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Trump has long argued it was unreasonable for US taxpayers to be subsidising Europe’s defence when European governments are unwilling to stump up to defend themselves. It seems that today, many European pundits are now belatedly in agreement with Trump, yet I have encountered quite a lot of annoyance when I point this out. It is hard to not laugh 😀 November 6th, 2024 | 17 comments
 How to tell if the people in Europe making predictions of doom if Trump wins actually believe what they have been saying: Europeans defence expenditures go to 4%+ (i.e. Polish levels) within the next few months. Otherwise it’s just so much verbal flatulence. If Trump does indeed abandon Ukraine and tries to force a de facto surrender of occupied territories on them, and Europe still does not rapidly ramp up defence expenditure, then maybe Trump and the USA was never the problem. November 6th, 2024 | 8 comments
We must be clear about things: A just world required this man to die, and ideally without dignity. I can put it in no blunter terms than that, nor even conceive of them. I am utterly relieved about his death, and more than a bit elated as well — not because I am bloodthirsty, but precisely because I despair over the implacable bloodthirstiness of Hamas, an organization that came to power in the Gaza Strip after it was literally handed to the Palestinians but that, instead of governing for the benefit of its people, harvested its resources and human capital to plot the slaughter, abduction, rape, and eventual genocide of its Jewish neighbors. Sinwar died with a shell through his skull and a roof collapsed upon his bomb-belted body, and I confess my grim satisfaction at the closure of it, if nothing else. He was given the opportunity to be an actual leader, and he invested all of it in hatred and terror. I celebrate, and couldn’t care less if you think differently. October 17th, 2024 | 11 comments
One detail that perhaps got lost in the recent UK decision about the Indian Ocean group of islands containing Diego Garcia – taken very fast and over the heads of the Chagos Islands locals (which hardly fits with ideas about decolonisation) – was that President Biden applauded the move. In way this isn’t surprising. Pr. Biden doesn’t particularly like the UK, and like a certain kind of American politician, has a grudge about the old, post-imperial network of relationships and territories that the UK has, or had, around the world. More fool him. In this transfer and lease deal (which is not, as far as I know, formally signed and there has been no formal debate or legislation about this in Parliament) the UK is transferring taxpayers money in a payment programme to a tax haven (Mauritius). If the Tories had done this, the tax haven angle would have been constantly mentioned. It seems ironic that Labour, a party not exactly known for its love of tax havens (unless Tony Blair uses one) or such international conduits, feels it is okay to deal with Mauritius financially in this way. Don’t get me wrong, I am for tax havens, and the more of them the better, because they deter otherwise high-tax governments from going crazy when capital is mobile, although as UK finance minister Rachel Reeves is proving, that’s not a solid protection. Tax hikes are likely in the 30 October UK budget. People are leaving. Biden’s support for what’s happened should give pause, given what a poor President he is on foreign affairs, in my view. Also, he hasn’t made much disguise of his distaste for Brexit and the UK’s independence out of the bloc, and neither did Barack Obama. There’s no enthusiasm from that quarter for the UK to engage in new trade and other deals with countries outside the EU. And Biden’s own recent judgement about foreign affairs is spotty at best: half-decent on Israel and Ukraine, and shockingly inept over Afghanistan, with the rushed departure and loss of billions of dollars of equipment. Those on the Republican side are, apparently, far less happy about the Chagos islands deal, and the potential risk to security of the Diego Garcia airbase jointly used by the UK and US. They know how porous leasehold deals can be, and have seen that Mauritius has used all legal pressure to change the terms of its independence settlement with the UK of 1968. The US Air Force has used the base in recent conflicts; if it wanted to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, for example, and do so via Diego Garcia, the situation becomes dicier than it might have been. One has to wonder about the role of China in all this (Chinese money flows through Mauritius.) This whole saga also shows that if the UK is to pursue a more “blue water” foreign policy in future as it expands trade links with countries outside Europe, particular in Asia, that getting its defence arrangements locked down is essential. And we need to lose our illusions about how special our relationship with the US really is at times. Daniel Hannan has this excellent overview of just what a shockingly poor transaction the UK has made with Mauritius. Hannan argues that Mauritius has never exercised sovereignty over the islands, a fact that is so shocking it is hard to argue how on earth we reached this point and how the Mauritius government thought it could bully its way ahead on this. However, a future, different UK government should certainly revisit the terms of this deal, and press hard on Mauritius if, for example, that country’s anti-money laundering standards are questioned in future. Time for a bit of nastiness behind the smiles. It may be too late now to change course on this specific, shabby deal, at least under the current Starmer government. I fear it is. And now there’s speculation about what happens to the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar. The UK has shown itself to be weak. People tend to notice. October 9th, 2024 | 13 comments
“The past year has not been a Palestinian war against Israel, nor an Arab war against Israel. It has been an Iranian war against Israel, fought directly by Tehran’s own military and through its numerous terrorist proxies, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, and Iraq and Syrian milita groups. And behind the terrorist storm troopers lies Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.” – John Bolton, Daily Telegraph, writing today on the grim anniversary of the 7 October progrom inflicted by Hamas on southern Israel last year. My thoughts with those who grieve for the loss of their loved ones. October 7th, 2024 | 15 comments
“The only appropriate responses to Israel’s gallantry, fortitude and skill from us—its nominal allies, especially in the U.S.—are “thank you” and “how can we help?” Instead, time and again Israel’s supposed friends, including the administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, have, while expressing sympathy over the outrage of Oct. 7 and uttering the usual support for “Israel’s right to defend itself,” repeatedly tried to restrain it from doing just that. Their early, valuable support has been steadily diminished by the way they have too often connived with the anti-Israel extremists in their own party.” – Gerard Baker, Wall Street Journal ($) October 2nd, 2024 | 35 comments
It looks like Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system and Arrow anti-ballistic missiles have mostly succeeded in intercepting the missiles sent by Iran. The Iranian regime did not send drones this time because having them shot down by the Jordanians last time was embarrassing. I saw this quote by John Podhoretz on Twitter:
To which Dan McLaughlin added,
October 1st, 2024 | 7 comments
OK, that headline from 11:45am has been superseded by Hezbollah’s admission that Nasrallah is indeed dead, but props to the Telegraph‘s headline-writer. September 28th, 2024 | 19 comments
In my second country of Malta, which I visit regularly, it is hard to miss the fact that the island’s national flag bears the George Cross. The GC was awarded, collectively, to the island during the Second World War by the British government because of how Malta had withstood the bombardments of Italian and German air forces. The bombing of the island from 1941-43 was greater in total than the ordnance hurled at London during the Blitz. Malta was a major British naval base: it was able to intercept and destroy Axis shipping to North Africa and hence was key in tipping the scales against Rommel’s Afrika Korps in its attempted invasion of Egypt. Malta mattered. It appears today, in these “decolonisation” times, that some of the citizens of Malta – a country sadly tainted by issues such as corruption and the murder of an investigative journalist in 2017 – want the GC symbol to be removed. On a Facebook page that I follow, a person (who will remain nameless), put up this comment: If we really and truly want to celebrate this important milestone [Maltese independence], all we need to do is remove that stain from our national flag and send that bloodstained cross to Buckingham Palace. I will volunteer to act as a courier pro bono. I was glad to see that the vast majority of responses from the locals were hostile to this person, if not enlightening. I tried to raise the tone a bit, because the person concerned might be stupid as a bag of rocks, but it is good to put these points into places where someone might pick up on them:
I can recommend Sir Max Hastings’ book about the Operation Pedestal convoy as a good study about what was at stake in the Mediterranean campaign. Here is a decent history of Malta for those who are interested. September 21st, 2024 | 33 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Guardian reports,
Oh, the poor Hezbollah medics!
I feel that this development deserves to be commemorated in period style. Edit: It is now being claimed that a ten year old girl, Fatima Jaafar Abdullah, was killed by one of the exploding pagers. If true (and despite Hezbollah, like Hamas, being inveterate liars who regularly fake the deaths of children, it might well be true that she was handling her Hezbollah father’s pager or something similar), that is tragic. But overall one of the things about this operation that fills me with admiration is that it must be one of the most precisely targeted military strikes in history. Targeted to the very hip pockets of individual terrorists. Oh, and it would have been nice if a few more of the people denouncing Israel for this had also denounced Hezbollah for firing rockets at Israel completely indiscriminately for years on end. Only a few weeks ago, twelve Israeli Druze children were “shredded to pieces” by a Hezbollah rocket while playing soccer. September 17th, 2024 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
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