Warnerd- My rationale

My mate Spaced-out, asked me why I nursed such admiration for Gary Brecher (Warnerd) given his Right-wing, Curse-laden text. Simple.. the guy has a rough edge, has some extreme views, but is an honest, fair-minded humanist, with undeniably a penchant for Military history. I've reproduced the first article of his I ever read and which signed me up as a fan of his, please read and pass your judgement afterwards. Of course there are inaccuracies in some of his articles and any correction I've sent him has been gratefully acknowledged. Say no more.

Biafra: Killer Cessnas and Crazy Swedes Gary Brecher By Gary Brecher ( war_nerd@exile.ru ) Browse Author (103) « Previous (60) Next (42) »

The eXile asked me to do a special 200th column, something about old wars and new wars, so I thought I"d talk about the bush war building up right now in the Niger River delta in Nigeria. The TV"s talking about how the locals are forming an army to make the Nigerian government give them a share of the income from all the oil they"ve found in the delta, but nobody mentions that this miserable maze of fever swamp was the focus of the biggest war in modern Africa -- the Biafra war.

Nigeria"s a typical West African mess of a country, only bigger and meaner. It"s divided up the usual way: the coastal tribes are Christianized from sucking up to the European colonists. The further inland you go, the drier, hungrier and more Islamic it gets. The Brits grabbed the Nigerian coastline from the Portuguese when they realized there was money to be made, and turned the two big coastal tribes, the Ibo and the Yoruba, into their overseers on the Nigerian plantations. That left a lot of the inland Muslim tribes, the Hausa-Fulani people of the Sahel, permanently pissed off, sharpening their knives and biding their time.

The Hausa-Faluni got their chance in 1963, when the last Brit in Nigeria hopped on a plane, yelling back to the Natives "Congratulations, chaps! You"re independent!" As soon as the Brits bugged out, the tribal massacres got going. Muslims in the north hacked to death every Ibo they could find. They hated these smartasses from the coast -- and now the Redcoats weren"t there to stop them from taking revenge. 30,000 Ibos were killed in a few days. The massacres kind of soured the Ibo on the idea of Nigeria as one big happy intertribal family. In 1967 an Ibo General in the Nigerian Army declared that the Ibo region was now an independent country, "Biafra." The Nigerian Army, a big, sleazy outfit, begged to differ and invaded the Ibo region in SE Nigeria.

The Army had 250,000 men. The Biafra/Ibo army had maybe a tenth that many, but they were brave and smart -- the Ibo had always been the brains of Nigeria. Every time it was a question of real battle on anything like equal terms, the Biafran rebels won. They stopped the government troops cold, then grabbed tactical surprise by staging a long-range raid into Western Nigeria. A risky advance like that by untrained civilian recruits (which is what most of the Ibo fighters were) is really impressive. But sad to say, courage doesn"t count for much in West African warfare. It"s ruthlessness that wins these wars, and the Nigerian junta had it. Instead of facing the Ibo army man to man, the Nigerian troops grabbed the coastline around the Niger River delta, the supply route the Ibo needed. They stopped all food shipments heading for Ibo territory and sat back to let the Ibo starve.

The Biafrans were still winning every battle and losing the war like Lee in 1865 -- starved out, strangled from behind. They realized they needed to open the supply route and decided to take back the Niger delta. And they got some help from outside. The best example, one of the few real heroes you"ll get in this sleazy world, was a Swede, believe it or not.

A Swedish aristocrat, no less. Count Carl Gustav von Rosen volunteered to do close air support for the Biafran army, hosing down government troops and raiding their bases, flying tiny civilian prop planes like little Swedish Cessnas. Is that glorious or what? The mismatch in the air war was total. The Nigerian AF had MiG-17 fighters and Il-28 bombers, DC 3 transports converted to bombers and a few choppers. Those Ilyushin and MiG designs were the high point of Soviet military aviation. Don"t kid yourself -- the Soviets built some great planes. The Il-28 was a big, fast bomber with a bombload of 16,000 pounds and a three-man crew, including a tail gunner manning twin 23mm cannon. You wouldn"t want to tailgate one of these. The MiG-17 was even better. It might have been the best fighter in the world when it went into service in 1953, and even in the mid-sixties it was good enough to win against our Phantom F-4s in dogfights over North Vietnam. US pilots were way more scared of the MiG-17 than the follow-on model, the MiG-21. The slick moves and big cannon of the MiG-17 were one big reason the USAF stopped thinking of fighters as manned SAMs -- all speed and no finesse -- and went back to planes with nose cannon, maneuverability and started teaching air combat at Top Gun schools. Up against all this big international hardware, the Biafrans had...nothing.

Then this crazy Swede von Rosen came up with the kind of idea that would only work in Africa. Since he couldn"t get the Biafrans any jet aircraft, he"d just buy some prop-driven trainers and refit them for combat. Von Rosen is such a great character he almost makes me reconsider hating Swedes. He was a throwback to when the Swedish pikemen turned the tide of the Thirty Years War. Von Rosen specialized in noble lost causes. Way back in 1938, when he was just a kid, he volunteered to fly for the Finns in their ultra-cool, hopeless fight against the Red Army. The Finns had no bombers so von Rosen just grabbed a civilian airliner, loaded it up with bombs and dropped them on the Reds from the passenger doors. "Welcome, Comrade passengers! Coffee, tea or 500 pounds of HE?"

Thirty years later, in August 1968, von Rosen was working as a civilian pilot delivering aircraft to Africa. He ran into some priests who were trying to find somebody brave enough to fly medical supplies past the blockade into Biafra. The mercs they"d hired called it off as too dangerous. Von Rosen volunteered to fly a DC 7 into Biafra with the supplies. The Biafrans were so grateful, and were fighting so bravely against all the odds, that von Rosen warmed to them like he had to the Finns. The Biafrans needed help to deal with the Nigerian AF, which was fighting a nasty war even by African standards. In the whole war, there"s not one case of the Nigerian AF attacking a military target. That would"ve been dangerous -- and not nearly as much fun as bombing refugee camps, strafing hospitals, and napalming fleeing civilians. Von Rosen tried to find the Ibo some modern military jets, but nobody wanted to sell to the Biafrans for fear of upsetting the Nigerian government, a much bigger customer. So von Rosen started thinking about small prop-driven aircraft. There"s a long history of using slow prop planes in bush warfare. Even the USAF, which has a major hard-on for afterburners and chrome, was forced to adopt a slow, armored CAS plane, the A-10. They hated it at first but it proved itself in both Gulf Wars, when fancy toys like the Army"s dog of an AH, the Apache, left the field with its tail between its legs. In Nam, the classic jungle air war, we used two planes that were slow as molasses but did the job. One of the best and ugliest was the A-1 Skyraider, a chunky WW II style plugger. The USAF hated it and was always trying to twist combat reports to make the F-4 look good and the Skyraider look bad, but pilots agreed: you were better off going in low and slow in a Skyraider than zooming by in an F-4. Even the Skyraider was like an SR-71 compared to the little putt-putt plane von Rosen built his force around: the MFI-9, a tiny prop-driven Swedish trainer that looks like those ultralights people build in their garages. This plane could park in subcompact spaces at the Stockholm mall. It had a maximum payload of 500 pounds -- me plus a couple of medium sized dogs. Lucky those Swedes are so skinny.

Von Rosen bought five of these little "Fleas" down the coast in Gabon, slapped on a coat of green VW paint to make them look military, and installed wing pods for unguided 68mm unguided anti-armor rockets. Then he and his pilots -- three Swedes and three Ibo -- flew them back to Biafra and into combat. They blew the Hell out of the Nigerian AF and army. These little Fleas were impossible to bring down. Not a single one was knocked out of the sky, although they"d buzz home riddled with holes.

They flew three missions a day and their list of targets destroyed included Nigerian airfields, power plants, and troop concentrations. The Fleas turned their weaknesses into advantages in true guerrilla style. They were so slow that they had to fly real low -- which made them almost impossible to hit in the jungle, since you never saw them till they were on top of you. The low speed made for better aim: almost half the 400 68mm rockets they fired hit their targets, which is an amazing score for unguided AS munitions. (There used to be a joke in the USAF that if it wasn"t for the law of gravity, unguided AS rockets couldn"t even hit the ground.) The Biafran AF managed to destroy three MiG-17s and an Il-28 on the ground. Killing enemy planes on the ground may not be as glorious as shooting them down in a dogfight, but they"re just as destroyed.

The Fleas also took out a couple of helicopters, an airport tower, a Canberra bomber and a half-dozen supply trucks. And they blew away at least 500 Nigerian troops. It was one of the few really glorious exploits you get in war these days. Why they haven"t made a movie of it, I don"t know. Guess they think we"d rather see tennis pros fall in love or some shit like that. Von Rosen"s Fleas weren"t enough to turn the tide of the war.

The rest of the world turned their backs on the Ibo, let the Nigerians starve them into submission. The USSR sold the Nigerians every plane, tank and gun they could cram into their shopping cart, and the British loaned their pilots to fly as Nigerian AF mercs, bombing Biafran civvies and blowing up convoys bringing food and meds to the Ibo villages. The famine in Biafra was the first time we saw pictures of African kids with skeleton arms and legs and big balloon bellies looking up at the camera. It was easy to get shots like that in Biafra, because the whole country was starving. A year into the war, the Ibo had nothing left. No food, no ammo, not even fuel, which is ironic when they were sitting on the big Niger delta oilfiends. Even the bravest troops can"t fight when they"re dying of starvation. So in 1969 the Nigerian Army sent 120,000 men pushing through the center of Biafra, dividing the Ibo zone in half.

It was like Sherman"s march to the sea -- it broke the Biafrans" backs. Early in 1970 Biafra surrendered. Nobody knows how many people died. The low guess is a million, the high ones maybe three millions. Almost all were Ibo civilians. The Nigerians punished the Ibo for their uppity behavior by freezing them out of the loot they got from oil revenues and other graft, the one industry in Nigeria. For 30 years the Ibo have been watching the oil pumped out of their land to buy more Mercedes for a bunch of sleazy generals and politicians. They"ve got a right to be pissed off -- but the Biafra war showed them that in Africa, right ain"t got much to do with it. Like the greatest Swede of "em all used to say, "God is on the side of the big battalions."

Mike The Headless Chicken

There is something to be said for the will to live, the lifeforce that propels through a journey on this earth, if at any point in your life you think you can't go on, look to Mike for inspiration.

Mike for those unaware, as I was till this weekend, whilst in Dublin for the Clinical Biochemists Conference - what I was doing there? Only God knows, I certainly have no logical explanation. Anyway, my colleague KOB came up with this and after checking that this wasn't a Meat Trade joke, I was absolutely enthralled.

In summary, Ol' Mike was a Chicken who refused to die even after having his head chopped off. Essentially, there was enough of his brain stem left to sustain his body functions (I presume chickens don't need much of a brain, having said that humans probably don't either, looking at some politicians) in addition his respiratory and digestive tracts were open, hence he breathed through his exposed wind-pipe and was fed liquid and food through his exposed gullet.

The analogy for those without the will to live:

a. It could be worse, at least you've still got your head on your shoulders.;

b. The force of the will is insurmountable.

Having said, that Mike finally succumbed to accidental death by choking on a sweetcorn. My admiration is boundless.

Apparently Mike has his own website, http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/story.html from where I got the photo above, Mike joins Motion!!!! as another hero of the day.

Please read:

Mike the Headless Chicken is now the cock of the walk in downtown Fruita.

A sculpture of Mike—the Fruita chicken that lived for 18 months in the 1940s minus his head—is being permanently installed in a flower planter on a downtown corner today. The 4-foot-high Mike likeness is appropriately made from 300 pounds of old metal farm castoffs that include ax heads, sickle blades, hay-rake teeth and other cutting objects.

The Fruita Chamber of Commerce decided to enshrine Mike because the rooster, which hopped off the chopping block and went on the sideshow circuit instead of into the cooking pot, has brought the world's notice to this town of 6,000 more than half a century later.

Fruita's reputation for mountain biking and dinosaurs has paled beside the attention drawn by a bird without a head. Since his bizarre tale was publicized last year, when the town held its first Mike the Headless Chicken Festival, Fruita chamber officials and historians have been inundated with thousands of calls, letters, and e-mails, from New Delhi to Auckland, wanting more information about Mike.

The curious most often ask "Was Mike for real?" He was.

Mike belonged to the late Fruita farmer Lloyd Olsen, who, in an attempt to please his finicky mother-in-law, lopped off Mike's head at the base of the skull, leaving as much of the tasty neck as possible. Following his beheading, Mike fluffed up his feathers and went about his normal chicken business.

But he could only go through the motions of pecking for food, and when he tried to crow, a gurgle came out. Olsen started putting feed and water directly into Mike's gullet with an eyedropper when he was still alive the next morning. When Mike was still alive a week later, Olsen took him to incredulous University of Utah scientists, who theorized Mike had enough of a brain stem left to live headless.

Olsen hired Mike a manager, who took him on tour around the country. Mike was pictured in a Life magazine spread and listed in the Guinness Book of Records. He was a popular attraction until he choked to death on a corn kernel in an Arizona motel.

Mike's story languished in scrapbooks until last spring, when chamber of commerce officials were looking for something more interesting than pioneers to focus on for Colorado Heritage Week. The rest is headless history.…

Nancy Lofholm Denver

Denver Post Western Slope Bureau, 31st March 2000

The Circular nature of Violence

The quote of the week - another gem from my mate the Warnerd:

"It takes a long time for the hate-momentum to build between the imports and the locals. And the dominant tribe is always totally shocked when the underdogs finally get it together enough to strike back. The Tamils got walked on for years before they organized. Blacks in the US didn't start hitting back till the 60s; till then, "race riots" were whites hunting blacks in the cities. The Catholics in Ulster didn't hit back till they saw the footage from Watts and Detroit, even though they'd been stomped for centuries. The Israelis walked on the Palestinians and laughed at their feeble little PLO, till the second-generation insurgents like Hamas and Islamic Jihad started playing for keeps.

It's always the same story: it's not "violence" until somebody hits you back. Till then you don't notice your guys hitting the other tribe. That's just normal background noise. It takes blood, buckets of it, to get a person's attention. And not just anybody's blood -- it's gotta be your own, or that of a close relative. Otherwise it's just spots on the sidewalk."

Afghanistan The Real Story

My good friend the Warnerd has outdone himself again with this write-up which summarises the situation in Afghanistan perfectly. I shall however disagree with his suggestions on the way forward, he is however entitled to his view. I've had to edit some of his expletives, otherwise a clear, knowledgable essay as usual.

Afghanistan: Let 'Em Eat Hams

By Gary Brecher ( war_nerd@exile.ru )

Browse Author (103) « Previous (100) Next (2) »

FRESNO, CA -- If your exterminator says he just killed 200 rats down in the basement, is that good news or bad news?

On the one hand, it's good those rats are dead. On the other hand, I thought we got rid of them years ago, and now there's hundreds? What's going on?

That's the Big Question everyone should be asking in Afghanistan. NATO's claiming we killed 500 Taliban near Kandahar this month. That's a mighty impressive body count, sure, but if Nam taught us one thing, it's that body counts are a bad sign. For all sorts of reasons, starting with basic common sense: if we're killing that many, how many more are running around out there?

They say with rats that if you see one, that means there's about 40 more in the vicinity. I suspect you can use the same ratio for Taliban. That's what Mohamed Arbil, a former Northern Alliance commander, said the other day: "If [NATO] killed that many, the Taliban must have thousands of fighters on that front."

Afghanistan is now enemy territory again. The Taliban have re-formed (as opposed to reformed) and according to one Brit officer who's fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the fight against the Talibs is already WAY hotter than the war in Iraq.

The truth is, Afghanistan's been slipping away for some time now. I'll own up; I should've been doing more columns on it myself, because I could feel vaguely it was going bad. But other places were hotter or funnier, and I let it go. Besides, as hard as I've been on my country's war leadership, I didn't really believe that we could possibly be so stupid as to blow the one thing we did right. But as far as I can tell that's what happened to the US command: they lost interest in Afghanistan, Iraq's got them paralyzed, and any energy left over is going into finding a way to invade Iran. Which won't be easy, seeing as how we have exactly zero troops left over from Iraq.

So it's like our command got one of those brain puzzlers Captain Kirk used to use to fry alien computers: how do we pacify Iraq (impossible) while invading Iran at the same time (double impossible, does not compute, frying noises, smoke coming out of computer). Right now there's so much smelly smoke coming out of the Pentagon it looks like another Boeing hit the place, but it's just the DI sections' brains frying. There just isn't a lot of high-command brain power left to pay attention to Afghanistan.

That's the key here: paying attention. I'm starting to think that we just don't have the patience and focus to do CI warfare. It's much easier to deal with enemies who know when they're beaten. Who know the rules, as laid down in history books. You pound them into the ground, shake hands, dump a few planeloads of foreign aid on them, and everybody's friends again. It's like a nice clean boxing match.

CI warfare is more like that style of fighting the Brazilians introduced into the UFC: the game only starts when you've got the guy down. You know how those guys like Royce Gracie fight? If you've never seen it, it's like this: you throw a punch at him, and the next thing you know he's on his back kicking you in the legs. If you're expecting a stand-up fight, you're doomed. Your only choice is to jump onto him and grapple it out, which will take a half hour at the very least. That's why they don't run UFC on TV much any more: too damn boring and slow.

We were spoiled by initial success in Afghanistan; we got the Taliban down and then just stopped paying attention. Dunno if you remember this far back, but after 9/11, when it was obvious we had to go in there and root out Osama, everybody was saying Afghanistan was unwinnable, "the graveyard of empires," etc. And the campaign seemed to stall at first, till we took Mazar-I-Sharif and sent the Northern Alliance rolling into Kabul. Boom, game over, victory party, let's go home.

Except the new wars just don't work that way. The tough part was really just beginning. The biggest problem once we took Kabul was tribal. Reporters are always calling the Taliban "Islamic extremists," but it's way simpler than that: the Talibs are Pushtun, and our allies in the Northern Alliance were their old tribal enemies the Tajiks, Uzbeks and a few free-agent Hazaras.

The Pushtun are the biggest tribe in the country, if you can call it that, by far. Afghanistan is 42% Pushtun, and the second-biggest group, the Tajiks, are only 27%. Pushtuns are -- now how can I say this nicely? -- insane. The craziest Taliban rules, like demanding every man have a beard that was at least ZZ Top length, aren't Mohammed's rules; they're just Pushtun tribal ways.

It's like if the Baptists took over in Fresno, they'd make it God's rule that every guy had to have an extended cab on his pickup, and if you asked where in Scripture it says that, they'd shoot you. That's the Pushtun way: total tribal insanity, all the time. They're so "sexist" that feminists might like them, because they don't even think of women as "sex objects." To a Pushtun guy, nine-year-old boys are the sexiest thing on earth.

Professor Victor Davis Hanson might approve, because from what I've read, his classical Greek heroes felt the same way. The Pushtuns are so classical that to them, women are just labor-saving and baby-making machines.

And never mind peace; these Pushtuns may be gay but they sure ain't sissies. They love making war, and they're real good at it.

Also, they don't get the whole "literacy" thing. They're not interested in becoming entrepreneurs or learning self-esteem or personal hygiene or compassion or any of that crap. And let's be honest, the joy they felt running around Central Asia blowing up Buddhas and blasting infidels is the same joy a frat boy feels running around a 10-kegger party with a bra on his head. It's pure fun 'n joy, Pushtun-style.

So once we'd taken Afghanistan we had this leftover problem, which was that nearly half the population consisted of these lunatics who had no stake in "peace," didn't want "peace," and thought "peace" was a lot of newfangled nonsense only fit for heterosexuals, foreigners, and assorted sissies. Especially because "peace" came to their town on tanks and APCs driven by their old enemies the Tajiks and Uzbeks.

Worse yet, right behind those tanks came American do-gooders whose idea of pacifying the Pushtun was doing incredibly naive stuff like starting a TV news show with female anchorpersons or whatever you call them. I'm not making this up. First thing the US occupation officials did in Kabul was start a news station with some 19-year-old Pushtun girl as anchor. That was our idea of winning hearts and minds. That's what was going to calm down those bearded angry dudes: seeing a perfectly saleable daughter telling them the news, as if she was the one laying down the law.

I get tired of having to say it, but: not everybody thinks like we think. Not everybody wants what we want. The Pushtun want (a) somebody to kill; (b) women kept in their place, somewhere between a the clay oven and the livestock; (c) nobody reminding them that there are other ways to live.

And our idea of pacifying them was to rub everything they hate right in their face, with their old enemies as enforcers. You have to wonder why the Pushtun didn't explode even bigger, even sooner. Well, basically because we handed off the job to some of our allies who did a pretty decent job of keeping the lid on as long as they could. There was a good British contingent up there, who not only did their usual great job of soldiering but handled tribal relations pretty well. Along with them, the Aussies and even the Canadians were on the job.

Too bad we didn't give the Brits total control of the so-called GWOT and let them play it their way. I can tell you what the old 19th c. Brits would've done. Problem: huge, restless tribe (Pushtun) smarting from recent defeat and totally uninterested in "peace." Solution: ship every Pushtun of military age to Sunni Triangle as honored guests of the British Empire and give them enough ammo to make the place as quiet and boring as Mary Poppins's bedroom.

The Pushtun would be happy as the Seven Dwarves, whistling while they worked on quieting down the Sunni; the Sunni would be...well, maybe not happy but definitely quiet -- "quiet as the grave," as the saying goes. And the Brits would step back into the shadows and let them fight it out till the end of time. A great system, worked for centuries.

Of course nobody we sent up there was cold-blooded enough to do anything like that. We figured, once the Pushtun warriors saw that anchorwoman up there -- Mary Tyler Moore in a burqa with five-o'clock shadow -- they'd see the American Light and start eating hot dogs and apple pie. Great plan.

That left the whole mess to those poor bastards, our Brit friends. You know, we should get down on our knees and apologize to the Brits for making them trust us, making them believe we Americans actually had a clue and were leading them somewhere. You can see they've finally figured it out, that Bush and Cheney never did know what they were doing, but now the poor trusting Limeys are as deep in the shit as we are. I guess it's some kind of poetic justice, because we've done to them what they did to hundreds of other tribes: luring them into doing our dirty work for us. But it's no way to treat an ally.

Afghanistan was slipping away month by month, while those Commonwealth officers tried to hold it together with rubber bands. All the money and troops were fed into Iraq, which was hopeless from the start, instead of Afghanistan, where it might have worked. The Americans just couldn't pay attention once the big showy campaign to take Kabul was over.

In fact, I just saw a movie that showed we weren't even paying attention in Iraq. It's called Gunner Palace, and it's one of these hand-held documentaries by an embedded ham. The idea is, the reporter hangs with a unit of GIs whose HQ is one of Uday Hussein's former playboy mansions in Baghdad. There's a huge swimming pool and a lot of glitzy decor and you can tell the reporter thought he was going to get famous for the irony or whatever: gritty gory soldier stuff with a background of Saddam-era luxury, etc.

I don't think this reporter even understood what he was filming. Seriously. There's a voice-over about how this unit of typical American young men copes with the dark and violent chaos of Iraq, bla bla bla, but that's not what the movie shows. What it shows is hams. Showoffs. A bunch of dudes who don't know where they are, don't care, don't speak a word of the language and don't want to learn it.

The only thing these dudes are interested in is hamming it up American-style for the camera. The only time they get excited is when the reporter lets them do their little routines: heavy metal solos or comedy skits from the whites, rap rhymes from the blacks. No, let's be fair here, in a wonderful sign of advancing integration, there's one scene where a black GI does a rap with backing electric guitar from this white guy, the class clown type who's onscreen for what seems like an hour. I personally would have had his humorous ass shoved up against the nearest wall and shot, but this cameraman embed loved him, couldn't get enough.

Halfway through the movie, there's a scene where the unit learns its lead interpreter, their go-to guy when they're asking for info in the neighborhood, the guy who translates every word they hear, is a traitor. An insurgent working for the other side.

That blew me away! But in the movie it's treated just like a little setback, another ho-hum problem of life in Baghdad.

Jesus, doesn't anybody have a clue about CI warfare? Your interpreter is EVERYTHING. He's worth more than all the Bradleys and Strykers you have. He's more important than bullets. He's the whole war. If he's a traitor, everything you've done has been worse than useless! Your local sources are blown. Your plans are known. Every local who was naive enough to trust you is dead or soon will be. The rest have learned a big lesson: never, ever talk to the Americans.

But in the movie, the scene where they arrest the interpreter is just another excuse to ham it up. The officer in charge ties the plastic cuffs on his wrist and keeps asking, "OK, do you want to be my GUEST or my PRISONER, Ahmed?" And Ahmed doesn't even answer, it's such a stupid question, such an insane question.

Ahmed is worrying about how long he'll have his fingernails, what they'll use to remove his eyeballs, how hot the poker they jam up his ass is going to be, and this ham is actually trying to be his pal. Finally Ahmed mumbles, "Your friend, your friend..." and the ham gives him a big smile, all pleased. Nobody in the unit from the commander on down seems to realize what a disaster this is. They don't even seem to want to extend their intel network in the area.

Even in the middle of a firefight, guys turn away from their machineguns to ham it up for the camera, like this is their big moment, their screen test, instead of combat.

I don't think it's pork that the Muslims hate so much, it's all the hams we've imported into their land.

I'll tell you something I don't usually like admitting: the first time I saw Apocalypse Now, I hated it. I thought it was pure libel against all the GIs who fought so hard in Nam, making them out to be ADD types who couldn't focus on the war for more than ten minutes. Because that's what that movie is about as a military document: showing how if you don't focus in CI warfare you can't win. The only guy in the whole movie who focuses on the war is Martin Sheen. That's why he's totally alone, while the rest go surfing or have their BBQ or jerk off over the Playboy bunnies USO choppers in.

Well, I still think the movie was unfair to Nam vets, because at least till Tet, a lot of our guys worked hard at learning the language and blending into the landscape. But I have to admit that maybe that hippie bastard Coppola was right in the long run. Maybe we just can't pay attention long enough to win in the long slow grind of CI.

And maybe Coppola's point about Kurtz was right: it's not that we need more troops in Iraq. F..k no. After watching these hams screw everything up, I'm dead sure that's the last thing we need. We need a few thousand men who speak the language and don't have any qualms about doing all the dark, bad things that have to be done to hold on to occupied territory. And backing them up we need maybe 10,000 guys trained for the Phoenix Program: pure assassins who will kill anybody they're told to kill, on the quiet, without anyone ever finding out. Basically, we need warriors who don't want to make it in show business

The Consumer's Revenge

Ever had problems with poor customer service, well this fellow did and bit back, please enjoy

Dear Cretins,

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional perogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office:

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website....HOW?

I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem arrived... six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it.

I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35%... hours between about 6pm -midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers.
I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that no telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman...and several other variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testicle-moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care, it's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustration's in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.

I thought BT were shit, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of godawful customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order.

British Telecom - wankers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver - any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage. I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cats litter tray, as an _expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit - they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day - may it be the last in you miserable short life, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twats.
John

General Richard Dannatt

Richard Dannatt has been in the news in the last few days for his Interviews, basically detailing the well known fact of the need for British troops to return home from Afghanistan/Iraq as a matter of expediency.

What he said was not unknown to anyone with common sense. The main points:

a. The presence of British troops in Iraq- in particular- was not acceptable to the sensibilities of the Native populace.

b. The manpower and logistical capability of the British Army was being seriously compromised by over-extension in these two territories..

c. There does not appear to be a proper exit strategy in place.

These issues have been covered more than once by several commentators, however this has never been done by a high ranking Commanding Officer, least of all the Chief of the General Staff, basically the Head of the British Army.

Questions raised are thus:

a. Should he have been so vocal?

b. Should he be sanctioned?

The answers to these questions may be answered by a brief bio of the General.

Richard Dannatt attended Felsted School in Essex and St Lawrence College in Kent, Durham University and Sandhurst, from where he obtained his Commission in 1971.

Dannatt through his career was first involved with the Prince of Wales Yorkshire Infantry Regiment (formerly The Green Howards) also as part of the Army Air Corps, which in simple terms is the part of the Army that flies aircraft, as opposed to the RAF.

He has served with the 1st Battalion in Northern Ireland, Cyprus and Germany and commanded the Battalion in the Airmobile role from 1989 to 1991. From 1994 to1996 he commanded 4th Armoured Brigade in Germany and Bosnia. He took command of 3rd (United Kingdom) Division in January 1999, and also served in Kosovo that year as Commander British Forces. In 2000 he returned to Bosnia as the Deputy Commander Operations of the Stabilisation Force (SFOR). From 2001 to 2002 he was the Assistant Chief of the General Staff in the Ministry of Defence before taking command of NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC). In March 2005 he took over as Commander-in-Chief Land Command and he assumed the appointment of Chief of the General Staff on 29 August 2006.


A committed Christian- Dannat is President of the Army Rifle Association, the Army Rugby Union, the Soldiers’ and Airmens’ Scripture Readers Association, and a Vice President of the Armed Forces’ Christian Union.

His son is a Commissioned Officer in the Grenadier Guards and saw action in Iraq.

What is the significance of this?Well I summarise as follows:

a. He is as straight as an arrow. This is a career based on basic meat and potatoes merit. Of course some level of politicking is necessary to progress through any establishment structure, as the Army definitely is, however this chap has never been known for his Public relations savvy or double-talk. This guy is a soldiers soldier, who rightly or wrongly sees his vocation primarily as such and less as a Politician as his predecessor- Sir Michael Jackson- was wont.

b. He is a pentecostal Christian and anyone who knows anything about the Scripture Union or indeed its sister body- The Christian Union will tell you that these chaps are committed, no compromise on values or standards as they are written in the Bible, however Dannatt could not have risen through the Army without having the Intelligence to subsume his Christian values to the demand of his Job and country. Lets face it, the Army is populated by all kinds of characters from savage, psychopathic killing machines with Oxbridge degrees to moronic animals with IQ's slightly higher than Bubbles the Chimp, all of whom one is obliged to by either pay obeisance as ones Superior cadre or indeed nursemaid as one's "boys". The other analogy is that as an Infantryman your job is to kill the enemy at close quarter's. This is not necessarily a New Testament philosophy.

The two factors above would tend to explain his actions (in my view at least). To answer the questions in turn:

Should he have spoken out?
A. Following proper operational guidelines and err.. the Constitution. He ought not to have made the pronouncements without full clearance from the MOD. It does appear that he did seek some clearance. The MOD says he did not, in all honesty In a toss-up, I'd believe Sir Richard's account rather than the Civil servants, having had dealings with them in a previous life. Assuming he did not receive such clearance, he would have to be an extremely naive, fearless and/or frustrated Individual to have voiced out such opinions. To emphasise the point, you cannot as a serving Soldier- especially as a Senior Officer take a position contrary to that of the Crown to whom you have sworn allegiance. The Prime Minister and indeed the MOD represent the Crown- by the way. However if you face a situation where Soldiers are facing extended tours of duty in two Theatres within 12 months, when the MOD's operational guidelines provide that Soldiers should not face extended Combat duties in two theatres within 24 months.

In addition, the stories of severe logistical shortages are being faced by British Soldiers point to the fact that there is a crisis within the Army. I do not doubt for one second that Dannat has indeed explored Internal channels, which obviously have not met with the success he hoped for. I do not doubt that he has raised issue, its not by chance that Tony Blair went to the field only just last week to promise them anything they require to carry out their task (charming!).

Should he be sanctioned?

If he obtained clearance then the answer is no. If not then its arguable, his comments weren't exceptionally controversial, however in the background of the Insecurity of the Government on the subject there is no doubt that the comments would have attracted the amount of controversy they did. There is no doubt now that he will ot be sacked ..yet. Tony Blair has more or less accepted that this will not happen, least of all as there has been pressure from America for this to happen. It would be the singular most controversial action Tony Blair would take in the area of Defence policy. Tony is not that stupid.

Richard Dannatt, is without doubt a highly Intelligent individual and knew plainly the consequences of his making the comments he did and not only did he make them, he stood by them subsequently.

In summary I shall say that I have the highest admiration for Sir Richard Dannatt, a man of undoubted Integrity, Intelligence and honesty, one of the few possessing that combination that still exist. In the words of Paul Moorcroft- a respected Military Analyst, General's have been known to lay their lives on the line for their men, but not their jobs. This man has and should be applauded, but I would recommend he watches his back, the knives are out and the boys in Whitehall and the White House don't like to lose.

All to no A-Veil

Just a brief word on the Veil issue a la Jack Straw.

Who cares? If someone insists on covering her face and body, that is entirely a matter for the said person and indeed if there is some religious connotation behind this then fair enough. The fact I believe is that Jack had a verbal leakage, based on a silly impulse and there has had to be an official line- (i.e we need to bring the issue to a public debate.. yawn! Debate my left calloused toe.Since when did New Labour actually engage in genuine debate) to provide some Intelligent basis for his flippance.

The corollary being that no-one should take issue with a Sikh having his Turban covering his barnet over a Boss Suit and Hobbs shoes, a Pentecostal or Catholic wearing a Cross or Rosary, whatever dude. The fact is nobody really cares. A free society is based on choice as long as no laws are broken.

I personally think the wearing of a veil is absurd, I would not wear one and that is my choice, I shall not be forced to wear one, regardless of the fact that some of my less charitable acquaintances may feel that society is best protected from my mug by some appropriate solid barrier, especially first thing on a saturday morning. However those that choose to wear them should have their choice (the magic word) preserved- simple.

In summary, this is not the main issue that you face and even if it was this is not the way to go about it. Behave Jack, seriously behave dude.

I conclude (once again) by inviting you to view the photo above, I think that sums up my viewpoint (and indeed the title of this Blog), but it is their choice however, which I do respect.

Hunter S Thompson Pt 2

Hunter S. Thompson Part 2

In further hero worship of Hunter S Thompson, I've put together a few of his lesser known but nonetheless brilliant quotes, I say no more read on.

"No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master."

"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason."

"It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top."

"He who makes a beast of himself relieves himself the pain of being a man."

"A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance."

Norman Balon- The Coach and Horses

Saw this article on the Time Out website. Incredible guy, been in this bar a coupl eof times, but never had the distinction of meeting this guy. Enjoy

Good bye Norman Balon

Soho bade farewell to a legendary grump last week with the departure of Norman Balon, better known as the rudest landlord in London. Regular punter Andrew Humphreys – once fired by Balon – was there to hear last orders at the Coach and Horses.

At 8pm last Monday, one of Soho’s longest-running performances came to an end. After 63 years of playing the pantomime villain behind the bar, Norman ‘You’re Barred’ Balon, took a standing ovation from a packed Coach and Horses and exited stage left, popping up his green umbrella and disappearing down Greek Street like Mary Poppins as played by Walter Matthau.

Balon began his tenure on February 1 1943, aged 16, helping his parents run the pub. He took over when they retired and it’s the only job he’s ever had. But if he was feeling any emotion you wouldn’t have known it. As a Soho old guard, which included Richard Ingrams, Ian Hislop, Francis Wheen and Beryl Bainbridge, paid tribute in a private party upstairs, Balon simply looked bored. When the regulars downstairs in the bar barracked him with a chorus of ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ he looked pained and responded with, ‘Just spend more fackin’ money.’ Typically, Balon’s send-off involved no drinks on the house and all three ales were off.

He’s chosen to retire now at 79, he says, ‘because all my customers are my age and one by one they’re dropping off their bar stools’. His visits to Golders Green crematorium are so frequent that he hopes more regulars will die abroad, sparing him ‘the cheap shit they serve at wakes’.

Comments like that are tossed out with a defiant grin. They back up Balon’s self-proclaimed status as ‘London’s rudest landlord’. It’s a role he’s fashioned over the decades (his 1991 memoirs were entitled ‘You’re Barred, You Bastards!’) and played with some relish. Time Out has been present when he’s thrown people out with a barked, ‘Go on, fack off!’ for wearing football shirts, shorts, or simply being a clueless tourist too slow with their order. One Sikh regular remembers encountering Balon for the first time and being asked, ‘You’re not a fackin’ Muslim are you?’ – and on answering, no, being told, ‘All right, you can stay then.’ I myself worked in the Coach and Horses for all of ten minutes, before Norman sacked me (maybe he just didn’t like the look of me).

It’s all a cunning strategy, says Balon: ‘If you get a reputation for being rude, people don’t take offence at what you do.’ Except perhaps the Italian former bar girl, there on Monday night to see her old boss off: ‘I hope he’s gone for good. He never said anything nice to me. He used to call me “stupid cow” and tell me I couldn’t speak English.’But, as Balon well knew, for every one person he offended, ten more would step up to the bar curious to soak up a piece of Soho history. This is, after all, the pub namechecked in countless obituaries of celebrated drunks such as journalist Graham Mason (‘The drunkest man in the Coach and Horses’ – the Telegraph, April 2002), writer Sandy Fawkes (‘A familiar sight in the Coach and Horses consuming simply astonishing amounts of whisky’ – the Telegraph, December 2005), and, of course, Jeffrey Bernard, who made himself the hero of his own tragedy from a stool at the end of Balon’s bar, and was immortalised in Keith Waterhouse’s play, ‘Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell’, in which he finds himself locked in the Coach for the night.
The days when the likes of John Hurt and Peter O’Toole rested their feet on the urinal-like trough at the foot of the bar are gone, but the Coach still attracts recognisable faces. Sean Bean was spotted having a quiet Guinness in the corner a couple of Thursdays back and the pub continues to host Private Eye’s lunches every other Wednesday. Balon, though, is in no doubt as to the allure of the Coach: ‘It’s me. A pub is a reflection of a landlord’s personality and I can’t stand bores.’ He adds: ‘I have a great diversity of customers, from the homeless and shoplifters to some of the highest people in the land. They come here and they spend money and they become friends. They’re people I would entertain in my drawing room.’
Balon’s ‘homeless’ regular was also there on Monday night. Her name is Pam. She’s a bespectacled, shorn-headed middle-aged woman who works the Soho pub circuit, nudging people for their attention before whispering a request for money. She also sells postcards of herself painted by the Coach’s former resident artist, former BP Portrait Award-nominee Rupert Shrive. However, she only ever dared enter the Coach when Balon wasn’t around, because if he saw her he’d chase her out. On Monday night she got a hug. ‘I’ll miss looking in the window to check whether he’s in or not,’ she said.

With Balon’s departure, Pam’s licence to operate at the Coach is subject to the approval of new owner Alastair Choat, a former manager with Mitchells & Butlers and Geronimo Inns. He and his two silent partners intend to spruce up the place while hopefully avoiding alienating current regulars. There are plans to replace the fetid toilets, rip out the carpets and create a new second-floor restaurant. They will replace Balon’s famed £1 all-day sandwiches with organic modern British cuisine. There will be a ‘Norman Balon pie’ with his famous scowl recreated in pastry. Choat also wants Balon to record some of his signature phrases and have a button behind the bar to press when the occasion demands it: ‘You’re barred!’

It’s a nice touch and may help keep the regulars on their toes, but the man himself is not big on nostalgia. ‘I don’t miss anybody,’ he says. ‘Yesterday is dead, live for today and look forward to tomorrow.’ And what, I ask, will you do for your encore? ‘Die,’ he replies. What a trouper.

David's Dirge

Let's go straight to the point. David Blunkett has gone on the record to share his pain and anguish to us about the trauma he faced in the wake of the scandal surrounding his dalliance(s).

Shut up David. No one pushed you to go around sharing your Cocktail Sausage, using your position to benefit your Girlfriend (err..someone's wife by the way), undermining your colleagues. As for the other scandal with the blonde slapper, well basically once may be a mistake but twice is a disease.

When in the public eye, you have a responsibility- aside from the benefits you enjoy and of course exploit- to at least pretend to conduct yourself with some level of discretion and when you get caught, grin and bear it, don't ask for sympathy.

In these circumstances, I recommend David read a couple chapters from the Hamilton manual of Scandal exploitation, the couple are at least for this purpose exemplary.Come on I haven't heard them whingeing, unless someone was paying them. Having said that, this was a serialised Interview from his new book, for which he pocketed 400 large........oh thats alright then, all is forgiven Bruv, nice one! Cry me a river.

Whatever.