There is something unspeakably sad about watching a great nation in terminal cultural collapse — especially when it is the nation that gave birth not only to the place one calls home, but also to one’s own parents. The U.K., having over the course of half a century slowly plucked out its own bones, now […]
Tommy Robinson, the patriotic English gadfly who has had the audacity to advocate, over the past several years, the preservation of the British Isles as an ethnic homeland for the British people, has been arrested for standing outside an English courthouse to live-stream the trial of a Pakistani child-grooming operation. The government, not content with […]
April 26, 2018 – 12:37 pm
You’ve probably heard about the Alfie Evans affair in England, in which Her Majesty’s Government, having decided that a young boy in a persistent coma ought to be dead, has been trying to kill him, and has prevented his parents from taking him elsewhere for treatment. It’s a disgusting and horrifying story, and should remind […]
April 24, 2018 – 10:00 pm
Several readers have written to ask me to report on our visit to Austria last week. Mostly we were visiting with my daughter, her husband, and our little grandson, but we did get out and about a bit. Here are some thoughts and recollections. First of all, Austria still retains, as far as I can […]
Here’s a disturbing pattern: 1) We lean toward a stand-down in Syria. 2) Spooks and hawks object. 3) A chemical-weapons attack is reported. It is blamed, on scant evidence, or no evidence at all, on Assad and the Russians. 4) Women and other tender-hearted types throughout the West weep over looping news footage of suffering […]
I have a question about the Skripal poisonings, allegedly ordered by Vladimir Putin: Why aren’t the victims dead?
With a hat-tip to our reader and commenter “Whitewall”, here’s a depressing item: German Defense Minister Seeks ”˜Reconciliation’ with Taliban It is difficult to read this without thinking that such a story simply cannot be true: that it is completely beyond all credibility that anyone not a child or an imbecile could possibly imagine that […]
March 19, 2018 – 10:19 pm
For tonight, something to listen to and some things to read. To listen to, we have John Derbyshire’s latest Radio Derb. This week’s 43-minute installment is dedicated to the cultural and demographic death of his ancestral homeland, the British Isles. It is a melancholy survey of the ruin of a great nation, but some things […]
If you didn’t listen to the John Batchelor show last night, you missed an informative (and worrisome) conversation between the host and Professor Stephen F. Cohen about the new U.S. – Russian arms race. The issue is this: since the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has abandoned the commitment to parity that prevented […]
In a recent post I declined to comment on the proposed imposition of new tariffs, pleading ignorance of the subject. The uncommonly astute blogger calling himself “ZMan”, however, has a definite opinion. An excerpt: The fact is, the current trade regime ushered in after the Cold War, has proven to be the boondoggle critics like […]
February 28, 2018 – 1:40 pm
South Africa is moving rapidly toward “expropriation without compensation”: the confiscation of white-owned farms and transfer of them to black owners. Displacement of white farmers in Africa has happened before, in places like Kenya and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Agricultural productivity plummeted. It will do so here as well. In his book Suicide of the West […]
February 13, 2018 – 8:55 pm
Most Tuesday nights at 10 p.m., the radio host John Batchelor (whose program, as I have mentioned before, is one of the most interesting and penetrating news sources in all of media) has an hour-long discussion with the Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen about the new Cold War. If you take any interest at all […]
December 29, 2017 – 10:50 pm
Mass protests are underway in Iran against the totalitarian Islamic regime that has been in power since 1979. Something very significant happened yesterday: as reported by the AP, Tehran has announced that it will no longer enforce the dress code for women that has been in place since the revolution. This is a moment of […]
December 17, 2017 – 7:41 pm
Here’s a story you might not have heard: about a years-long operation against Hezbollah’s global criminal-syndicate apparatus, and how it was smothered by the Obama administration in the runup to the Iran deal. (From Politico, no less.) It’s long, but it deserves your attention.
December 6, 2017 – 5:27 pm
I was gratified to see President Trump announce today that the United States will recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and will move its embassy there. Mr. Trump summed it up succinctly: Israel is a sovereign state, and a U.S. ally. If a state cannot even choose its own capital city, then it is not sovereign. […]
September 19, 2017 – 4:08 pm
Vienna, September 19th — As it was last time we were here, Vienna — unlike so many other European cities — still manages to maintain its European character, at least in its more affluent districts (I should note that we have not moved around the city much this trip, and have only been inside the […]
Every Tuesday evening, in the ten o’clock hour of his program, radio host John Batchelor discusses Russia with Stephen F. Cohen. Dr. Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton and NYU, and is a rare voice of sanity in this time of anti-Russian hysteria. Mr. Batchelor’s show is always worth listening to — […]
Here is a depressingly thorough look at the problem of North Korea. It examines four things the U.S. might do: 1) pre-emption Á la Thucydides; 2) smaller-scale military pressure; 3) decapitation of the Kim regime; or 4) more of what we’ve done so far, namely nothing. Not one of these choices is appealing. It is […]
Making the rounds is a video by Mark Steyn in which he discusses the demographics of Europe and Africa, and Steve Sailer’s “Most Important Graph In The World“. Take particular note starting at 9:55, if you’ve been wondering why Europe’s leaders don’t seem to give a damn about the future.
I’ve said from the beginning that the prevailing narrative about the chemical-weapons attack in Syria — in brief, that Assad did it — makes no sense. I’ll say this, too: not only does it make no sense, but it so obviously makes no sense that any sensible person should doubt it in the absence of […]
Every Tuesday night at 10 p.m. Eastern time, Professor Stephen F. Cohen appears on John Batchelor’s radio show for an hour-long discussion of America’s difficult relationship with Russia. I try not to miss it, because Professor Cohen’s expertise is profound, and his insights often differ sharply from what we are fed by government and the […]
From Imprimis, the monthly newsletter of Hillsdale College, here is an outstanding article by Christopher Caldwell: How To Think About Vladimir Putin. I would excerpt it here, but it’s all so good that I’ll just urge you to go read the whole thing.
The NightWatch newsletter comes over the transom in the wee hours every night. From today’s edition: Special comment for new analysts. It always is wise to investigate as many versions of a story as are available. Each adds something to the reconstruction of what happened. The open source coverage of the chemical attack at Khan […]
The world is in an uproar about the apparent gas attack in Syria. Western nations, and the Western media, have blamed Bashar al-Assad. The Russians say their man Assad didn’t do it; that a conventional bombing strike against a rebel storehouse must have released toxic substances that were to be used in chemical weapons. I […]
Over at Social Matter, William Fitzgerald has posted this excellent analysis of the Gulenist movement’s role in last year’s coup attempt in Turkey. If you have any interest in this sort of thing you should make sure you read it.
The strategic-security situation has been a neglected topic here for a while. Time to catch up a little. One of the most septic, and possibly most infectious, areas of conflict at the moment is Yemen, the site of a deepening proxy war between Islam’s major players. The nation is completely dysfunctional, with almost no chance […]
Here is an interview of Daily Mail reporter Katie Hopkins by Tucker Carlson. Ms. Hopkins describes her recent trip to Sweden. By the way, speaking of Sweden and Tucker Carlson, here’s John Derbyshire’s understanding of Donald Trump’s recent “last night in Sweden” remark that set off such a commotion: It happened that Tucker Carlson over […]
John Derbyshire’s been asking: why is Russia our enemy? I’ve wondered too: A more enlightened worldview would see Russia ”” a great Christian nation, and one that has made priceless contributions to the treasure-store of Western civilization ”” as a natural ally in these perilous times. We have much in common, including ancient, existential enemies […]
February 21, 2017 – 4:25 pm
There’s been quite a fuss about Donald Trump’s having suggested that Sweden might be having problems digesting millions of profoundly alien, mostly Muslim, immigrants. The narrative conflict could not be starker: on the one side, a description of a formerly safe, homogeneous and peaceful Scandinavian nation descending into a darkening abyss of rape, fear, cultural […]
February 21, 2017 – 12:56 pm
With a hat-tip to Bill Valicella, here’s an item, by Alex Ross for The New Yorker, arguing that the Frankfurt School foresaw the rise of Donald Trump. Did they? Well, we shouldn’t be surprised, because they labored to create exactly the ideological conditions in the postwar West — the deadly mind-virus of radical and pathologically […]
January 20, 2017 – 11:16 am
Right, then, today’s the day. The inauguration is about to begin. Mr. Trump can expect to be tested at once. From today’s NightWatch: China-US: On 19 January, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ms. Hua Chunying answered a question about China’s relations with the new US administration. Her reply is China official position regarding the US on the […]
December 20, 2016 – 12:43 am
Last weekend my daughter, who lives in Vienna, sent us a photograph of herself, her husband, and our four-month-old grandson enjoying themselves in the Kristmasmarkt in Karlsplatz. Today a similar holiday marketplace in Berlin was attacked by a jihadist, who rammed a truck into the happy crowd. As I write the death-toll stands at twelve, […]
November 15, 2016 – 12:00 pm
I (and many others) have written often about the obvious religiosity of Progressivism, and about its being, quite plainly and transparently, a secular continuation and direct descendant of the Puritan “mission into the wilderness”. A particularly instructive aspect of this atheistic quest for holiness and salvation is the patently crypto-religious “climate-change” crusade. Early last year, […]
November 2, 2016 – 11:24 am
From the Express: A migrant turf war erupted into violence on the streets of one of Paris’ trendiest neighbourhoods early this morning as asylum seekers beat each other to a pulp with wooden clubs. Story and video here. A defining characteristic of a living organism is the maintenance of its internal order, and of its […]
October 25, 2016 – 4:28 pm
The choleric president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte (the one, in case you’ve forgotten, who called Barack Obama “a son of a whore”), recently announced his “separation” from the United States, and a pivot to China. Why? Well, it obviously makes sense, in an era of spastic and ineffective American foreign policy, for a small […]
October 12, 2016 – 12:29 pm
This is where we’ve got to.
October 7, 2016 – 4:35 pm
From this morning’s NightWatch: Russia-US-Syria: Russian relations with the US over Syria continue to worsen. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said on 6 October, “Let me remind the so-called US strategists that the air cover for the Russian military bases in Hmeimim and Tartus is provided by S-400 and S-300 surface-to-air missile […]
September 21, 2016 – 11:37 am
Here’s NightWatch‘s John McCreary on the Syrian aid-convoy incident: Syria-UN: The UN suspended aid convoys in Syria after the air attacks against the aid convoy on the 19th. “As an immediate security measure, other convoy movements in Syria have been suspended for the time being, pending further assessment of the security situation,’ a UN spokesman […]
August 22, 2016 – 1:17 pm
From NightWatch: Syria-Syria Kurds-US: On 19 August, the Syrian air force conducted the first air attacks and Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militiamen in Hasakah Governate. Ground fighting intensified late on the 19th when Kurdish YPG fighters battled Syrian forces. “The clashes continue in areas inside the city today (20 August). There were military […]
August 13, 2016 – 12:48 pm
We’re still on summer break for a few more weeks, and I’ve been paying little attention to the news. One thing that did catch my eye, though, was the emerging story of the Obama administration’s $400-million ransom payment to Iran a while back — paid in a great pile of foreign currency, and brought in […]
August 6, 2016 – 10:00 am
We’re on our way back to the States — between flights at the moment, in Dusseldorf. I’ve been almost completely out of touch, but even over here the coming U.S. election seems to be attracting a lot of attention. With that in mind, then, here are a couple of interesting links that have come my […]
I’m off to Vienna later this week; it seems timely. After the Turks were driven back from the heart of Europe, progressive modernism gradually expanded its range. The Sublime Porte’s senescence deepened — the shrinking Ottoman Empire began to be known as “the sick man of Europe” — and finally the unthinkable happened: the last […]
The coup in Turkey has failed. Naturally, Mr. Erdogan is consolidating his power, and is rounding up his enemies. The fog is still thick, though. Was it a false-flag job? Erdogan is blaming the exiled dawa jihadist Fethullah GÁ¼len — who, from his compound in Pennsylvania, leads a large and subversive faction in Turkey. Some […]
By now you have heard that there has been a coup attempt in Turkey. The situation is still chaotic, but it appears that in Istanbul at least, the coup is failing, with soldiers surrendering their weapons to police. President Erdogan was reported earlier to have left the country, but now we hear he is in […]
Yet another jihadi massacre in France last night. Eighty-four are dead as I write; the number will rise. What can I say that I haven’t said before? Not to worry, though — the Huffington Post has the answer: Yup, we’ve got ’em right where we want ’em. Some prayers, a hashtag or two, lots […]
Our previous post on diversity and Britain’s E.U. referendum drew comments both pro- and anti-Brexit. One charge was that the issue was “decided by the old but it will affect the young.” Yes, the old voted Leave. They did so as a matter of duty and honor, and out of reverence for the sovereignty and […]
The U.K. votes Leave. A great and ancient nation reclaims its sovereignty and its honor, with a great big middle finger to bureaucratic globalism (and some well-deserved mud in Barack Obama’s eye). To be honest, I didn’t think they still had it in them.
Pat Buchanan is a rare voice for restraint in military adventurism. In a strong essay, published yesterday, he pushes back against the idea of going to war against Syria. A long excerpt (link added): Some 50 State Department officials have signed a memo calling on President Obama to launch air and missile strikes on the […]
April 27, 2016 – 11:09 pm
While we in the moribund West gabble self-congratulatory nonsense about the “right” and “wrong” sides of history, China — which doesn’t bother with such rubbish — is rapidly reconfiguring itself. It has always been aware of the risks that Western infection brings, and so it is clamping down on foreign influences, and on the free […]
We haven’t said much about the situation in Europe lately, but with warmer weather coming, “migrant” flows will increase, and the social and political climate is going to heat up as well. Already, as we see here, the Schengen idea is becoming unsupportable. I will be in Vienna in July. I wonder what things will […]