Boys With Be Boys
There is a lot of speculation in the media, as why Muslim men are flocking to fight in Syria and Iraq.
Was it ever any different?
Go back to the Middle Ages and it was rape and pillage in the Crusades or with Henry the fifth, and later it was piracy with Drake and Grenville.
Nelson And Wellington were not short of volunteers and in Victorian times, it was all about Empire building, with a small personal fortune thrown in, if you were lucky!
Perhaps the nearest parallel to that of Syria and Iraq today, was the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War. Many of those who fought in the Brigades or openly supported them went on to be important figures in later life.
You could also argue that both the First and Second World War was an outlet for many men, who had an excess of testosterone.
I also remember a General, saying that the Falklands War did a lot of good for Army recruitment.
I am a pacifist or more likely a coward, but we shouldn’t be too quick to condemn those, who go to fight in Iraq and Syria.
The ones we should condemn are the countries and arms dealers, who are giving the likes of the odious President Assad, the weapons they are using to kill their own people.
An Excellent Use For Rats
I saw this story about rats being used for mine clearance in Mozambique first in The Times. But here’s the report with a picture from the Mirror.
The Gambian pounched rat used for the clearance certainly looks to be a bit bigger than your average UK rat. Good luck to the charity Apopo in their work!
The bad news is that the Gambian pounched rat is not a genuine rat, so those murophobics won’t be pleased, if something goes wrong.
A History Of Syria With Dan Snow
I am watching this program on BBC2 as I write this and I’ve never seen a program that explains the tortuous history of the troubled country of Syria so well.
The program is being repeated tomorrow at 23:20 according to this page and is an absolute must see!
If you don’t see the program, your ideas about and solutions for Syria won’t be correct. Unless of course, you are someone who has studied the country and its history and problems for years.
It has been some time, since I’ve seen such an informative and well-made documentary on such a terrifying subject, that might boil over on all of us!
And to think that one of the causes of the current round of troubles in Syria, is the bad doctor, Bashar-al-Assad!
One phrase from Dan Snow summed up the mess.
The threads running through this conflict, mean there is no simple solution.
As he finishes the program, he does at least feel that there is some hope, because of the resilience and experience of the Syrian people.
I hope he’s right!
Will The Next World War Be Fought On The Internet?
If you think it won’t, just read this article on the BBC’s web site.
The Chinese will increase their hacking over the next few years and many of us will get compromised, no matter how careful we are. And let’s face it many of us don’t even have basic virus protection.
I can think of scenarios that might happen to say a fully-compromised banking network, that will make the problems of the banking industry of the last few years, seem like a children’s tea-party.
Nelson’s Link To Hawke
Edward Hawke was an admiral in the Royal Navy and is best known for his defeating of the French at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759, which probably ended any chance of a French invasion of Great Britain. Quiberon Bay was one of those naval battles like the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Trafalgar and Taranto, that have defined our history.
I had lunch with a friend yesterday and the subject of a artist called Edward Hawke Locker came up. He was called Edward Hawke, as his father, William Locker, was a protege of Admiral Hawke, who served with him in the Seven Years War. The Wikipedia entry for William says this.
Locker then moved to command the frigate HMS Thames, on the home station. He was her captain from 1770 until 1773. In 1777 he took command of HMS Lowestoffe, sailing her to the West Indies. During this period, one of his lieutenants was the newly promoted Horatio Nelson. Nelson, then barely nineteen, served with Locker for fifteen months. His experiences with Locker, and Locker’s teachings had a lasting effect on Nelson.
Twenty years later, on 9 February 1799, Nelson wrote to his old captain: “I have been your scholar; it is you who taught me to board a Frenchman by your conduct when in the Experiment; it is you who always told me ‘Lay a Frenchman close and you will beat him;’ and my only merit in my profession is being a good scholar. Our friendship will never end but with my life, but you have always been too partial to me.”
Note that Lowestoft is spelt how the locals tend to pronounce it. The article also goes on to elaborate on the connection between Locker and Nelson.
If there is a moral in this, it is that you should make sure you learn the lessons of history.
Was Tumbledown One of the Last Bayonet Charges?
The Times today has a detailed account of the Battle of Mount Tumbledown in the Falklands War. It is told by four soldiers from the Scots Guards, who took part in the battle. This paragraph tells how they went in.
The Battalion went in wearing berets, because their helmets were too clumsy; rucksacks were left behind; they had no body armour. They carried SLR rifles, with bayonets fixed, 80 rounds of ammunition, a sleeping bag, grenades and first-aid kit. Communication was through “open” radio. “I talked to my company commanders as easily as I’m talking to you,” Scott says. Their only password in the dark was “Jimmy,” the idea being that, since the Argentinians could not pronounce their Js, they would be easily identified.
Would soldiers do that today? Certainly, a lot of armies wouldn’t!
I once used to live next to a Colonel in the British Army. He would have loved the bit about the passwords. As he once said to me. “In case of war, burn all the rulebooks!” The more I read about the Falklands War, the more it was a war where convention went out the window.
I think even the Americans thought we would be unable to regain the islands. I’ve always felt that it put the wind up the Russians and they then realised that they would never be able to walk their way across Europe, when they would be fighting the strong and well-trained volunteer armies of Western Europe. I think even in 1980, a lot of experienced high-ranking officers in the Red Army had seen the horrors of the Second World War and felt they wouldn’t ask their soldiers to go through that again.
I hope we never have to fight another war like the Falklands.
Ben Macintyre on the Alawites
If you wonder what’s going on in Syria, an article in The Times today, by Ben MacIntyre gives a very sound and fearful insight into the world and history of the Alawites. One quote from the article follows.
Many fear the fall of Assad will give rise to wholesale retribution.
Everybody who wants to make a statement about Syria, should read this article. If you can’t get hold of a copy, at least read the Wikipedia article.
I doubt that we’ll ever get anywhere with Assad and this bunch.
A Discussion About the Falklands
During part of the Falklands War or soon afterwards, I was at an Artemis Users Conference in Denver Colorado.
After dinner one night, four of us, got together and had a few drinks. The other guys were the Project Manager of the McDonnell Douglas Harrier program, a guy with a similar position at Long Beach Naval Shipyard and a banker from New York.
The banker kept on about us needing a nice big flat-top (aircraft-carrier) with a few Tomcats and that would have dealt with the Argentines. I wanted to stand my British corner, but really didn’t know what to say. In the end the other two Americans, just let him have enough rope and then they played their card; the awful weather. One said that the weather reports from the Falklands, they’d seen, were so bad, that the only aircraft you could take-off and land back again was a Harrier.
The banker wasn’t seen again that evening,
The Anonymous Widower 