Skip to main content

Bin Laden Binned

The death of Osama bin Laden, the leader of the fanatical death cult of Al Qaida, has sparked celebrations across the United States, and well it might. I do not usually feel elation at the death of a human being, but today is different.

Sure Al Qaida continues in various guises in various places: a hydra headed conspiracy that only a couple of days ago sent a 12 year old boy to blow himself up. What did that kid need virgins for? He was one himself. I felt a powerful surge of loathing for the villains who put him up to such a crime and hoped that they would shortly face an unpleasant fate themselves.

Ultimately it was Osama bin Laden who was the author of such wickedness. The charge sheet for such a monster is long indeed- and it does not stop with the murder of thousands of innocents on September 11th 2001.

So although, of course, the war continues, and may even be redoubled; yet the death of bin Laden is of more than symbolic significance. Eventually the Al Qaida conspiracy will be only as significant as the murderousness of the assassins in previous centuries- and the removal of the talismanic leader of the death cult is a hope for the West and a setback for our enemies.

It is a day to reflect, take stock, but acknowledge that the battle that seemed so hopeless in the sands of Iraq five years ago, or over the last decade in Afghanistan, has taken a decided turn for the better.

A good day.

Comments

Dilettante said…
Hear hear.

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have no notewo

One Year On

  Head vabariigi iseseisvuspäeva! Happy Estonian Independence Day! It is one year since I stood outside the Estonian Parliament for the traditional raising of the national flag from Tall Hermann tower. Looking at the young fraternities gathered with their flags, I was very sure that Estonia too would soon be facing the aggression of the criminal Russian regime. A tragic and dark day. 5 eyes intelligence had been clear: an all out invasion was going to happen, and Putin´s goals included- and still include- "restoration" of Russian imperial power across Europe, even to the Atlantic. Yet there was one Western intelligence failure: we all underestimated the guts of the Ukrainian armed forces, the ZSU, and its President and people. One year on, Estonia, and indeed all the front line states against Russia, knows that Ukraine saved us. Estonia used that time to prepare itself, should that "delayed" onslaught ever be unleashed, but equally the determination of Kaja Kallas,