Category Archives: War

Numbers

Posted on July 6, 2007 by acb

I was flicking through Brian Harris’ coffee table book of melancholy photographs from Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries; a record of eleven years, in all, of total war in which Britain and the Empire exhausted themselves with the loss of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in War | 1 Comment

Lutheran update

Posted on June 29, 2007 by acb

I think I have made an interesting mistake. I mentioned in my CiF piece two Lutheran pastors who seemed to have gone crazy. The second was the odious Dr Lerle — and students of wilful self-deception are urged to the … Continue reading →

Posted in God, War | 1 Comment

Dershowitz, Trivers, and me

Posted on June 7, 2007 by acb

Alan Dershowitz, a professor of Law at Harvard, is an enthusiast for torture and an apologist for a Greater Israel. Bob Trivers is one of the most distinguished theoretical biologists alive. Dershowitz has been campaigning — alongside racist slime like … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism, War | 3 Comments

More on “The Islamist”

Posted on June 6, 2007 by acb

Two reviews of this book have cropped up this week: there is a very sympathetic one from John Gray in the Literary Review. I think his conclusion is absolutely the right one — that the term for this stuff ought … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in British politics, God, War | Comments Off on More on “The Islamist”

Another thought on Tariq Ramadan

Posted on June 3, 2007 by acb

inspired by Rupert in the comments. TR is a real hate-figure for the likudnik Right in America. I recently had a flier from The New Republic advertising a 40,000 word hatchet job on him, no doubt timed to coincide with … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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The blessings of freedom

Posted on May 14, 2007 by acb

The Wall Street Journal of all places, has an article about mercenaries which suggests to me that we have made no progress since the Middle Ages at all. Here are the two meatiest paragraphs: Only two contractors out of the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Blair’s real legacy

Posted on May 13, 2007 by acb

I was talking the other night to a defence intellectual: I mean an ex army officer who now lectures at a college for real ones. He’s an old, not close, friend, and was pretty drunk as well, so I have … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in British politics, War | 2 Comments

More mediaeval horror

Posted on May 11, 2007 by acb

The real point of all this, though, was to remember just how ghastly the middle ages were, and, by extension, just how ghastly various places around the world are right now, some, at least, as a result of our interventions. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Orotund and rotund too

Posted on January 21, 2007 by acb

In case you have wondered what the masterminds behind Bush’s surge actually look like in the flesh, the excellent Belgravia Dispatch has a link to the video of one of them orating. How Kipling would have despised them, and despaired! … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in War | 1 Comment

More deaths needed

Posted on January 18, 2007 by acb

One of the great questions of the Iraqi debacle is whether the West can any longer pay the price of imperialism. That is actually one of the things that Melanie Phillips gets right, though she does not notice the more … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in War | Comments Off on More deaths needed