A Note on Iran and the “Axis of Evil”

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 20 June 2023

President George W. Bush said in his first State of the Union speech after 9/11, on 29 January 2002:

Our nation will continue to be steadfast, and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans and bring terrorists to justice. … Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. …

North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. … This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens …

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.

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The Decembrist Revolt: Russia’s Revolutionary Tradition Begins

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 3 June 2023

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Russian Terrorist-Revolutionaries: Ideology and Worldview

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 13 May 2023

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A Flawed Film Brings Attention to the Soviet Terror-Famine in Ukraine

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 April 2023

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The Letter of Mara bar Serapion: Implications for the Historical Jesus and Christianity’s Triumph

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 19 April 2023

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The  Soviet Role and (the Lack of) “Justice” At Nuremberg

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 11 April 2023

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The Ideology of Nazism

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 April 2023

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A Note on the Ancient Greek Understanding of Beauty

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 4 April 2023

The ancient Greek assumption that physical and moral worth were inherently connected can be seen in the term “kalos”. The word is often translated into English as “beautiful”, which is literally correct but misleading in so far as it implies the word relates solely to visual aesthetics; such an understanding is too narrow and anachronistically imposes divisions between categories that the Greeks did not regard as separate. “Kalos” is better translated as “handsome” and “noble”: it was a term for things “socially sanctioned as excellent”, and axiomatically encompassed a judgment on form and spirit.

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Jihadist “Forever Wars” Don’t End Because Western Troops Are Withdrawn

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 March 2023

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