who and what's what.  No names, no confirmations, and all the usual caveats.

It would appear that a reconnaissance team was sitting on top of a hill in western Syria, when what to their wondering eyes should appear but a convoy of several dozen heavy transporters, heading west as fast as they could go towards the Iraqi border.  Of even greater interest was that they'd seen this same convoy heading east, towards Lebanon, a week or so before;  and the cargoes involved were clearly large rockets or missiles, plus some other heavy weaponry.  The assumption was that these were Iranian weapons destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Due to the sudden collapse of the Syrian government, it's presumed that the convoy could no longer get through, and was therefore being recalled to its source so that its cargoes could be redeployed.

It would further appear (if unsubstantiated "rumor" be correct) that said reconnaissance team called up "a passing bomber" and various and sundry other aircraft that are hammering the living daylights out of ISIS and its sympathizers.  Upon learning that an arrow-straight road leading straight to the Iraqi border, and clearly visible from the air, was now occupied by a convoy of heavy movers with "interesting" cargoes, the aircraft in question are said to have taken a sudden and very active interest in the highway.  The resulting secondary explosions were described as "tactical-nuke-size fireballs", which elicited prolonged, admiring and possibly profane comments from the hilltop observers.  Apparently a good time was had by all except the (surviving) convoy personnel.

I'm informed that it looks as if those cargoes of donations to fundamentalist Islamic terrorist solidarity will no longer be returning to sender.  Pity about that . . .

Needless to say, all this is purely the fruit of my imagination, there's no truth in the "rumor", and all the usual excuses.  Nobody involved would dream of breaching Opsec.  Not at all.  Not hardly.

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  Yes, I mixed up directions (thanks to posting late at night while very tired).  In the above post, for "East" read "West", and vice versa.  Thanks to all the commenters who caught it.

Syria's new submarine fleet...

 

... previously known as the Syrian Navy.  Click the image for a larger view.

As noted on Monday, Israel is destroying every major military facility in Syria that its warplanes can reach.  The BBC reports:

Israel has confirmed it carried out attacks on Syria's naval fleet, as part of its efforts to neutralise military assets in the country after the fall of the Assad regime.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its ships struck the ports at Al-Bayda and Latakia on Monday night, where 15 vessels were docked.

The BBC has verified videos showing blasts at the port of Latakia, with footage appearing to show extensive damage to ships and parts of the port.

The IDF also said its warplanes had conducted more than 350 air strikes on targets across Syria, while moving ground forces into the demilitarised buffer zone between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights.

. . .

In a statement, Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said the IDF was aiming to "destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel".

He added that the operation to destroy the Syrian fleet had been a "great success".

The IDF said a wide range of targets had been struck - including airfields, military vehicles, anti-aircraft weapons and arms production sites - in the Syrian capital, Damascus, as well as Homs, Tartus and Palmyra.

It also targeted weapon warehouses, ammunition depots and "dozens" of sea-to-sea missiles.

It added that it had done so to prevent them "from falling into the hands of extremists".

There's more at the link.

I guess that makes sense from Israel's point of view, but it's going to make it much harder for a new central government to be formed in Syria - it won't have access to the military equipment and bases it needs to end internal rivalry and conflict.

There are dozens, if not scores, of different groups in Syria, each proclaiming its religious purity and its cause's righteousness.  At the moment, in the first flush of victory, they're celebrating President Assad's ouster:  but before long they're going to start jockeying for position, trying to stake their claim to at least some of the spoils of victory, and hoping that their leaders will be able to form part of the new government (and therefore distribute largesse to their supporters).  It's going to be chaotic, shambolic, and a bloody (literally) mess.

Syria is one of those countries (like Russia) that isn't accustomed to democracy, and hasn't been for generations.  It's used to a strong-man leader who dictates policy and enforces it.  All those hoping for democracy, a freely and fairly elected government, and impartiality, are doomed to disappointment (to put it mildly).  Hopefully a better Syria will emerge from this mess . . . but it'll take years to do so, and won't be born peacefully or bloodlessly.

Also, watch the major ethnic groups in Syria.  The Kurds are virulently opposed to Turkey, and antagonistic towards Iraq, and hostile towards the fundamentalist Shi'ite government in Iran.  They'd like nothing better than to form a united Kurdistan with pieces of each of those nations - but none of the others want to surrender territory (or the oil beneath it) to them.  I think we may see genocidal warfare between Turkey and the Kurds in the not too distant future.  The Turks have demonstrated that genocide is a perfectly acceptable ethnic solution to them (think of the Armenian massacres, just for a start).  I rather suspect they're gearing up to kick six bells out of the Kurds.

(EDITED TO ADD:  Am I a prophet, or what?)

(The USA, of course, regards Kurds as at least fellow travelers, if not allies, but will we intervene to protect them?  Your guess is as good as mine.)

Syria - a tangled web where everyone, without exception, practices to deceive.

Peter

The Syrian mess

 

The situation in Syria, after the fall of the Assad government, is so murky as to defy quick analysis.  There are wheels within wheels, currents and counter-currents, and so many twists that following them appears to defy possibility.

The biggest single problem is that so many factions are jockeying for position - and few, if any, of them are trustworthy.

• The "Islamic rebels" who've just overthrown Assad are largely Al Qaeda sympathizers, with more than a few ISIS sympathizers tucked in among them.  Expect them to splinter into their factions before too long.
• The Iranians have long backed the Assad regime, including importing literally tens of thousands of Hezbollah fighters to bolster the lackluster (and now disintegrated) Syrian Arab Army.  Iran is widely hated in Syria for supporting the dictatorship that's killed so many of its own people.  The fall of Assad is a very significant geopolitical defeat for Iran, as well as an ideological slap in the face.
• Hezbollah is facing the slaughter of most of its operatives that were in Syria, supporting Assad.  I'm sure most of them are trying to get back to Lebanon - but Israel (and, to a lesser extent, Syrian Arabs) wants to kill most of them on the way back.  They'll probably succeed in that objective.  Expect Hezbollah in Lebanon to be severely diminished in every way over the next few months, particularly because their support from Iran - cash and weapons - has likely dried up already.
• Israel will make hay while the sun shines.  I understand it's occupied the entire demilitarized zone along the border with Syria, after the Syrian troops there vanished like snow on a hot rock.  The Israeli Air Force is busy destroying every major military facility within its reach, and the US Air Force is doing likewise in central and eastern Syria.  I suspect the objective is to ensure that Syria is left with only small arms to fight any battles in the short term, plus a few ratty old tanks.  Artillery, missiles, electronics, chemical weapons and the like will be smashed before the new government in Syria can do anything to protect them.
• Russia has taken a diplomatic beating with the defeat of its surrogate, Assad.  It has two very sophisticated (and very expensive) bases in Syria.  It'll probably try to hold on to them, citing agreements with the previous government;  but I'm sure the new one will want them back - and Russia is focused on its war in Ukraine at present, and may not be able to dedicate enough troops and military assets to hold on to its Syrian enclaves.
• Turkey is a huge winner.  It's mobilized, trained and supported many different Islamic fundamentalist movements, and has now unleashed them on the Assad regime with spectacular success.  It will almost certainly send back to Syria the three million-odd refugees it took in, and probably try to attack Turkish Kurdish rebels that took refuge in Syria.  We might even see Turkey annex some parts of western Syria as a buffer zone against future Kurdish incursions.  Right now, who's to stop them?
• Every Arab and Muslim country in the region is going to be watching Syria very carefully to see which factions come out on top there, and for how long.  I expect diplomatic ripples to spread throughout the Persian Gulf, through the Stans in the former Soviet Union, and into Afghanistan.  Iran will bluff and bluster and bloviate, but its standing in the Middle East has taken a pounding, and won't recover quickly.  I suspect the big winner will be Saudi Arabia, which is far enough from Syria that it won't be directly affected by the turmoil there, but rich enough to subsidize its favorites in that country and give them an edge in the jockeying for position that's already begun.  Besides, if the Saudis can move into diplomatic territory formerly dominated by Iran, it'll pay dividends in the long run.  This is going to be a very complex mess.

I entirely agree with President Trump that the United States should stay out of direct involvement in the Syrian mess.  Our allies will be involved, and may need our support, but let's provide that at second or third hand, rather than up front.  We should certainly pull our troops out of Syria altogether.  On the other hand, the Kurdish groups in Syria, Iraq and Iran might need direct US help to survive an onslaught against them from Iran and/or Turkey.  That remains to be seen.

There's also the interesting question of Ukrainian involvement in Syria.  As we mentioned last week:

According to a Syrian special services source, talking to RIA Novosti, Ukrainian advisers played the key role in the capture of Aleppo – providing drones and American satellite navigation and electronic warfare systems, and teaching Syrian collaborators and Islamic Party of Turkestan operatives how to use them.

If that report is true, might Ukraine be expecting, as a quid pro quo, some of those Islamic fundamentalists to turn against Russia (which had supported President Assad against them), and mount terrorist operations inside Russia to help the Ukrainians fight their invader?  Wouldn't that open a can of worms?

Right now, nobody knows anything for sure, except that Assad is gone.  This could settle down quickly, or it could blow up into a Middle East holocaust.  Nobody knows - and if anyone tells you they do, they're either guessing or lying.

Peter

The Ukraine war spills over into Syria - and perhaps further?

 

News from Syria of a sudden, unheralded onslaught by fundamentalist Islamic terrorist movements, driving the Syrian armed forces out of Aleppo and expanding south and east towards Damascus and the Mediterranean coast, is provoking a great deal of head-scratching among the cognoscenti.  Where could this lead?  How about to a full-blown regional war?

There are two very interesting articles analyzing what's going on (as far as anyone can, given the paucity of information currently available).  The first is headlined "The Syria Riddle: How It May Turn Into the First BRICS War".  In it, I found this snippet:

According to a Syrian special services source, talking to RIA Novosti, Ukrainian advisers played the key role in the capture of Aleppo – providing drones and American satellite navigation and electronic warfare systems, and teaching Syrian collaborators and Islamic Party of Turkestan operatives how to use them.

Syrian Arab Army (SAA) communications were completely jammed by these electronic warfare systems: “The assault groups and drones were equipped with encrypted GPS devices and extensive use of AI, so that the use and navigation of attack UAVs and kamikaze drones took place from a long distance.”

The mechanism was set in place months ago. Kiev made a straightforward deal with Salafi-jihadis: drones in exchange for batches of takfiris to be weaponized against Russia in the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

There's more at the link, including analysis of what Turkey may be up to, and how this affects Russian involvement in the region.  The article concludes:

BRICS members Russia and Iran have no other choice: they need to fix, by whatever means necessary, the incompetence displayed by Damascus and the SAA, so they may maintain their access to the Eastern Mediterranean, Lebanon, Iraq and beyond. That implies a very serious move: Russia deviating key assets from the battle in Novorossiya to preserve a relatively sovereign Syria.

Food for thought indeed.  For example, will Russia's cannon-fodder North Korean infantry be diverted to fight fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in Syria, rather than Ukrainians?

The next article is from Cdr. Salamander, whose maritime and military analytical skills are well known.  In an article titled "Syria's Jenga Tower", he writes:

Syria isn’t really just a civil war. It is more than a proxy war. It has major external players on the world stage with active military participation. The United States, Russia, Turkey, and Israel all are actively involved, the first three on the ground. Other nations such as the United Kingdom and France will make an appearance now and then. Jordan and Iraq have their fingers in the pie.

The major external powers have even come into direct conflict with each other; USA on Russia, Turkey on Russia…and probably more that have not made it in to open source. To say it is a complicated mess, waiting for mistakes to happen, is an understatement.

If you are looking for the good guys, you will need to squint.

. . .

Russia’s capabilities are but a shadow ... As opposed to the last period of significant fighting, Russia cannot bring to bear (pun intended) what the Assad government needs. Russia is distracted with larger problems in Ukraine and has African adventures that are not an easy walk.

Again, more at the link.

If readers are unfamiliar with Jenga, a detailed description may be found here.  Briefly, players construct a tower of wood bricks, then try to remove and reposition a brick at a time without collapsing the tower.  Describing Syria as a "Jenga tower" of participants and positions is actually a pretty good metaphor, IMHO.  Expanding that to cover Ukraine, Syria, every nation in the area, their relationships with each other, their use of proxy (a.k.a. terrorist) forces against each other, etc., and you've got a great big international dog's breakfast of the whole malarkey.

What effect this will have on the war in Ukraine is unknown as yet, but Russia dare not allow matters in Syria to get out of hand.  It has two major bases there, one naval, one air, that allow it to dictate policy in the entire Middle East and north and central Africa.  If they're threatened or closed by military activity, that will have a direct and immediate effect on Russian foreign policy and economic influence over tens of thousands of square miles.  Therefore, one might expect Russia to do one of three things:

1. Attack all-out in Ukraine so as to bring the fighting there to the quickest possible conclusion, regardless of losses, thus freeing Russian forces to turn to the Middle East;
2. Keep up existing pressure in Ukraine as far as possible, but siphon off reserve forces and supplies to divert them to the Syrian conflict;
3. Reduce pressure on Ukraine, diverting major combat forces and equipment to Syria, hoping that it can resolve the situation there within a few weeks so that it can get its forces back into operation against Ukraine before too much damage is done.

Which of these options it might choose (or another option I haven't considered) is unknown, but the status quo won't solve anything.  Something, somewhere, has to give.

What was that ancient Chinese curse about living in interesting times?

Peter