Hard News: Haphazardly to war
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Seems like a strange final term vanity project of Key's. He'll be able to go to a war zone dressed in fatigues and be the genuine head of a really small army. Nobody will be able to call him the "guy who never really did anything much when he was in power" when he took the nation to war.
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David R, in reply to
Funny you should bring Iran up, as pragmatically, the US performing a 180 and cosying up to them and getting them actively involved in stabilising the region is the least bad of all the terrible options. As someone already mentioned, there are no clean hands here. Assuming we don't see Iran sponsored Shiite death squads again, that could work.
Of course, once this happens Saudi Arabia goes ballistic and Israel starts threatening to nuke everyone.
Foreign policy is hard :(
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
speaking frankly...
an apostate
I think an 'apostdate' is one of the three days per week that mail will be delivered... anything else would be a miracle!
but it's no way to stamp out terrorism... -
Rich Lock, in reply to
but won't be once they shift back into guerrilla mode
It's unlikely that they will now that ISIS has declared the Caliphate*.
See this excellent article which in my opinion is required reading for anyone discussing this topic.
*needless to say, that doesn't mean that dealing with this issue makes yer extremist problem go away, just this particular hydra head.
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Rich Lock, in reply to
If I understand correctly, if somebody calls you an apostate then either they're right in which case they have to kill you, or they're wrong, in which case they are considered apostate and you have to kill them.
Is also my understanding, based on The Atlantic article I linked to above.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Our Mad Hatter…
embarasing to have a Primeminister who partronised the Iraqi people by making grand statements about sending a small group of New Zealand soldiers and I paraphrase; to show the Iraqi army how to have the balls to fight ISIS. He must think that winning the rugby World Cup is more awesome than it really is.
Key’s spittle flecked rant in the house was an unedifying experience …
Which ‘hat’ does he wear when he says ‘it is the least we can do without doing nothing’ and which ‘hat’ does he wear when he is accusing everyone else of being ‘gutless’ – our very own millinery-minded millionaire – I bet he practised that ‘speech’ in front of the mirror, several times….
He doesn’t need to attempt humour – he is a joke! -
Meanwhile back in Syria, Assad continues to drop barrel bombs on civilians.
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Someone with armed forces insight has pointed out to me that New Zealand will be going in with no Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis. And without a SOFA, you don’t know what your Rules of Engagement are.
I gather there are a few people troubled by this.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Someone with armed forces insight has pointed out to me that New Zealand will be going in with no State of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis.
Is that why they will go in with diplomatic passports also?
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
I meant to say, before I mangled my last comment, is that it’s embarasing to have a Primeminister who partronised the Iraqi people by making grand statements about sending a small group of New Zealand soldiers, and I paraphrase; to show the Iraqi army how to have the balls to fight ISIS. He must think that winning the rugby World Cup is more awesome than it really is.
Yes - the imperial superiority on show is stomach turning. Lest we forget that the Iraqis on both sides here are as often as not the same people who handily defeated the US, UK and Australia a few short years back.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
I guess they hope they don't meet Danny Glover:
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I see Key is going to the cricket together on Saturday, presumably so his presence may steady the boys. John key is surely a parody of Henry Newbolt.
There’s a breathless hush in Zealandia to-night—
Ten to make and the match to win—
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it’s not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame,
But his Prime ministers hand on his shoulder smote
“get some guts! get some guts! and play the game!”The sand of the desert is sodden red,—
Red with the wreck of a deployment that broke;—
The Hummer’s destroyed and the SAS dead,
And the veterans maimed from shrapnel and bomb.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And Zealandia’s far, and Honour a name,
But the refrain of the prime minister rallies the ranks:
“get some guts! get some guts! and play the game!” -
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
I was thinking that it was futile.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
I wonder how the five eyes nations negotiate access to drop there own bombs on the territory.
A VFA?
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
State of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis.
Is that why they will go in with diplomatic passports also?
Yes. Because when they kill someone without such an agreement they come under local legal jurisdiction, essentially they can and should be charged with murder and sent to trial.*
Since we can't let that happen we then pull them out with diplomatic immunity.
It is deceitful.
*At least I think so, I am not an international lawyer, but that is my understanding.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
just becouse there is a more compelling atrocity going on simultaneously in the same place
Depressing that dropping barrel bombs and gassing your own citizens doesn't make you the worst person in Syria. Ten years ago we were there, it was amazing, the people were lovely, hospitable, diverse …
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I think that bringing foreign soldiers onto your soil with diplomatic passports, essentially making them unaccounatble for their actions is a dangerous thing for anyone to do (be it Iraq or NZ)
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Just when you think our PM's arrogance is unbeatable, you read this:
Yet a story published Friday in the Australian newspaper claimed to show that Abbott had taken his macho behavior into the realm of geopolitical absurdity – by suggesting a unilateral Australian "invasion" of Iraq.
There was a story I heard a long time ago that after the first coup in Fiji, Lange asked the NZDF if NZ & Aus should consider an invasion to restore democracy and was told in no uncertain terms that we would get our clocks cleaned.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
we would get our clocks cleaned
That was at the time when Fiji was earning significant foreign income from Fijian army mercenaries, who apparently were very highly skilled and hard as nails. They also apparently had quite interesting private "collections" of military hardware.
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This is worth a read, the second half in particular: http://bit.ly/1KUGkUM
Similarly to the Vox article linked to in a previous post, the article suggests that the tide has already turned on ISIS. Not surprising really, nut cases can’t seem to not overplay their hands and piss off too many people, which is what ISIS have done. And being on the wrong end of air power for an extended period of time is going to wear you down.
It may be that ISIS will be over and done with, in Iraq anyway, sooner than expected. So NZ's involvement seems unlikely to get NZ stuck in a situation that is deteriorating.
As for what happens in Syria, who knows how that will pan out.
But this is just one more chapter in the violent and brutal history of the expansionist political ideology that is Islam. Most likely there will be more. -
If folk want to read what it is like to train troops in Iraq get this book:
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Maybe if we tried to nut it out with their infantry.
Stick an Anzac frigate (or even the Leanders we had then) 2km off the end of the Suva airport runway and declare a no-fly zone. That'd stuff them up and they'd have no effective response.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Stick an Anzac frigate (or even the Leanders we had then) 2km off the end of the Suva airport runway and declare a no-fly zone. That’d stuff them up and they’d have no effective response.
Have you seen what infantry borne missiles do nowadays? None of our "navy" could afford to get anywhere within range.
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Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for the invasion of Fiji. :)
2km off the end of the Suva airport runway and declare a no-fly zone
Threaten commercial air traffic?
To paraphrase Rik: "That's fine talk coming from a pacifist" (well, a nuclear free nation with a newly discovered independent foreign policy)
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BenWilson, in reply to
Stick an Anzac frigate (or even the Leanders we had then) 2km off the end of the Suva airport runway and declare a no-fly zone.
You're kidding, of course. It's a nice conceit that we would be able to intimidate Fiji militarily, but probably a completely false one. Quite aside from whether it would be of any use, or morally justifiable. It's the kind of conflict that, because it is on a "small" scale, with very primitive weaponry by world standards, would lead to a long engagement with high casualties. Some of the most deadly conflicts in the last 50 years have been between small nations, and naval conflict is especially prone to "went down with all hands" kinds of losses. We could lose thousands of people doing that.
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