Tag Archives: jihadism

Book Review: Virtual Caliphate (2011) by Yaakov Lappin

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on June 13, 2014

I have yet to read a book more prescient than Yaakov Lappin’s about events in Iraq in the last few days. Having sketched out the way Salafi-jihadists have created the ministries of a future Caliphate in cyber-format—the simple fact that “Al-Qaeda would not be in existence were it not for the pervasive presence of online jihadis”—Lappin finished by suggesting three options: (1) we manage to take down this virtual Empire; (2) we manage to weaken it in cyberspace; or (3) the jihadists “upload” this virtual State into the real world. Continue reading →

Nouri al-Maliki Is Pushing Iraq Into The Abyss

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on June 10, 2014

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

Whatever one thinks about the decision in 2003 to finish the war Saddam Hussein started by annexing Kuwait, serious people should be able to agree that the way the country was abandoned by the United States—first politically after 2009 and then militarily—was deeply irresponsible, not least because of the motives of this decision. Continue reading →

After Elliot Rodger We’re Agreed That Ideas Kill. Let’s See This Applied To ISIS In Brussels.

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on June 2, 2014

Flowers left outside Jewish Museum in Brussels after ISIS holy warrior murdered three people last week

On the evening of May 23, a deranged 22-year-old boy, Elliot Rodger, went on a shooting spree in California and murdered six people. Continue reading →

Are There Any Good Guys Left In Syria?

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 30, 2014

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The short answer is “yes”. The longer answer is, “It depends on how good you want,” and discovering the answer to that relies on having a strategic vision of what you want from Syria. Continue reading →

What Would Islamic Theocracy Look Like If It Came To The West? Quite A Lot Like Tower Hamlets.

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 23, 2014

Lutfur Rahman

With attention presently focused on the London borough of Tower Hamlets over allegations of massive voting fraud and other corruptions in yesterday’s Mayoral Election and the scenes of policemen having to guard British Election booths because of the high likelihood that the State authorities in this area will falsify the result, it seems like a good moment to have a look how it got to this. Continue reading →

Film Review: This Is What Winning Looks Like (2013) by Ben Anderson

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 22, 2014

Journalist Ben Anderson

Ben Anderson did his filming between 2007 and the present in Afghanistan. He presents a picture of a country in free-fall, of a West in denial, and of a war that the Allies have given up on. Continue reading →

Islamic State Claims the Leadership of Jihad

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 15, 2014

The Islamic State’s official spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, gave a speech on March 7, 2014, entitled, “Then Let Us Invoke The Curse Of Allah Upon The Liars”. An English translation of the speech was made by Musa Cerantonio and is reproduced below. Continue reading →

Why The Coup In Egypt Was The Worst Outcome

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 12, 2014

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While the Sisi regime presents itself to the West as a barrier against Islamism, its internal propaganda delegitimizes the Islamists by presenting them as the cat’s paw of the United States, playing on the widespread anti-Americanism in Egypt

David Kirkpatrick on The New York Times front-page brought the news everyone following Egypt already knows: the putschists in Cairo have reneged on their promises of pluralism and religious tolerance, which was part of their sell in bringing off the coup last July. Continue reading →

Al-Qaeda Provides Evidence ISIS Was Its Iraqi Branch, Calls For It To Return

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 3, 2014

As-Sabah Media released a video on 2 May 2014 that contained a speech from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, responding to the ferocious statement by Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the spokesman of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which denied that ISIS was ever under al-Qaeda’s command and thus al-Zawahiri’s expulsion of ISIS from al-Qaeda in February was a meaningless gesture. Al-Zawahiri presents a compelling case to the contrary, drawing on documents sent by ISIS’s leaders, past and present, to al-Qaeda, some of which are public—taken in the raid that killed Usama bin Laden. Al-Zawahiri concludes with a call for ISIS to return to the fold, to accept al-Zawahiri’s order that ISIS leave Syria and return to Iraq—even if they think it is unjust—for the sake of jihadi unity and avoiding the shedding of Muslim blood.  The speech is entitled, “Testimony to Preserve the Blood of the Mujahideen in Syria” (Shahada li-Haqn Dima al-Mujahideen bil-Sham). A rough translation is given below with some important sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

The Tragedy of Tony Blair

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 24, 2014

Tony Blair at Bloomberg on April 23

There’s a case to be made that Tony Blair is the most important figure in the development of the concept of “humanitarian intervention” since the end of the Cold War. When adumbrating his doctrine at the Chicago Economics Club in April 1999, Blair made very clear that this was no wild-eyed utopianism. Continue reading →