Neil Clark: The Beast from Revelation?

I mean, seriously, the second beast of Chapter 13? We know he is, and continues to be, a complete and utter berk but to unite the UK blogosphere (apart from his friends, of course, both of them) in such a manic way can only be the work of warped and twisted genius who

deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had the power to do in the sight of the beast

Just look at his blog title, if you need more proof: neilclark66 - a mere typo away from "six hundred, three score and six".

Update: It has been pointed out to me, by someone who clearly is spending far too much time thinking about this, that if (and only if, or "iff" for the mathematicians among you) the above is true, that would probably make Gorgeous George the beast of the first part of Ch 13.

Sarcasm aside, Conor, Chris and Tim reckon he might be a war criminal. Not really, unfortunately. The undisputed power leader of surreal tom-foolery that he is, he is not "intentionally directing attacks against" anybody - he is merely encouraging us to treat murderers as heros. I quote:

The true heroes in Iraq are those who have resisted the invasion of their country.

As the on-going Iraqi resistance are, by and large, terrorists (car bombs in crowded markets as opposed to attacks against the occupying force being a key differentiator between "terrorist" and "freedom fighter") Neil might wish to consider the wisdom of publishing his views quite so openly, in light of Sections 1 and 3 of the Terrorism Act 2006. He won't, of course, because any attempt to actually apply the law will bring the rest of the Gruniad and Indy's "useful idiots" out in to print.

It has to be said that he has an (i.e. one) entirely valid point:

that it's understandable that many Iraqis have feeling of animosity towards those who collaborate

Of course, many of those doing the killing are not Iraqis but are foreign jihadis - Jordanians, Chechens, Iranians etc, and the use of the word "collaborate" betrays his commitment that the terrorists are in the moral right, but it is actually a point. What he then completely misses is that that is the exact reason why the British and American governments have the same responsibility as the Danes showed to do something to protect those who have undertaken such an unpopular and dangerous job on their behalf. And that, whether you voted for them (and I, not surprising didn't - although I will readily admit that the Tories voted for the Iraq invasion as well) or not, in a representative democracy, is "our behalf".

Which is the entire point behind Dan's campaign, the letter writing and the petition. Clark, you are a pathetic mong.

S-E

PS. As this post is also about defence ...