08 October 2015
Really?
By Neil Tidmarsh
A round-up of the ironies and absurdities in this last month’s international news. Good for a laugh – or enough to make you cry?
Pacifism is always worth fighting for.
Violence broke out in the Japanese parliament as pacifist MPs punched and wrestled with government MPs who were suggesting that Japan’s fighting forces should be able to – well – fight.
Couldn’t the Turkish air-force find Isis?
Turkey declared that they would help the USA and Nato in the fight against Isis, sent planes into Syria – and promptly bombed Kurdish forces who are themselves fighting against Isis.
Couldn’t the Russian air-force find Isis?
The Kremlin declared that Russia’s armed forces would join in the international fight against Isis, sent planes to Syria – and promptly bombed anti-government rebels who are themselves fighting against and being attacked by Isis.
Doesn’t the Russian military know that anti-Assad rebels and Isis don’t have planes?
Russia has sent anti-aircraft weaponry (and equipment for jamming aerial-surveillance) to Syria. But neither Isis nor the anti-government rebels has any kind of air-force. And it couldn’t possibly be intended for use against anyone else, could it?
As if the death penalty isn’t sick enough.
In Pakistan, the execution of a convicted murderer was postponed because the hangman could not calculate the appropriate length of rope for the weight of the condemned man plus his wheelchair. The man has been wheelchair-bound since contracting tubercular meningitis in prison.
The UN’s new human rights champion.
The United Nations appointed Saudi Arabia to chair the UN’s Human Rights Council, just as Saudi Arabia announced that it had sentenced to death (followed by crucifixion) Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, a Shia youth arrested at the age of 17 in 2012 during an Arab Spring anti-government protest. This week, the Human Rights Council blocked the Netherlands’ proposal for an international enquiry into possible war crimes in Yemen; Saudi Arabia leads the Sunni coalition in the war in Yemen. Meanwhile, the Saudi blogger Raif Badawi – imprisoned for ten years for ‘propagating liberal thought’ among other things – awaits the next instalment of his punitive 1000 lashes.
How big an army does $500 million buy?
The Pentagon’s $500 million program launched in May to train 5,400 Syrians a year for three years to fight against Isis produced only 54 soldiers from its first in-take; they returned to Syria in July but only four or five remain in action, after attacks by the Nusra Front, an off-shoot of al-Qaeda. There are now only about 100 recruits currently in training for this force, the 30th Division. Another contingent recently entered Syria, but all seventy troops have since disappeared; it is thought they have defected to the Nusra Front.
How good an army does $65 billion buy?
The US has spent $65 billion training and equipping the Afghan army and security forces since 2008. Last month, the city of Kinduz was attacked by an outnumbered force of 1,500 Taliban; it fell in only hours. Thousands of Afghan troops fled the city, their senior commanders fled to Kabul, and the governor fled the country.
Refugees flee Finland; is it really worse than Iraq?
Hundreds of Iraqi migrants have rejected Finland as a host, saying it is too cold and boring.
Refugees flee France; is it really worse than Iraq or Syria?
French officials have offered to bring 1000 migrants to France by bus from Munich, but only 600 have accepted and 60 of those have already left France for more prosperous Belgium.
Whose fault?
When a contractor was blamed for not securing the crane which fell during a storm and crashed through the roof of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, killing over 100 worshippers and injuring almost 300, it was suggested that it wasn’t the contractor’s fault because it was the will of God.
No cheers for EU democracy.
The Eastern European countries of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia eagerly signed up to the EU when the Iron Curtain came down, hungry for freedom and democracy after decades of Communism and Russian domination. Last month, a serving of the EU’s freedom and democracy left a bad taste in their mouths after a domineering Germany and a domineering France overturned the wishes of the electorate of Eastern Europe by imposing compulsory migrant quotas on them.
Perhaps things haven’t changed much since Thomas Middleton exclaimed “A Mad World, My Masters” over four hundred years ago. And the next four hundred years? Watch this space…
