To paraphrase Alexander Pushkin ever so slightly, “Of course, I despise my government head to toe – but I am offended when a foreigner shares this feeling.”
Correction: my contempt for our governing Marxist cabal is so boundless that this time I can’t even take offence at Trump’s criticism of it. He is right, a thousand times over.
Trump said last night: “I’m not happy with the UK. This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
Forget Churchill, Mr President. Starting from Robert Walpole, Britain had 57 prime ministers before Starmer, and not one of them was as craven, incompetent, mired in legalistic casuistry and plain stupid as he is. I miss John Major’s intellect, Theresa May’s decisiveness and Liz Truss’s fiscal acumen. Hell, and I thought these words would never cross my lips, I even miss Tony Blair.
Starmer’s first reaction to the US-Israeli assault on Iran was to state that Britain wanted no part of it because the action violated “international law”. Now, every law has its letter and its spirit, with the two sometimes going their separate ways.
The letter of the law is its precise wording, while the spirit reflects its morality. Alas, the two sometimes diverge but, in civilised countries, they shouldn’t diverge too far. In this case, the US-Israeli action is so amply justified morally and strategically that only an idiot would see it as illegal.
Just compare the two on-going wars, Russia’s on the Ukraine and the US-Israel’s on Iran. Both can be held to violate the letter of international law, but Russia had no moral or strategic justification for her brutal and unprovoked assault on a country she intends to erase off the map. That makes Putin and his gang war criminals who murder hundreds of thousands for nefarious reasons. No sane observer would accept Putin’s claim that he acted in self-defence.
The same hypothetical sane observer would instantly see that the US and Israel acted for precisely that reason. Not only is Iran’s regime evil, but it’s aggressively evil. Its stated objective is to dominate the Middle East and to annihilate the only civilised Western country in it.
For 20 years now that regime has been developing nuclear weapons, by-passing international sanctions and acting in cahoots with other evil regimes, those of Russia, China and North Korea. In parallel, it spawned several terrorist organisations, notably Hamas and Hezbollah.
While its main target is Israel, Iran is considered the “foremost state sponsor of terrorism, providing a range of support, including financial, training, and equipment, to [terrorist] groups around the world… .” This statement by the US State Department can’t be contested.
As Iran’s response to the attack shows, her regime regards not only the US and Israel as its enemies, but also all Middle Eastern countries allied to the West, if only in a marriage of convenience. This makes Iran a direct threat to Western, specifically American but also British, interests in the region.
Thus, if Russia’s attack on the Ukraine is an act of evil, unprovoked brutality, the US-Israeli attack on Iran is a preemptive act of self-defence. As such, it’s in accord with the spirit of international law, and it takes a fanatic of casuistry to argue it violates the law’s letter.
Starmer’s appeal to international law is just a cop-out, an attempt to hide behind legalistic jargon his cowardice and fear of upsetting his Muslim electorate. But Trump wasn’t finished:
“The UK has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island. That they gave away and took a 100-year lease… what’s that all about?” I shan’t repeat all the epithets I’ve so far applied to Starmer and his coterie, but that’s what it’s all about.
Trump’s remark referred to Starmer’s idea of a good deal. He wants to hand the Chagos Islands, a British territory in the Indian Ocean and home of the Diego Garcia UK-US base, to China’s proxy Mauritius, only then to lease the base back for £35 billion.
It’s unfathomable, but when Starmer found out about the impending assault on Iran, he refused to let the US Air Force operate from British bases, including Diego Garcia. It’s only after Iran’s drones targeted the British Akrotiri base on Cyprus that Starmer graciously agreed to grant the US some limited use of British bases for strictly “defensive purposes”.
But the ultimate humiliation came later. An attack on a British base had to draw the country into the conflict, if only kicking and screaming. After all, protecting British interests around the world is a great part of what the British state is for.
And still Starmer dawdled – until Macron, who also believes that the US and Israel “acted outside international law”, nevertheless sent an aircraft carrier group to the Mediterranean to help out a beleaguered British base. Greece also offered help – France! And Greece! Two countries that must possess the naval power Britain lacks.
All Britons have to be writhing with shame and disgust. A great naval power of Drake and Nelson, one that ruled the waves for 500 years and in fact relied on naval superiority to defend her freedom, had to depend on the largesse of France and Greece to protect her vital outpost.
“Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves/ Britons never, never, never will be slaves,” ring the words as proud as they are geopolitically sound: without Britannia ruling the waves (or at least holding her own), Britons may well become slaves.
Starmer doesn’t see the link. But even he had to do something as the French carrier was moving in. Begrudgingly, Starmer agreed to dispatch HMS Dragon, a Type 45 destroyer with counter-drone capabilities.
Better than nothing, I suppose, but why not carrier groups? If the French can do it, what are we, foie haché? Ah well, there’s the rub.
Our wave-ruling Royal Navy possesses two aircraft carriers (the US has 11). Both of them are currently marooned in port, “for maintenance”.
Now the two carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, were commissioned in 2017 and 2019 respectively. By the standards of such giant 65-tonne vessels, both ships are brand-new. And yet neither of them is sea-worthy at the moment, which brings into question the quality of British ship-building.
What if it were not an Iranian drone hitting Akrotiri, but a Russian missile hitting London? Never mind that.
Rear Admiral Chris Parry called Labour’s response to the crisis “strategically illiterate.” “The Government has been shamed into this token, paltry effort by the actions of other countries such as France and Greece,” he said. There is one Briton who feels the shame. I’m sure there are millions more.
Joining the conflict at full pelt would be a just, legal, moral and generally proper thing for Britain to do. The situation is drastically different from Blair docilely following George W Bush into Iraq in 2003. That war was indeed illegal because it was unjustified by any strategic considerations.
Moreover, American neocons inspired that war effort with their ideological appeals to nation-building and creating a fully-fledged democracy in every tribal backwater of the world. This time around, there’s no such talk, no American neocons (some of whom I happen to be related to) fighting tears at the sight of Muslim peasants queuing up at voting booths.
Trump and Defence Secretary Hegseth specifically said no such idiocy is on the agenda. This is an effort to defang one of the main sources of evil in the world, and godspeed to the US and Israel.
Having said that, perhaps Trump will now consider toning down his anti-NATO rhetoric and especially his anti-NATO actions. He can’t expect to have it both ways: denigrating NATO as a useless, archaic setup and treating Article 5 as strictly optional if not yet defunct, while at the same time demanding assistance when needed.
“They need us more than we need them,” Trump likes to say, and he is right. But that doesn’t mean the US has no need for her NATO allies, so I hope he changes his tune. And I also hope Trump, the US arsenal and the world economy have enough wherewithal to stay the course.
The West simply can’t countenance defeat. If it comes, it’s not just Britain that’ll have to hang her head in shame.
I suppose Starmer is under the illusion (delusion?) that when his Muslim brethren have conquered the world, he will be put in charge of the caliphate of Britannia. As I have written before, the non-Muslim supporters of the world of Islam are in for a rude awakening. Yes, they will help you destroy Western Civilization. No, they will not show gratitude. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend. He also wants you dead.
The news coverage has been downright disgusting. Alerted that there are crowds in the street with Iranian flags, news crews are sent to gleefully report protests against American interventionism (colonialism, genocide, etc.). When the crews realize that the crowds are shouting their support, they either turn tail and run, or they continue with their anti-American report, absent the sound of the shouting crowd.
Providing a public service is one requirement of an FCC license. Without that, no network would even produce a news show – they are typically money losers. But the “news” has morphed into unabashed propaganda and has long since stopped serving the public interest. Maybe in my spare time I will start a campaign to revoke network broadcasting licenses.
Which country are you describing? Sounds like England, but I know it isn’t. My question is, where shall I flee next?
My friends and I have pondered that for years. Occasionally, a single news story gives us hope, but it never lasts. Currently there is no earthly destination. “A man without a country” is now a clarion call, not a death sentence.
The real culprit here is the British electorate. In the States, military spending is an election winning (or election losing) -issue. Conversely, the average Briton couldn’t care less; oh aye, they’ll sport poppies on Remembrance Day and blather about PTSD, but when it comes to voting they have absolutely no interest in defence or the procurement of military hardware. A lot of British veterans like to complain about politicians, but the latter are only dancing to the public’s tune, they simply have no incentive to spend any more money on the UK’s armed forces. Our servicemen and women pride themselves on their inability to strike against cuts, and where has it got them? -salami sliced to the bone.
Truly, every country (with the possible exception of North Korea) has the government it deserves.
In addition, there is some very worrying messianic rhetoric coming from both the Israelis and the Americans (that the Islamic Republic of Iran engages in this goes without saying) -I’m finding it hard not to view this conflict as the expression of three dementia ridden faiths causing trouble on an increasingly large scale.
I agree with every word in your first three paragraphs, and no words in the fourth one. Israel is simply trying to survive against all odds — with Iran betting on genocide more heavily than anyone else, using nukes as possible antes. And the US is acting in what she sees — correctly, in my view — as her strategic interests. Your statement about demented faiths applies to the 2003 foray into Iraq, but not to the present conflict.
I think Mr Thompson’s “three dementia ridden faiths” are Mahometanism, Judaism and Christianity.
Among regular readers of your blog who post largely favourable comments, there seem to be as many convinced atheists as convinced Christians – but oddly, no convinced agnostics, as far as I’ve noticed. Yours isn’t the kind of blog that fence-sitters could enjoy.
“The real culprit here is the British electorate.”
turba Remi ……………………. qui dabat olim
imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
continet atque duas tantum res anxia optat,
panem et circenses.
– Juvenal
“But we who give our native rights away,
And our enslaved posterity betray,
Are now reduced to beg an alms, and go
On holidays to see a puppet show.”
– Dryden’s loose translation
“The mighty Britons gave away
their right to rule themselves and sway
the world, and now their only pleasures,
their two essential joys and treasures,
paid for by benefits and loans,
are sex-change ops and mobile phones.”
– my even looser translation
One of the biggest problems with international law is that it’s almost entirely statute law, not common law. International law fails the basic test of having existed “since time immemorial”. In so far as international law is devised for purposes other than mutual expediency, it’s based on the defective theories of the Enlightenment.
Ergo (leaving out a few logical steps with which you and your readers are familiar), either Sir Keir is evil, or he’s an idiot who hasn’t noticed that the defective theories of the Enlightenment were comprehensively refuted by events in 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 and 1917.
Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu may be bad men, but this week they’ve been doing good work. Has Sir Keir ever done a week’s good work in his life?