In my latest National Post column I say it's time to leave Afghanistan and keep our powder dry and our morale up for the next challenge.

In my latest National Post column I call the willingness even of a sizeable minority of Britons to vote for a Labour Party headed by the appalling Jeremy Corbyn a worrying sign of loss of the self-control on which self-government depends throughout the Western world.

In my latest National Post column I say the bombing of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester should remind everyone, including progressives, that Islamist fanatics do not hate our open society for being repressive or for defending itself. They hate it because it is tolerant. They hate our permissiveness. They hate us for who we are not what we do. And there is nothing we can do to appease them that would not be a fundamental betrayal of ourselves and our ideals.

In my latest National Post column I argue that while history doesn't repeat, its lessons do... especially for those not paying attention. (Due to an editing mishap, at the end of the 3rd paragraph, between the sentence ending "great and small." and the one beginning "Regrettably, as with...", the sentence "But I am sure we’re not going to fight World War One again." was omitted.)

So there's this story out of France where the "top court", the Council of State, has suspended various bans on the burkini, an arguably excessively modest form of swimwear popular among some Muslims. In a characteristic leading paragraph, NBC said "France's top court on Friday suspended a controversial ban on full-body burkini swimsuits that has sparked heated debate both inside the country and abroad." And I wonder: Why so much attention to this one? Now I could write at some length about the way "controversial" is used in the press to mean "thing you should disapprove of". Or the logic of the ban itself. Or the extraordinary French way of doing things, including that freedom of association is a largely foreign concept as opposed, in the English-speaking world, to a core right that is fast disappearing. (To give another remarkable example, this "top court" of which stories speak, the Conseil d'État, is at once the supreme court for administrative law, that is, for settling disputes about the behaviour of executive agencies, and the legal advisor to the executive branch. In the Anglosphere such an arrangement would be an unthinkable conflict of interest; in France it is seen as commendably efficient in empowering the state to run people's lives for them.) But for now I want to ask a different question.

Why all this hoo-hah about the French ban, and not a peep about the legal and social restrictions on "immodest" swimwear and indeed clothing generally in much of the Muslim world, including extralegal violence to enforce it? Why are so many people calling the French intolerant on this issue and saying nothing about what goes on elsewhere? Where's the "heated debate" on bans on infidel attire?

To ask this question is not to suggest that the French ban should not be debated, or that there are not reasonable arguments on both sides. Quite the reverse. And for what it's worth, as I've written elsewhere, I favour considerable freedom of dress provided it isn't obscene or likely to cause justified public alarm. But I also favour, and indeed regard as inseparable from the former, freedom of association; if I do not like how you are dressed I should be free to shun you personally and, yes, professionally. Especially if you cover your face on the grounds that if I see you, one or both of us will be soiled, which I find deeply offensive. But again, that's not really the point here.

The point is that we seem to be holding France and the French to a much higher standard than, say, Jordan and Jordanians, let alone Iran and Iranians. For instance, a recent Daily Telegraph Travel/Advice piece said that in Jordan generally, "Women should wear loose fitting clothes, covering the arms, legs and chest area, while T-shirts are best avoided for both sexes. Women’s hair should be dry, as wet hair is said to suggest sexual availability..." What? Are you kidding me?

Obviously I would not want to be judged by that standard. I think we can do better. And the French, for all their foibles and fondness for state direction, generally do better. But for the sake of perspective about such things I also think we should be clear, in going after the French for responding to the menace of radical Islam in their own characteristic way and sometimes getting it wrong, that we are holding them to a higher standard. We might even want to fumble toward an explanation of why.

See, they're a Western country. And while it's politically correct to despise Western arrogance, cultural imperialism and so forth, just about everybody knows deep down that... that... that public policy in Western countries is broadly rational and tolerant whereas elsewhere it too often isn't.

If that's a "controversial" thing to say, well, I said it anyway.

In my latest National Post column I express total exasperation with the sort of political correctness surrounding terrorism and crime that’s driving otherwise reasonable people to back Donald Trump.

The Washington Post reports from Dhaka, Bangladesh that “Twenty foreigners were killed by six heavily-armed militants at an upscale restaurant in the diplomatic quarter of Dhaka early Saturday after an hours-long siege was ended by Bangladeshi forces. Sharp weapons were used to kill the victims, with local media reporting that some were beheaded. Thirteen other foreign captives were rescued by paramilitary forces who killed all the attackers, Brigadier General Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury told reporters. Some police officers were also killed…. Gunfire was heard as troops moved to end the standoff more than 10 hours after the attack began…. At least four security personnel were killed responding to the attack, a senior police official, Assistant Superintendent Fazle-e-Elahi told NBC News…. He described the assailants as "heavily armed and equipped" and "tactically sound." "The attackers are not identified. They were shouting 'Allah Akbar' when they entered the restaurant," Fazle-e-Elahi said.” So once again all the usual elements are present, from Islamist anti-Western motivation to the ability to acquire weapons regardless of legal restrictions (in Bangladesh legal firearms are scarce and tightly regulated; for instance no one under 30 may possess a rifle or handgun) to the helplessness of the victims until good guys with guns do arrive… hours after the ordeal begins and too late for dozens of victims.

The recent terrorist attack in Orlando has prompted some people to call for Americans to surrender their right to bear arms. It’s understandable that they would try to exploit the tragedy. But it is not a rational response. We see that particularly by comparing the Pulse nightclub massacre to the November 15 terrorist attack in Paris, where firearms and explosives were used to kill over 100 people including 89 at the Bataclan theatre. France has strict gun control laws. They didn’t keep the bad guys from getting guns. But they did keep the victims from fighting back. And at the Pulse nightclub, for whatever reason, no patrons seem to have been armed.

Then there’s the June 28 attack at Istanbul airport, using explosives and, again, firearms that Turkish citizens and residents are emphatically not allowed to own. And a correspondent has also noted that the murder, apparently an act of insanity rather than terrorism, of British MP Jo Cox, involved a firearm in a nation that in recent years has brought in very strict gun control.

Cox was shot using a weapon that was by various reports either an antique or improvised. But she was also stabbed. And the knife wounds alone would very probably have proved fatal; London has seen a gruesome jihadi killing using a car, knives and a cleaver. In any case there are also millions of illegal guns in Britain readily available to criminals and maniacs. But no law-abiding citizen present when she was attacked was armed and able to shoot the attacker before he could stab Cox repeatedly and fatally.

The notion that stricter gun control will prevent or reduce terrorist incidents, or acts of insane murder, simply doesn’t fit the facts. Terrorists can use explosives, as in the 7/7 attacks in London. And both they and thugs can easily get firearms even when ordinary citizens cannot, because of the by now familiar point, at least it should be familiar, that criminals don’t obey the law.

When trying to explain similar events, it is important to focus on the elements they have in common especially if we are the sort who boasts of “evidence-based decision-making”. And what we find in these attacks is jihadist motivations and the ability of bad guys to get weapons including firearms regardless of local laws. Yet people were also quick to attribute the Pulse nightclub shooting to Western homophobia, very curious given that the assailants were adherents of an austere, nihilistic and ferociously anti-Western brand of Islam. Oddly, there was little attempt to link the Bataclan attack to dislike of cosmopolitan or hedonistic lifestyles, even though that was an important aspect of the Paris terrorists’ choice of target. And it’s hard to see how homophobia could have motivated the Istanbul attack.

To exploit such incidents to push arguments against gun control or social conservatism is understandable, even predictable. But it’s not rational. And it’s not very nice either.