P.K.
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Posts posted by P.K.
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7 hours ago, woolley said:
Of course Brexit was about far more than financial centres in any case.
Full marks for your indefatigability though, which could never be in doubt.
Ah yes, the much hackneyed "sovereignty" with a hefty dose of "immigration" mixed in...
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4 hours ago, manxman1980 said:
If the IDF are as good as you and others suggest then go door to door in pursuit of Hamas.
I think knocking on doors and asking the inhabitants if they have any Palestinian Resistance Fighters or Islamic Jihadis round for afternoon tea is a very risky strategy that would never work out in somewhere like Rafah.
The usual tactical Advance To Contact (ATC) and when you draw fire calling it in for indirect artillery or fast air support is the way to go. Especially if It's Intelligence driven. These days they claim that if the co-ords are accurate they can put a shell or a bomb in a dustbin. Although why you would want to destroy someone's rubbish was never explained...
By now they should be very good at it as well.
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3 hours ago, woolley said:
Not reduced at all. You and I played the ball in every conceivable way, ad nauseam, until we kicked it to death. Nothing more to be said about it that hasn't been already. This was just a spot of housekeeping, and if it's a person's opinion that one is commenting on, then obviously one has to address the person as the subject, and clearly it is relevant in this case that Rose chaired the failed official remain campaign.
It would only be relevant if what he said was untrue.
https://nixons.substack.com/p/how-brexit-wrecked-the-stock-market
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Every time someone complains about the way the IDF are carrying out their orders I simply ask for their alternative strategy...?
Modern warfare is all about winning with the least casualties to your own side*. So ideally you want to manoeuvre your enemy into such a place where they can essentially be massacred from a position of complete safety. Anything less simply means unnecessary losses to your own side. Which are to be avoided as much as is possible.
As of today in the "Swords of Iron" operation the IDF have had 260 KIA and 3,267 WIA some 512 of which are VSW. There are also 1,139 Israeli civilians killed on 7th October to add to the list. Of course all these numbers would be zero but for the Hamas assault. That according to a recent poll 71% of Palestinians supported. Bearing in mind what took place on that day it's quite disgusting really...
The only way to destroy Hamas and their rocket launchers is boots on the ground which is a very dangerous way of doing things. However they had the good sense not to just rush in to what would no doubt be prepped killing grounds and instead planned it through. The infantry advance with armoured support and if they get held up they just call in indirect fire both artillery and fast air. Like the US protecting their forces as far as possible with overwhelming firepower.
But they still have to take Rafah which will be the toughest nut to crack with the likelyhood of lots of casualties on both sides.
I guess we'll find out...
*Unless you are a dictatorship like Russia where there is no accountability for enormous losses...
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27 minutes ago, manxman1980 said:
A little but of calm considering Iran's attack harmed/damaged nothing. This is just escalation and is going to prompt Iran to retaliate further.
I would suggest a more measured campaign that would not have been described as possible genocide by the ICJ.
Define what would be a "more measured campaign" please ie what tactics should they have used?
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4 hours ago, manxman1980 said:
Several of us have said repeatedly that the Israeli Governments actions in Gaza overstepped a reasonable response and from that point on were only ever going to create new Hamas supporters.
Define what would be a "reasonable" response...?
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17 hours ago, woolley said:
Overrated as a businessman. He rode success at times as well as presiding over a good deal of decline. Not an entrepreneur either. He never created anything at his own risk with his own money. Started out as an M&S trainee and schmoozed his way up the greasy pole, saying the right things to the right people at the right times. Jumped ship and headed up various PLCs. Typical stuffed suit beloved of the City and the establishment, while being remunerated accordingly.
As he says himself, he's an old moaning remainer. Of course he is! He even chaired the failed "Britain Stronger in Europe" official remain campaign, so naturally he doesn't get it. If he thinks Britain's demise started in 2016, he's well wide of the mark. It started before any of us were born and continued throughout our membership of the EU. He says everything that has happened since 2016 except Covid has a link back to Brexit. Presumably including the Russian invasion of Ukraine and resulting gas and oil shock? He obviously hasn't looked at the disarray in the EU recently. Plenty of demise going on there too.
Reduced to playing the man and not the ball.
Again!
On 3/3/2024 at 8:59 PM, woolley said:Then we have dear old @P.K. arlier on he quoted an article from the inevitable Guardian (Simon Jenkins FFS, an oddball who previously gave us his wisdom that London should leave both the EU AND the UK!). The article is nearly 3 years old, written at the time of the pandemic and before war in Ukraine, supply problems and inflation derailed the entire global economy. And even at the time it really was all complete rubbish.
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There was a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research recently. All the various media outlets have their own take on the results. However they all seem to agree on this:
"According to the poll, only seven percent of Gazans blamed Hamas for their suffering. Seventy-one percent of all Palestinians supported Hamas’s decision to attack Israel on October 7 — up 14 points among Gazans and down 11 points among West Bank Palestinians compared to three months ago. Fifty-nine percent of all Palestinians thought Hamas should rule Gaza, and 70 percent were satisfied with the role Hamas has played during the war."
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/22/poll-hamas-remains-popular-among-palestinians/
etc...
So if the IDF are not allowed to finish the mission there will be a cadre of Hamas left to re-grow the organisation with Iranian arms and money.
Hamas and Gaza will put that down as a win.
Hamas recruitment will swell the ranks.
Israel will await the next assault.
Rinse and repeat...
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29 minutes ago, HeliX said:
Forgotten that hardly any of the people in Gaza who are alive now voted in the last election?
More facile nonsense.
The election was in 2006 ffs!
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6 hours ago, HeliX said:
I don't disagree with any of this, except perhaps the last line. I don't think Israel does view civilian casualties as a tragedy.
I don't think Hamas are valiant freedom fighters, but I do think their existence was utterly predictable if not inevitable given the treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli regime and the willful ignorance of the problem from the international community. Denied the right to seek political solutions, denied the right to peacefully protest, inevitably you end up with violent protest - as with every time those conditions have ever been set.
The other thing I would note though is that none of this absolves Israel of its duty to not perform obscene acts of inhumanity such as cutting off water to over a million children. There's a good reason collective punishment is illegal.
The Palestinians voted for Hamas and their ideology:
"HAMAS emerged in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising, or intifada, as an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian branch. The group is committed to armed resistance against Israel and the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state in Israel's place."
So for once you're right. The death and destruction in Gaza was bound to follow...
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32 minutes ago, HeliX said:
Who are you arguing with? Nobody thinks Gaza is in a good sustainable state, but some of us dont think that can be used to handwave away massive amounts of human suffering.
You reap what you sow...
How very appropriate for the region.
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In It's present form Gaza is unsustainable.
Only a complete and utter idiot would fail to realise that...
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1 hour ago, HeliX said:
Do you think that's a reasonable interpretation of the discussion?
That's rich coming from you.
Even after being told a Grad (translation "hail") rocket had a 20kg warhead you still claimed "They are fireworks. Hence the near zero damage from them in several decades." which frankly is in complete denial.
To counter the increasing number of rockets Israel developed the "Iron Dome" system. They didn't have to as they already had effective counter-battery radars. They track the trajectory of a missile which immediately gives away the launch site. You can have a Ground-to-Ground targeted missile in the air before the enemy rocket even hits the ground. They did not deploy them because drone footage showed the launchers were all deliberately placed in heavily populated built-up areas to act as a counter-strike shield.
But if they hadn't deployed Iron Dome there would be more Israeli casualties and even more Palestinian casualties from counter-strikes.
Unfortunately not degrading the Hamas systems meant they could amass enough to overwhelm Iron Dome for the October assault. However you can be sure that their whereabouts were marked and hopefully destroyed by the ground offensive...
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16 minutes ago, HeliX said:
Stating facts is a symptom of that is it?
"Facts" - you're having a laugh!
For starters members of Hamas are civilians! So of course the IDF have " violent intent" towards them.
It's called fighting an insurgency.
Dear me...
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1 hour ago, HeliX said:
And that Israel has violent intent against civilians. And that Keir Starmer is unfit to be Prime Minister.
And that you're losing it...
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9 hours ago, HeliX said:
Doubtless many anti-semites will jump on this as another reason to bash Israel (and the Jews) over the head. But many, many Jewish people are also disgusted by the behaviour of the Israeli Government. And a lot of the reason for the worldwide protests is that the host countries are supporting the behaviour of Israel. Keir Starmer, a human rights lawyer(!), claimed Israel had the right to turn off water to 2million civilians. There is little point protesting against, say, Russia in the UK because the UK Govt is already anti-Russia.
The water issue is just another indicator that in it's present form Gaza is simply unsustainable...
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12 hours ago, manxman1980 said:
@P.K. do you genuinely believe that the Israeli Government has done nothing worthy of criticism in its response to the terrible attack on the 7th October? Even Israel's allies have been calling for restraint both prior to and after the missile and drone attack by Iran.
I cannot help but wonder what happened to the aim of rescuing the hostages that were taken on the 7th October. I suspect that they will all have been killed either by Hamas or by the Israeli attacks unless they were somehow evacuated out of Gaza by Hamas.
Trying to unpick any of this is a nightmare and unfortunately is the consequence of the decision in the 1940's to gift the Jewish people a new state in an area that people were already living. In the end I don't think it would have mattered where the new state of Israel was created as gifting a country/state where people were already living to another group of people is always going to cause an issue. Look what happened when chunks of land in Northern Ireland were taken from the existing Catholic population and gifted to Presbyterian Scots. How long did it take to resolve that one?
The partition of India had some 14m to 18m people on the move with around 1m fatalities. Absolutely shocking!
As I have pointed out the surrounding Arab nations have to take some of the blame for the situation especially the refugee camps which are growing every day with stateless people deliberately kept in limbo and going nowhere.
It should be noted that the Palestinians blame Israel and not the UN and the Arab states for the bind they are in. Mind you, they expect the UN to feed them while they wait for the fall of Israel...
I have never thought the Israelis were squeaky clean but I admire them for what they have achieved.
On the IDF they are very professional. However the sheer brutality of the October assault means that a lot will be looking for revenge - a perfectly normal human reaction. However they put themselves and their comrades at risk if it overtakes their training.
I don't agree with the settler expansion in the West Bank. I read somewhere that the "military assistance" was reservists "helping" out. But then Israel has bulldozed settlements before and can do it again.
Yes it's a mess...
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2 hours ago, HeliX said:
No, obviously civilian casualties are appalling whenever and whyever they happen. But that wasn't the point being argued, the rockets are bottle rockets that pose virtually no threat to anyone in Israel. Unlike the sniper fire that the IDF keep directing into the bodies of civilians.
What part of:
7 hours ago, P.K. said:Ever more facile nonsense...
Palestinians have been firing rockets into Israel since 2004 ffs! The Grad rockets they use have a 20kg warhead.
is it that you don't understand?
You need to give your arse a chance:
Grad 122mm 9M22, a High-Explosive Fragmentation (HE-Frag), electrically-initiated, fin and spin-stabilised, Ground-to-Ground Rocket (GGR). When detonated the internal scoring of the M-21-OF warhead creates approximately 3,150 fragments which are scattered over a lethal radius of about 28m.
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28 minutes ago, HeliX said:
"Near zero".
What a relief that must be for the killed and injured...
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I suspect the differential between sea and air is because the ferry fares are going up and from our own observations the air fares are if anything going down.
We have also noticed that the IOMSPCo profiteering from the TT is now beginning earlier in April causing us to fly instead.
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9 minutes ago, HeliX said:
They are fireworks. Hence the near zero damage from them in several decades.
So according to you a Grad rocket with a 20kg is a "firework" that has caused zero casualties.
Wrong on both counts.
You really are losing touch with reality...
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As I understand it they realised that the current form of low taxation generating insufficient funds to maintain public services at a modern level was simply unsustainable. Their "solution" is to attract economically active migrants to a certain number to up the tax take.
I don't recall it being put out to their joke version of "consultation" because I would have said "NO".
Put simply if the current model is unsustainable then It's the model that has to change. Just feeding it is not going to make the problem go away but will just make it bigger.
Cowards all as per...
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8 hours ago, Chinahand said:
International law is very clear. If you face a clear and present danger from the plans and orders an enemy is sending from a place then you can take action against the people in that place to stop them.
Hezbollah is armed and coordinated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force. They have fired 1000s of rockets into Northern Israel since October 7th causing the evacuation of over 100,000 Israelis.
It is entirely within Israel's right to self-defence to take out the people arming, planning an coordinating those attacks.
General Qasem Soleimani assassinated by the US in 2020 was involved in the "Quds force" operations and those taken out by the recent IDF strike in Syria likewise.
The message "don't foment terrorism against Israel" just couldn't be clearer but unfortunately It's still not clear enough for the likes of @HeliX to grasp...
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7 hours ago, HeliX said:
The IDF is armed and co-ordinated by the US. They have fired two nuclear bombs worth of explosive material into Gaza, causing the deaths of 30,000 people. It is entirely within Gaza's right to self-defense to take out the people arming, planning and co-ordinating those attacks...
Ever more facile nonsense...
Palestinians have been firing rockets into Israel since 2004 ffs! The Grad rockets they use have a 20kg warhead. Not exactly "fireworks" now are they? I suspect Israel now regrets the development of "Iron Dome" and instead should have retaliated using their counter battery capability. Because firing rockets at Israel has now become the no-risk norm.
You need a serious reality check...
Incidentally how is your "single state" solution coming along ie are Hezbollah invited to join in...?
Israel vs. the rest of the world?
in International News
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Because they're kept in the line of fire by Hamas supporting parents...?
In every conflict, but especially in an urban insurgency, the innocents always suffer disproportionately. Unfortunately It's in the nature of the beast. Plus, of course, Hamas embed themselves as deeply as they possibly can because, as we have seen, they just don't care...
Surely you already know this...?