I still haven't managed to catch up with the first part of the BBC documentary, The Power of Nightmares -- mainly because I've been a bit busy in the past couple of days coping with the nightmare of appearing on the BBC. But this review by Clive Davis gives a flavour of what to expect:

'The Power of Nightmares would have us believe that the international terrorist threat is a myth concocted by governments and orchestrated by a cabal of devious neoconservatives. Since the public has lost faith in ideology, politicians must now use fear in order to maintain their hold over the masses. Al Qaeda is a figment of our imagination; there are no sleeper cells, and talk of lethal dirty bombs is all so much radioactive hot air.If that seems bizarre enough, the series also sets out to claim that the Islamists and the neocons are, in reality, soul mates. As Curtis explained in a magazine interview this week: "My original intention was to look at the neo-cons and then the radical Islamists. I was astonished to discover that they have the same philosophical roots. They both believe that the problem with modern society is that individuals question anything; by doing that they [those individuals] have already torn down God, that eventually they will tear down everything else and therefore they will have to be opposed." '

You obviously can't overestmate the creative imagination of a pukka conspiracy theorist. It's not enough wilfully to invent a conspiacy by sinister neo-cons, aka Jews, in Washington to subvert American foreign policy. It's not enough wilfully to lie that they invented an Islamist threat that never existed. Now it is alleged that the Jewish conspiracy (which we are told does exist) and the Islamic conspiracy (which we are told does not) are basically brothers in struggle! They are both identical sets of crazed fundamentalists!

Truly, we live in delirious times. As Davis comments:

'This symbiotic relationship with Islamism will no doubt come as a surprise to the good folks at the American Enterprise Institute. It is a sign of how fevered political debate has become in Britain's media-land that such lurid, Michael Moore-ish notions are given a prime-time slot on the channel that once gave us Kenneth Clarke's Civilisation...The opening episode amounts to a ludicrously one-sided account of the rise of the neocons which manages to impute all manner of sinister motives to a tight-knit circle devoted to the teachings of Leo Strauss. In Curtis's world, it is Strauss, not Osama bin Laden, who is the real evil genius.'

The eminent historian Richard Pipes, who by this account is stitched up by dishonest editing, says of allegations that are made that they are

'so preposterous that I would be at a loss to answer them: they are similar to those made by the Holocaust deniers. They sort of leave you speechless.'

But the British are lapping it all up and believing it. Wicked stuff.

Wow, the Guardian really did hit a nerve with its arrogant attempt to suborn American democracy by co-ordinating a letter writing campaign to influence voters in Clark County, Ohio. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite the nerve it expected to hit, and has now, er, closed its campaign down prematurely. On National Review Online, it gets slated for 'clueless elitism'. One Ohioan currently based in London who is quoted in the piece puts it like this:

'"It's typically condescending of European leftists," responded Jackie, an associate at The Big Blog Company, a new enterprise that creates commercial blogs. "Sadly, Brits in general — with a few refreshing exceptions — tend to have something of an inferiority complex when it comes to America...I guess if your empire used to dominate the globe, and then an upstart bunch of colonials soundly trounced your nation as world superpower, it might leave you feeling a bit impotent.

' "So I find it wholly unsurprising that a left-wing paper like the Guardian thinks it only natural that Britons have a say in the U.S.'s elections," she continued. "What I do find quite shocking is that they think the voters who have had their personal contact details distributed on the Internet by this media outlet are going to be at all happy to receive letters from foreign strangers." '

I shouldn't laugh. So I won't.

Readers might like to catch up with my appearance on BBC Radio Four's 'The Moral Maze' last evening, when we were debating the government's proposal to bring in a law against incitement to religious hatred.

This evening, I shall be on BBC TV's Question Time with Home Office minister Caroline Flint, Lord Heseltine, Sir Clement Freud and Peter Tatchell.

Thanks to Benny Peiser of Liverpool John Moores university for pointing out that a whole batch of studies reported in CO2 Science Magazine knocks a serious crater in the man-made global warming theory. They show that, far from increases in greenhouse gases preceding — and thus allegedly causing — warming of air temperature, what happened was the other way round.

Article one says that a number of studies show that that

‘the decline in atmospheric CO2 concentration post-dated the decline in air temperature at the onset of the four glacial epochs that are evident in the Vostok ice core data.’

Article two says

‘close examination of the rise in temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration at the end of the last glacial maximum (based upon a linear fit of the data) revealed the increase in temperature took place at 17,800 ± 300 years ago, while the increase in CO2 took place at 17,000 ± 200 years ago. On this basis, the authors conclude that "the start of the CO2 increase thus lagged the start of the [temperature] increase by 800 ± 600 years."

Article 3 says atmospheric CO2 variations are the result of temperature variations and not vice versa.

Article 4 says that

‘in all three of the most recent glacial terminations, the earth warmed well before there was any increase in the air's CO2 content. In the words of the authors, "the time lag of the rise in CO2 concentrations with respect to temperature change is on the order of 400 to 1000 years during all three glacial-interglacial transitions." During the penultimate (next to last) warm period, there is also a 15,000-year time interval where distinct cooling does not elicit any change in atmospheric CO2; and when the air's CO2 content gradually drops over the next 20

,000 years, air temperatures either rise or remain fairly constant.’

Article 5 says

‘Petit et al. (1999) reconstructed histories of surface air temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration from data obtained from a Vostok ice core that covered the prior 420,000 years, determining that during glacial inception "the CO2 decrease lags the temperature decrease by several thousand years" and that "the same sequence of climate forcing operated during each termination." Likewise, working with sections of ice core records from around the times of the last three glacial terminations, Fischer et al. (1999) found that "the time lag of the rise in CO2 concentrations with respect to temperature change is on the order of 400 to 1000 years during all three glacial-interglacial transitions."

‘On the basis of atmospheric CO2 data obtained from the Antarctic Taylor Dome ice core and temperature data obtained from the Vostok ice core, Indermuhle et al. (2000) studied the relationship between these two parameters over the period 60,000-20,000 years BP (Before Present). One statistical test performed on the data suggested that shifts in the air's CO2 content lagged shifts in air temperature by approximately 900 years, while a second statistical test yielded a mean lag-time of 1200 years. Similarly, in a study of air temperature and CO2 data obtained from Dome Concordia, Antarctica for the period 22,000-9,000 BP -- which time interval includes the most recent glacial-to-interglacial transition -- Monnin et al. (2001) found that the start of the CO2 increase lagged the start of the temperature increase by 800 years. Then, in another study of the 420,000-year Vostok ice-core record, Mudelsee (2001) concluded that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years…

‘In consequence of these several observations, the role of CO2 as a primary driver of climate change on earth would appear to be going, going, gone; while the CO2 warming amplification hypothesis rings mighty hollow.’

To put it mildly.

The commentator Tom Gross argues in the Jerusalem Post that there appears to have been a slight improvement in the media's attitude towards Israel recently. As he is the first to acknowledge, this is to start from an extremely low base; but even so, any movement in the direction of sanity and decency is to be noted and welcomed. Gross observes, for example, that:

'overall, the reporting on Operation Days of Penitence was not nearly as fierce, nor as bad, as it has been on several past occasions. When, for example, Israel launched a similarly-sized counterterrorist operation in Jenin in 2002 (and actually killed very few civilians in doing so), Israel-baiting in the European media reached hysterical levels. Israel was invariably compared to the Nazis, al-Qaida, Pol Pot's Cambodia, and the Taliban.The Guardian said Israel's actions were "every bit as repellent" as the 9/11 attacks. The (London) Evening Standard called them acts of "genocide" and, for good measure, accused Israel of the "willful burning of several church buildings." And even supposedly pro-Israel newspapers like Britain's Daily Telegraph said "hundreds of Palestinian victims" had been "buried by bulldozers in mass graves." Palestinians in Jenin, Telegraph readers were told, were "stripped to their underwear, bound hand and foot, placed against a wall and killed with single shots to the head."

'During recent weeks, by contrast, not only has there been a slight easing of pressure against Israel in media coverage, some European reporters have actually taken the unusual step of speaking out against their Israel-hating colleagues. In Paris on Saturday several journalists at Radio France International slammed the station's news director, Alain Menargues, for his "unacceptable" remarks during an interview concerning his book Sharon's Wall on Radio Courtoisie last week. Menargues told listeners that we knew from the Book of Leviticus and from 2,000 years of history that Jews wished to separate themselves from "impure" non-Jews. He added that Jews had deliberately created the world's first ghetto in Venice "to separate themselves off from the rest." And in London on Sunday fellow journalists publicly condemned the notorious Robert Fisk, The Independent's Mideast correspondent. The associate editor of the (London) Times said Fisk's coverage "masquerades as reporting but is, in fact, polemic."Bill Newman, ombudsman for The Sun, Britain's most popular newspaper, said Fisk's coverage of Israel was so bad that he found it "distasteful."

Nevertheless, as Gross concludes, any such improvement is likely to be temporary. The media's attention is currently elsewhere -- principally fixated upon Iraq and the US presidential election. But the distorted analysis of Israel and its alleged role as a perpetrator rather than principal victim of global terror still pulsates through the media. It is only a matter of time before it erupts in another blood libel yet again.

Simon Jenkins in the Times is at it again, suggesting that the war in Iraq was cooked up by a 'neo-con' conspiracy to demonise Islam and manufacture a bogus threat to terrify the public. But today he goes further in this truly asinine thinking by claiming that Al Qaeda has never existed. A programme is being screened tonight by the BBC (of course) which from all accounts appears to be a farrago of lies of Michael Moore-esqe proportions. Its thesis is apparently 'the paranoia of fundamentalism'-- that is to say we, not the fundamentalists, are paranoid. And that's because there is apparently no threat from Islamic fundamentalism at all. Sinister politicians have conjured up a nightmare fantasy so that they can gain power by pretending to protect us. Al Qaeda is thus merely a figment of the imnagination of crazed neo-cons. Now this is staggeringly off-the-wall stuff. But so great is the madness now that Jenkins -- who, let us pinch ourselves, is the leading commentator on the house journal of the British establishment -- believes it all. He writes of the programme:

'It traces the evolution of the Iraq occupation to the rise of the American neoconservatives in the 1980s. It sees in the demonising of Islam the neocons’ need for an enemy to replace communism in “binding together the American myth” . They found it in the fragmented Islamist revolutionaries. They supported various Mujahidin groups against the Russians in Afghanistan, then reinvented them as a fictitious “worldwide network of terror in 50 countries” in the aftermath of 9/11.'

No mention of the dominance of Wahhabism and its programme of holy war against Jews and Christians. No mention of the sanctioning of this jihad against the west by important Islamic religious leaders. No mention of the jihadi campaigns of terror and mass murder being waged across the globe. No mention of their explicit statements declaring the aim to destroy western hegemony and reinstate the medieval Muslim caliphate acoss the world. And of course, no mention of the links between Saddam Hussein and these networks of terror.

'The vision of the West as facing daily terrorist armaggedon is being seen for the sham it is'

sneers Jenkins. No mention of the potentially devastating terrorist plots against British cities that have been intercepted by the British security services, as any jounalist who bothers to inquire about such things can discover.

As for al Qaeda, here's what the distinguished scholar Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al Qaeda, had to say in that book about the organisation Jenkins claims does not exist. Gunaratna spent five years interviewing more than 200 terrorists inluding al Qaeda members in more than 15 countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. He spoke to al Qaeda's leadership and its rank and file. His book runs to 242 pages of detail about its origins, infrastructure, strategy and goals. He writes:

'Al Qaeda is above all a secret, almost virtual organisation, one that denies its own existence in order to remain in the shadows. This explains why it always uses other names and identities (such as the World Islamic Front for the Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders) when referring to its actions, beliefs and statements...'

Its training manual (described in the footnotes as a 'UK government exhibit') states:

'Islamic governments have never been, and never wil be, established through peaceful solutions and cooperative councils. They are established as they [always] have been by pen and gun by word and bullet by tongue and teeth'.

Gunaratna observes:

'As progress in these domestic campaigns -- from Saudi Arabia to Egypt and Algeria -- was slow, a second front was initiated by al Qaeda to target the United States and its allies. Without directly challenging Western military power, economic strength and cultural influence, the Islamists perceive that they cannot bring about change in their home countries because a group of Western countries, led by the USA, steadfastly supports Israel and the unrepresentative Arab regimes of the Middle East'.

Has Jenkins ever read this book, or the many others which contain chapter and verse about the global jihad? But then, those who think like him refuse to acknowledge any fact which punctures their repellent and absurd conspiracy theories about America, Israel and the Jews.

Mark Steyn writes in the Telegraph about the Guardian's outrageous attempt to influence the American election by directing a letter-writing campaign to the innocent residents of the swing district of Clark County, Ohio. This display of monumental arrogance and disregard for democracy provoked a website to organise a letter-writing campaign to the Guardian in retaliation. The Guardian really does think it is on a higher plane than the rest of humanity. A less edifying display of hubris and absence of self-awareness can scarcely be imagined.

Interested readers might like to listen to a, ahem, spirited exchange on the Today programme this morning (8.52) between myself and Peter Oborne of the Spectator. We were debating the proposed deregulation of gambling. Oborne supports it and thinks that concern for its likely effects on the poor is tantamount to denying the poor the delights of casino culture which are enjoyed by the rich. I think this attitude is the worst kind of laisser-faire Toryism which believes the poor can go to hell on a handcart. It is a deeply reactionary, callous approach. The poor have most to lose from epidemic gambling, in poverty, debt, ill health and ruined family life. It will spread public sqalour through our towns and cities and introduce corruption to our town halls, as the Times reported this morning:

'Local authorities across the country are being offered tens of millions of pounds to approve planning applications for Las Vegas-style super casinos, The Times has learnt. Councils have even started demanding a permanent share of the profits from the new ventures, with Manchester City Council asking operators to specify in advance how much money it will receive each year.'

Legal this may be, but in my book it's still bribery. How curious it is that such a retrograde development, which takes us back to the era before the great 19th century remoralisation of Britain, is espoused both by a Conservative who is anything but, and by those who have betrayed the Methodist tradition of the Labour party.

Interestingly, it seems to be only the Guardian which has picked up the fact that the government's response to the Tomlinson report, which recommends a new, multi-tiered diploma for all 14-19 year-olds, is incoherent. On the one hand, Education Secretary Charles Clarke has welcomed it and showered it with praise. On the other, he and the Prime Minister are insisting that A-level and GCSE will stay. Tomlinson himself tried to finesse this at his press conference yesterday by claiming:

'"If you kept the names it would deny the fact that there is an integrity in the diploma. This is a very subtle point but it is an important one." '

This is absurd. The whole point of the diploma is that it would provide an entirely different qualification at 16 and at 18, a system of credits that arguably defeats the very idea of an exam, as I wrote in my Mail article yesterday. As the Times reports:

'But the report by Mike Tomlinson on reform of qualifications for those aged 14 to 19 made clear that the level of demand will be set much lower than for existing GCSE courses'.

And as the excellent Tony Halpin also notes:

'GCSEs and A levels would disappear as separate qualifications within two years as the last students completed their courses.'

To say this is 'keeping' A-level and GCSE is sheer casuistry. What's being proposed bears no relation to them at all. And as Daniel Johnson points out in the Telegraph, the real point of the proposed changes is to give more and more pupils a paper qualification by reducing what they have to achieve:

'At the heart of Tomlinson, there is a colossal non sequitur. By requiring less academic pupils to learn only basic maths, functional literacy, "communication" and computer skills, it is hoped that more of them will discover an aptitude for "employment and adult life". But why should they? If science, literature, history, languages, music, art, geography, religion and politics are no longer considered essential attributes of humanity, then the effect will be to accelerate the infantilisation of adolescence.'

Absolutely. The Tomlinson report embodies the rot that has all but destroyed our education system. But since the government has explicitly ruled out one of its bone-headed core proposals, that the 16+credits should be largely marked by teacher assessment,and has also declared its undying commitment to A-level and GCSE, maybe even this administration dimply recognises that this is an imbecility too far. Or, more depressingly, maybe they do buy into Tomlinson's 'all must have prizes' rubbish - but are well aware of the political elephant trap of being seen to destroy the A-level gold standard. Watch this space.

If you naively imagined that the British Medical Journal was a journal for articles about medicine, well think again. Its editor appears to consider it a suitable forum for a hate-filled libel of Israel. The article, by one Derek Summerfield, a lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, might certainly qualify as a medical curiosity, I suppose, in the field of obsessive-libellous derangement syndrome. Here's a sample:

'Israeli military reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza—a system of military checkpoints splitting towns and villages into ghettos, curfews, closures, raids, mass demolition and destruction of houses (more than 60 000), and land expropriations—has made ordinary life impossible for everyone, and is driving Palestinian society and its institutions towards destitution. Moreover, Israel has been constructing a grotesque barrier that, when completed, will total over 400 miles—four times longer than the Berlin Wall. Extending up to 15 miles into Palestinian territory, the real purpose of the wall is permanently to lock more than 50 illegal Israeli settlements into Israel proper. This is expansive, aggressive colonisation...' etc etc.

Every statement he makes is twisted, wrong and totally unbalanced. When he finally makes a point about health, it is to present the Palestinians' situation as parlous with no attempt at objectivity whatever. Yes, the health situation of Palestinians under occupation is often very difficult. Yes, they suffer privations from the checkpoints. But for heaven's sake -- they are only in that situation because they are a community which is perpetrating mass murder attacks on innocent Israelis. That, not the malevolent motive he imputes, is the purpose of the security barrier. Why does this lecturer in psychiatry ignore totally the terrorism murder and misery inflicted by the Palestinians on the Jews of Israel? Why does this doctor not even acknowledge Jewish suffering? Why does he not refer to the abuse of ambulances by Palestinian gunmen who use them to transport terrorists? Why does he ignore the fact that Palestinians -- even terrorists who have killed Jews -- are treated in Israeli hospitals? Why does he not report the telling fact that before the intifada started, the Palestinians enjoyed the lowest infant mortality rate of any Arab country? Why does this educated member of a caring profession hate Israel with such a pathological intensity? And what on earth is this venomous, politically bent diatribe doing in the British Medical Journal? How is science served by such lamentable claptrap?

The comments by BMJ readers are worth reading too. Many are outraged, thank goodness. Too many, though, support him. Once again, a stone has been lifted in Britain to reveal a foul slime beneath.

Blistering comment by Charles Krauthammer, himself confined to a wheelchair, about the disgusting and manipulative dishonesty of the John Edwards/John Kerry riff that President Bush's 'ban' on stem-cell research is preventing a cure for Alzheimer's. Bush has not banned stem-cell research. He has increased stem-cell research from one to 22 lines. All he has banned is research on stem-cells from embryos. As for the Alzheimer's claim, as Krauthammer says:

'This is an outright lie. The President's Council on Bioethics, on which I sit, had one of the world's foremost experts on Alzheimer's, Dennis Selkoe from Harvard, give us a lecture on the newest and most promising approaches to solving the Alzheimer's mystery. Selkoe reported remarkable progress in using biochemicals to clear the "plaque" deposits in the brain that lead to Alzheimer's. He ended his presentation without the phrase "stem cells" having passed his lips.So much for the miracle cure. Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at NIH, has admitted publicly that stem cells as an Alzheimer's cure are a fiction, but that "people need a fairy tale." Kerry and Edwards certainly do. They are shamelessly exploiting this fairy tale, having no doubt been told by their pollsters that stem cells play well politically for them.'

Edwards and Kerry are nothing more than snake-oil populists, willing to exploit the most potent dread and brazenly encourage the most desperate hopes with patently false promises of miracle cures. These are seriously bad men.

Another brilliant and coruscating piece by Victor Davis Hanson on the moral bankruptcy represented by Senator John Kerry and all those on his side of the argument. As Hanson makes clear, if there had been any doubt about Kerry's unwillingness to face up to current, changed realities, it was surely dispelled altogether by his remark in the third presidential debate that he would treat Islamic terrorism as nothing more than 'a nuisance', like prostitution. I suppose this is all of a piece with his earlier assurance that he would conduct a 'more sensitive' war on terror. In other words, he is the standard-bearer for the September 10 party, He has learned and understood nothing. For 30 years, the west was governed by this view of the world. For 30 years, Americans were steadily murdered by Islamist terror groups, prompting nothing more than clucking tongues and the odd cruise missile, along with being feted and encouraged by the United Nations in which Kerry pins his faith. This sprang from the 'therapeutic' mindset, which ordains that the explanation for terrorist mass murder and dehumanised barbarism must be the moral failings of its western victims. As Hanson expostulates:

'To all you of the therapeutic mindset, listen up. We can no more reason with the Islamic fascists than we could sympathize with the Nazis' demands over supposedly exploited Germans in Czechoslovakia or the problem of Tojo's Japan's not getting its timely scrap-metal shipments from Roosevelt's America. Their pouts and gripes are not intended to be adjudicated as much as to weaken the resolve of many in the United States who find the entire "war against terror" too big, or the wrong kind, of a nuisance.

Instead, read the fatwas. You hear not just of America's injustice in Palestine or Chechnya — not to mention nothing about saving Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo or Afghanistan of the 1980s — but also of what we did in Spain in the 15th century and in Tyre, Gaza, and Jerusalem in the 12th. The mystery of September 11, 2001, is not that it happened, but that it did not quite happen when first tried in 1993 during Bill Clinton's madcap efforts to move a smiling Arafat into the Lincoln Bedroom and keep our hands off bin Laden. Only an American with a JD or PhD would cling to the idea that there was not a connection between Group A Middle Eastern terrorists who attacked the WTC in 1993 and Group B who finished the job in 2001.'

Hanson thinks the American people have rumbled this and that Bush will win. Maybe so. But in Britain, the therapeutic mindset rules.

Mark Steyn's column about the murder of Kenneth Bigley was pulled by the Daily Telegraph this week on grounds of taste. Steyn has now put his censored column on his own website. The fact that it was pulled -- and pulled by the Telegraph, of all papers -- indicates the extent to which the climate in Britain has now become so warped that the whole centre of moral gravity has shifted from rigour to rigor mortis.

I think one or two things Steyn said did go over the top -- endorsing the Billy Connolly jibe, for example. Murder should never be joked about or jokingly exhorted, whatever the underlying purpose of such a remark may have been. But Steyn's general point, that the mawkish sentimentality and ersatz emotion of the response to Bigley's ordeal, not to mention the attacks by Bigley himself and his brother on Tony Blair rather than on his captors, only serve to make further hostage-taking and murders more likely, is true, hugely important and needs to be said very loudly.

Steyn makes a further crushing point:

'By contrast with the Fleet Street-Scouser-Whitehall fiasco of the last three weeks, consider Fabrizio Quattrocchi, murdered in Iraq on April 14th. In the moment before his death, he yanked off his hood and cried defiantly, “I will show you how an Italian dies!” He ruined the movie for his killers. As a snuff video and recruitment tool, it was all but useless, so much so that the Arabic TV stations declined to show it.

'If the FCO wants to issue advice in this area, that’s the way to go: If you’re kidnapped, accept you’re unlikely to survive, say “I’ll show you how an Englishman dies”, and wreck the video. If they want you to confess you’re a spy, make a little mischief: there are jihadi from Britain, Italy, France, Canada and other western nations all over Iraq – so say yes, you’re an MI6 agent, and so are those Muslims from Tipton and Luton who recently joined the al-Qaeda cells in Samarra and Ramadi. As Churchill recommended in a less timorous Britain: You can always take one with you. If Mr Blair and other government officials were to make that plain, it would be, to use Mr Bigley’s word, “enough”. A war cannot be subordinate to the fate of any individual caught up in it.'

Brutally put -- but a brutal truth nevertheless. The fact that this was perceived by the Telegraph to be unsayable merely makes Steyn's point for him.

The ever-prescient Victor David Hanson identifies the fundamental driver behind the unhinged hatred of America and Israel that has convulsed the left in America and much of Britain (see item below). The current irrational hate-fest is the apogee of the post-modernism and cultural relativism that has more generally destroyed moral authority and opened the way to lies, indifference and inhumanity. As Hanson says in his fourth article on 'The Perfect Storm':

'So the current conflict against terror is the perfect postmodern storm, drawing into its whirl all the pathologies of the last thirty years to unleash a vehemence not experienced in recent political memory. The horror of 9-11, the public fatwas of Osama bin Laden, and Saddam’s prior crimes against humanity are merely problematic. Instead, we see a powerful United States, bullying indigenous people sitting atop oil resources in the Middle East, and bombing the long-suffering victims of colonialism and Zionism.

'The powerless men in robes and with crude RPGs say it all—not their videos of heads rolling, not their suicide bombs studded with scrap metal, not their targeted assassinations of Iraqi women reformers. In this war our current enemies are not white men in suits of the nation state like a Hitler, Brezhnev, or Milosevic who orate from the balcony and threaten us with goose-stepping soldiers, but rather self-acclaimed wannabee resistance fighters of the Third World, who understand well how to play on contemporary Western therapeutic culture by claiming victim status and counting our own inability to discern right from wrong.

'All you need to know is that we need oil, and that the impoverished Muslims of the Middle East have it. Why worry over the validity of the plots on an Afghanistan pipeline, a mysterious Bush-House of Saud conspiracy, or Dick Cheney’s Halliburton oil grab? They are simply competing discourses that compete with a purportedly dominant narrative of sky-high gas prices as a result of a cartel’s jacked-up petroleum, the entry of a Westernized and oil thirsty India and China into the global market, or a Hugo Chavez now gleeful over his new petroleum-fed notoriety. You can find the truth of the two conflicting discourses not by facts, but only by looking to see who is Western and powerful and who is not.'

The result is the madness now engulfing Britain, the American left and much of European political discourse.

Carol Gould tells it as it is in this eviscerating piece. Here's a taster:

'Just before leaving for the United States nineteen days ago, I went to my favorite tape duplicating shop to have copies made for the actors who had appeared in the video of my new play in London. I handed the master tape to the proprietor, whom I have known for some ten years. He seemed unusually agitated and flushed. He looked at the material and snarled, ‘Is this another one of your Jewish-Holocaust things?’ I was speechless. He scowled and continued, ‘You know, Carol, I want to get something off my chest that I’ve been dying to say to you for years. Number one, just don’t say Israel to me. Number two, you people should look at yourselves in the mirror and wonder why every so often there is a Holocaust or massacre or pogrom. You bring it on yourselves. Just look at the way you are and then figure out why the rest of the world wants to flatten you. Number three, America throwing money at Israel has to stop, and hopefully all hell will break loose. Israel is not a country. I just hear the word and I turn peuce.’ By this time his anger was so visceral that I wanted to head for the door, but I had to take a stand. ‘Let me tell you,’ I said, ‘If the USA or Israel came under threat I know many Americans who would die for either country,’ to which he replied, ‘ Israel is not a country. The Jews have no right to a country. What makes you people think you have a right to a country? ‘ Me: ‘There are over a hundred Christian countries and fifty-five Muslim countries.’ He:’ The Jews have no right to a country.’ Me:’ What, a strip of land the size of Wales?!’ He (grinding his teeth and close to hitting me) ‘ Just say Israel and I can’t be depended upon for the consequences of my actions, Carol.’ His litany of offences committed by the Jews, Americans and Israel continued for another twenty minutes or so and I came away realizing that a man who had always greeted me with genteel, cheery sweet nothings was actually a rabid Jew-hater.'

This article describes vividly what it's like to be an American and a Jew facing the tsunami of anti-American and anti-Jewish hatred that has swept over Britain. Read the whole thing.

While I was in the US last week, the final report by the Iraq Survey Group was published. Its claim that Saddam had destroyed his WMD stockpiles in 1991 enabled the anti-war crowd to crow predictably that there were no WMD in Iraq prior to the 2003 war. From Senator Kerry to the British Labour party, the clamour has redoubled that President Bush and Tony Blair took us to war on false pretences and should be tarred and feathered as a result. But as has been the case with every single development in this war, the media accounts of the ISG report do not square with what the report actually says. If you read the thing itself, you find that it contains ample justification for the war, while at the same time raising many more questions than it answers.

The first point is that it says over and over again that Saddam intended to restart his WMD programmes, particularly to manufacture nuclear weapons, as soon as sanctions were lifted:

‘There is an extensive, yet fragmentary and circumstantial, body of evidence suggesting that Saddam pursued a strategy to maintain a capability to return to WMD after sanctions were lifted by preserving assets and expertise. In addition to preserved capability, we have clear evidence of his intent to resume WMD as soon as sanctions were lifted…Saddam’s primary concern was retaining a cadre of skilled scientists to facilitate reconstitution of WMD programs after sanctions were lifted, according to former science advisor Ja’far Diya’ Ja’far Hashim… According to two senior Iraqi scientists, in 1993 Husayn Kamil, then the Minister of Military Industrialization, announced in a speech to a large audience of WMD scientists at the Space Research Center in Baghdad that WMD programs would resume and be expanded, when UNSCOM inspectors left Iraq.’

Aha, say the appeaseniks, that shows sanctions were working and had kept Saddam in his box. Not so. The report makes plain that sanctions were not working and that it was only a matter of time before they collapsed. By 2001, it says: ‘Prohibited goods and weapons were being shipped into Iraq with virtually no problem’.

Indeed, as it spells out in detail, the oil-for-fraud scam was enabling Saddam not only to trouser huge amounts of UN money but to use it to buy material for WMD programmes:

‘Another element of this strategy involved circumventing UN sanctions and the OFF program by means of “Protocols” or government-to-government economic trade agreements. Protocols allowed Saddam to generate a large amount of revenue outside the purview of the UN. The successful implementation of the Protocols, continued oil smuggling efforts, and the manipulation of UN OFF contracts emboldened Saddam to pursue his military reconstitution efforts starting in 1997 and peaking in 2001. These efforts covered conventional arms, dual-use goods acquisition, and some WMD-related programs.’

In other words, far from being put back in his box Saddam was enabled, by a corrupted UN effort and the additional connivance of France and Russia, to continue to menace the world. This huge oil-for-fraud scandal has received almost no attention in the British media — which has also failed to acknowledge the evidence it furnishes that Saddam was still actively in the WMD business. In addition, the report states that he had re-started production of banned ballistic missiles:

‘In 2002, Iraq began serial production of the Al-Samud II, a short-range ballistic missile that violated UN range limits—text firings had reached 183 km—and exceeded UN prescribed diameter limitations of 600mm.’

All this alone is more than enough to justify the war as a clear breach of the UN resolutions which required Saddam to show he had got rid of his WMD and other prohibited weapons and ended his WMD programmes — the actual casus belli.

But beyond these important details, the ISG report itself merits far more sceptical treatment than the uncritical and selective cherry-picking that passes for reporting by the anti-war media. For in several important ways, the report is demonstrably inadequate, incoherent and inconsistent.

To begin with, it is highly impressionistic and subjective. Indeed, it itself acknowledges that the approach it has taken is unusual. What original material it contains appears to depend very largely on what Saddam and his underlings have told US debriefers. This tends to obscure the glaring fact that the ISG actually failed in its central task — to discover what actually happened to the WMD that teams of weapons inspectors during the 1990s said remained unaccounted for. The fate of these WMD still remains a mystery after this report. What it provides us with instead is a highly subjective interpretation of what proven liars have told their captors. Indeed, it spells out the limitations of the exercise:

‘Detainees were very concerned about their fate and therefore would not be willing to implicate themselves in sensitive matters of interest such as WMD, in light of looming prosecutions. Debriefers noted the use of passive interrogation resistance techniques collectively by a large number of detainees to avoid their involvement or knowledge of sensitive issues; place blame or knowledge with individuals who were not in a position to contradict the detainee’s statements, such as deceased individuals or individuals who were not in custody or who had fled the country; and provide debriefers with previously known information. However, the reader should keep in mind the Arab proverb: “Even a liar tells many truths”… Some former Regime officials, such as ‘Ali Hasan Al Majid Al Tikriti (Chemical ‘Ali), never gave substantial information, despite speaking colorfully and at length. He never discussed actions, which would implicate him in a crime. Moreover, for some aspects of the Regime’s WMD strategy, like the role of the Military Industrialization Commission (MIC), analysts could only speak with a few senior-level officials, which limited ISG’s assessment to the perspectives of these individuals.’

In any event, very few would have had any idea what was going on:

‘The infrequent and uninformed questions ascribed to him [Saddam] by former senior Iraqis may betray a lack of deep background knowledge and suggest that he had not been following the efforts closely. Alternatively, Saddam may not have fully trusted those with whom he was discussing these programs. Both factors were probably at play. All sources, however, suggest that Saddam encouraged compartmentalization and would have discussed something as sensitive as WMD with as few people as possible.’

Nor were the manifold inadequacies of these witnesses the only limitation. Much, if not most, of the incriminating evidence had been destroyed — thanks to the culpable laxity of the coalition forces immediately after the fall of Baghdad:

‘First, many sites had been reduced to rubble either by the war or subsequent looting. The coalition did not have the man-power to secure the various sites thought to be associated with WMD. Hence, as a military unit moved through an area, possible WMD sites might have been examined, but they were left soon after. Looters often destroyed the sites once they were abandoned. A second difficulty was the lack of incentive for WMD program participants to speak with ISG investigators. On the one hand, those who co-operated risked retribution from former Regime supporters for appearing to assist the occupying power. On the other hand, there was substantial risk that the Coalition would incarcerate these individuals. Hence, for the most part, individuals related to Iraqi WMD tried to avoid being found. Even long after the war, many Iraqi scientists and engineers find little incentive to speak candidly about the WMD efforts of the previous Regime. This is exacerbated by their life-long experience of living with the threat of horrible punishment for speaking candidly… the sites that filled the database of monitored locations are radically different postwar. Equipment and material in the majority of locations have been removed or ruined. Often there is nothing but a concrete slab at locations where once stood plants or laboratories.’

Notwithstanding these signal difficulties, the report presents us with an explanation of what it thinks actually happened to the WMD. But its central argument is fundamentally incoherent and inconsistent. Its proposition is that Saddam was attempting unsuccessfully to pursue a course of strategic ambiguity: to satisfy the UN in order to get sanctions lifted, while at the same time bluffing the world that he still had WMD in order to maintain its deterrence value, even though he had in fact destroyed it all in 1991:

‘It now appears clear that Saddam, despite internal reluctance, particularly on the part of the head of Iraq’s military industries, Husayn Kamil, resolved to eliminate the existing stocks of WMD weapons during the course of the summer of 1991 in support of the prime objective of getting rid of sanctions. The goal was to do enough to be able to argue that they had complied with UN requirements. Some production capacity that Baghdad thought could be passed off as serving a civilian function was retained, and no admission of biological weapons was made at all. But the clear prime theme of Saddam was to defeat the UN constraints. Dispensing with WMD was a tactical retreat in his ongoing struggle…

‘From the evidence available through the actions and statements of a range of Iraqis, it seems clear that the guiding theme for WMD was to sustain the intellectual capacity achieved over so many years at such a great cost and to be in a position to produce again with as short a lead time as possible—within the vital constraint that no action should threaten the prime objective of ending international sanctions and constraints. Saddam continued to see the utility of WMD. He explained that he purposely gave an ambiguous impression about possession as a deterrent to Iran. He gave explicit direction to maintain the intellectual capabilities. As UN sanctions eroded there was a concomitant expansion of activities that could support full WMD reactivation. He directed that ballistic missile work continue that would support long-range missile development. Virtually no senior Iraqi believed that Saddam had forsaken WMD forever. Evidence suggests that, as resources became available and the constraints of sanctions decayed, there was a direct expansion of activity that would have the effect of supporting future WMD reconstitution.’

Now, there are several things wrong with this analysis. The first is that it makes very little sense. Saying he destroyed his WMD stocks in order to get the UN sanctions lifted is a strange argument, since he refused to show the UN that he had indeed destroyed the stocks in question, leaving them instead unaccounted for. Indeed, since he refused to prove he had destroyed them in order to get sanctions lifted, why should he have destroyed them in secret , thus perpetuating the sanctions regime?

The bluff theory doesn’t answer the main question. Sure, he was determined to maintain the appearance of WMD capability to deter or threaten Iran and others. But that does not explain why therefore he chose secretly to destroy the stuff rather than hang onto it — especially since the report says he repeatedly identified Iraq’s security with WMD, and intended to resume production once sanctions ended.

Next, the report says he was trying to maintain a balance between avoiding sanctions and appearing strong. But since -- as it also says -- he believed that sanctions were failing, why should he have felt the need to disarm?

There is yet a further inconsistency in the bluff theory. The report reveals that after the weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998, Saddam passed a secret resolution renouncing compliance with the UN resolutions, thus underlining his intention to pursue further WMD activity. The bluff theory, however, holds that he showed a disarmament face to the UN while showing a WMD face to his enemies. So why, then, would he have renounced the UN resolutions in secret? Doesn’t that indicate that, far from keeping his destruction of WMD secret, as the bluff theory would have us believe, it was his WMD programme itself that was being kept secret?

Even more glaring than these analytical wrinkles are the report’s many inconsistencies. For its claim that Saddam destroyed all his WMD stocks in 1991 is flatly contradicted by other aspects of its account, which reveal the continued deception, denials and obstruction of the weapons inspectors during the 1990s. Why was there such obstruction if there was nothing to hide? Furthermore, the inspectors found actual evidence of WMD during this period:

‘Particularly in the early 1990s, the SRG concealed uranium enrichment equipment, missiles, missile manufacturing equipment, “know-how” documents from all the programs, as well as a supply of strategic materials.’

And also:

‘Two events in mid-1998 defined a turning point in UNSCOM/Iraq relations: The detection of VX-related compounds on ballistic missile warhead fragments and the discovery of a document describing the use of special weapons by the Iraqi Air Force. Both events convinced inspectors that their assessment of ongoing Iraqi concealment was correct…

‘On 1 July 1995, Iraq had admitted to the production of bulk biological agent, but had denied weaponizing it. To maintain the appearance of cooperation, however, Iraq had to provide more information to inspectors and withdraw the earlier FFCD. After making such strident demands of Rolf Ekeus and the UN, Iraq was now forced—to great embarrassment—to withdraw its threat to cease cooperation with UNSCOM and admit that its biological program was more extensive than previously acknowledged… From 1991 to 1995, the Iraqis
modified their tactics to continue the concealment of proscribed materials… The release of long-concealed WMD documentation planted at Husayn Kamil’s farm in August 1995, and Iraq’s declarations in February 1996 revealing new aspects of the WMD programs were major turning points in the Regime’s denial and deception efforts following the Desert Storm.’

Indeed, the ISG report actually says the destruction in 1991 was intended to deceive:

‘Following unexpectedly thorough inspections, Saddam ordered Husayn Kamil in July 1991 to destroy unilaterally large numbers of undeclared weapons and related materials to conceal Iraq’s WMD capabilities.’

So the 1991 exercise was far from any comprehensive shut-down of Iraq’s WMD capability. On the contrary, it was designed to conceal it.

There is a further fascinating paragraph which appears to have gone completely unnoticed:

‘According to presidential secretary Abd Hamid Mahmud Al Khatab Al Nasiri, during the mid-to late 1990s Saddam issued a presidential decree
directing the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] to recruit UNSCOM inspectors, especially American inspectors. To entice their co-operation, the IIS was to offer the inspectors preferential treatment for future business dealings with Iraq, once they completed their duties with the United Nations. Tariq Aziz and an Iraqi-American were specifically tasked by the IIS to focus on a particular American inspector.’

So who was this inspector? Was it perhaps Scott Ritter, who suddenly and bafflingly turned upon the US and refuted the conclusions he had previously drawn, giving immense ammunition to the anti-war lobby? If it was not, he should surely make this clear.

Finally, people say that if Saddam did have any WMD, he would surely have used it during the war. Personally, I have never bought this argument, and find it as silly as saying that the fact that no WMD were found means that none existed. The ISG report rehearses the since-he-didn’t–use-it-he-couldn’t-have-had-it argument, but then offers an alternative explanation:

‘If WMD existed, Saddam may have opted not to use it for larger strategic or political reasons, because he did not think Coalition military action would unseat him. If he used WMD, Saddam would have shown that he had been lying all along to the international community and would lose whatever residual political support he might have retained in the UNSC. From the standpoint of Regime survival, once he used WMD against Coalition forces, he would foreclose the chance to outlast an occupation. Based on his experience with past coalition attacks, Saddam actually had more options by not using WMD, and if those failed, WMD always remained as the final alternative. Although the Iraqi Government might be threatened by a Coalition attack, Saddam—the ultimate survivor—believed if he could hold out long enough, he could create political and strategic opportunities for international sympathy and regional support to blunt an invasion. Asked by a US interviewer in 2004, why he had not used WMD against the Coalition during Desert Storm, Saddam replied, “Do you think we are mad? What would the world have thought of us? We would have completely discredited those who had supported us.” '

While he was in power, Saddam ran rings round the west because it never grasped — among so many other things about Iraq and the Middle East in general— the nature and depth of his strategic cunning. And even now he is in captivity, he is still running rings round a western world that is gullible and credulous, and would eagerly believe a dozen impossible things before breakfast provided they put the US and Tony Blair in the worst possible light. How the butcher of Baghdad must be laughing in his American prison cell at the contortions of the CIA — and all the useful idiots who are intent on giving him a posthumous victory.

I'm off to a conference in the US, so posts will be intermittent between now and next Monday. My regrets for the interruption.

Extraordinary comments by Donald Rumsfeld -- and even more extraordinary, he has now denied them. As the Telegraph reports, Rumsfeld suddenly told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that there was no hard evidence linking Saddam to al Qaeda:

'Mr Rumsfeld told the group: "I have seen the answer to that question migrate in the intelligence community over a period of a year in the most amazing way. Second, there are differences in the intelligence community as to what the relationship was. "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," he added.'

Now this was pretty remarkable stuff, since Rumsfeld had previously said there were indeed links between Saddam and al Qaeda. And as readers of this website will know from many previous posts, there is copious evidence washing around from the intelligence services to that end, although it remains controversial within those services. Indeed, so remarkable was it that within a short time as CNSNews.com reports (but the Telegraph does not), Rumsfeld said he had been 'misunderstood':

'Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he was "misunderstood" on Monday, when he answered a question about al Qaeda-Iraq ties at an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations. "I have acknowledged since September 2002 that there were ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq," Rumsfeld said in a clarification on the Defense Department website. "This assessment was based upon points provided to me by then CIA Director George Tenet to describe the CIA's understanding of the Al Qaeda-Iraq relationship."

'Rumsfeld said he can only tell people what the CIA tells him: And he said the CIA has concluded the following:
-- We do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.
-- We have what we consider to be very reliable reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade, and of possible chemical and biological agent training.
-- We have what we believe to be credible information that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq.
-- We have what we consider to be credible evidence that al Qaeda leaders have sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
-- We do have one report indicating that Iraq provided unspecified training relating to chemical and/or biological matters for al Qaeda members. "I should also note that the 9/11 Commission report described linkages between Al Qaeda and Iraq as well," Rumsfeld said in the statement.'

Quite so. So what on earth is going on? One can only speculate at the power politics, rows or faction-fighting that may be continuing to rage within the administration and which may have resulted in such a very strange statement and retraction by a man who may realise he is be being lined up as the fall-guy for the mistakes made by the US in Iraq.

But now look at this, also reported on CNSNews.com:

'Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces and obtained by CNSNews.com, show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans. They demonstrate that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders.

'One of the Iraqi memos contains an order from Saddam for his intelligence service to support terrorist attacks against Americans in Somalia. The memo was written nine months before U.S. Army Rangers were ambushed in Mogadishu by forces loyal to a warlord with alleged ties to al Qaeda. Other memos provide a list of terrorist groups with whom Iraq had relationships and considered available for terror operations against the United States. Among the organizations mentioned are those affiliated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri, two of the world's most wanted terrorists. Zarqawi is believed responsible for the kidnapping and beheading of several American civilians in Iraq and claimed responsibility for a series of deadly bombings in Iraq Sept. 30. Al-Zawahiri is the top lieutenant of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, allegedly helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes on the U.S., and is believed to be the voice on an audio tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television Oct. 1, calling for attacks on U.S. and British interests everywhere.'

The memos allegedly contain details such as these:

'They detail the Iraqi regime's purchase of five kilograms of mustard gas on Aug. 21, 2000 and three vials of malignant pustule, another term for anthrax, on Sept. 6, 2000. The purchase order for the mustard gas includes gas masks, filters and rubber gloves. The order for the anthrax includes sterilization and decontamination equipment. (See Saddam's Possession of Mustard Gas). The documents show that Iraqi intelligence received the mustard gas and anthrax from "Saddam's company," which Tefft [a retired intelligence officer] said was probably a reference to Saddam General Establishment, "a complex of factories involved with, amongst other things, precision optics, missile, and artillery fabrication."

"Sa'ad's general company" is listed on the Iraqi documents as the supplier of the sterilization and decontamination equipment that accompanied the anthrax vials. Tefft believes this is a reference to the Salah Al-Din State Establishment, also involved in missile construction. (See Saddam's Possession of Anthrax) The Jaber Ibn Hayan General Company is listed as the supplier of the safety equipment that accompanied the mustard gas order. Tefft described the company as "a 'turn-key' project built by Romania, designed to produce protective CW (conventional warfare) and BW (biological warfare) equipment (gas masks and protective clothing)."

"Iraq had an ongoing biological warfare project continuing through the period when the UNSCOM inspections ended," the senior government official and source of the documents said. "This should cause us to redouble our efforts to find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs."

Well, is this true? Are these documents kosher? We don't yet know. Watch this space.

So now we have it from the horse's mouth. The United Nations employs Hamas members as officials. A brief reminder: Hamas is the terror organisation that even the EU has banned, because it is so demonstrably beyond the pale. It is the terror organisation whose charter not merely commits it to the destruction of Israel but contains gross libels of a paranoid and demented nature against the Jews. It is, quite simply, an enemy of humanity. Yet according to the Times, this what Peter Hanson, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency, told the Canadian Broadcasting corporation:

' "Oh, I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don’t see that as a crime,” he said. “Hamas as a political organisation does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another. We demand of our staff, whatever their political persuasion is, that they behave in accordance with UN standards and norms for neutrality." '

Not only does he admit that the UN employs members of a murderous death cult, but he airily dismisses it as of no consequence. 'Not every member is a militant?' But this is a terrorist organisation, for heaven's sake, which all decent people should shun, if not actively fight. Nor is this all. According to Ha'aretz, the Israelis have arrested no fewer than 13 UN officials suspected of participating in terror activities in the Gaza strip:

'"We have in our hands a list of 13 detainees who are to be indicted, they are UN people with suspected links to terrorism," [Israel Defense Forces chief of operations Yisrael] Ziv said." '

A measure of circumspection is required here. The Israelis appear to have jumped the gun in claiming that a rocket had been loaded into a UN ambulance in Gaza; they appear now to be retreating from that claim. So maybe the 13 suuspects will also turn out to be flaky. We'll see; the capacity of the Israelis to shoot themselves in both feet in making their case to the world cannot be underestimated. But the fact remains that UNRWA has for years presided over refugee camps which have been turned into terror factories under its nose. At the very least, Hanson's comments are simply totally unacceptable and indicate an astounding complicity with terror within UNRWA. Even Kofi Annan has apparently now got the wind up about this:

'UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is dispatching a four-man investigating team to probe the Israeli allegations. Annan promised Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gilerman that the crew will depart for Israel on Tuesday. Annan told Gilerman that the UN is treating Israel's allegations "very seriously," adding that, "If necessary, the UN will reach certain conclusions." '

This has the makings of a major scandal. Is the truth about the UN and terrorism about to emerge at long last?

for the moment, comment on Israel's incursion into Gaza is relatively muted. Alas, this is unlikely to be because the world's media have suddenly realised that firing rockets into Israel from Gaza is beyond the pale. It's more likely that its efforts are currently focused upon using the turmoil in Iraq to hound out Tony Blair and willing John Kerry to beat President Bush. But never fear -- we can always rely on the BBC to keep the flag of malice and moral bankruptcy proudly flying. On the BBC radio news on Saturday, I listened to Mathew Price observing that the Israeli action was 'making Israelis streets safer, perhaps, certainly making life miserable and intolerable for the Palestinians of northern Gaza'. Ah yes, those innocent Gazans who just happen to be firing rockets into Israel and killing children. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, itself no slough when it comes to putting the boot into Israel, soberly records:

'Using precise fire and its intelligence supremacy, the IDF is striving to increase the number of fatalities among the Hamas men, more than 40 of whom have been killed until now. The number of civilian fatalities is estimated at around 10. Despite this, the Hamas infrastructure continues to manufacture Qassam rockets and sustain itself, with assessments saying that the organization is still in possession of 100-200 rockets with a range of some eight kilometers.'

But hey, what's all that when set against 'making life intolerable' for the Palestinians?

The Observer has reported that three of the terrorists who perpetrated the Beslan school massacre had been asctive in the UK and one was a British citizen.

'A member of the group responsible for the Beslan school massacre last month is a British citizen who attended the infamous Finsbury Park mosque in north London, The Observer can reveal. Two other members of the group, loyal to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, are also believed to have been active in the UK until less than three years ago.'

Tell me again that the massacre was perpetrated merely by 'separatists' groaning under the brutal yoke of Putin's Russia...