It’s become unfashionable to point out that some armed Islamic militants are genuinely freedom fighters, in that they’re fighting against terrible injustice and for freedom. Apparently, if people who share some of your views kill a bunch of Americans, then you’re a terrorist forever, no matter how justified your aims and how restrained your methods.
As a result, we have a bloke imprisoned indefinitely in the UK for helping the rebels in Chechnya. The logic seems to be that since he’s a Muslim, and the Russians are our allies, then it’s only a matter of time until he blows up Canary Wharf.
This is slightly odd, given that the Russians are a vicious bunch of authoritarians whose conduct in Chechnya borders on genocide, that the only moral grounds for non-intervention in Chechnya are consquentialist (starting a nuclear war with the Russians would be even worse than what’s going on now), and that we should therefore give the guy a medal rather than lock him in jail.
But hey, I’m sure he’s guilty really. Let’s just sit back and relax while our leaders protect us from the Terrible Islamonazis Who Would, If They Could, Destroy Every One Of Us (why can I never type that without breaking into laughter? Oh, because it’s fucking ludicrous…)