Turkey has long been an Islamic country, but now, with the failed coup, the terror is loosed and Erdogan will take the country further down the road to radicalization. The situation in the Middle East is changed, and we do not yet know to what degree. Will Turkey align itself with Iran? It is time to lay in your stock of prewar whisky. Bushmill’s is my drink of choice. On the rocks, with doritos and sharp cheese, late at night, an entertaining book on paleontology or the Crimean war to hand, the clock pushing two a.m. It is in these early hours of the dark that the furies appear, with their lurid tales of the horrors soon to come. It is then I believe the world is moving irreversibly toward ultimate chaos, despair and the death of nations, all of which could have been avoided had we only had the spine to stop the maniacs in their tracks when we had the chance. But we didn’t, despite their constant insistence that as soon as they had atomic weapons they would use them on us, which we have chosen not to believe. There may still be time, but that time is growing very short, which is why I have laid in my stock of prewar whisky.
The North Koreans test their missiles smug and unconstrained
With toothy smiles and goofy grins they tell us they are trained
On California while they work on missiles longer ranged
And in the White House all is calm, for nothing has been changed
In Teheran the mullahs sleep the sleep of honest men
They tell us they will kill us and they even tell us when
The White House says there’s naught to fear, it’s all a great big bluff
Designed to force the West to give them their share of the stuff
That we the West have stolen from the outer world so long
And missiles and atomic bombs are meant to redress wrong
The Turks have said democracy is not their chosen choice
That they prefer the word of Allah to a Western voice
And Erdogan sets out a radical Islamic State
And dreams of Ottomanic glory and the Caliphate
Meanwhile Islam kills at an even more alarming pace
The EU says that terrorism must assume its place
As part and parcel of the way we now must live our lives
That Allah and the Koran are how modern life derives
Its culture and its institutions and its death to Jews
And that is why I’m stocking up on Irish prewar booze