Russia’s #2 man, Dmitry Medvedev (currently Security Council Deputy Chairman; former PM and President), has been waxing eschatological lately. Last year he warned that the horsemen of the Apocalypse might well be riding out (by the way, Newsweek: why do you capitalize “New Testament” but not “bible?”); and he stated that Russia’s war in Ukraine is part of its struggle against Satan. Last week he doubled down, claiming that “the prophecies of the Apocalypse are getting closer.” This echoes, albeit in more overtly Christian language, what Numero Uno Vladimir Putin says. Whether these two men are true believing Orthodox Christians, or deceptive opportunists, is debatable. (Although why couldn’t they be both?) But when the chaps in charge of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal talk like this, we need to take them seriously–not scoff at their beliefs (a phenomenon about which I was interviewed two weeks ago). The folks in our government and media who do so are making the same arrogant mistake they do with Islam and Muslims: “REAL Muslims (or Christians) wouldn’t believe or act like that. Those religions are PEACEFUL.” Can such types be any more ignorant, willfully or not, of religions in history?

“Ragnarök,” Wikipedia (Public Domain). Maybe Hela is the Sixth Horseman, er, Horsewoman?

Speaking of the world’s second-largest religion, there’s End Times news on that front, too. In Gujarat, India, some Muslims have been arrested for “targeting interfaith individuals” by “intercepting the couple” and then “thrash[ing] them in the name of moral policing”–after which they would upload the videos thereof to social media. This group called themselves the “Army of Mahdi.”

Of course, it could be a lot worse than just some “thrashing.” Mainstream Sunni and Shi`i commentators on the End Times believe that the Mahdi and Jesus (who returns as a Muslim) will give non-Muslims the Hobson’s choice of conversion or death. (When I attended a Mahdism conference in Iran in 2008, I sat through an entire panel on this topic. I refrained from commenting during, however.) The Mahdi may as well mount up and ride out with the Four Horsemen, then.

Russia’s Orthodox Christian leadership is simply warning about the intersection of geopolitics and their faith’s eschatological elements. Some Muslim leaders, however, especially in Iran, do seem to want to get the End Times timer counting down. It remains to be seen whether you can hotwire a horse.

Yesterday I chanced upon on article entitled “4 Areas Recommended by the Prophet Muhammad to Live in Before the Apocalypse.” It’s on the website Ruetir, which bills itself as a “Professional News Website Platform.” It’s apparently Muslim, based on the content and the byline for this particular piece being Jakarta; but I cannot find any more information about Ruetir.

The piece says that according to Islam’s founder, presumably drawing upon hadiths (traditions and/or sayings attributed to him), the four best places to ride the eschatological storm out will be:

• Mecca
• Medina
• Yemen
• Sham (traditionally Syria, but here said to include Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan, as well)

Specifically, Mecca will be protected by angels. Medina will “shake three times” and expel non-Muslims. Yemen counterintuitively makes the list, despite it not being an Islamic holy site. And [al-]Sham (the Levant, to Westerners) is here because of some traditions the Dajjal, the “deceiving messiah,” will be killed there. Curiously, there’s nothing about the Mahdi’s End Time activities mentioned, however. Wouldn’t a Muslim want to be where he’ll show up?

Isa (Jesus) fighting the Dajjal, from “Al-Masih_ad-Dajjal,” Wikipedia (Accessed 8.31.23)

If you’re not Muslim, you might be better off looking at other locales. One recent global list reads as if written by an Anglosphere travel booker: New Zealand, Iceland, the UK (?), Australia (On the Beach, anyone?) and Ireland. For us Yanks, survivalists say the best bets are the Rocky Mountain West, remote parts of New England, and eastern Kentucky.

The latter two lists rely on data like food and water availability, population density, distance from potential nuclear targets, etc. The first list relies solely on Islamic traditions.

You be the judge. But Arabia might be a target-rich environment in WWIII–and after.

Earlier today I was honored to be on the “Break It Down Show” with the intrepid Pete Turner. We discussed the US government’s inveterate inability/refusal to understand religion in foreign affairs.

Yesterday a Philadelphia teenager was arrested for terrorism, accused of working online with the Islamic group Kata’ib al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad (“The Battalions of Unity and Jihad”). This reminded me that I hadn’t perused the State Department list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations for a year or two–since I’ve not taught history of terrorism lately. It’s dirty work, but someone has to do it. So here goes.

The State Department list has no date, but the most recent group was added on December 1, 2021. This is curious, since the aforementioned KTJ was designated March 7, 2022 but is not on the list itself. In any event, there are 68 total terrorist organizations listed, 55 of which are Muslim (81%). Another 6 are Marxist-Leninist (9%); 6 are nationalist (9%); and 1 is anarchist (1%).

Of the Muslim ones, in comparison to the whole, 49 are Sunni, 5 Shiite and one Sufi. [I have to use the archaic term for the smaller branch of Islam, and the Western transliteration of Bin Laden’s group, as WordPress goes bonkers when you attempt to use the proper symbols for the actual Arabic transliterations of those terms.} As you might expect, the specific countries with the most terrorist groups operating on their soil–four each–are Iraq, Syria, the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Afghanistan would have more, but since the Taliban retook control of the country, following the Biden Administration’s humiliating withdrawal, that group has been de-listed from many countries’ terrorist lists. (In fact, American aid is likely making its way to the Taliban government, as well as to other groups. Well-played, former insurgents.)

Islamic State (IS) and its branches, along with al-Qa`idah (AQ) and its, remain the world’s deadliest terrorist groups. Of the 6700 people killed by terrorists in 2022, IS was responsible for 62% of those deaths.

Logo of the Egyptian terrorist group Harakat Sawa`d Misr, “Egyptian Arms Movement.” The AK-47 is twisted into the acronym HSM. The subtitle says “With our arms we defend our revolution.”

The biggest takeaway here is this: despite the Biden Administration’s incessant efforts to gin up “white supremacy” as a terrorist threat (which I examined at length in May of this year), it’s simply not. While some anarchists and Marxist-Leninists are white, they are motivated by ideologies other than melanin content. What about Nationalist groups, of which there are six on the list? These are the Continuity Irish Republican Army, New Irish Republican Army, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (in Sri Lanka), Palestine Liberation Front, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and PFLP-General Command. It’s problematic to cast Sri Lankans and Palestinians as white supremacists. So that leaves the Irish options to support Uncle Joe’s tired thesis propaganda. But the CIRA and NIRA just want to, as they see it, give Ireland back to the Irish. Not to hand out Klan hoods.

By the way, the FBI (no doubt inadvertently) refutes Biden’s ridiculous claim. There are 24 individuals “charged with federal crimes in the United States” on its “Most Wanted Terrorists” page. Of those, 22 are Muslim. Another is a black woman who killed a New Jersey state trooper. Only one is white, and he’s wanted for blowing up biotech facilities in California. On the sub-page for “Domestic Terrorism” you won’t find Donald J. Trump, PTA members, or your local Catholic parish. Instead, there are 10 folks, four black and six white. Here are the latter’s ideologies or acts: anti-apartheid activist who threw acid in a policeman’s face; Animal Liberation Front/Earth Liberation Front activist who torched government buildings; Black Panther-sympathetic plane hijacker; criminal Communist seeking to overthrow the US government; bomber of a building at University of Wisconsin; and Hispanic chap who hijacked a plane to Cuba.

Most of the world’s terrorists are Muslim. And the most deadly terrorist groups are Muslim. Yet the new “National Intelligence Strategy” of the US mentions “terrorist organizations” only once; and “counterterrorism” only in terms of the “tools, techniques and procedures” learned from it being adapted to “other missions.” Notably “climate change.”

It won’t be possible to subdue this legion of Islamic jihadists as long as our government pretends, purely for political purposes, that the real threat is something else. Until then, it’s we who are shackled by chains of deceit–not the strong man of terrorism.

[The blogpost title, and the final paragraph, reference the account of the Gerasene demoniac in the Gospel of St. Mark 5:1-20.]

In terms of foreign affairs priority, the Islamic world has taken a back seat lately to Ukraine, China/Taiwan and aliens. But like time, the Apocalypse waits for no one. And so in recent months self-styled harbingers of Allah’s End Times agenda have appeared.

Of course, the main Muslim eschatological figure is al-Mahdi, the “divinely-guided one” who will usher in the Islamic Age on Earth. Fifty-one supporters of Iraqi cleric-politician Muqtada al-Sadr were recently arrested for claiming that al-Sadr is actually the Mahdi. Al-Sadr has long been involved in Iraqi affairs; for many years he headed a group called Jaysh al-Mahdi, the “army of the Mahdi,” although he had been a more conventional politician in recent years. The head of the arrested clique was said to have believed himself to be the angel Jibril (Gabriel), “tasked with announcing the appearance of the long-awaited Mahdi.” Another news story on this incident merely reports the angel-addled chap preparing the way for the Mahdi, sans any connection to al-Sadr.

A 16th-century Siyer-i Nebi image of angel Gabriel visiting Muhammad [Wiki, Public Domain}

(The Mahdi is the major eschatological figure of Islam, slightly outranking `Isa, “Jesus.” Unlike the latter, the former is nowhere mentioned in the Qur’an, but only in hadiths, alleged sayings of Muhammad. Still, belief in the Mahdi is deeply held by many Muslims–both Sunni and Shii. The major difference between the two main branches of Islam in this regard is that for Sunnis the true Mahdi will step onto the stage of history towards The End, mainly proving his worth as a politician and military conqueror. For the largest branch of Shiis, the Twelvers, he has already been here as the 12th “Imam,” or rightful leader of the Islamic world–a count that starts with Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law. However, he disappeared in the 9th century AD and will reveal himself, again, in all his power before The End.)

In a related story, two months ago a woman in Pakistan claimed to be a “prophet”–a big no-no in Islam, since Muhammad is believed to have been the final such sent to humanity. She also said her name was Qiyamat, which means “day of resurrection/final judgment.” She was of course arrested by Pakistani authorities for being a “false prophet.” So while she made no reference to the Mahdi, she did wax eschatological.

One of these days, one of these messianic pretenders will avoid the authorities, gain a sizable following, and take over. It’s happened before: medieval Morocco and Egypt, 19th century Sudan, barely avoided in 1979 Saudi Arabia. Let’s hope it won’t be in a place like Pakistan, with nuclear weapons. But as 2076 approaches–the turn of the next Muslim century (1500 AH)–eschatological fervor will ramp up in the Islamic world. Count on it.

Ronald Reagan had many great lines. “There you go again” was one of his best, and most-used. Against Carter in 1980, Mondale in 1984, and probably every time Sam Donaldson shouted one of his inane questions.

We Reagan epigones can find no better target for The Great Communicator’s velvety barb than the current POTUS and his incessant, inveterate yammering about “white supremacy.” Just last week, at Howard University, The Grey Prevaricator once again claimed that “the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy.”

Yes, even given that agreeing on lies is how the Democrats do history now, this constant untruth is not only appalling but injurious to the body politic. And rather than deconstruct Biden’s mendacious malarkey yet again, allow me to list, and link to, my numerous previous articles over at The Stream which do so. In these you’ll find not just opinion, but terrorism data that demonstrates the ludicrousness of Biden’s propaganda.

“The False Shadow of Domestic Extremism” (September 14, 2022)

“Our Government: Gone to the Dogs?” (April 11, 2022)

“Gaslighting the Gullible: the Latest Biden Administration Counter-Terrorism Plan” (January 18 2022)

“Biden’s New Counter-Terrorism Strategy: A Lying, Dog-faced, Pony Soldier of a Document” (June 30, 2021)

“White Supremacists Our Most Dangerous Threat? A Whiter Shade of Tall Tale” (May 4, 2021)

“The Boulder Blunder: Ignoring Real Terror Sources to Chase Phantom Threats” (March 25, 2021)

“The Daft Bigotry of Woke Expectations about Islam” (January 26, 2021)

And the first, and probably best, one I wrote on this topic: “White Terrorists v. the Sultans of Slaughter” (August 13, 2019)

Mostly I write about the Middle East/Islamic world on this blog. But every so often my inner Tolkien fanatic emerges. Last fall I had published, in the Sonder magazine, an essay entitled “The Value of Family in Middle-earth” (pp. 45-51). You can find it here. It’s a bit of a departure from my usual geopolitical analysis of both real and fictional worlds.

Moi with my book on Middle-earth political history beneath Tolkien’s

portrait at The Eagle and Child Pub, Oxford, 2018.

It was twenty years ago today, George Bush said conquest is the way. The second President Bush followed in his father’s footsteps and did him one better–or perhaps worse. Adducing Saddam’s alleged WMDs and support for terrorism, as well as the need to spread democracy in the Islamic Middle East, Bush sent our military in to take out Saddam and remake the Iraqi political system. Then he claimed “Mission Accomplished.” Well, was that true?

I wrote a long article over at The Stream on this topic today.

American tanks in front of Baghdad’s “Victory Arch.” Wikipedia Public Domain.

Once again, I’ve dropped the ball on my blog–this time, for just over three months. Since last December, however, I have published 10 articles over at The Stream, on topics to include Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the World Cup, the national reparations movement, the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s worldview, Chinese spy balloons, and aliens. In fact, I am just three articles away from my 100th at that site.

But now for something completely different. Driving home from Divine Liturgy this morning, I caught part of the excellent “Millennium of Music” show on Sirius XM channel 76, hosted by Robert Aubry Davis. Today he was playing the latest album by Alexander Lingas and Cappella Romana: A Byzantine Emperor at King Henry’s Court: Christmas 1400, London (Available here, as well as on Amazon Music.) The group performs music written for the visit of Byzantine ruler Manuel II Palaiologos to England for several months in the winter of 1400-01, seeking aid against the encroaching Ottomans from King Henry IV. The chants are of course in both Greek and Latin, and simply wonderful. (Cappella Romana also did the equally mesmerizing Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia.)

By the way, I did a long post on Henry IV last May, as I’ve always found him fascinating. And I was fortunate enough to be cast as Henry in a local community college production of Henry IV Part 1 last summer–about which I wrote an article.

Yours truly as Henry IV, July 2022. No rebels were actually harmed in the making of this play.

Some of the best “Pearls Before Swine” columns, ever (from Stephen Pastis, Nighthogs, 2005, p. 90):