Author Archive: graham

The deaths of US military personnel in Niger

October 15, 2017 0 Comments

While there is a political point-scoring cum pissing contest going on over whether the President should have explicitly commemorated the deaths of 4 US servicemen in Niger, a more significant underlying question has yet to be answered, as pointed out here by Jim Wright:

It is possible that the reluctance of the administration to publicly commemorate the deaths of the service members is because, officially, their mission did not exist, and they should not officially have been anywhere near the country. Which would not exactly be a new development in the modern era. The USA has been engaging in covert actions in dozens of countries. Some of those covert operations may never be revealed, they will stay officially non-existent.
All of this is part of the Faustian bargain that Congress and the Senate struck with the Presidency starting in the Cold War, where they abdicated oversight of overseas military command to the POTUS. This gave them the best of both worlds. if the overseas involvement was seen to be successful, they would praise the military, wrap themselves in the flag, and move closer to the POTUS at press conferences and photo-ops. If the operation was seen as unsuccessful they would be able to accuse the POTUS of “military misadventure” and walk away from the outcome.

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Current Affairs, Current Affairs - US

The creation of fake life stories and personas online…for real people

October 13, 2017 0 Comments

Thanks to the proliferation of non-moderated social media, and the sobering events of the last 15 months in the UK and The USA, we are all aware by now that major social media platforms can be gamed via the creation of false profiles, used as trolls and bots.
Many of those fake profiles use the pictures (and sometimes the bios) of real people, usually copied from their online presence.
However, a more pernicious kind of falsification, described in this story, is when a person’s real life is partly or wholly re-written or distorted to fit an alternative narrative.
This example of a combat veteran who lost a leg in war is sobering. He has become a poster child actor in the entire Kneel for the Anthem controversy without his knowledge or agreement.

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Current Affairs

Just how ignorant of world history do you have to be…

October 11, 2017 0 Comments

…to believe that a sensible country should mandate participation in patriotic displays?
Jim Wright, as usual, summarizes it quite neatly:

Note also that the tweet from the POTUS contains the usual authoritarian, shrill insistent device of shouting by using all caps. Once again, I am reading somebody either trying to convince themselves they are right, or engaging in verbal bullying. The POTUS can go piss up a rope.

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Current Affairs, Current Affairs - US

FFS of the Day – Brexit

October 10, 2017 0 Comments

I consistently and persistently read Brexit supporters complaining about how the British government is clueless in its negotiations over Brexit with the EU.
According to these people, the government is being weak, wimpy, spineless etc. etc. and merely needs to tell the EU how it is going to be. Apparently the UK doesn’t owe the EU a single Euro and therefore should tell the EU to take a hike.
Oh dear.
Let me see if I understand this.
The UK wants to get into a fight with 27 other countries with a combined GDP of over 5 times the UK GDP over leaving the EU?
Yes, why not. What could possibly go wrong?
After all, there are only 759 (probably more) treaties and agreements that the UK would need to replicate with other countries in order to continue trading with those countries.
If the EU does decide that it wants to really penalize the UK, all it would need to do is pickup the phone and call a lot of non-EU countries to warn them off trading with the UK. The implied threat would be rather obvious. The good news, therefore, is that the UK may not need 750+ treaties, because the list of countries willing to trade with the UK might be a much shorter list than the UK thinks it should be.
I suggest that the UK government leaders of bellicose posturing go to Athens and talk with Alex Tsipiras about how thumping the table and declaring “no compromise” worked out for Greece in its negotiations with the EU.
The EU holds all of the cards in these negotiations. The UK has next to nothing to bargain with. It is one country against 27, with the UK playing the petulant foot-stomping adolescent who wants out. Nobody in the EU leadership is going to be inclined to give the UK anything n negotiations.
So, the idea that the UK can somehow “hang tough” and get all of what it wants from the EU exit negotiations is an idea originating somewhere between FantasyLand and CloudCuckooLand. The UK has next to no leverage, other than walking away and triggering a “hard” Brexit, which will leave the country totally unprepared to become a single country in international relations and trade. The results will be disastrous. The UK will splinter, and Scotland will probably secede.

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Current Affairs

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