Now, now, Owen. Breathe. Before you fling the label “disinformation peddler” around like it’s confetti at one of your student union rallies, how about - just once - you actually refute the information instead of writing a lazy, dismissive sentence and pretending you’ve scored a point? Let’s talk qualifications, shall we? See, unlike you, I’ve had real jobs - plural. Jobs with stakes. In intelligence, in security, in global finance. For nine years, I headed the Financial Intelligence Unit of a global bank. That’s right: I dealt with threats that actually mattered, not imaginary ones drawn on the back of a Guardian opinion page. You? You’ve spent your adult life in a journalistic safe space echo chamber, armed with an MA in U.S. history, a region you don’t even write about. And let’s be honest: if history and geography were boxing gloves, you’d still manage to punch yourself in the face. You’ve never held elected office. You’ve never worked in banking, finance, diplomacy, security, or anything remotely requiring accountability or expertise. You don’t speak a word of Arabic. You can’t name three Yemeni tribes, let alone explain the tribal dynamics behind a conflict you comment on with stunning confidence and stunning ignorance. You opposed the Saudi-led war in Yemen, a war that, in retrospect, was a strategic necessity against Iranian expansionism and a Houthi militia now proven to be a regional and a global threat. But of course, nuance isn’t your strong suit. You framed it as a “crime against humanity” while totally ignoring the actual crimes by the Houthis, according to the majority of Yemenis and Arab states. And then there’s your economic wisdom. You once called for the nationalization of all banks. All of them. As if Monopoly money and Marxist pamphlets are interchangeable. You’re a walking manifesto for why no one should let infantile socialists anywhere near macroeconomics. Let me make one thing clear, Owen: I don’t do disinformation. I can’t. Because unlike you, I answer to people who don’t tolerate fantasy. Global funds, sovereign wealth funds, global banks, commodity traders, airlines, energy companies and heck, even governments - they don’t pay me for ideology. They pay me for cold, hard, verified intelligence and solid forecasts. And if I were wrong - consistently wrong, like you? I’d be out of business in a heartbeat. These people are not kind when it comes to failure. To give them wrong forecast is to cost them money, so I must seek - and tell - only the cold hard truths, and their implications. This isn’t The Guardian; there’s no editor to hide behind, no trendy moral outrage to mask incompetence. You survive on emotionalism and mob applause. I survive on precision. On getting it right. So no, Owen, don’t project your failures onto me. Don’t confuse your echo chamber for authority. You’re a one-note, one-language, one-track ideologue who’s never held a real job, never risked a real decision, and never had to face the consequences of being catastrophically wrong. You deal in slogans. I deal in facts. You write for applause. I deliver for clients. You thrive on fiction. I don’t have that luxury. So next time you feel tempted to call someone a “disinformation peddler,” look in the mirror, and have a long, honest chat with the reflection of a man who’s done precisely nothing with his life but shout from the sidelines.