The Ideas of March

 It's now mid-March and the world has largely moved on from Epstein, everyone generally coming to the conclusion that the American had some pretty effective ways to attract the rich and famous and entertained them well. They all look pretty foolish but that really is probably going to be all that we remember in years to come. I am pretty sure Trump was very much involved and did all sorts of embarrassing things but seems smart enough not to have written emails about it or get himself snapped in action. I do wonder, though, whether Putin has some good hard evidence of Trump in action so maybe there is a little more of the story to run.

More important at this time, however, are the battles that are developing across the Middle East and continuing in Ukraine. I am not sure I see anything good coming out of either wars. Much as I despise the attitude of governments in Iran and that of Hamas and Hezbollah and IS, which appears to be reconstituted to represent a significant threat once more, the huge destruction wrought on Iran by US and the IDF has never struck me as being particularly likely to achieve any change. Yes, a number of leading people have been killed and huge damage done to military installations but the old government remains in charge and those now running things will be even more determined to do bad things to America and its allies. 

A significant proportion of the population may well pray for a change, wish the downfall of their dreadful rulers and hope for a better life when they can act and speak freely but bombing the hell out of Tehran, some towns and military installations is not going to help them. Indeed, anyone showing even the smallest signs of support for some alternative government is more likely than ever to be hauled away and shot or lost forever in a cell somewhere. That proportion is still just a proportion and there seems to be a good number of the population who either support the ayatollahs or just go along with what they say for an easy life. Basically whilst the police and army have guns and a presence on the streets then they'll continue to ensure some religious zealot ayatollah remains in charge.

Iran is going to lose a lot of buildings, weapons, planes and ships but it can continue to fire missiles and drones from time to time and cause a lot of trouble for neighbours who might have to to decide that enough is enough and leave Israel and the USA to it. Iran as a nation run by demented ayatollahs who hate Christians and almost anything Britain or the USA do or stand for is unlikely to change anytime soon. I rather suspect that those who survive will be all the more determined to teach us a lesson now. And that is where trouble really starts. For lurking in towns and cities all over Europe and here in Britain are immigrants who, if not themselves from Iran, are sympathetic to the cause of Iran, whatever that is. Destruction of the West, I suppose. Many are probably not bright enough to understand what it is they're for, never mind against, but the clever brain-washing techniques of whoever manages these people, controls their lives and beliefs has been sufficient. They can all be controlled and if someone somewhere calls for them to do something then they'll jump to action and do as they're told, no doubt including wearing some ghastly suicide vest or driving a van at a queue of white kids at a bus stop in Birmingham or similar despicable acts. These terrorists will be the new weapons of war and no amount of bombs on Tehran will make any difference. And they live just a few miles from you, wherever you are.

Now that's scary.

There's a lot of talk about oil prices and, of course, I'll be paying a lot more for petrol next week. There's this narrow stretch of water along which it seems a massive amount of goods and, of course oil and gas, travel and Iran appears able to control who gets to pass at the moment. Because it seems that a ship can be stopped by quite a modest missile of some sort hitting it in the right place and these can be fired from all sorts of places along the strait, keeping ships moving looks extremely difficult and I have to wonder how long it will be before we hear of one of the West's ships being hit as it tries to defend others. That would be a huge shot in the arm for whoever's still running things in Iran and could make America look pretty weak, especially if oil prices are still high and they're unable to control much on Kharge Island.

I do quite like the idea of that - controlling the massive supply of oil by effectively running the whole shooting match at the island. But there are many hostile people around who could well decide to blow up the whole thing and cause chaos in the global economy rather than let the USA run it. So I am not convinced they'll get very far on that track either. All in all, I am not sure I see a way for Trump to get out of any of this and still look good. He will not like that at all.

All that he can say is that it will take a while for Iran to rebuild their nuclear facilities and army. Big deal.

Then there's the other war. Russia do seem to be pretty much stuck where they are. Ukraine do not have the resources to push them back as that requires troops they can't send. But they can defend territory quite effectively now with drones and remote facilities in what has been a quite remarkable series of developments in a short space of time, under pressure too. Ukraine towns are still being hit every night and most days by some missiles and drones and civilians are getting killed or injured just going about their normal lives at a shop or travelling in a bus. Russian sites are also being hit by Ukraine's drones and several important technology facilities appear to have been damaged as have some military and oil depots. 

It strikes me as a bit strange that Russia has not done anything more dramatic or made what anyone would describe as a serious effort to take more territory or cause more huge devastation. One has to wonder whether they really do have the resources? I am, naturally, relieved that they haven't made any major move for a long time and that Ukraine has largely managed to keep going through the winter and preserved such troops as it has. Could Russia be running out of men? They are losing massive numbers every day, more than they are recruiting, so they will soon need to consider conscription - and that's when the government won't be that popular, however the demand to enrol is presented. I guess there'll not be much demonstration, and cutting off people's access to websites and communication via social media that's not monitored by them, will suffocate any sound of dissent anyway.

This does strike me as a good time for nations to help Ukraine make their move - with our troops and weapons from as many nations as can be persuaded to support as possible then it could become blatantly obvious to Putin that not only has he been prevented from further invasion by Ukraine alone and that now there is a real chance that his troops will be forced back. This must be the time when we make a move. I expect nothing from America now and suspect they'll be very occupied in the Middle East. UK needn't be, we could concentrate on Ukraine and actually help, as could most other European nations, showing Putin that he's not going to get anywhere and calling his bluff regarding nuclear weapon threats.

Other nations who might have supported Russia are likely to be too busy elsewhere at this time and, in any event, Russia has not exactly helped them much in their hour of need. Only North Korea looks a bit scary and might offer some support, not that their last efforts were notably successful.

This could be the month that Iran and Islamic State win and America is beaten or, at the very least, required to take an alternative route that they can describe as 'success' but we'll all know is "failure" other than causing a lot of destruction. It could be the month when Putin sees Islamic State as more of a threat to his future aspirations than Ukraine and someone manages to persuade him to switch his attention to that. I fear that his desperate belief in recreating the Soviet Union and destroying Ukraine as an independent state will remain but there's a chance for him to get out while he can and no doubt America could assist with some cheap oil or some contracts for this and that.

Unfortunately, we'll all look back in April and wonder just what the hell we were all thinking in March. And the 20,000 children taken to various parts of Russia from Ukraine are no nearer any chance of seeing their families again. Indeed, as time passes, not only will most of the children start to believe whatever their Russian masters tell them and forget about mothers (who the Russians tell them were unable to afford to look after them or other awful tales) but also the adults left in the towns and villages that have been under Russian control for 4 years will find it difficult if Ukraine does manage to regain control. There will be many who went along with the invaders who will not be popular with their rescuers. The longer time passes, the more people who actually wish to remain Ukrainian will decide to leave these areas and that, in turn, will leave those who actually support Russia as the majority and then what can you do? In so many ways, the longer Putin manages to prolong this war, the more likely he is to be sure of gaining at least those parts his forces now administer.

I guess there is not much anyone will be able to do about that, even if a peace deal were struck today. I do worry about the children, though. For so many, their young minds are so readily influenced and the people teaching them so controlled. I expect even the textbooks refer to Ukraine as part of Russia now and Britain as some terrible place where it is always foggy and men wear bowler hats and everyone is very miserable. Some English men are also very stupid and write long articles saying how bad President Putin is.

God help them, and us. But preferably not the Islam one.

Godforsaken places

 The temperature here in the village peaked at 32½°C today but I fear some places are experiencing a veritable firestorm. Who would wish to live in any of that conglomeration of nations based in that area surrounding Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan to the north and south? 

I certainly don't fancy a holiday anywhere in Turkey, Egypt or the UAE at this time. Well, to be honest I have never fancied going to any of them anyway but the chances of landing safely are getting slimmer by the hour, never mind being hit by a stray missile while you're there.

Actually I am beginning to wish that a missile does go astray and land somewhere where sufficient people in the country will finally wake up and politicians will be unable to resist calls to put an end to all this.

To date we've all been terribly sad or shocked or frustrated or whatever and have said that something must be done but never quite come up with the sort of solution needed. Now we have russia pummelling Kyiv (and various other towns that seldom get a mention) in Ukraine and Iran firing ever bigger missiles at Israel whilst Israel bombs the hell out of Iran and Ukraine does its best to minimise russia's visible armoury with drones and carefully exploited local action by agents and rebel assistants within the russian federation.

Lebanon are getting hit once again too and you wonder why they ever bothered to rebuild as having Hezbollah located there seems to mean the Lebanese will inevitably get blasted every few years whatever else may happen in the world.

Countries on the eastern fringe of the EU complain about russian missiles skimming across their skies on their way to knock out a apartment block or two in Ukraine but it seems to be no more than some kid moaning about some distraction in class.

In London and several other cities in Britain we see demonstrations against Israel and showing support for Palestinian organisations which seem pretty close to Hamas if not indeed actually Hamas. There seems to be little by way of demonstration in support of either Israel or Ukraine these days. That's odd when you think about what is actually going on and you do have to wonder whether those demonstrating or urging others to do so have ever sat down and thought it all through.

Russia invaded Ukraine and has caused immense destruction of that nation's town's, infrastructure and killed more innocent people than I want to specify here, never mind the huge number of troops lost in the battles that continue to rage. Ukraine fought back. What were the people there supposed to do? Let Russia take over? Of course not. Whatever anyone's views may be about who got what and why when the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine was an independent nation with international borders and we sat back and ignored Russia invading Crimea and haven't exactly done much since. Britain, the United States and others signed an agreement to protect Ukraine in return for their giving up the Soviet Union nuclear weapons which had been based in Ukraine before the collapse. By my reading we had a duty to honour that pledge but all I have seen since from the USA is criticism of Ukraine's response and rather too much by way of fear of antagonising Putin. One does have to wonder what it is that Putin has on Trump which has been so effective in the USA being so pathetic in their action since Trump's re-election. 

There always has and always will be only one response to the bullying and atrocious actions of russia's leaders and that is to demonstrate a massive joint defence capability to back up Ukraine's actions. At the start that might have been sufficient to make Putin think twice about continuing but now everything is in such a mess that it is difficult to know for sure what will happen. With the USA seemingly trying their best to withdraw from the scene like school children shouting insults while running in the opposite direction, there remain just a few countries in Europe and the British Commonwealth who are prepared to consider standing their ground and helping Ukraine retain what they can. Putin will have seen, however, that the power we can amass with any degree of immediacy or certainty is minimal and that he can rebuild his armoury more rapidly than we can, so it will suit him to see this thing carry on for years and gradually he could edge closer and closer to taking over a good half of Ukraine at which point he may well feel he has met his objectives. I am not in the camp of believers that he wishes to take back the Baltic states or even the whole of Ukraine. In a way, though, I wish he would have a go as that would force the hand of NATO and I don't think the USA would be able to get away without lending their support at that point. But that's not going to happen so . . back to what has happened and is expected to happen.

In the other case, a mass of supporters of a terrorist organisation called Hamas went into a festival and brutally shot, raped and took hostage a huge number of innocent young people in one of the worst incidents of its type in most of our memories. This group, supported, funded and equipped by Iran and religious zealots, basically says that Israel should not exist. Simple. It's like russia saying Ukraine should be part of russia but worse - Iran's weird rulers don't want Israel or Israelis to exist at all. It's not just the land but the extinction of the whole thing that is Israel, as far as I can see. So it seems pretty reasonable that, if someone is pointing a gun at you and you know he has no intention of letting you live you are going to do your best to ensure that he doesn't get to fire it. If that means killing him then so be it. There's really no choice in that sort of situation and that's what Israel's military forces have been trying to do. It seems that they have been extremely successful in removing many of the people who were giving the commands to kill Israeli people and have recently moved on to attempting to destroy Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon. I have to say that this seems absolutely necessary and I wonder why on Earth the world didn't act more firmly in the past when it must have been obvious that Iran would not just use nuclear development to make some electricity. We have all been stupid to allow them to have got so far that they have a processing plant hidden deep inside a ruddy mountain. It's not like this would have been built quietly behind the scenes over a few days while no-one was looking. The area known as Gaza is populated by people who we know voted by some majority for Hamas people to govern them. It's not like Hamas didn't make their views on Israel abundantly clear. So the folk who voted for them and support them must also be regarded as dangerous, if not necessarily all terrorists themselves. With Hamas burying offices and operational HQs inside or under hospitals and nurseries, it is not exactly easy for them to be taken out and, understandably, given the choice of letting those bad people carry on planning more atrocities in the world or preventing them doing so, Israel said we're coming for you loud and clear and gave innocent people in the areas as much notice as they could to get the hell away. Those that stayed will have been hurt but many will have had an option to move.

Of course, news script editors and social media writers have seen all this a great story and seem to have taken numbers and stories of events directly from Hamas supporters in many cases, or stories fed by russia into the system as well, and we get the headlines that make Israel out to be the baddies. In many ways, Israel's government and military seem strong enough to cope with all the criticism and are getting on with the job of destroying Hamas and hopefully Hezbollah and all their supporters and equipment in Iran too. Ideally, the whole religious shooting match that is Iran and goodness knows where else in that godforsaken part of the world will collapse as communism did in the Soviet Union. It would be a nice change to see some reasonable people, who didn't hate Christians or wish the destruction of whole nations and see all that as their prime objective, who might actually welcome doing business and working with us Brits and whoever is left in Israel, to show the rest of the area that all this hate gets people nowhere.

I can only conclude that the vast majority of those demonstrating in support of Palestine groups are reading solely from one religious book and, like some sort of zombies, are following each other with minds and eyes closed to any alternative view to their own. These people may look like innocent students or working people out to make a point but they're quite dangerous because they can influence others and make many more who don't really understand what has been happening support their cause. A huge number of younger people now seldom read any news or, if they do, it is a headline or repeated phrase which may have no credibility at all but sounds like something they can believe. Before long, they repeat that to a friend as if it is a gospel truth and next thing we know they'll be voting at an election for an MP who can have influence on the British government and before we know it we have a majority of MPs who come from a background sympathetic to the Hamas cause or, dare I say it, of decidedly anti-Christian flavour.

You would think that anyone in their right mind would be shouting at the world, government, whoever will listen, to put piles of troops and equipment up against Ukraine's borders and make it quite clear that we, as a group of nations, will fire missiles and stop any further advance by russia and encourage return to previously accepted international borders - by force if necessary. We have to call Putin's bluff but we need USA at least partially on board so that Putin doesn't feel there's any advantage in pressing that big red button. The same people should be shutting up about Israel and, if they're going to do religious stuff, pray to whatever god they have that someone with a bit of decency and calmer view of the world takes over the running not only of Iran but the whole area. We've had enough of the Islamic State and the bad things it has brought to the world at large. Maybe if there were to be a pleasant place where those with different religious views could live happily then we could persuade all the demonstrators and, for that matter, anyone else who doesn't like the way we do things here in Britain, to join them. And while we're at it, what better place to send illegal immigrants who, on the whole, seem to have no particular love for Britain anyway, just our benefits and the fact that we have some big communities of their relatives here already.