This isn't a surprise, as we lost the 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Well, arguably we came away with a draw in the 3rd Afghan War, but only because we used the RAF to extensively bomb the natives and we set our Victory Aims as 'driving the Afghans out of India'. We didn't, note, follow them into Afghanistan - we'd learnt from the first two fuck ups.
Why do I say we're losing?
Well, the other day, a Royal Marine Commando was killed in action during an attempt to drive some 'Taliban' (might be Talib, might be Al Qaeda, might be warlord troops, might be anyone) from a fort.
During this operation we used; B1 strategic bombers, 155mm artillery, close air support, Apache helicopter gunships, light tanks - Scimitars, that is - and a company of Royal Marines. Their objective was to seize the fort.
Instead, they lost four WIA and one KIA, fell back, and failed to take the fort from the Taliban.
Couple this with the withdrawal from the Platoon Houses, the failure of several offensives designed to crush the rebels/insurgents/terrorists/enemy Once And For All (again), the abandonment of US bases on the Pakistani border because they came under constant attack, and the big list of other screw-ups, losses, and backward steps and it becomes once again apparent that:
You DO NOT fuck with the Afghans.
We should have LEARNT THIS by now.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Friday, January 12, 2007
Woah, people read this?
I discovered that people read this today, so I suppose I should update with more ranting against the state of affairs.
Well, Iraq's a good place to start. 21,500 more US troops are going in, to engage the Shia and Sunni militias 'even-handedly' after nearly four years of backing the Shia (apart from trying - and failing - in 2005 to destroy the Mehdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr). There are two tiny problems with this.
The first is that the Mehdi Army, while not as trained up as the Sunni insurgents, numbers approximately 100,000 armed men. Admittedly, they don't have Interceptor body armour, M1A2 SEP Abrams main battle tanks, LAV-25 AIFVs, Bradley M2s, Apache gunships, Black Hawks, AC-130s, 150mm artillery, rocket batteries, F-16s, B-52s, Predator spy drones, and the might of the US Army ... but they do have a lot of men. Sadr City, in Baghdad, is home to some 2,000,000 people and is the home of the Mehdi Army. If the Americans enter that, all guns blazing, then they're screwed. They'll have to utterly level it. Fallujah '04 will look like a cakewalk.
The second is that the militias are now also the police and the Iraqi Defence Corps. Forget 'infiltration', it's "Are you in the Badr Brigade? Then join the IDC's 207th Brigade!" When the British Army decided to rubbleise the Serious Crimes Unit of the Basra Police last Christmas, they did so because they were admitting what most people already knew - the militia death squads wear police uniforms because they are the police.
It doesn't matter any more that the US Army has brought in its top counter-insurgency (COIN) officer to help co-ordinate their latest Final Offensive Which Guarantees Victory (tm). It's far too late for that. Iraq is now a total hellhole, and it's entirely our fault.
Saddam Hussein, lately hung for killing 150 Iraqis, managed to bump off about a million of his own people during his rule. This isn't including the Iranians, Kuwaitis, etc, of course, but it all adds up to a maximum of about 1,500,000 people.
Now, this is the kicker. The West, e.g. the US and UK, have managed to kill somewhere in the region of 1,800,000 and 2,000,000 Iraqis. We've irradiated Iraq with DU, increasing cancer and birth defects. We admitted killing 500,000 children under five years old because otherwise the nasty, evil, Saddam, would get nukes. Nevermind the fact that we'd sold him all his chemical weapons. Nevermind the fact that the regional superpower, Israel, has more nukes than Britain. Nevermind the fact that he killed a lot of people when he first came to power because we gave him their names. Nevermind the fact that he was Our Man - after Kuwait, he was Evil. He was Hitler mk II. He was so vile that we had to stop him getting nukes at all costs... to the Iraqis, that is, not us. And the way we stopped him was by killing Iraqis left, right and centre, and reducing their nation to rubble. But not Saddam. No, he could stay until we had a cause d'guerre.
And, eventually, we got it. So, for killing 150 people, Hussein is hung.
For killing 1.8-2 million people... er... we send in more troops to kill more people.
I don't deny that Hussein was a bastard. He was a politician and a dictator to boot - the very definition of bastard. What fucks me off is that our lot are worse, yet they don't get hung - lynch mob or no - and they don't care.
So that's Iraq. A total fuck up destined to get worse.
Now for Iran. The Times and the Spectator have both proclaimed that the Israelis might use nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear power stations and refinement plants. Not now, but soon - in the year Anno Domini 2007.
When I saw the Spectator article I nearly cried. If it's even remotely true, and not just posturing, then we're utterly fucking screwed beyond belief. If the Israelis nuke Iran... the world burns. That simple.
Meanwhile, in Bolivia, unnoticed by the world, Cochabamba province is falling apart as the indigenous, Morales-supporters, fight the anti-Morales lot. It's apparently very complex, as my Bolivian friend keeps telling me, but the way it looks to me is this:
There's one ethnic group, the 'brown' (hispanic/indigenous mix, the beauracrats of the Spanish Empire) who've had power ever since the Spanish left. They were displaced recently by Evo Morales, representative of the campesinos (indigenous) who have never had power since the Spanish came. Then there's the 'whites' (hispanic) who haven't had power since the Spanish left.
The 'brown' lot became insanely corrupt, and hated the 'whites' and the indigenous lot.
The indigenous lot hate the 'browns' and the 'whites' for being oppressors.
The 'whites' hate the 'browns' and indigenous for being usurpers and dirty.
Now they're fighting about whether or not the whites should get autonomous federal government (i.e. clawing back the political power they lost, and retaining the economic power they have).
Upshot is, centuries of racism and violent oppression are boiling over and it looks as though a civil war is on the horizon. What fun! 50 pence says the CIA are involved somehow.
On the Home Front, the Great Leader T.Bliar today decided that Britain needed to keep illegally invading countries in order to ensure that humanitarian disasters don't happen again. His brilliant reasoning gets even better, look:
1) Poverty exists.
2) To get rid of (1), Evil (tm) governments must be removed.
3) To get rid of Evil (tm) governments, you must use WAR.
4) QED
The man is clearly FUCKING INSANE.
Arrrgh. Then there's Chechnya, Abkhazia, Palestine, Burma, etc etc... too much strife and too little time! So that's it for now. More ranting later, illustrious readers!
Well, Iraq's a good place to start. 21,500 more US troops are going in, to engage the Shia and Sunni militias 'even-handedly' after nearly four years of backing the Shia (apart from trying - and failing - in 2005 to destroy the Mehdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr). There are two tiny problems with this.
The first is that the Mehdi Army, while not as trained up as the Sunni insurgents, numbers approximately 100,000 armed men. Admittedly, they don't have Interceptor body armour, M1A2 SEP Abrams main battle tanks, LAV-25 AIFVs, Bradley M2s, Apache gunships, Black Hawks, AC-130s, 150mm artillery, rocket batteries, F-16s, B-52s, Predator spy drones, and the might of the US Army ... but they do have a lot of men. Sadr City, in Baghdad, is home to some 2,000,000 people and is the home of the Mehdi Army. If the Americans enter that, all guns blazing, then they're screwed. They'll have to utterly level it. Fallujah '04 will look like a cakewalk.
The second is that the militias are now also the police and the Iraqi Defence Corps. Forget 'infiltration', it's "Are you in the Badr Brigade? Then join the IDC's 207th Brigade!" When the British Army decided to rubbleise the Serious Crimes Unit of the Basra Police last Christmas, they did so because they were admitting what most people already knew - the militia death squads wear police uniforms because they are the police.
It doesn't matter any more that the US Army has brought in its top counter-insurgency (COIN) officer to help co-ordinate their latest Final Offensive Which Guarantees Victory (tm). It's far too late for that. Iraq is now a total hellhole, and it's entirely our fault.
Saddam Hussein, lately hung for killing 150 Iraqis, managed to bump off about a million of his own people during his rule. This isn't including the Iranians, Kuwaitis, etc, of course, but it all adds up to a maximum of about 1,500,000 people.
Now, this is the kicker. The West, e.g. the US and UK, have managed to kill somewhere in the region of 1,800,000 and 2,000,000 Iraqis. We've irradiated Iraq with DU, increasing cancer and birth defects. We admitted killing 500,000 children under five years old because otherwise the nasty, evil, Saddam, would get nukes. Nevermind the fact that we'd sold him all his chemical weapons. Nevermind the fact that the regional superpower, Israel, has more nukes than Britain. Nevermind the fact that he killed a lot of people when he first came to power because we gave him their names. Nevermind the fact that he was Our Man - after Kuwait, he was Evil. He was Hitler mk II. He was so vile that we had to stop him getting nukes at all costs... to the Iraqis, that is, not us. And the way we stopped him was by killing Iraqis left, right and centre, and reducing their nation to rubble. But not Saddam. No, he could stay until we had a cause d'guerre.
And, eventually, we got it. So, for killing 150 people, Hussein is hung.
For killing 1.8-2 million people... er... we send in more troops to kill more people.
I don't deny that Hussein was a bastard. He was a politician and a dictator to boot - the very definition of bastard. What fucks me off is that our lot are worse, yet they don't get hung - lynch mob or no - and they don't care.
So that's Iraq. A total fuck up destined to get worse.
Now for Iran. The Times and the Spectator have both proclaimed that the Israelis might use nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear power stations and refinement plants. Not now, but soon - in the year Anno Domini 2007.
When I saw the Spectator article I nearly cried. If it's even remotely true, and not just posturing, then we're utterly fucking screwed beyond belief. If the Israelis nuke Iran... the world burns. That simple.
Meanwhile, in Bolivia, unnoticed by the world, Cochabamba province is falling apart as the indigenous, Morales-supporters, fight the anti-Morales lot. It's apparently very complex, as my Bolivian friend keeps telling me, but the way it looks to me is this:
There's one ethnic group, the 'brown' (hispanic/indigenous mix, the beauracrats of the Spanish Empire) who've had power ever since the Spanish left. They were displaced recently by Evo Morales, representative of the campesinos (indigenous) who have never had power since the Spanish came. Then there's the 'whites' (hispanic) who haven't had power since the Spanish left.
The 'brown' lot became insanely corrupt, and hated the 'whites' and the indigenous lot.
The indigenous lot hate the 'browns' and the 'whites' for being oppressors.
The 'whites' hate the 'browns' and indigenous for being usurpers and dirty.
Now they're fighting about whether or not the whites should get autonomous federal government (i.e. clawing back the political power they lost, and retaining the economic power they have).
Upshot is, centuries of racism and violent oppression are boiling over and it looks as though a civil war is on the horizon. What fun! 50 pence says the CIA are involved somehow.
On the Home Front, the Great Leader T.Bliar today decided that Britain needed to keep illegally invading countries in order to ensure that humanitarian disasters don't happen again. His brilliant reasoning gets even better, look:
1) Poverty exists.
2) To get rid of (1), Evil (tm) governments must be removed.
3) To get rid of Evil (tm) governments, you must use WAR.
4) QED
The man is clearly FUCKING INSANE.
Arrrgh. Then there's Chechnya, Abkhazia, Palestine, Burma, etc etc... too much strife and too little time! So that's it for now. More ranting later, illustrious readers!
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