As for Donald Rumsfeld – he did not torture anyone, nor did he order the torture of anybody. The Financial Times (as is its habit) was telling lies.

The F.T. even lies over small things. For example it had a front page story last month that said (amongst other things) that President Bush had stopped using the word “victory” in his speeches on Iraq, whereas (in fact) he was still using the word.

Then there was the time it was forced to admit that Fox had Democrats on a lot of the time, but said that Fox always selected “ugly women” Democrats as I had just been watching an atractive young blond Democrat (who is was, and still is, often invited onto Fox) just before I read the article at least it gave me a laugh.

Either way, you’re an apologist for the worst possible abuse of state power

On a personal level, Jim, I would prefer all the money that the government spends on infringing the liberty of anEnglishmen to exercise his traditional right to smoke in a pub be diverted to shooting Islamofascists who want to kill me.

More generally if there is anyting that should shake one’s faith in the almighty, it’s not that complete jerks exists throughout the world, but the fact that they own all the world’s energy supplies. I can’t really work out how this follows from divine providence.

I’m well aware that some Muslims hacked the heads of some non-Muslims. I’m also well aware that nobody, not even the US Government, claims that all the individuals tortured* by the US or its accomplices were head-hackers. Nobody except you, apparently.

I suppose there’s two possibilities here, though. Maybe you think that the US Government had the incredible restraint, skill and heck, outrageous good luck to only torture those who were head-hackers and who therefore really deserved it.

That would make you an idiot.

Or maybe you think that all Muslims are basically ‘head-hackers’.

That would make you a bigot as well as an idiot.

Either way, you’re an apologist for the worst possible abuse of state power. How that fits in with the Samizdata philosophy is beyond me.

*See how I didn’t use scare quotes there? That’s because the torture really happened. And please don’t try and tell me that it didn’t because then I’ll know for certain that you’re a parody.

PS, I don’t know why you insist on equating Bush with Hitler, but it’s really pretty juvenile.

No doubt Mr Putin had nothing to do with this either (at least as far as the F.T. and the rest of the swine are concerned).

Steal companies and no one does anything. Undermine trial by jury, smash the independent television and radio stations (and most of the newspapers), send people to plant terrorist bombs overseas (such as the Russian agents who were arrested in the U.A.E.), agents with bombs arrested by local police in housing blocks in Russia itself and pass it off as “a training exercise of which the local police were not informed”.

Kill off all the moderate Chechen leaders (the first President was an Ex Soviet Air Force General who was married to an Estonian and based the constitution on that of Estonia) leaving the Chechens to be led by Islamic extremists (because there is no one else left alive in the field against the Russians).

Even abolish the election of state governors (appointing them instead) and have the Duma pass statutes declaring that people may be killed overseas (not for anything they have done – but for expressing dissent). And (of course) murder journalists for the terrible crime of not supporting you.

Do all this and still the West wants to be your friend.

I watched President Bush (via television) in Latvia. He spoke of a country “near here” where the media is under state control, where people opposed to the regime are murdered (and so on). I waited for him to name the country – and he did “Belarus”.

How brave to attack the government of Belarus (what President Bush said was perfectly true – but what did it cost him to say it?). The government of Russia are (of course) good guys. As President Bush once said “I have looked into the soul of President Putin and he is a good man”.

And (of course) in spite of all the killing of Muslims – Mr Putin still manages to be friends with various radical regimes in the Middle East (such as Iran). They share a hatred of the West (which President Bush seems unaware of in the case of Mr Putin) – and that trumps everything else.

The whole thing is beyond parady, no one has poisoned me but I still feel sick.

They thought it was a big joke. Unlike them (and, it seems, unlike you) I lack a sense of humour in this area. Of course the vast majority of people that the “resistance” kill in Iraq are Muslims – but Islamic radicals in the West (and their nonMuslim supporters) do not seem to care about that. Oddly enough the ex F.S.B. officer mudered in London was himself a Muslim convert (not that the Financial Times cares about this Muslim – because he was not involved in terrorism against the United States).

This is not really a Sunni thing or a Shia thing. There are Sunni and Shia who wish to exterminate or enslave all nonMuslims and there are Sunni and Shia who do NOT wish to do this – and it has nothing to do with anything that we may do (it is all to do with how a Muslim interprets such texts as the Koran and the life of Mohammed). Are you old enough to remember (as I am) what happened in Iran in 1979 – crowds of people chanting “Death to America”.

Who was President then Jim? Was it “Bush-Hitler” or was it James Carter – the man who bent over backwards to appease the radicals (for example by cutting off all support to the Shah – thus dooming his government and making “human rights” far WORSE in Iran than they had ever been before).

James Earl Carter is still playing the appeasment game, his latest book (such a pack of lies that members of his own staff have resigned in protest) blames the Jews for everything in the Middle East. But what good does such appeasment do? None at all – the Islamic radicals would kill or enslave him and his family anyway (no matter how much he gets on his hands and knees before them).

The Shia government of Iran (not just the present head of government – but the Council of Guardians and the rest of the regime) have been engaged in a war against the United States and the West in general for the last 27 years.

And some Sunni groups (such as the Muslim Brotherhood) have been at it for rather longer.

You will remember the 11th of September 2001 – what had “Bush Hitler” actually done Jim? Nothing.

He had not sent troops into Afghanistan, he had not sent troops into Iraq – these things happened AFTERWARDS not BEFORE.

Nor was George Bush put into power by “the Jews” (as is claimed in the Middle East – and, using the code word “neocons”, in much of the West) – in fact the vast majority of the Jewish vote went for Albert Gore.

George Bush actually wanted to get America LESS involved in the Middle East (for example reducing connections with Israel).

But the radical Muslims attacked the United States anyway. They went you and your family dead Jim (not because of anything you or your country may have done, but because of what you are) – and the terrible thing is that you do not see it.

Now for lighter matters.

What newspapers and magazines do I buy – none at all. I tend to go a local supermarket (a “Tesco” is the nearest to me), order something to eat at the cafe part of it – and read what publications are on offer.

Today the Financial Times had a tag line on the front page about an ex Prime Minister of Russia writing an article for the newspaper about his alleged poisoning. I was astonished that such a story would appear in the F.T. and thought that I might have to apologize for my posting.

However, it turned out (when I read the article) that the ex Prime Minister did not blame Mr Putin and his gang – he blamed unnamed “enemies of the authorites” (Jews or other Devils no doubt).

Seriously, is this ‘Paul Marks’ a made-up character designed to lightly satirise some of the more batshit-crazy Samizdata contributors or something? If so it’s delightfully accurate.