War on Terrorism (Politics)

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Wile E. Coyote]

Israel is now recruiting thousands of Indian construction workers, agricultural and care workers. Absolute queues of workers all wanting to go, to take adavantage of the good working conditions and pay in Israel.

[Mick Harper]

A little while ago the story was of Asians (Filipinos?) queueing to get out because of Hamas's reign of terror. It's always best to treat these things as examples of "Hey, I saw a whole bunch of Filipinos at Ben Gurion." "Let's have five hundred words on nurses flee rape terror for the lunchtime edition."

[Mick Harper]

Ever since the start of the Gaza War we have been asked to accept the validity of civilian casualty figures given out by the Hamas health ministry. If they can't tell the difference between people who have been killed by gunshot wounds and people who have died in a street accident I fear these may not be entirely reliable.

On the other hand the completely twatty US Secretary of Defence said 25,000 Gazan women and children have died. This had the White House newscorps perplexed. Up till then the Pentagon had given no estimates of its own, merely saying that Hamas figures were unreliable. Hamas have only claimed 19,500 women and children (out of a total of 30,000) have been killed. A spokesperson later rowed Lloyd "George" Austin's figure back.

[Mick Harper]

I discovered yesterday (rather inexcusably) that Kazakhstan suffered relatively even worse from the Stalin famine of the 1930's than did Ukraine. 1.3. million Kazakhs plus 0.2 million Russians perished. This is kinda important because it shows it was nothing to do with either Ukrainian separatism or destroying the kulaks. Just socialism, I guess.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Denmark and Sweden have both finished their Nordstream investigations as they have concluded that there is nobody available in their respective countries to actually prosecute.

Who would have guessed, the perps having blown up the pipelines, did not then cunningly take the opportunity to sample a new Scandi IKEA inspired lifestyle? They were probably afraid of all the gang bombings in Sweden. Wimps.....

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

A coupla news items yesterday that reminded me about an AE principle that I've been meaning to write about. The two items were an American strike on Houthis and some more Russian sanctions re Navalny. The AE principle hasn't got a name but concerns what you do when there is nothing you can do.

I pointed out at the time that there was nothing to be done about preventing Houthis firing off stuff at shipping in the Red Sea. I further pointed out that going through the motions by bombing Houthis would not only have no effect on the attacks but would result in worse consequences for us. All this came about. I didn't need any special insight, the military planners knew all this well enough. Yet they went ahead and did it anyway.

I can (almost) understand that making futile gestures makes you feel better than not doing anything at all but when they make the situation worse, it should have an AE term attached to it.

PS Russian sanctions actually caused the whole wide world to grind to a halt. I see it's taken two years to get things back to normal. Russia is still powering away (or not, what diff?) Quite why it is thought our business to put sanctions on a country for locking up a dissident may be a sub-variant of the above or something needing another AE label entirely. At the last count a hundred and eighteen countries have locked up a dissident in the last six months that we wouldn't have. Only kidding, it could have been more.

[Mick Harper]

The US Built a ‘Gazan’ Harbour Once Before. It didn’t turn out well.

In June 1944, the Anglo-Americans launched their cross-Channel attack on Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. The chief problem facing the Allies was not the Atlantic Wall, that was manned by Poles and Ukrainians and lasted about half an hour. It was vast mechanised armies needing vast mechanised ports to keep them supplied and there weren’t any where they were going.

So they took their own. Codenamed ‘Mulberries’, these were preconstructed jetties, breakwaters, moles, walkways et al that were floated across the Channel to be bolted together on the French shore. Two armies needed supplying, one American and one British, hence two mulberries, one for each. The trucks of the Red Ball Express would soon be loading up with supplies from their artificial docksides for onward delivery to the armies fighting the good fight. But how soon? To use the term Joe Biden made memorable in his State of the Union speech, ‘within weeks’.

All was going smoothly, and the Mulberries were taking shape before the wide-eyed amazement of the world. Then a great storm hit the Channel and the partly-constructed mulberries were in a world of pain. The Brits — whose pet scheme the hugely expensive mulberries were — bent to the task of returning their crown jewels to full working order.

The Americans — who knew a thing or two by now about British civil engineering timescales — abandoned their mulberry and told the sceptical Brits they would, from now on, be bringing stuff directly over the beaches using roll-on/roll-off ferries. And do you know what? They were right. They were soon having to supply the Brits as well.

We roll the years on to 2024.

President Biden: We’ve gotta get supplies into Gaza. Those kiddies dying of malnutrition in ventilators are killing my poll figures.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Give the word and we’ll start airdrops. The sky’s the limit.
President Biden: That’s no use. How do you film airdrops for the six o’clock news? The networks don’t have enough bodies on the ground.
CoJCoS: Okay, we deliver anything you want over any Gazan beach you want, using standard roll-on/roll-off supply ships. We imbed reporters on the ro-ro’s.
President Biden: No. That bastard Netanyahu would never allow it.
CoJCoS: Announce we’ll build some fancy-dan new port. It won’t be up and running much before November anyway.
President Biden: But it could be sooner?
CoJCoS: I guess.
President Biden: Like weeks rather than months?
CoJCoS: Don’t specify the number of weeks.
President Biden: Roger that.

[Wile E. Coyote]

It's not a logistical problem getting aid into Gaza at the present time, it's a case that they can't deliver it when it gets there, as the UN and Israel (!) has, truth be told, been operating, co-operating with Hamas on all sorts of issues before the latest war (thinking Hamas was on side) and Israel simply will now not do anything with Hamas, or any organisation that works with Hamas.

There is nobody to deliver aid, other than UN/Hamas.

US, Egypt will not put in boots on the ground.

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

The Hamas bargaining position is now far worse for the Palestinians than that of well known hardline Islamist extremist Antony Blinken.

Blinken is trying for an end to the war and a two state solution, Hamas is demanding that Israel withdraws from Gaza, it is then rebuilt..... leaving Hamas back in charge.

For those that struggle conceptually with big ideas like Wiley, you can envisage the Hamas position as being a plea to get back to that hated ancient historical era that existed before October 7th 2023.

I wonder why?

[Mick Harper]

What I got for Christmas