In a time of war, everybody makes proportionality arguments. But proportionality is a fool’s game, more suited to propaganda than to reasoned judgement.
Wars are not sporting events.
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December 7th, 2023 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Hamas likes nothing better than an Israeli strike that kills civilians. That is why it has reportedly been preventing its people from fleeing the war zone, sometimes by force. They seemingly want Palestinian casualties to pile high, in full view of the world’s media. The BBC and others beam footage of the horror of war around the world to people who have lost touch with the reality of armed conflict. Hamas want people in the West to take to the streets in outrage, forgetting that even a just and defensive war is hell. They know this will help them win. November 9th, 2023 | 65 comments - (Comments are closed)
Its in many ways the crucial question that needs to be answered honestly now. Do we want Ukraine to win the war and liberate all its territory? or Do we want Ukraine to be forced to accept a deal which hands over parts of the country to Putin? The rhetoric of western leaders is the former, though to be frank the policy looks more and more like the latter. We armed Ukraine this year specifically not to give it range, air superiority, etc. We forced it to launch direct assaults on defended Russian lines. Zaluzhnyi is saying that cannot continue. Either Ukraine is armed properly to win a modern war, or the technological imperatives will necessitate the continuation of this attritional war we have seen. Western leaders must therefore answer that question now, and act accordingly. – Phillips OBrien November 5th, 2023 | 52 comments - (Comments are closed)
The video embedded in this tweet from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) shows Ghazi Hamad of the Hamas Political Bureau speaking on LBC Television, a Lebanese TV channel, on October 24th 2023. What follows is my transcription of the first minute of this video clip. I often do this, transcribe what was said on video into writing, to make it easier for people to search for and cite the relevant words later. * Ghazi Hamad: “Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country because it constitutes a security, military, and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation and must be finished.” “We are not ashamed to say this with full force.” “We must teach Israel a lesson and we will do this again and again.” “The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight.” Interviewer: “Will we have to pay a price?” Ghazi Hamad: “Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.” “We did not want to harm civilians, but there were complications on the ground, and there was a party in the area with (civilian) population. It was a large area, across 40 kilometres… The occupation must come to an end.” Interviewer: “Occupation where? In the Gaza Strip?” Ghazi Hamad: “No, I am talking about all the Palestinian lands.” Interviewer: “Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?” Ghazi Hamad: “Yes, of course.” November 1st, 2023 | 73 comments - (Comments are closed)
We are most of us familiar enough with how the cycle of violence works in the Middle East but for those who aren’t here is a quick summary: 1. Palestinian terrorists commit outrage. 2. Israel resolves to do “something”. 3. “Something” turns out to be against international law and attracts international condemnation. 4. “Something” turns into nothing. 5. See 1. There are two ways out of this. One, Israel does nothing. Two, Israel ignores international law. The “do nothing” option sounds suspiciously like defeat and generally-speaking that sounds like a bad thing. So, I’m with Israel ignoring international law. Which means rather than all this “Palestinians bombed their own car park” malarkey, I look forward to the day when the Israelis say, “Yes, we bombed the car park. We intended to do it, are proud of the fact and we will continue to bomb car parks and any other target that will lead to the deaths of 500 ‘innocent’ civilians until the Palestinians surrender.” October 19th, 2023 | 62 comments - (Comments are closed)
October 19th, 2023 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Yet another interesting chat by Perun. People expected Zaluzhnyi to be channelling Heinz Guderian, whereas he is actually channelling John Monash. October 8th, 2023 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
What dismal dangerous times we live in. Hot on the heels of the latest atrocity in Ukraine, I am seeing video after video after video of Israeli civilians being either brutalised and then kidnapped or just murdered in broad daylight by Jeremy Corbyn’s good friends Hamas. I am overflowing with questions. Israel seems to have been taken by complete strategic surprise on every level, comparable to 1973, by a Tet Offensive style assault. How did that happen? And what is the Hamas endgame? Typically the effects of substantive military surprise last about three days, at which point it is hard to imagine an Israeli response that is not completely and utterly unrestrained. October 7th, 2023 | 81 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Switzerland is a great country. In most respects Machiavelli’s description of the Swiss as “armatissimi e liberissimi”, “most armed and most free”, still applies. But…  It says,
The Wikipedia article on Conscription in Switzerland says,
Much as I admire the Swiss, I cannot make myself believe that constitutes being liberissimi. September 25th, 2023 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have not forgotten it.
I have nothing to add to what I wrote twenty years ago, and nothing to subtract either. September 11th, 2023 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
…”once again the reintroduction of National Service is being mooted by think tanks, this time as a thinly veiled mechanism for enslaving the young. Leave aside the point that, far from bolstering conservative values, the diversity commissars of the Civil Service would turn it into the `national woke service’ from day one. Conscriptin is just about defensive as a way to maintain a military reserve; as a way to extract free labour for the state, it’s morally reprehensible. It’s also economically insane. The public sector is staggeringly unproductive. Labour that is unpaid is labour that is asking to be used in the most inefficient way possible, on jobs that would never be done if the work cost the minimum wage.” – Sam Ashworth-Hayes, Daily Telegraph (£). This is probably one of the best take-downs of the whole “put ’em in the Army and sort out the kids” trope that I have come across in a while. September 4th, 2023 | 46 comments - (Comments are closed)
From the Wikipedia entry for Lin Biao:
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin presumed dead after Russia plane crash – BBC
August 23rd, 2023 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
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