A war against ISIS would be savage and pointless

As I write, the national press is still obsessing about the recent massacre on a beach in Tunisia which was apparently committed by either a lone gunman or perhaps two gunmen.  This, along with other atrocities being perpetrated elsewhere in the world, is prompting many people to argue that Britain should send in ground troops to fight ISIS.

I make no secret of the fact that I am a pacifist.  I despise war, and consider that it is very rarely justified.  I want to make clear however that I also consider that a war against ISIS would not be successful.  In fact it would probably make the situation worse.

Over the course of the past fifteen years, Britain and the USA have been at war with Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.  Those countries have not improved as a result, and neither has Britain.  Those wars cost us billions of pounds and hundreds of lives.

How much money would another ground war cost us?  How many lives would it cost?  I don't know the answers to those questions, but I am certain that the war would not improve the situation, and would probably make it worse.

Some people are arguing that we could defeat ISIS if we had an outstanding leader, and Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill are among the names which are sometimes offered as examples of such a leader, but it is easy to idolise the dead.  Perhaps the people who suggest these names would also like to suggest - without being vague - what steps Reagan or Churchill would take if they were still alive and still in charge.

The problem we face has a lot to do with Islam, and I have written about Islam in previous posts, but arguably the greater threat is the New World Order.  At this point you might like to take less than ten minutes to watch this instructive video.

I have linked to this video in a previous post, but it remains relevant.

A few years ago, the British and American governments wanted to go to war to topple the government of President Assad in Syria.  The intention of the war was presumably to allow the New World Order to control Syria and its resources via a puppet government.   No other explanation makes sense.

The British parliament voted against the proposed war, however, and before long the national press was reporting the activities of ISIS.  As ISIS took ground in Syria and Iraq, the British parliament voted to go to war against it, although not to use ground forces at that stage.  Presumably the proponents of air strikes realised that air strikes would achieve nothing, and almost certainly make the situation worse.  That would then allow them to argue the case for a ground war.


It may strike the reader as highly convenient that ISIS was taking ground in Syria and Iraq at a time when the governments of Britain and the USA were looking for an excuse to go to war in that part of the world.  Feel free to search the internet using the words USA funded ISIS.  You might find links to some enlightening web pages.

Related previous posts include:
The three hostages
Emma and Chris are veritaphobic

Communism in the USA: Charleston

On 17 June this year, thirteen people gathered in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, for a Bible study class.  So far as I can make out, all were black except for a young white man.  Eventually he pulled a gun and began killing people.  He preceded his shooting spree with the words: I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go.

Nine people were killed, and a young man called Dylann Storm Roof has since been arrested.  He is a white supremacist who loves the Confederate flag and related emblems.  He is also a known drug user.

At least one national newspaper has described this as a hate crime, and at least one has published an essay by a well-known communist idiot calling for gun control in the USA.  By contrast, the murder of at least three people in Graz, Austria, by a man driving a speeding car has not yet been described as a hate crime, and I am not aware that any communist idiot is calling for car control in Austria.

I think it is fair to point out that in almost any country in the world, the number of people killed by guns in a typical year will be smaller than the number of people killed by cars.

It is also reported today that a woman and her four children are fighting for their lives in hospital after being hit by a speeding car in Handsworth, Birmingham.

But to return to Charleston: the USA has had lax gun controls for as long as anyone can remember, whereas many people are old enough to remember a time when violent crime in the USA was far lower than it is today.  Since then there has been an increase in the availability of illegal drugs in the USA, and also an increase in the black population.

Dylann Storm Roof was angry about white girls being raped by black men, and let me tell you about two true stories in the USA.

In 2006, three young white men - students at Duke University in North Carolina - were arrested for raping a black woman.  This was widely described as a hate crime.  The men denied rape, but it was not until a year later that all charges against them were dropped.  The police and district attorney had deliberately failed to follow correct procedures, and a subsequent lawsuit by the three men was only partially successful.

In 2008, a 16yo white girl in Texas was gang-raped.  One of her attackers was a black teen called Rakheem Bolton, who attended the same school as her, and who was a keen sportsman.  Not only did he avoid prison for his crime, but his victim - a high school cheerleader - was kicked off the cheerleading squad for refusing to take part in a cheer for the scumbag who had raped her.

If the people of the USA want to put an end to killing sprees like the one in Charleston, then they should elect a federal government which will legislate for the death penalty as the only punishment for convicted drug dealers.  As for black men who rape white girls, they should be punished at least as severely as white men who are convicted of rape.

Another point worthy of consideration is that the black civil rights movement is calling for the Confederate States flag to be removed from outside the state capitol.  The flag is part of the history of the state, but a lot of people want it removed - apparently because it is seen as a symbol of white supremacy.

Would anyone want the flag removed if it were seen as a symbol of non-white supremacy?

Related previous posts include:
Immigration and crime: a response to Eric Schlosser
The death penalty - who dies?
The death of Peaches Geldof: another liberal triumph

Facing facts about HIV and AIDS

A black man called Mweetwa Muleya has been jailed for seven years for the crime of deliberately infecting two women with HIV.  Muleya had unprotected sex with both women, but failed to tell them that he was HIV positive.  Both women have now been tested positive for HIV, and one of them has said it has ruined her life.

It is fair to point out that both women appear to have consented to sex, and it is also fair to point out that sex can have such consequences as  pregnancy, chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital herpes, and syphilis.  Contraception reduces the likelihood of pregnancy, and barrier contraception reduces the likelihood of infection, but no method of contraception eliminates risk altogether.

However it is also fair to point out that Muleya's prosecution and conviction is founded on some very dubious science.  This quote is from Wikipedia:

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus (a subgroup of retrovirus) that causes HIV infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). AIDS is a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and  cancers to thrive.

There is however a lot of debate on this topic, although this debate is rarely if ever given coverage in the national press.  Here are some of points of contention.

HIV may not actually exist.

HIV - even if it does exist - may be unconnected with AIDS.

HIV test procedures vary from country to country.

Even if HIV exists, and even if tests are accurate, then the HIV test indicates the presence of an antibody, suggesting that the person is no longer at any risk.

AIDS is a syndrome rather than a disease, and so cannot be diagnosed in the way a disease can be.  A person who is diagnosed as having AIDS may well be ill, but the illness will often be something identifiable like pneumonia or dysentery.

Many doctors are unwilling to diagnose someone as having AIDS unless that person is HIV positive, which is tantamount to concocting evidence.

AIDS may not exist at all in Africa, even though some scientists think it may have originated in Africa.

In short, it can be argued that a person who is HIV positive may or may not have a chemical in his body which may or may not be an antibody to a virus which may or may not exist, and which may or may not be connected to a medical condition called AIDS which may or may not exist.

Since the 1980s, successive British governments have happily assisted in perpetuating the belief that some people are HIV positive and that some people have AIDS.  I can only wonder how many people have had their lives quite needlessly blighted as a result.

Is alcoholism a medical condition?

It is reported that Charles Kennedy died in large part as a result of his excessive drinking over many years.  It is also reported - or at least implied - that his death may have been linked to his failure to be returned to parliament at the recent general election.  This is questionable, however, given that Kennedy had apparently been a heavy drinker for many years prior to his death.

Kennedy was an MP from 1983 to 2015, and was the leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1999 until 2006.  I met him once many years ago, and knew he was a cigarette smoker.  Reports of him having been a heavy drinker did not emerge until 2003, but were not confirmed until 2006.  Kennedy was replaced as Liberal Democrat leader by Ming Campbell, who was himself replaced by Nick Clegg the following year.

The former MP Lembit Opik has written of the ousting of Charles Kennedy from the Liberal Democrat leadership, and he concludes that:

Only Nick Clegg - and others - can explain what truly possessed them to dismiss Kennedy in the fateful winter of 2006.

I was under the impression that Opik supported Nick Clegg's leadership bid in 2007.  It is worth noting that Opik - having been elected to parliament in 1997 - held his seat in the general elections of 2001 and 2005 (when Kennedy led the party), but lost his seat in the 2010 general election (when Clegg was the leader).

Opik's commentary refers to alcoholism as a medical condition, but this is misleading.  The word medical derives ultimately from the Latin word for a physician, and so a medical condition is one we might reasonably approach a doctor about.  But what medical treatment is a doctor supposed to prescribe for a patient who drinks too much?

It occurs to me that about the time I met Charles Kennedy I also met a man who had previously been an alcoholic.  He gave up drinking - completely - after walking out of a pub one evening before closing time.  No medical intervention was required.

Opik also notes that: Alcoholism is not a choice, any more than other medical conditions are a choice.  Does he have any evidence to support this assertion?  Surely a lot of medical conditions are to some extent at least a matter of choice.  No one chooses to have cancer, but many people choose a lifestyle which makes it more likely that they will have cancer at some point.  No one chooses to suffer from food poisoning, but many people choose to eat food which is past its best before date.

If people do not choose to become alcoholics, then how is it that many people - whether or not they drink alcohol - manage to avoid becoming alcoholics?  If people do not choose to become alcoholics, then do people who are alcoholics choose to continue or to quit?  When an alcoholic quits drinking, is this a matter of choice?  Or does he quit because a doctor prescribed a medicine which cures him?

I will add that at the time Charles Kennedy was ousted as Liberal Democrat leader, Opik was dating Sian Lloyd, who has since accused him of having been a drunkard.  She notes that: The amount of alcohol MPs of all parties drank blew my mind.

Are we to believe that Opik was at this time suffering from a medical condition?  Or was he just being obnoxious?

Who is the Liberal Democrat paedophile?

I mentioned in a recent post the case of Esther Baker, who has claimed that she was routinely raped as a child by a gang of paedophiles which included a prominent politician from the current era.  It is now reported that a former Liberal Democrat MP has denied raping her.

Here are some facts.  Esther Baker is thirty-two years old, and so was presumably born in either 1983 or the latter part of 1982.  She claims she was abused from the age of six, which puts us in the late 1980s, and she claims that the abuse continued into the 1990s.  The abuse took place in Staffordshire, but the politician was not local.

Of course she might be lying, but consider some other facts.  She has provided the police with thirty-three hours of testimony.  Any one of us could lie and pretend to have been abused as a child, but how many of us would have either the stamina or the imagination to invent a fake testimony which would take more than a day to recount?  Also, the police are presumably accustomed to examining evidence for inconsistencies, and if Esther Baker is lying then there would be a lot of scope for inconsistency in her lengthy testimony.

At this point, you might like to take less than ten minutes to watch an interview with Esther Baker, and decide for yourself if there are any inconsistencies or absurdities in her account.

In other news, the one surviving Liberal Democrat MP in Scotland - Alistair Carmichael - has admitted lying about the leaking of a document when he was a cabinet minister in the last government.  Some of his constituents have now begun legal action to try to have him removed from office as their MP, but he has been defended by party veteran Sir Malcolm Bruce, who apparently thinks it acceptable for MPs to tell lies.

Alistair Carmichael is unlikely to be Esther Baker's high profile rapist, because he was a university student in Scotland at the time the abuse was taking place - and of course he is not a former MP (yet).  By contrast, Malcolm Bruce was a member of parliament from 1983 until earlier this year, and he took the Liberal Democrat whip from 1988 onwards.  He has no obvious links with Staffordshire.

I repeat that the former Liberal Democrat MP accused of raping Esther Baker has denied the allegation.  I repeat also that Malcolm Bruce thinks it acceptable for politicians to tell lies.

Update: twenty-two MPs took the Liberal Democrat whip prior to the 1992 general election, not all of whom are suspects in the case of the LibDem paedophile.  One of them - Ray Michie - can be ruled out on the grounds of her gender.  Of the twenty-one men, four can be ruled out on the grounds that they died before the allegations became public.  Not one remains in the House of Commons, but five of them - including the late Charles Kennedy - were still there at the start of this year.  So far as I can make out, not one of them has ever been local to Staffordshire.

Another update: it appears that two other women have given a similar testimony to that of Esther Baker.