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Although this blog's name is inspired by Sauti Kubwa ("Big Voice"), the late lead singer of Rumba Japan, a band that played in Nairobi in the early years of this century, it won't focus unduly on Swahili nicknames, rumba music or indeed any other African issues.

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Sunday 14 November 2010

Britain's top soldier says al-Qaeda cannot be beaten...

... is the headline of the lead story story in today's Sunday Telegraph.

The paper quotes General Sir David Richards as saying that defeating Islamist militancy was "unnecessary and would never be achieved".

There doesn't seem to be any question of General Richards having been misquoted by the paper. On the Andrew Marr Show this morning, he said the same thing about defeating the Taliban or al-Qaeda militarily: "You can't. We've all said this. David Petraeus has said it, I've said it."


Is he right? Who knows? But I bet his predecessor in, say, 1985, would have said much the same thing about Soviet communism.

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