Red Storm Rising

The USA is determined to build an anti-ballistic missile system in Poland. Russian defence spending is doubling every year. The British government is trying to extradite a "former" member of the Committee for State Security over the assassination of a Russian dissident in London. Vladimir Putin has told the Russian people not to listen to Western lies about how bad Stalin was. The G8 is "gravely" concerned about the state of democracy in Russia. Russia is using arms exports and energy embargoes to kick the West in the nuts at every opportunity. Francis Fukuyama's End of History is looking increasingly like a tea break, and I am looking for my winter jacket to ward off the first chills of the returning Cold War. The Big Bad Bear is, if not quite back on its feet, definitely emitting irate growls from the back of its cave. The bad old days of East-West confrontation, that we thought had ended for ever in 1990, might just be making a comeback.

And I love it.

Why, you ask. Why am I ecstatic at the thought of a return to that military-political knife-edge that terrified us all for 45 years? Well, it's really quite simple.

When NATO declares that a resurgent Russia is once more the #1 threat, and Russia announces that the evil West is again bent on trying to rob the Motherland, then the game goes back to big boys' rules.

When the ICBMs get reactivated and retargeted, and the Challengers and T-90s and Typhoons and Flankers start lining up on opposite sides of a fortified border in central Europe, when the power-bloc rhetoric starts getting heated, when both sides start looking for reliable third-world proxies... then we'll have peace!

And there is a simple reason why we'll have peace. Because when both sides are manouevering desperately for any slight advantage against a huge, modern adversary capable of blasting all of human civilisation back to the stone age, there's no place in the game for a bunch of religious nutcases who only want to go back to the seventh century. About ten minutes into a new Cold War, al Qaida and all their hangers-on will be relegated to a page in the history books and a pile of oozing body bags. No human rights lawyers will be involved; it will just happen, because with the world poised on the brink of the nuclear abyss, the future of mankind hanging in the balance, only one chance to give our children a future etc etc (insert preferred cliche here), there just isn't any time or effort to be wasted on fuckwits like that. And frankly, I'm happy to live with the threat of nuclear oblivion if it means I never have to see another towel-wrapped, ZZ Top-bearded fundamentalist face ranting at me in a shaky, amateurish al Jazeera video clip.

Let's meet the new boss, same as the old boss. You know it makes sense.

...and don't bloody forget it!

"This will be a new Government with new priorities and I have been privileged to have been granted the great opportunity to serve my country."

Yes, Mr Brown, you have been given the great privilege of serving your country. Note that word "serving." That means that instead of forcing us all to take part in some doomed Socialist experiment, YOU do what WE want. After ten years of your predecessor (Blair's gone! Hooray!!!) there are a LOT of things we want.

The first of these, I do believe, is a referendum on the slightly warmed over EU Constitution that Blair signed at the weekend in a last act of pointless spite directed at the nation that paid him to represent it.

Secondly, a tax cut would be rather nice. I don't really like Britain's underclass very much, and I'm buggered if I can see why I should pay for their Findus crispy pancakes and alcopops any more. Just starve the bastards until they find a job.

Lastly (for now at least) I'm sure that most of the British people, like me, would love to see a law that will prevent Cherie Blair's hideous gargoyle grin ever appearing in the papers again.

Well Mr Brown, you might be unelected and therefore as illegitimate as a sink-estate teenager, but regrettably you seem to be Prime Minister. That means you work for us now. So off you go and get started; let me know when you've finished, I'll have thought of some more work for you by then.

I'm getting really Sikh of the CRE

"The creation of a Sikh Regiment has been considered by the Army policy staff responsible for both equality and diversity issues, who went on to consult with the Commission for Racial Equality," a Ministry of Defence spokesman said.

"Both agreed that grouping ethnic minorities runs counter to the Armed Forces philosophy that seeks to include, not exclude, and extend opportunities," he said.

A CRE spokesman said, "We would not support any policy that seeks to isolate specific groups in the Armed Forces or wider society. The creation of a separate regiment according to ethnicity would be segregation, which amounts to discrimination under the Race Relations Act.

"Anything that creates separation between regiments can only have a detrimental effect upon our Armed Forces' operational effectiveness," he added.

How long has this CRE spokesman spent in the Army, then?

I can't even begin to work out on how many levels this man is an absolute cock. Regiments actively strive to create separation between themselves. That separation is what gives them their unique identity. The Rifles march faster and do different drill. The Scottish Regiments wear kilts and Tam O'Shanters. The Guards use different ranks and tend to be very tall. The Gurkhas are all Nepali and carry Kukhris. And the Royal Irish wear Caubeens and vote for Ian Paisley.

A Sikh Regiment would revel in its exclusivity. They would glory in being apart and different. They would not want to integrate with the other Regiments; they would work their backsides off to prove that they were better soldiers because they were segregated. They would despise the other Regiments, make cruel jokes about their wives and fight with them in pubs.

In short, they would have immense Regimental pride and would be, I am 100% sure, a bloody good unit; after all, our previous Sikh Regiments certainly gave a good account of themselves in Afghanistan.

One of the things that would make a Sikh Regiment so great is the fact that it would be exclusive, divisive and non-integrated - all the things that the CRE hates. Sikh soldiers would see themselves as an elite among the Infantry, and would set out to prove that on a daily basis. They would not need to worry that their culture and traditions might offend other ethnic groups within the Regiment, because there wouldn't be any (although I could see a need for many officers to initially be non-Sikh, until sufficient Sikh officers had worked their way up the ranks.)

Sure, it wouldn't promote multiculturalism. It would be an article of faith amongst the Sikh squaddies that their Regiment was so good because it was made up entirely of Sikhs. They would know, surely and instinctively, that Sikhs are better soldiers than anyone else - just as the Royal Gurkha Rifles know that Nepali mountain men make the best soldiers, the Black Watch know that nobody can match a Highlander in battle and the Household Cavalry know that the height of martial prowess is an upper-class twit in a tank.

I can only commend the Sikh leaders who gave us such a splendid demonstration of what Britain should be about; an ethnic minority that doesn't want to abandon its own culture, doesn't attack anyone else's, doesn't whine when other people take a Piglet tissue box to work and are so loyal to their adopted country that, in an age of constant war and defence overstretch, they actually clamour to be allowed to form a new Regiment. Good on them, is all that I can say.

As a "senior Army officer" said in yesterday's Telegraph, since when did the CRE make British defence policy? I urge the MoD to ignore these repugnant, carping do-gooders and start recruiting for the 1st Battalion, Her Majesty's Sikh Rifles as soon as possible; I am sure that they will make us all proud.

Their first mission should be to storm the offices of the CRE and destroy them utterly, along with every living thing that skulks within. The pointless multi-culti bastards would be "Singh"ing a different tune then.

A Question Of Priorities

Labour peer Lord Ahmad, Iranian ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, Pakistani prime minister Shaukat Aziz, MCB secretary-general Muhammad Abdul Bari and professional grievance-holder Anjem Choudary are among millions of muslims complaining about the award of a knighthood to Salman Rushdie because of his offence against islam.

So what has Sir Salman done? There's plenty to choose from. Did he start the civil wars that are tearing Iraq and Afghanistan to pieces and slaughtering their people? Did he spark the Hamas uprising that is destroying the hopes for a Palestinian state? Did he encourage the disastrous policies that are crippling the Iranian economy? Did he devise the education system that stunts the intellect of so many children in islamic countries? Was he responsible for the headscarf bans in France, Germany and Turkey? Was he the driving force behind the burning of mosques in Holland?

No.

A fictional character, in one of his novels, thought something bad about the prophet Muhammad in a dream.

Shaukat, Muhammad, Anjem and both Ahmads: Islam has problems far more serious than a couple of lines in a not very good book; one of these is the widespread perception of it as an intolerant and violent religion. Get a grip on reality, you pig-ignorant, spiteful, bigoted, superstitious medieval bastards.

Sanctimonious bloody hypocrites

I keep reading condemnations of secular moral relativism in the media. Child abuse: It's because of secular moral relativism. Teenage delinquency: All down to secular moral relativism. Fast-breeding welfare sluts: Permitted by secular moral relativism. Drug addiction: Secular moral relativism.

I'll tell you about moral relativism.

I am an evangelical atheist; I know that there is no god and I try to spread that message of reason and optimism to others. That makes me about as secular as you can get. At the same time, I am pretty much a moral absolutist. For example, it is always wrong to steal the property of another person. It is always wrong to initiate violence against someone who has done nothing to harm you. It is always wrong to compel people, by force or the threat of force, to adhere to your beliefs. These are some of my morals. The source of them is not the ramblings of a tribe of bronze-age goat herders or a seventh-century bandit with a very young wife; they are moral standards which I worked out myself based on how I would like others to treat me. They are in no way relative; it doesn't become OK to steal from someone because he is richer than me. It's not justifiable to assault someone because his beliefs don't agree with mine (although it is OK if I catch him stealing my car.) I can't justify executing someone for deciding that from now on he wants to drink alcohol, use condoms, shave his beard or work on Saturdays. There is no moral relativism there.

On the other hand, it's moral relativism to say that Afghan women shouldn't be forced to wear the burqa but American ones can't have an abortion. It's moral relativism to say that schoolchildren mustn't be corrupted by learning that AIDS can kill you, but should be wilfully misled into believing that the Earth is 6,000 years old. It's moral relativism to say that the Madrassahs in Pakistan are indoctrinating children with religious extremism but the creationist Emmanuel School in Gateshead is performing well and adding valuable diversity to the education system.

Every one of these issues is a clear case of moral relativism, not to say bare-faced hypocrisy, and not one of them has a secular motivation. Every one, in fact, has a religious motivation.

Forcing women to hide themselves inside a sack with eyeholes and denying them control of their own bodies are both examples of religious edicts, but one is OK because it's practiced by christians and the other is wrong because it's practiced by the Taliban; both are, in fact, equally disgusting. Giving sex education in schools is wrong because children might then one day have sex, but it's OK to fill their heads with myths that mean they will never be able to understand the world we live in unless subsequently deprogrammed; in reality of course, sex education is valuable while creationist lies do nothing but harm. Fundamentalist schools of all sorts teach children scripture rather than reality, but one is OK because it's supported by Tony Blair and the other isn't because it's supported by Jalaluddin Haqqani; in a just world, both would be emptied of their children before the buildings and faculty were obliterated with cluster bombs and napalm.

Ironically, only the madrassahs are being bombed. This is because Blair and Bush, a pair of god-addled morons who both promote religious education in their own countries, can't see that the policies of Reg Vardey's Emmanuel School and the former school board of Dover, Pennsylvania, differ only in detail from the martyr mills of Quetta.


"22 Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.

23 And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly.

24 Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing."

Judges 19: 22-24


"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Steven Weinberg