Is it really Jeff Bezos’s fault that Axel Rudakubana did what he did? The teenager was stopped on multiple occasions with a knife, including one he bought on Amazon, prompting a fresh round of silly headlines about new controls on knife sales. These have been widely denounced as deflection, and there is indeed something about the Rudakubana story that feels off. In particular, Keir Starmer’s insistence on the suspect’s lone-wolf status and pivot to “knife control” is driving a proliferation of conspiratorial thinking. But is there really a sinister cover-up?
Watching the pandemonium over recent days, I recalled the book I was reading as Britain erupted in riots following the Southport murders last July. Written by Australian ex-soldier and military consultant David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes explores the tactics used by anti-Western states such as Russia, and para-states such as Isis and Hezbollah, since the end of the Cold War. Kilcullen argues that the West grew complacent after defeating the large, slow-moving “dragon” of the Soviet Union. It was therefore slow to notice its replacement by a swarm of nimbler, smaller enemy “snakes”.
These, he argues, have kept up pressure on the West, usually by operating just below a level of hostility that would become legible in Western terms as “war”. Kilcullen characterises the core strategy as “liminal warfare”: a bundle of hybrid or “grey zone” tactics that ride on the edge of detectable, attributable hostility. Liminal warfare seeks to exploit the gap between realising an attack is planned, and being able either to take action or prove who is to blame for it. An attack may appear as a “lone wolf” act of terrorism, information warfare, or perhaps DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) assaults on IT systems or other infrastructure sabotage. By the time anyone figures out who is to blame, the actors themselves have moved on, leaving chaos in their wake.
One of the methods employed by the “snakes” to conduct “liminal warfare”, Kilcullen argues, is the strategic encouragement of attacks by individuals or groups living in the West but subject to “remote radicalisation” via the internet. Such individuals may have no formal chain-of-command links to anti-Western “snakes”. But they may still be mobilised, via hard-to-trace digital communications to embark on spontaneous-looking “lone wolf” attacks — including, Kilcullen suggests, as a means of diverting domestic Western media and official attention from more conventional action in military theatres overseas.
It is of course possible that we can take everything Starmer says at face value. It’s possible Rudakubana really was just a lonely, disturbed young man who spent too much time online, and that the only sensible response is more internet censorship and tightening the controls on knife shopping. But just days after the Southport atrocity, Taylor Swift cancelled three Vienna concert dates because international security services identified a credible plot to attack the event. The target was, once again, associated with arguably the contemporary West’s most famous pop-culture export.
In the Vienna plot, the suspects were — like Rudakubana — teenagers and Western citizens. They appear to have experienced some form of remote radicalisation and to have “sworn allegiance” to Islamic State. Similarly, while Rudakubana’s trial is ongoing, he is known to have possessed an IS manual, to have manufactured ricin, and to have pled guilty on all the charges brought, including under the Terrorism Act. It is possible that he too has experienced some kind of “remote radicalisation”.
Let’s imagine, for a moment, that these incidents were linked, via the Kilcullen “liminal warfare” template. Let’s suppose there really are enemies of the West encouraging remote-radicalised sympathisers embedded in British society to create diversionary chaos in the interests of wider paramilitary goals. In that context, if I were a member of the British intelligence services, I doubt I’d be talking frankly to the general public about any of this, no matter how loud and angry the calls for transparency. And it could well be this need for intelligence discretion, rather than any conspiratorial stuff about Rudakubana’s parents, that accounts for the feel of censorship that has smothered the Southport atrocity since it happened.
But even if there is no Starmer-specific cover-up, the “snakes” explanation still raises unpalatable questions. How should ordinary British folk respond to the prospect that practitioners of “liminal warfare” are working to weaponise Muslim-sympathising Western minorities against the rest of us? For authorities who regard their central duty as the management of “multiculturalism”, public discussion of such hypotheticals can lead nowhere good. With this in mind, we can probably expect the diversionary headlines about Jeff Bezos to continue for the foreseeable future.
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SubscribeI don’t believe it at the moment. Given that innocent girls enjoying themselves have always been a prime target for Islams moral policing it’s too close for me to believe this narrative. I reckon some sort of deal was done with this bloodthirsty scumbag for a guilty plea to avoid details becoming public or else stunt the lifespan of the story.
In Germany yesterday, a 2 year European was stabbed to death by a non-European in a park, coming just weeks after a non-European drove a car into a crowd of Europeans at a Christmas event. In the UK – Southport, Rape Gangs, Nottingham, and the countless other atrocities that don’t make national news – such as the 2 women ‘randomly’ stabbed to death by a non-European while relaxing on a beach.
All over Europe, the pattern is always the same – rapes, robberies, murder, terrorism, race hate. Non Europeans attacking Europeans on an industrial scale.
The problem is clear, so why are people blaming Russia and China? Are Russia and china behind the colonisation of Europe? Is that what’s being suggested here?
Seemingly, we are not allowed to acknowledge the 5,000 tonne gorilla in the room.
Seen one? Describe, please.
That’s easy.
The offender is black and went looking for white children to kill because they were white and that is all you need to know.
All the coverage about knives is pure deflection for the congenitally stupid and the lackies in MSM jumped straight on board like their news coverage had been dictated to them.
Reminds me how the series of unprovoked, horrible assaults against Asians in the US was because of the far right, Republicans, hatred spread by Trump…even though the perpetrators invariably were the racial group that voted 90% democrat.
No, no, no. The knife was bought on Amazon. Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos was at Trump’s inauguration. So Trump is the guilty man. The great James O’Brien has explained this at great length. Pay attention!
The fact that a retard like O’Brien is given a platform is proof that there must be a conspiracy. What more do you need?
No, no, no. It wos the knife wot did it m’lud.
Nobody is saying that Russia and China are behind every bad thing that happens in the world, but they are behind at least some of the bad things that happen in the world.
As are we.
Not to downplay these events but you seem to imply these things never happen amongst the indigenous population.
Worth reading the Jay Report. Child Abuse much wider and prevalent than just the Grooming Gangs. And did you see the News item on the Crossbow murder earlier this week killing 3 because the fella was jilted? There is in fact much more Male on Female physical abuse, terrorising, including sometimes murder, than any equivalent racially driven. It sometimes so ubiquitous it’s overlooked. Were it one racial group on another be a completely different story wouldn’t it. Yet rarely do angry on-line men get worked up about it. Strange that.
The Author needs the paycheck so keen on writing for the base.
This is an honest question, do you really think you have told me or anyone else on here something they don’t already know?
Do you really, really, really think I – or anyone else on here – actually believes that native europeans don’t commit crimes??
What is it you are trying to imply really? What are you worried about really? These ridiculous ‘4d’ chess moves?
Whataboutery.
“The Author needs the paycheck so keen on writing for the base”. Eye roll
Yes, eye roll, but also, don’t forget these people are mentally ill, truly sick.
Is a zombie to blame for being a zombie? No, but they are still a zombie. So sympathy for them, the benefit of the doubt for them, is suicide. They are evil.
Obviously the greatest victims of crime, especially serious violent crime, are young men (also the greatest perpetrators). Killings of young men just aren’t very newsworthy.
“Not to downplay these events” that’s exactly what you are doing.
That imbecile James O’Brien on LBC was more concerned about the state of mind of the murderer’s father than those of the families whose children were slain.
What is it with Left and its obsession with the failed ideology of multiculturism. Every conceivable fallacy must be deployed to defend it.
And are those crimes by the indigenous population repeatedly ignored by police and local authorities for fear of being called racist? As has been documented repeatedly in the case of the grooming gangs scandal.
Not to downplay these events
Isn’t that exactly what you went on to do?
Btw, time to STFU about the Jay report – or else explain why, if the matter is closed, not one of the public employees implicated in the abuse has been held to account.
A little unfair to label all non-Europeans in this way when we’re not talking about the Japanese, Chinese, Hindus or all but one of the myriad non-European cultures.
I’ve assumed that he is being deliberately vague with his description in order to avoid censorship or -phobia accusations.
Fair enough – but sooner or later someone has to point at the elephant in the room.
The diversionary headline which you have so cleverly repeated and propagated here.
Those evil knives again… I might throw all my kitchen knives out, in case a murderer or an Islamic extremist gets a hold of them
That’s the thing, isn’t it. In my kitchen, I have a number of knives, including quite a large one, which (if used for offensive purposes) would probably inflict death or serious injury. However, it is a kitchen knife, and I imagine most houses would contain something broadly similar.
Obviously focusing on the availability of knives, in the same way that you would with guns, is an absurdity.
Oh, I have guns too, but I acknowledge they are slightly different.
Yeah, guns are much better for self-defense.
‘Similarly, while Rudakubana’s trial is ongoing, he is known to have possessed an IS manual, to have manufactured ricin, and to have pled guilty on all the charges brought, including under the Terrorism Act.’
So definitely not a terrorist, while one arm gesture sees Elon Musk join the Far Right….
The non-European was motivated by genocidal race hate. A journalist called Charlie Bentley-Astor has done some digging into the material ( find her on X ) He was obsessed with genocide and white people. Also, early on, papers reported he was heard saying ‘Britain needs a genocide’. He also explicitly called for ‘white genocide’.
It’s a blatant case of racist terrorism, motivated by genocidal intent. It has nothing to do with Isis.
Reactive racism knows no bounds. This sorry sick lad didn’t invent ot initiate that but his actions magnify and multiply it as we see now.
Didn’t initiate his desire to genocide white people?
No, the irony is that it was mostly invented and initiated by middle class whites.
It’s a huge shame that these genocidal acts are perpetrated on the children of innocent white people and not the children of the (mostly) white academics who created the rationale for it.
I realise that Starmer is desperate to clamp down on the internet in order to stamp out “misinformation” and “disinformation” but frankly, to me it appears that amongst the worst sources of such are our government, its institutions and mainstream media.
The public have been gaslit for so many years they think they can go on doing it, despite the fact that they over stepped the mark with their great jack booted feet and many are no longer swallowing it.
We are aware that there is a growing number of people living amongst us who actively hate our culture and way of life. The evidence is there before us and it can no longer be denied.
It is not only online, radicalisation is also taking place at local levels. Until that is acknowledged and somehow dealt with we are sunk. The continuation of blinkered appeasement and deflection has failed far too many innocent people.
Unherd playing its subscribers.
I’m still waiting for any criticism of Starmer.
Does he own Unherd?
We all know the answer to that. What we don’t know is what sort of action you think would be preferable to Starmer’s on this or any other matter.
So Mary Harrington thinks that the best response – assuming there is this “liminal warfare” going on – is to let the security services get on with it and not expose this to the public. She never actually says why though.
How are we supposed to confront such a threat if we don’t know it exists ? Why would you not trust the public here ? And most importantly, how’s this policy working out for you right now Mary ? I’ve always felt that the best policy is when you see malicious behaviour, you publically expose that for what it is immediately and don’t duck the issue.
This feels like more of the same, “trust us, we [government/agencies] are the experts … this is too dangerous/difficult to let ordinary people deal with”. Even if I did trust these people, I’d still disagree with that approach. As it is, they’ve squandered any trust I may have had. In a democracy, you eventually have to trust the people.
Mary thinks she, and those she schills for, are “clever”, and of course the proles are not.
When is a right wing contributor going to appear and challenge the Starmer narrative?
Superfluous: we’ve already got you !
I don’t think so. Every day that goes by it becomes clearer Unherd is a Starmer puppet-paper.
Unherd’s name and mission statement and advertising is all a lie.
Starmer IS giving the right wing narrative.
The conclusion I am coming to about all of this (meaning the general modern threat of below-the-radar lone wolves, self-radicalising in their own bedrooms) is that our politicians should avoid both diversionary tactics like going after Amazon or being fully open with us as to the intelligence they have. We’ve never known everything going behind the scenes – nor should we.
I think the best thing would be, at the risk of raising the fear level among the populace, to tell us straight out that this is a risk we just have to live with now. And that the authorities will continue to do their best to prevent incidents from happening, admitting mistakes and failings where necessary. For our part, we have to understand that it is impossible for the state to catch all of these lone wolves in time and calculate in this additional (statistically low) risk to our lives.
I think this would strike a good balance between treating people like adults and being transparent and trustworthy without undermining your own intelligence advantage.
Telling us that “this is a risk we just have to live with” whilst doing *zero* about illegal & legal mass immigration – and whilst allowing e.g. hateful preaching in mosques, months of disturbing protests in central London, rape gang perpetrators allowed to stay in this country etc. – isn’t going to go down well.
They have to address the immigration issue. And they have to seriously clamp down on all hateful, anti-British sentiment & crime.
The days of talking about “isolated incidents” are over. Though no doubt they’ll go on using that line into eternity.
What about the homegrown terrorists? Plenty of them. Focusing on immigration and integration is just one part of this issue.
You can’t have one without the other andthat in essence is the failure of multiculturalism and why people are angry. This kind of violence will be normalised because who is going to own up to the failure of mass immigration?
Katherine thinks that distraction by means of the alleged existance of the eeevil white terror justifies ignoring the actual terror.
This is the most British thing I think I’ve ever heard. “Just keep calm and carry on. Accept that random stabbings are part of life now and be a good subject and don’t make a fuss about it ”
Seriously the whole reason for a state in the first place is to protect the life, liberty and property of a people, if it fails to do that it has no right to exist and no obligation to be obeyed. To say one should just accept the stabbings and terrorist related acts, which all happen to be originating from individuals with a certain world view and ideology is reprehensible.
Because here’s the problem if the state won’t do something about it then individuals will start to step in and protect themselves and their families, and then the violence will only escalate.
Loads of people in the UK and indeed throughout the West (including me) have stopped recognising the right of the state to exist or an obligation to obey it. That said, habits of law and order, honesty, good manners etc. are pretty deeply ingrained (as are opposite habits).
Or does Starmer own the contributors? Perhaps they get a fee and Starmer doubles it if they stay on-message?
That’s it. Typical Leftist infiltration. I’ve only been a subscriber a few months. Does anyone remember when there were some right wing contributors?
Like Mary Harrington? Nice to see her rowing Starmer’s boat for a change.
You seem somewhat unhinged.
No, his family was complicit in rearing such a child and the British state was then complicit in granting asylum to a family involved in the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s.
Other state agencies were guilty of non-intervention for fear of being accused of racial profiling.
Unlike you.
The family must have been traumatised by the Rwanda genocide. This must have passed on to the child.
In the spirit of attempting to understand what happened, not excuse it.
Or, more likely, involved in it. Axel was born in the UK, he had no direct experience of Rwanda so to turn into a teenage killer, living somewhere like Banks which is a quiet, nice place, takes a lot of influence, not just searching online. Only two things come to mind; family influence and influences in his previous home in Cardiff.
Isn’t his family Tutsi? Weren’t they the ones who were massacred?
The concentration of stupidity in journalism is growing at an avalanche pace
The only charge Rudakubana faced under the Terrorism Act was for possession of the al-Qaeda manual, which was actually published by the US Air Force as part of an academic military study. It is freely available online, without requiring any contact with jihadists. The only known use Rudakubana put it to was as a recipe book for making ricin, which he cooked-up but never used.
Otherwise there is no evidence in the public domain that he had any engagement with Islam, never mind Islamism.
Why then did he plead guilty to the terrorism charge?
Because ownership of that document is proscribed under counter-terror laws. If you downloaded it then you could be convicted under the same law. So by your own definition you would then be a terrorist. Is this really that difficult to understand?
The offence of possessing material likely to be useful to a terrorist is defined in the Terrorism Act. He was clearly guilty of possessing the al-Qaeda manual – a charge that does not depend on proving any specific intent.
But because the police could not find any ideological or religious motive for the murders, he was not charged with the murders as acts of terrorism.
Ricin, training manuals, spoken and written intent….
Terrorism is not necessarily islamism. Take IRA or late 19th century anarchism as examples. Or whatever this guy were.
And therein lies the rub. Evidence in the public domain…There may be enough evidence they have placed in the public domain to convict him but one wonders if that is the extent of what they have or just the tip of the iceberg above water..
There are a great many supposals here.
They give the Welsh gentleman too much credit for intelligence over cunning.
Mentally ill people sometimes attach themselves to political or religious causes without understanding them. The ‘failure of the state’ that Starmer announces is an opportunity to add yet more restrictions to online platforms.
Redefining mental illness and any violence that flows from it as terrorism hides the failure of mental health services. The parental state becoming a neglectful parent.
I upvoted your comment, as explosions require both an explosive and the flame, and you are right at pointing explosives.
I would however follow up saying that some psychotic individuals should be dealt with, for example by mandatory therapy. It has to be done in the interest of their potential victims, and the therapy must be aimed at making them harmless .
I am pleased that Mr Kilcullen has identified Russia as one of these “snakes”.
Lol.
Stop using these terms – ‘misinformation’, which is really inaccurate falsehoods with no factual basis and ‘disinformation’ which is plain lying. Call them what they are and don’t use the playbook.
I’d rather all the Muslims left. The U.K. would be better.
Sounds like you have become part of the problem. Muslims have nothing to do with this.
Nothing? Are you sure?
Hey, double ungood ideation there!
Welcome to the party, Government is already firmly focusing on ‘terrorism.’ Prevent will now have to address individual risks operating without apparent ideology.
Meanwhile we’re cutting back on SEND education. Radu’s family long struggled with his extreme, often violent autism and could have used better help. And, as events showed, that would have also been in the wider public interest.
We don’t need any new laws, we don’t need tweaks to the Terrorism Act, we don’t need social media censorship. Southport, rape gangs, pop concert bombs: – all could have been prevented had people in positions of authority simply done their jobs.
Bingo. Like blaming the California fires on “climate change”. Like blaming so- called “right wing” parties on “racism”. Blaming this young murderer on knife sales is just failed corrupt governments avoiding accountability for blatant, deliberate betrayal of their basic duties.
“Western citizens” doesn’t mean Western in mindset.
And that can mean more or less anything.
Reactive racism knows no bounds. This sorry sick lad didn’t invent or initiate that but his actions magnify and multiply it as we see now.
“Reactive racism” sounds like a good name for the mental process that enabled unlimited immigration and grooming gangs to prosper.
The guilty are not Russia or China. The guilty are our own rulers who long ago decided to dispense with democratically elected governments of nation states and decided to replace the governments with supranational bodies and the nation states with land masses inhabited by non homogeneous groups of people incapable of resistance.
As for Iran, the Iranian government would be content to kill every Jew in Israel. Allowed to commit that genocide, they would leave us alone.
I personally think we are living within social environmental conditions which is normalising extreme violence from neighbourhood knife gangs, school based killing sprees, acts of extreme violence in the name of Islamic fundamentalism, acts of extreme violence in the name of far right ethnic fundamentalism and of course individualised acts of extreme violence which seek to emulate varying aspects of the above.
When normalised extreme violence intersects with hate arising from low self esteem, bullying, discrimination, extreme isolation, jealousy, envy and a whole host of psychiatric conditions then this conjures up in the imagination wanton acts of extreme violence.
The question then is when will these imagined acts of extreme violence be realised. What is the tipping point between imagining acts of extreme violence and realising them?
Within this social mental landscape which has similarities to Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic resonance
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake
searching on the web to either justify or facilitate imagined acts of extreme violence is probably just part of the process of realising them as the hate triggers compound over time.
This in my mind requires community policing and a wider societal moral framework that facilitates this community policing with the community being able to raise concerns about potentially dangerous individuals. Clearly the idealism of wokeism and the embedded victimology that tends to safeguard perpetrators of extreme violence rather than the victims especially if they are nonWhite is not a sufficient societal moral framework.
In this respect, we probably need a conception of Society positive rights (alongside State positive rights), especially in terms of safety, which builds on the Councillor Ward system so that the realisation of Society positive rights at the community level becomes much more accountable.
I think part of the problem is that existing political systems like Wards and Constituencies are being underutilized because of an increasing sense of disenfranchisement within communities which had been made progressively worse by ideological dogma which turns concerned community spirited citizens into oppressors and racists which has warped our sense of justice, balance and goodness into fears of being smeared racists.
This fear of being smeared as racists and being reported for a hate crime is the perfect window by which imagined acts of extreme violence can become realised acts of extreme violence.
So whilst to some degree I agree there needs to be some level of discretion by intelligence agencies regarding publishing day to day threats in case this leads to a generalised sense of fear, racial profiling and stereotyping there needs to be much more of a role for community level intelligence gathering and reporting even if that upsets local cultural sensitivities.
In other words: Enoch was right!
Enoch was a fool. I was there and remember it well. His folly helped to bring about the opposite of what he wished. Need to learn from that.
“… a fresh round of silly headlines about new controls on knife sales.”
Surely the supreme silliness is that of the British Prime Minister and itsHome Secretary, Yvette Cooper, who intend now legislate for knife sales to check the age of purchasers (how long has knife crime been endemic amongst the ‘global majority’ populace of the UK?) in the aftermath of the Rudakubana guilty plea. As if that is going to make any significant impact on the problem what with the millions upon millions of kitchen knives in every abode in the country.
How about: life imprisonment for wounding or killing with a knife; a minimum at least 15 years for being in unlawful possession of a knife with intent; police Stop & Search of individuals in target groups in which knife crime is endemic, with no two-tier fear and favour identity politics involved … etc.
Oh, yes … and how about building more prisons to take account of the massive increase in the general population of UK, and the criminal population in particular, so that convicted criminals are not released early from prison to make room for new incarcerations? That 40% increase in tax and all the other Starmer stealth increases in government income would be much better directed to that end than the ridiculous Net Zero policy (thanks, Boris! – he of the disastrous Tory Party who introduced this mindless commitment).
I can’t help wondering whether a deeply disturbed child (it seems he had mental health issues from an early age) who was brought up in a family which had gone through the Rwanda Genocide (regardless of which side) had absorbed a hatred of humanity.
His post that white people need a genocide (The Holocaust seemingly not on his African cultural perspective) seems to have been a window into his thoughts.
He will hopefully never leave secure accommodation, and frankly would better of he’d been put down (you don’t cage a dog which will always worry sheep, you put it down) but it’s a huge indicator that it’s not just those who we give asylum from areas of social , religious, and tribal based conflict but the second and third generation who may carry mental issues reinforced by their forebears.
Looking at some of the comments on here I am saddened by the wholesale swallowing of “mental health” and “autism” as explanations or excuses by some people. Like the kid had absolutely no agency or freewill. People with these conditions do not, as a rule, turn into mass murderers. His behaviour in the court today demonstrated without any doubt that he has learned that saying he is ill or upset would deflect consequences for his actions. These are learned behaviours, of a type I see increasingly in young people. He is a manipulator who has figured out how to use the compassion of others as a shield. He is, without doubt, evil. Don’t forget that psychiatrists were unable to find any condition and the defence certainly tried to find one; the barristers involved specialise in this. It is this softly softly, let’s be kind approach which left him free to commit mass murder.
One does not have to be a fan of Amazon or Bezos to find Cover-Up Starmer’s latest excuse for yet more tyranny just another of his seemingly endless excuses.
Thanks to the link to the David Kilcullen book’s review and to the web site, which I added to my list of places to shop for books!
Mean while the Batley teacher is still in hiding
Wolves are social creatures who cooperate.
If these violent young men are loners, why do they need to associate with others?
The Home Secretary warns the tech bosses. To be sure, influence isn’t theoretical. It doesn’t float in the air like a miasma. Influence is embodied in actual lives.