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War on Terrorism (Politics)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
Do you dig holes for a living, Wiley?



I fall into them.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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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.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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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."
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Mick Harper
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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.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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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.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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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.....
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Israel has authorised 18,000 new housing units in the West Bank in the last year. Al-Jazeera

That's the equivalent of, say, five new towns. Imagine you live in East Anglia and that a bunch of dudes you hate have built five new towns in East Anglia in the last year alone.

Forget it, East Anglia is twice the size of the West Bank.
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Mick Harper
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Wiley wrote:
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.....

My take on Medium
-------------------

We (don�t) Name The Guilty Parties!

I wrote a story about the shot-down Russian airplane allegedly carrying Ukrainian prisoners-of-war. I concluded that, although this was a clear success for Ukraine, the Russians were able to turn it into a propaganda victory because of the feebleness of the western media. I also pointed out that while we would not get the complete truth while the war was on � and, knowing Russia, not when it�s over either � we could be satisfied we have the broad truth from the behaviour of the principals. Not from what they said but from what they did.

Or rather what they didn�t do. The reason why the media hadn�t been anxious to keep digging was because the Ukrainians and the Americans had been caught out using advanced missiles over Russian territory despite assurances to the contrary. Better a propaganda blackeye than a diplomatic d�marche.

So now on to that other unsolved mystery � the one you�ve largely forgotten about. The blowing up of the two pipelines designed to carry oil and gas underneath the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. The reason you had taken your eye off this particular ball was underlined this week when Sweden, within whose territorial waters the event took place, quietly announced they had completed their investigation and had passed on their findings to the Germans, the end-users of the pipelines. Berlin did not publish the report but added it to their own �ongoing enquiries�. Silence, it seems, is golden.

So now we know who blew up the pipelines. It was the Ukrainians.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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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.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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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.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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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.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Last week, more than a hundred Palestinians who lined up to get some flour to cook with were slaughtered by Israeli troops. The Listening Post, Al-Jazeera

The Listening Post is Al-Jazeera's specialist strand devoted to the way the news is misreported by the media!
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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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?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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What Benjy got for Christmas

Demonstrators outside Benjamin Netanyahu's house today were met with water cannons. Al-Jazeera
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Vlad has really cocked up, by using Gazprom to threaten European gas supplies. The Europeans took him at his word and took a decision to switch to more expensive liquefied gas, and Gasprom is now making a loss. The Chinese and Indians are not daft enough to become dependent on Russian gas, or buy at the stupid prices the Europeans were previously willing to pay (ie cross-subsidise poor Russians), so Gazprom will need to act commercially by hiking prices to Russians.

Vlad has contrived to do more damage to his economy than Western sanctions ever could.

Gazprom, from footing a 10th of Russians' tax budget, is now needing government help and to be bailed out by Russian banks.

Vlad is now whinging that Europeans are not acting commercially by not buying Russian gas, whereas just a coupla of years back he was threatening to freeze us into supporting his imperial ambitions.

Will Europe fall for this again ?
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