Michael Burleigh's Blog, page 3

Slaughter on the shores of the Med... so close to resorts loved by Britons

They were marched along the pristine sands of the beach to the scene of their murder, writes MICHAEL BURLEIGH.

Was Charlie Hebdo massacre Al-Qaeda's bid to re-establish itself after being 'eclipsed by ISIS'?

The manner of yesterday's terrorist attack suggests that Al Qaeda feels eclipsed by ISIS and was determined to put itself back in the international spotlight with an act of mass murder.

Prejudice, hatred and why Turkey won't do anything about the barbarians on its border

MICHAEL BURLEIGH looks at why Turkey views the prospect of IS’s dreaded black banner fluttering over a town near its border with such apparent equanimity.

Why the old foe Iran is suddenly a crucial ally, by MICHAEL BURLEIGH

David Cameron is now making entreaties to the enemy and planning to meet Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani at the UN General Assembly in New York this week.

MICHAEL BURLEIGH: Stalin's gulags and his Left wing British apologists

In Hampstead parlours, intellectual apologists for Stalin like Ralph Miliband’s great friend Eric Hobsbawm loved talking in abstractions as millions died in horror.

MICHAEL BURLEIGH: Caught in the crossfire of an ever dirtier war

The harrowing images of hundreds of dead children, victims of what rebels claim was a poison gas attack by Assad’s government, will test the diplomatic patience of the West to the limit.

Nightmare of terrorists with bombs surgically implanted INSIDE their bodies

MICHAEL BURLEIGH: We are in the age of the human bomb. This week, U.S. intelligence experts admitted that Al Qaeda’s master bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asirir has devised a way of concealing explosives inside the body that can avoid detection by sophisticated scanners.

Nigeria, a country so corrupt it would be better to burn our aid money

MICHAEL BURLEIGH: By the end of its term of office, the British Government will have handed over £1 billion in aid to Nigeria.Given the appalling levels of corruption in that nation, this largesse is utterly sickening — for the money will only be recycled into bank accounts in the Channel Islands or Switzerland.

MICHAEL BURLEIGH: Tyranny, torture and a coup that should chill naive Western leaders

After this dramatic coup in Egypt, what is to stop the army and angry public from rudely ejecting the next democratically elected leader in Egypt if one ever takes office? Asks MICHAEL BURLEIGH.

Horrific - but sending troops to Syria would be a catastrophe

MICHAEL BURLEIGH: Cameron’s government is once again full of moralising outrage, raising fears that it might soon be willing to send our war-weary forces into yet another hopeless conflict in the Middle East.