I sometimes still worry that all the publicity centering around 9/11 drowns out the cries of those who died that day. I don’t want that to happen. The tragedy of their dying was corrupted from the very start by our leaders who failed to understand why they died and who used their dying for their [...]
Two questions should always be asked over and over again before security measures are implemented: At what point do security measures impede security? And at one point is a free people no longer free? It has been quiet recently here in the homeland. Terrorist bombs and other attacks continue unabated in the Middle East and sporadically in Europe, but it has [...]
Like his predecessors, President Trump is now convinced that staying the course militarily throughout the Middle East is our only choice, worrying that a “hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists would instantly fill." If that is the standard, we will stay forever... Despite this President’s sometimes confused perspective on international relations, his world [...]
A nuclear-armed Iran is something that the world community should strive to prevent, but in the long run our pushing Iran into a corner will be detrimental to both the United States and Israel… 1. Iran is the Leading State Sponsor of Terrorism The State Department has been regurgitating this mindless drivel for decades and [...]
Sphinx-like Lebanon—best known for its businessmen, bankers, and civil wars—is the ultimate example in explaining the inexplicable in the Mideast… If the dog now wants something, he wags his tail; impatient of Master’s stupidity in not understanding the perfectly distinct and expressive speech, he adds vocal expression—he barks—and finally an expression of attitude—he mimes or [...]
What ideology ever threatened America more than Islamic extremism? And yet might Islam, which once helped save and preserve Western thought and culture a thousand years ago, do something similar this century, helping to bring us back to a more spiritual, less materialistic, epoch?… 1938. The world is on the threshold of the most devastating war [...]
The so-called Boromir Option raises the question as to whether it is ever permissible to use evil means in pursuit of a good end… In a recent essay for the Imaginative Conservative I wrote about what I called the Mercutio Option, based on the character in Romeo & Juliet who cursed both the warring factions [...]
For Christians caught in the crossfire between Islamist and “Islamophobic” hatred, the only choice is to take the Mercutio option, refusing to take sides in a heartless and headless feud and calling down a plague upon both hate-filled parties… What is the world coming to? More specifically, what is my own country of England coming [...]
Wars, it is said, are the death of republics. And we now seem to be caught up in an endless war... Saturday, three Islamic terrorists committed "suicide-by-cop," using a van to run down pedestrians on London Bridge, and then slashing and stabbing patrons of pubs and diners in the nearby Borough Market. By all accounts, [...]
On September 11, 2001, the American way of life was attacked. Today, on the anniversary of the tragic event, let us recall the address of President George W. Bush in order to remember the innocent men and women who lost their lives. Let us remember the values that bind us together as a people, the [...]
Orlando is the place of make-believe. Disney World, Universal Studios, theme parks: They have all served to enchant the imaginations of millions of children and parents alike. Of course, this magical wonderland was shattered early Sunday morning by the rounds of bullets that killed forty-nine people and injured dozens more at the Pulse nightclub, a [...]
This week, tragedy struck America. By now, the news of fifty murdered patrons of a gay bar in Orlando has circulated throughout the world; the Orlando shooting dominates news websites, social media streams, and the thought of American politicians looking for quick capital gains. Motivations for the attack are not yet fully clear: ISIS has [...]
Did you know that terrorism was your fault? Mine too, of course. In fact, if one pays attention to the writings of academic philosophers (always dangerous, I know) one would get the impression that terrorism is everyone’s fault—except for the academic philosophers (and the terrorists, of course). Two examples taken from academic works on the [...]
“What can man do against such reckless hate?” asks the trapped and helpless Theoden King in Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers. He speaks for us all when faced with the orcs of ISIS rising in the East. Another film struggles with the same question. In Of Gods and Men nine Trappist monks face the encroaching [...]