Tag Archives: ideology

Who Are The Victims of “Radicalisation”?

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 20 April 2021

The rise of far-Right extremism in the West, in the United States in particular, has been one of the major media stories since at least 2016. Think tanks have gotten in on the action, and in due course official institutions followed the lead. There has been a significant element of moral panic about this, a result of a search for explanation by liberal ruling classes hit with disorientating political developments, above all in the Anglo-American world, with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as President. Christian Picciolini’s book, Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism (2020), is very much a product of this mood of doom among Western liberals. Continue reading →

The Islamic State Announces the “Axe of al-Khalil Campaign” to Destroy the “Idol” of Democracy

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 19 March 2021

Hamid al-Zawi, the leader of the Islamic State movement from 2006 to 2010, known only as Abu Umar al-Baghdadi during his lifetime, gave a speech on 19 March 2010 entitled, “The Soldiers’ Sermon for the Axe of al-Khalil Campaign” (Khutba al-Jund bi-Hamlat Fa’s al-Khalil). It was Al-Zawi’s twenty-second and, as it turned out, penultimate speech. Al-Zawi was killed almost exactly a month later, on 18 April 2010, alongside his deputy and “war minister”, Abd al-Munim al-Badawi (Abu Hamza al-Muhajir). A translation of the speech is published below.

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America, Puritanism, and Hysteria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 July 2020

The Witch (2016) is set in the Plymouth Colony, what is now the U.S. state of Massachusetts, in the 1630s. The focus is on Puritanism and the witch craze, subjects that are not entirely irrelevant at the present time. Continue reading →

The CIA and Iraq: Intelligence Failures, Media Successes

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 28 December 2019

In a long article last week, I looked at why the U.S. ran a formal occupation of Iraq for fourteen months after the fall of Saddam Husayn in April 2003, given that there had been an explicit pre-invasion decision not to have an occupation government. The short answer is that the occupation was installed through deception by the State Department, supported by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). State and CIA had argued for a protracted occupation in the Situation Room debates in 2002, but President George W. Bush had sided with the Pentagon, which advocated a rapid transfer of power to Iraqis. Having lost in the formal inter-agency process, the State Department succeeded by subversion in getting its way on the ground in Iraq. The disaster this caused in the mismanagement of post-Saddam Iraq was, as the article explained in detail, only the most serious impact of the toxic schism between State/CIA and the Pentagon, a factor whose import is difficult to overstate when examining how the Bush administration functioned. (This feud also at times drew in the Vice President’s Office, which tended to support the Pentagon.)

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Why The Obama Doctrine Failed

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Film review of The Final Year (2018)

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 31 January 2018

The Final Year, a new documentary film directed by Greg Barker, tracks the closing stages of the administration of President Barack Obama in 2016. Senior officials are followed and interviewed, and the White House is watched as it tries to react to daily events. Much of the substance contained in the film was knowable in real time, but it is very useful to have these officials on record—on video, no less—explaining the assumptions and thought processes they were operating with as they made decisions that led to a series of such intense disasters around the world. This is especially interesting since the ripple effects from these catastrophes ultimately set the conditions for the election of Donald Trump and dismantling of much of the Obama legacy. Continue reading →

Jihadist Profile of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 23, 2017

A short biography of the “Caliph” of the Islamic State (IS), Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), was leaked online by the group in July 2013. A rough translation is reproduced below.

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The Islamic State Explains Why It Hates The West

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 1, 2016

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The Islamic State (IS) published its fifteenth edition of ‘Dabiq,’ its English-language magazine, on 31 July 2016. The magazine was entitled, “Break the Cross”. The magazine contained two important articles outlining why IS hates and fights against the West. The most important article, an unsigned piece by an IS operative, simply titled, “Why We Hate You and Why We Fight You”. The second, “How I Came to Islam,” was written by Umm Khalid al-Finlandiyyah, a female Finnish foreign fighter who has joined IS. Those articles are reproduced below with some editions to transliteration and some interesting sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

ISIS Prepares the Ground for War Against the Syrian Rebellion

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 6, 2014

The spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, gave a speech on 30 September 2013, entitled, “Lak Allah Ayatuha al-Dawla al-Mazluma” (لك الله أيتها الدولة المظلومة), roughly: “God Is With You, O’ Oppressed State” (The English translation released by Fursan al-Balagh Media gives the title as, “May Allah Be With You, O’ Oppressed State”.) The speech is primarily a ferocious attack on the Syrian rebel groups, accusing them of being part of a Western-led conspiracy, which includes the media stations of Arab governments and their “mouthpieces” throughout the region, to manipulate the coverage of ISIS such that it blackens their name and turns Muslims away from them.

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