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War on Terrorism (Politics)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Agencies wrote:
In the largest Russian drone attack on Kyiv so far, the Ukrainians shot down fifty-eight out of fifty-nine drones. One person was reported killed.

Mick wrote:
The Russian authorities have reached that familiar stage in a failing war, "Something must be seen to be done even though there is nothing to be done."

The question is why are the Ukrainian (Turkish) drones being so effective and the Russians (Iranian) drones being so ineffective, if.. (IF) the reports are true. Ukraine is the second biggest country in Europe, so they cannot create a defensive shield that will always work. Almost certainly these Russian attacks have become predictable, for this sort of defensive success rate. The Russians are not launching swarming agile drone attacks?
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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In general, if Russian actions have been motivated by a fear of NATO over the years, which is the position of many in the West, then we can now expect to see a massive improvement in the performance of the Russian army as the Ukrainians attack. This will be what they have been planning and practising at for many years, a tough defensive war against a well armed strong enemy, rather than a military occupation of a neighbour. They look to have dug in their Siegfried Line over the winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Line
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Mick Harper
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Let's check what happened last time. The Russians spent the whole of the 1920's preparing for war with Germany. Literally with Germany, who could only do it in secret in the interior of Russia, their fellow-Versailles sufferers. The Russians spent the whole of the 1930's preparing for war against Germany (now under Hitler). When preparation came to performance, Russia collapsed, millions of square miles and millions of front-line soldiers were lost.

They look to have dug in their Siegfried Line over the winter

Stalin dug in their Siegfried Line over the winter of 1940-1 in the wrong place (the border with Nazi Poland) instead of the one they built in the right place (the border of Polish Poland). How President Putin must wish he too could build a line west of Lvov. Funnily enough, that was his exact war aim when he launched the special military operation.
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Mick Harper
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You will recall the emaciated figure in the Bosnian Serb concentration camp that went round the world. We had a discussion here about it, whether it was fake or not. I pointed out he was the only skeletal figure on view, everyone else seemed quite healthy. He was the subject of a segment of The History Hour on the BBC World Service today. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p016tmg1/episodes/player first ten minutes. Turns out I was slightly right and wholly wrong.

He had been living in a Muslim village in a Serb area of Bosnia and (so) was rounded up and taken to a PoW camp, if that's the right name, and subjected to the usual grotesque (and, it would seem, pointless) ill-treatment that Serbs seem to quite relish. After some weeks, the Red Cross were due to visit the camp so the worst cases, including him, were whisked away and spread among other camps where, the Serbs hoped, they wouldn't be noticed.

As we know, he was. That was not the end, it was the beginning...
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Mick Harper
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The Serb guards were taking reprisals against anyone who had talked to the journalists -- 'they killed seven or eight of them' -- so Fikret was spirited away out of sight. Some time later a prisoner swap of women and children was dispatched from the camp and he 'dressed as a woman' and was put on the bus. This sounds implausible but actually he was an extremely pretty boy in an emaciated model sort of way. Bit tall though.

The bus was stopped by Serbs on the way to Muslim Bosnia and the better looking women were selected to be raped (and subsequently never to be heard of again). According to Fikret, he was selected but so smelling of diarrhea he was sent back to the bus. Before reaching the potentially dangerous exchange point, he made his escape, walked through the night, reached a hospital and went into a coma for five days. It was only then he discovered he was a world celebrity, which also meant he got sent to Croatian hospital facilities and made a full recovery.

How much of it is true? The fact that a film wasn't made of his life story suggests 'not entirely' but I leave you with it.
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Mick Harper
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My jaw dropped when an-ex Foreign Minister of Russia popped up on Newsnight to discuss the Ukrainian missile attack on Moscow. It may have been a false flag operation, he speculated, 'like the Nazis burning the Reichstag in 1933.' What do they teach them in Russia? Nobody has believed this since... about 1933.
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Mick Harper
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Logic is not taught in Russian schools either. They all seem to believe things that nobody else can. A few recent examples:

* Raining thousands of missiles on Ukrainian cities is a legitimate act of war, raining half a dozen missiles on one Russian city is an act of terrorism.
* Invading and part-occupying an entire country is a legitimate act of war, mounting a brief incursion into a tiny corner of a country is an act of terrorism.
* Supplying arms to Russia is legitimate, supplying arms to Ukraine is not.
* Stating the blindingly obvious -- "If country A is invaded by country B, country A is entitled to conduct operations in country B" -- makes the person who said it 'a legitimate military target'.

But tell whoever it was they don't have to worry. According to a Russian MP interpreting these words for us on Channel 4 News, "It won't involve nuclear weapons or anything like that."
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Mick Harper
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What rubbish is being talked about the ICC and specifically that Putin should be arrested the minute he sets foot in South Africa (who have signed up to the ICC) for the BRICS meeting.. There are two principles at play here, both of which everybody has signed up to in principle, but which happen to be occasionally incompatible

1. the condign treatment that should be meted out to war criminals
2. facilitating the conduct of international relations

It may have escaped the world's attention but people can be both war criminals and statesmen. If they are to be arrested on sight they'll just stay at home. Now that may be no bad thing in the case of BRICS but, in general, international relations will go with more of a swing if everybody can attend the junkets without fear or favour. Though I would recommend people with a warrant out against them should invest in a couple of long-haul planes. Refueling on the way might present difficulties for various parties.

It is perhaps fortunate that the USA, where the UN does most of its partyings, has not signed up to the ICC.
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Grant



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The South Africans are so pleased to be part of BRICS they aren't going to do anything silly.
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Mick Harper
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That is absolutely right, it is the ANC's only achievement in thirty years of government. The idea of what is supposed to be an economic grouping including four biggies and one failing midget shows its true purpose as an anti-western political roadshow. (And quite welcome for that, it's high time the dozy mares of G7 had some competition.)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
(And quite welcome for that, it's high time the dozy mares of G7 had some competition.)


Don't you mean G8?

Oh hang on, you are right, Russia left the G8 after annexing Crimea. Apparently incompatible with the G8 membership card, which states that you have to have a large economy with democratic values. Looks like, for Putin, BRICS is a better fit, hope they have better luck influencing China, roughly ten times their size in terms of GDP, than we or any of the others have of toddling along and influencing United States at G7 meetings.....

Wiley remembers the one where we isolated Trump on climate change by threatening to call it the G 6+1. You could tell Trump was in trouble when he resorted to crude abuse and then grabbed Trudeau and hurled him across the room.

After frantic negotiations we decided it was after all a partnership of equals, and renamed it the G7.

A diplomatic triumph.
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Mick Harper
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It's obviously all part of the belt-and-braces initiative. Should be called China+4. However, it provides cover for the China/Russia axis while the Ukraine War should be ruling that out. Ditto South Africa/Russia. It will be one of the few intranational tie-ups in which two out of its five members are at war with one another (China and India on the Himalayan border).

Brazil is the interesting one. Is it going to do a Turkey and switch camps or is this just a bit of Lulu high jinks after he welcomed Nicholas Maduro on both cheeks? Actually that's a bit worrying because it looks like Brazil is in for another round of Right to Left to Military Coup.
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Wile E. Coyote


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I can't see real military advantage for either side in taking out the Nova Kakhovka dam at this time.

It might have slowed any Ukrainian counter offensive, a sort of scorched earth/flooded ground retreat policy, but only if the Russians hadn't taken out their front line of constructed Crimea defences in the process. I can't see the Rusians opting for a planned retreat out of Crimea. As for the Ukrainians it will initially slow their advance in this area, but ultimately it is one less set of fortifications to cross.

I can't see this fits with the objectives of either side, ie securing the Crimea/ securing the water supply to the Crimea, Kherson.

It's a military action, bit like blowng a bridge, so normally to secure a retreat, but Russia isn't retreating.

File under: both sides will blame other.
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Mick Harper
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Only the Russians benefit so it was definitely them. It is though a drastic act -- even if only in terms of world PR -- so it can only mean that the Russian intend to pull out of the land corridor with Crimea, withdraw to the Crimea and to the original casus belli, the Donbas basin. They presumably believe they can hold these two reduced fronts long enough for the west to get fed up and force Ukraine to the negotiation table, where a face-saving formula will be hammered out:

1. The Donbas remains part of Ukraine but has autonomy guaranteed by a third party
2. Crimea remains part of the Ukraine but Russia is awarded a fifty-year lease to use it as a military base
3. Ukraine supplies Crimea with water, Russia supplies Ukraine with oil, hence guaranteeing both
4. Putin can claim Russia's got what it wanted, international recognition in Crimea and 'freedom' for the Donbas
5. The Ukrainian dander is sufficiently up to reject these terms de jure but (just about) sensible enough to accept them de facto.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Can't see it, if a major aim of the SMO was to bring water to the Crimea, then this would signal the loss of one big thing they had actually achieved.

Mind you, you could be right. If so, Wile E Crimean Ruskii is now going to be jumping in his Lada and heading back over the Kerch bridge to ensure his own personal supply lines.

The way he sees it is:

If Putin places such a low value on now supplying the Crimea, what happens if Vlad at some point gets it into his small bald head that he is losing the battle for Crimea, so needs to blow up the bridge to slow the barbarian advance towards the actual Gates of the Motherland? That would leave poor Wiley trapped.

I am not a coward. It is just that "Heroism" is not a noble characteristic. It is a sacrifice required to desperately try and put right someone important's cock up so it doesn't become an even bigger cock up. It's always against massive odds, so inevitably ends in failiure.

I just don't think I am cut out for it.....
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