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War on Terrorism (Politics)
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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This proposed prisoner swap of a Russian arms dealer for an American basketball player and a marine has two aspects that weren't mentioned.

1. The Americans are crazy going down this road. They are just inviting the Russians to do the Iranian thing of slinging foreigners in gaol in the hope and expectation of getting something for them.

2. The arms dealer has already served fourteen years of a twenty-five stretch which in most jurisdictions would make him eligible for parole anyway, having served half his sentence. Unless the marine actually is a spy, then it's just a good old-fashioned Checkpoint Charlie op with a basketball dressing.
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Mick Harper
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More amazing terrorist drivel, this time from 'Herr' Zelensky. "The Russians are acting like terrorists over the nuclear plant," he tells the world, who affects to believe him. Luckily the AEL's war correspondent is on the spot to tell him (and you and, it seems, the world) that

1. The nuclear plant was built by the Russians, is in a part of Russian-speaking Ukraine and is likely to remain Russian in the future, whether that future is war or peace. At the very least it is legitimate war booty.
2. Accordingly the Russians want to use 'their' electricity to benefit themselves rather than it go to their enemies, the Ukrainians, as it does at present.
3. This requires a complicated but not technically difficult and perfectly safe procedure involving cutting off some power lines and connecting others.
4. The only small(ish) problem is that the power has to remain on to keep the reactors safe and there is only something like a month's reserve stored power to do it if they are not joined to the general grid.
5. The Ukrainians are (quite legitimately) trying to hold the process up by (maybe not quite so legitimately) shelling bits of the infrastructure, some way away from the nuclear plant itself.
6. Though not so far as to entirely rule out the possibility of ... er... collateral damage.
7. Place the following in order of nuclear terrorism:
Russia. Ukraine.
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Mick Harper
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The assassination of the scrummy Russian TV presenter with the unscrummy father raises some interesting points. The usually reliable Gatehouse on Newsnight pointed out the holes in the Russian story ("It was a Ukrainian Mata Hari who escaped over the Estonian border") though he didn't mention that presumably 'the west' can produce the Mata Hari, and hasn't. The careful ignoral is both significant and sinister.

I find it difficult to believe that this is an official Ukrainian or Russian operation but I find it easy to believe there are plenty of unofficial outfits in both Ukraine and Russia that would. We await the non-revelations.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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If he or she was anyone of importance, then Russia would not admit to it being a successful Ukrainian operation. Part of the problem is that the western news outlets are trying to create a image of Putin as under the influence of a Rasputin type fascist figure. He isn't. Putin has fairly consistently ensured that actual Russian fascists have no foothold in Russia, whilst still pursuing his own imperial ends. Just because some fascists support Russians imperial aims does not mean Putin is a fascist or particularly influenced by them. Just as because Zelensky has fascists fighting for him does not mean he is particularly influenced by Azov fascists either. The whole fascist thing is a bit of a brown herring. Putin tried to use."They are under the sway of Fascists" as a cover for Vladimir expanding his empire.
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Hatty
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According to a Ukrainian minister interviewed on Al-Jazeera, 97% of Ukrainians hadn't heard of either him or her. More likely to have been carried out by Russian dissidents but presumably Putin is unwilling to publicly acknowledge the existence of a Russian dissident organisation.
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Mick Harper
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This is all very well but who the hell did have a motive for killing either her or him? I can't see a rival Russian nationalist outfit doing it. What, he was too liberal? And Russian liberal outfits just aren't in this market. Fruitcake Ukrainians seem fairly plausible. Him/her treading on some oligarchical/secret service/Putinesque toes less plausible. I still want to know why the name of the 'assassin' has not been released. Not even that "we are not releasing her name to protect her privacy/security". As you all know

It's not the crime, it's not the cover-up, it's the careful ignoral
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Mick Harper
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Russian pussy-footing over granting IAEA access to the nuclear reactor is difficult to understand if my thesis is correct. So here's why. If the Russians let neutral observers into such an active war zone, they will have no excuse not to let neutral observers in to inspect the recent PoW killings. And the Russians only know how many other atrocity sites.

It's tough having occasional clean hands.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
This is all very well but who the hell did have a motive for killing either her or him?


There are some Russian oligarchs mysteriously dying as well. But the MO is different, this time. Putin on Monday posthumously granted Dugina the Order of Courage, "for courage and selflessness shown in the performance of professional duty", which I take to mean the Russian line is that she was blown up for being a pro Russian Special Military operation commentator on Russian TV.

So maybe anti-war protestors? They won't all be pacifists and some will have previously served.
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Mick Harper
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No chance. Have you seen an anti-war protestor lately? If she'd been clubbed to death with a pair of sandals, maybe.
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Mick Harper
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A nice piece of careful ignoral here https://brian-kean.medium.com/demanding-return-of-moscow-bombing-suspect-russia-threatens-estonia-f160d8fabb8f about Moscow demanding the return of the car-bomber of the TV anchor from Estonia (where she fled in her mini-Cooper). In a quite detailed account of the ins and outs of the situation, the writer did not actually say whether Estonia knows who she is. As I have been pointing out for several days, nobody else is saying whether they do or they don't either.

Actually that's not strictly true. It's not how careful ignoral works. Nobody is mentioning that nobody is mentioning whether they do or they don't. Apparently everybody's clean forgot the vital element in the story. That's the bit that's got me all intrigued.
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Mick Harper
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I've got to tip my hat to the Mossad and the CIA. According to the highest authorities in Iran they have hundreds of thousands of Iranian agents who have all come out in demonstrations across the land. Don't stop there. Get rid of Ayatollah Truss.
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Mick Harper
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Here We Go Again

Everyone is expecting these Iranian riots to potentially lead to regime change. For why? Because everyone thinks the Iranian regime is so ghastly it is bound to be swept away sooner or later, so why not now?

Everyone except the Iranian people. Yes, the young, the urban, the middle class think the Iranian regime is ghastly (and always have done) but everyone else has been broadly supportive of it. When that changes, riots may lead somewhere. Meanwhile a lot of young, urban, middle class people are in for a very ghastly time.
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Grant



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Except it’s always the young, urban and middle-class people who cause the revolutions. Do you think Danton and Robespierre, Lenin and Trotsky were farmers?
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Mick Harper
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If you read my last two sentences I believe that is what I said.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The explosion at the Kerch Bridge was by any sensible description, terrorist. It was an improvised explosive device, detonated by a suicide bomber driving a truck. But the myth is going to have to be created of brave "Navy Seal" type special forces attaching explosives to the underside of the bridge. Or a targeted military artillery strike. Anything except the IED.
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