Tag Archives: Syria

Warmongering Tories

Bombs away

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So it begins, the UK is now bombing Syria after all the Tories cheered the vote in favour of another illegal misadventure in the Middle East last night. We can expect to have full war rhetoric from the MSM from now until eternity, for there is no end for this war and our Dear Leader has already stated that this war would take “some time“, a nice open ended statement there. We are seeing a continuation of the perpetual war.

This is a war devoid of strategy or a clear objective, we were told that the target was Daesh but just 2 years ago the target was Assad. So which one is it, or is it both? No doubt we will be treated to some carefully vetted footage of bombs exploding, the camera position being 20000ft up. These will show the bomb hitting a nice safe target, with no civilian casualties in view. The mission will be called “successful”. We will not see the collateral damage, we will not see the bombs that go astray, as some bombs inevitably do.

The RAF were launching the first airstrikes against Syrian targets within 57 minutes of the vote, they “successfully” blew up some oil wells which were “successfully” destroyed just over a month ago. Either the first “bombing” wasn’t that successful or Daesh is very good at repairing the damage. Mind you it could be that the first mission did not take place at all, or was it the second one, who’s to know? But the RAF were “successful” which means that there will be huge oil fires burning in Syria and an environmental catastrophe as well. Those are the hallmarks of success in this perpetual war. At least there were no civilian casualties, or so we’re told.

The people of Syria must be thanking their lucky stars that there are even more heavily armed warplanes in their skies tonight keeping them safe. But it is the good old Tories who they really have to thank for all the extra thousands of pounds of high explosive flying overhead. The blue tories, the red tories and the yellow tories trooped off down the “non terrorist sympathiser” lobby and the share price of arms firms soared.

97% of Scotland’s MPs voted against bombing Syria, yet we find ourselves in yet another illegal foreign war. Only two Scottish MPs voted to send in the bombers: Viceroy David Mundell (blue Tory) and former Viceroy (and liar) Alistair Carmichael (yellow Tory). Let us remember these two when the terrorists turn up in our cities seeking revenge. We shall not forget that it was them who brought death and destruction to the people of Syria, and probably us too.

Warmongering Tories

Warmongering Tories

Given previous engagements by Russia and France in Syria, it seems likely that we will see a terrorist attack against the UK within 2 months. This will be used to justify the bombing of Syria. We will be told, “These are the exactly the type of attacks which we are bombing Syria to prevent.” The irony will be astounding. The attackers will be UK citizens. Apparently there have been 7 terrorist conspiracies uncovered in the past 6 months, so we have got to ask: how many arrests were made? How many were convicted? What were they convicted of? What were their sentences?

Then again the story could be untrue, couldn’t it? We are entering a period where the MSM will parrot the government in all things, they will not question the government’s story in any way. Everything that you see and hear about Daesh and the war in Syria should be taken with a very large pinch of salt, for it will most likely be pure propaganda.

I hate salt.

Hellfire Missile

Hi ho! Hi ho! It’s off to war we go.

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Our beloved leader, Chairman Cameron, was making the case for bombing Daesh (IS) in Syria today. He tried to persuade parliament that bombing Syria was a good idea 2 years ago, but that time we would have been bombing Syrian government forces. The ones that IS were fighting. So we would have been allies then. Hmm. This time , however, the bogeyman is Daesh so the Syrian government will be our allies. Double hmm.

Comrade Cameron told the house of commons that bombing Daesh “would make us safer.” That’s an interesting assertion that should be challenged. You see France decided that it would be a good idea to start bombing Daesh in Syria and the bombing campaign started on 27th September 2015. Daesh affiliated terrorists killed 130 and injured 368 on 13th November 2015. Russia started bombing Daesh in Syria on 30th September 2015, Daesh affiliated terrorists blew up a Russian passenger jet, killing all 224 persons on board, on 31st October 2015. So the evidence doesn’t really stack up on our Dear Leader’s assertions.

The main problem with bombing Syria is that it is a sovereign state, the only legal way to bomb it is with the agreement of the Syrian government. Something which the UK does not have. But who cares about legality? Tony Blair didn’t and he got away with it, so why should David Cameron? The Syrian government has already asked someone to aid in their fight, Russia. It is conceivable that the Russians would start to enforce the sovereignty of Syria, after all they have the means to do so and the shooting down of a Russian plane by Turkey also gives them a motive. There is a very real danger of the Syrian civil war spiralling into a full blown regional conflict, do we really want to get sucked into that?

The simple fact is that bombing of Syria will not defeat Daesh, if this was not the case then the combined might of Russia, USA, Saudi Arabia and others would have bombed them into oblivion by now. After years of civil war there is nothing left to bomb in Syria. Daesh have adapted to the threat from the skies and they still take territory. The only way to militarily defeat Daesh is to fight them on the ground.

Our Dear Leader has the solution though. He has managed to magic 70000 “moderate” jihadists from the harsh desert sands. They will be trained and armed by British military personnel and then set loose upon the hapless Daesh. But there’s a couple of problems with this. We have already trained and armed the Iraqi army who turned tail at the sight of the black flags and left all of their wonderful western equipment for Daesh to use as it pleased. The USA has already tried this and it was a disaster with most of the trainees selling their equipment to Daesh and others, some of them even went on to fight for Daesh. Another problem is that Russia is bombing the groups which have magically increased in size, does that mean that Russia will be bombing our troops? Then there is the small matter of the EU arms embargo, supplying arms to Syria is illegal, so how is that going to work?

Assuming that we do go bombing in Syria we can rest assured that the weapons that will be used are “precision” weapons. They will dangle under the shiny new drones which are to be bought with the money that the OBR conjured out of thin air in the Autumn Statement. The weapons of choice will be the GBU-12, a 500lb guided bomb, and the AGM 114 Hellfire missile. The GBU 12 has a “casualty radius” of between 200 – 300 ft. 50% of the people caught in this area will perish. The Hellfire missile is a modified anti-tank weapon which is fitted with a fragmentation sleeve around the warhead, it has a “wounding radius” of 65 feet and a “kill radius” of 50 ft. Again, if one goes off near you, it’s going to hurt. There will be innocent victims caught up in these bombs, but they will be called “militants” or “combatants” in order to hide the war crime. Anyone who wants to find out more about the use of drones have a look here.

My final point about the upcoming misadventure into another Middle Eastern war is this, how do we know if we’ve won? Do we have to kill all of Daesh or is it just a set ratio? Is it 90%, would that be a victory? How can we tell when we have reached the desired ratio, will we send Daesh some census papers? How much magic money will be committed to the reconstruction of Syria, because if you blow it up you have to fix it, that is laid down in the Geneva Convention. How long will that take? Did Comrade Cameron mention this or was it overlooked in all the excitement of talking about war?

The whole proposal is a disaster waiting to happen. No one knows what the objective is, Daesh or Assad? No one knows how to win. No one knows how to tell if we’ve won. The risks of sparking a wider conflict are huge and increasing by the day. This is one fight which we should leave the hell alone.

One last word for those who advocate putting “boots on the ground”, get yourself down to the Army careers office. I’m sure they will have some boots and rifle for you to take with you to the sandpit. I wish you luck, you’ll need it.

 

The hammer and the anvil. US to attack IS from Turkey

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While the whole world was focused on the tragic events in France, a secret decision could be taken by Turkey to allow 62000 US troops to launch an attack from Turkish territory into northern Iraq. The troops could start arriving in Turkey as soon as Monday. The plan is for these troops to attack IS across Iraq’s northern border with Turkey and hammer them onto the anvil that is the Iraqi armed forces. In the last few days IS has been forced onto the defensive by the US coalition’s airstrikes, any movement by the fundamental Islamists is met by a high explosive response. With reduced mobility the guerrilla forces of IS have been forced to hold ground, they then become targets (if they can be identified). This should make it possible to defeat them on the ground.

There are a couple of potential problems that I can see with this operation:

  1. A brittle anvil. The US forces will be pushing IS into the maws of the Iraqi army which has proven itself easy to crumble under pressure. If this were to happen then Baghdad would be at risk of falling. The US and UK have troops in these areas providing “training” to the Iraqi army which should help to stiffen their spine. Don’t be surprised if extra troops are required in these areas.
  2. An exposed flank. The US forces will have their right flank exposed to IS, nothing short of a continuous defensive line could prevent IS from infiltrating the flank and causing mischief in the US forces’ rear.
  3. Where’s the border? There are no nice lines on the ground delineating the Iraq/Syria border, there is just desert. Any incursion into Syria would be seen as an act of war against another sovereign state which could have some serious consequences.

I wish the operation luck.

IS in Iraq & Syria

IS in Iraq & Syria

Raytheon cheers commons IS vote

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It will probably be too late to buy into the bomb and missile maker on Monday morning, but I’ll bet that the people who count are already in. The shares were up 1.33% to $101.52 at Friday’s close on the expectation that UK’s MPs would vote in favour of going back to war. With a P/E of only 15.8 there could still a lot of upside left and the quarterly dividend of $0.605 is not too shabby either. This good news for Raytheon is on top of the good news that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, France and Denmark will also be dropping their products over the sands of the Middle East. It can only be hoped that Raytheon has learned it’s lessons from the Libya campaign and it can keep up with demand.

Paveway IV

The Paveway IV, £30000 a bang

The commons vote means that there are another 6 aircraft dropping Raytheon’s finest munitions in the Middle East. The Royal Air Force will deploy 6 Panavia Tornado GR4 aircraft to Iraq and they will be equipped with the Paveway IV, a so called smart bomb, which is guided to it’s target by GPS or laser designator. Each bomb costs £30000. That’s enough to house, feed and clothe a family of 4 for a year and still have some change for a holiday! This cost does not include the cost of the delivery platform but, I’m sure you’ll all agree with David Cameron, that it is a small price to pay for keeping the “brutal terrorist organisation” off the streets of Britain. Indeed we have a “duty” to do so.

But let us consider where IS came from. After the warmongers Bush and Blair conducted their illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Sunni group al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) rose up to fight the invaders. They joined with other Sunni groups to form the Mujahedeen Shura Council which then became the Islamic State of Iraq. Their main area of operations were in the predominantly Sunni areas to the north of Baghdad. Their extreme views and violence against the civilians in the areas which they controlled led to The Awakening, in which the more moderate Iraqi Sunnis pushed them out. There then followed a period of consolidation and another name change to ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Their stated aim was to create an Islamic state, or caliphate, in Iraq, Syria, Israel,  Jordan, Palestine, Cyprus and southern Turkey.

The group entered the Syrian civil war and made astounding gains in both territory and materiel, they then pushed south towards Baghdad, east toward Kirkuk and west towards Jordan. The Iraqi armed forces fled in terror, they did not have the stomach to fight for the puppet government in Baghdad. It was only the Kurdish forces which managed to halt their advance, along with some assistance from the Iraqi Air Force.

So you can see that it is the US and the UK’s actions in Iraq which led to the rise of IS. It is therefor quite ironic that we are having to go back there to clean up the mess that we helped to create. But as I mentioned in an earlier post the bombing on it’s own will not defeat IS, they will just move into the cities and hug the civilian population so that they cannot be bombed without unacceptable “collateral damage”. As the last foray into Muslim lands, Libya, showed the availability of targets for the aircraft could quickly dry up. Unless IS are so unhinged that they will drive about the desert in pick up trucks, black flags flying, just to tempt the infidel to spend another £30k.

The only way that IS will be defeated militarily will be to attack them with ground forces and it would appear that the Free Army of Syria are being groomed for the job. They will be equipped and trained then sent against IS. Of course they are busy fighting the Assad regime so, if I were Assad, I would wait until FAS start attacking IS then I would move against them. This would then draw the Americans in to the civil war and the Russians would also join in. Cue WW3, but in the quagmire of the Syrian civil war anything could happen.

The next thing to watch out for is “Mission Creep”. Did you notice how David Cameron explicitly left the door open to attacking Syria without asking the permission of parliament? Once all of the IS targets have disappeared then the next targets will be other groups in the Syrian war who don’t fit in to the US’s world view. The UK will follow on like a good poodle in order to lend some legitimacy.

The operation is going to last for years, it is going to cost us millions which could have been spent elsewhere. Isn’t it funny how money can always be found for war but not for housing, feeding and educating the poor? I wonder how many MPs have shares in Raytheon?