New Zealand - a chain of systempunkts

The sad fact is that NZ, as a long, thin, and increasingly poor country, is just chocka with what John Robb terms 'systempunkts' - points where a directed attack or natural causes can generate an effect wildly out of proportion to the original investment.

•     Kaikoura earthquake severed the single rail line North-South in the Mainland,
•     Xtra's Interwebs in the NI went west a few years back via a rat on a fiber optic on one loop, and a digger (them diggers should, perhaps, be Watched?) on the other
•     I've always reckoned that a handful of clapped-out Datsun 180's, 'stalled' on a few strategic Awkland on or off-ramps or the Newmarket overbridge, would gridlock the sorry show for a day or more
•     And let's not forget the weeks without power to Central Awkland a coupla decades back.

A leetle story about older infrastructure in a major Wellywood Gubmint building just before Y2K (remember that?):

The crew decided to test the resilience of the backup power systems in the building. Good call, because over three attempts, this is what they found each time they disconnected the external power via the Big Red Switch:

1.     The UPS behind the mainframe floor had never been deep-cycled. It failed after a few tens of seconds. New UPS ordered.
2.     Weeks later, feeling a bit smug, next disconnection. UPS works, genny fires up. Genny lasts about half an hour before one phase burns out completely. Turns out the building, as it was occupied, had all power wired to predominantly one of three possible phases. Mild panic sets in. Building wiring hastily re-jigged, New genny ordered
3.     Genny arrives. Whoops, won't fit in the basement space. Needs a hastily erected external shed. Panic turns from mild to extreme (mid-December 1999). But third time lucky, it all holds together when the Big Red Switch is thrown.

One building, in one city.

Has Bin

'Spengler' pulls another superb grain of wheat from the mass of chaff being talked about OBL's demise. To precis: the poor old chap was thrown under the bus - a victim of the various Arab upheavals which have yet to run their course.

AQ had been more use to the Iranian cause of late, and the Saudis took a dim view of That, as the Yemeni buffer zone to their south is visibly disintegrating by the day. And as the Saudis both spawned and bankrolled OBL, they were certainly in a position to decide when the thread holding the sword over his head, should be snipped.

Yer won't hear much of this in the MSM of course. They're still veering between horror and delight. And there's no body, so the conspiracy theories are already running hot. Panem et circenses....

Dylan - Neighborhood Bully

Hadn't caught up with the lyrics till now - but my, don't they sound current? From 'Infidels'. Partial quote only.

"The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He’s always on trial for just being born.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He’s the neighborhood bully."

If daisies are your favourite flower

The dear sainted Archbishop of Canterbury does seem to have gottem his fluffy self into a spot of bother with his all-too-public musings on sharia law and its applicability to England. Having been to High Wycombe for a radio station client, I had actually rather thought it (sharia) was there in all but name, but no matter.

Anyhoo, this little gem of an extended Burma Shave sign did flash past a couple of days ago. Burma Shave is one of my very fave Tom Waits tracks, a Desert Island Disc, in fact, and the original Burma Shave signs were pure poetry and humour.

It does occur to me that one of BS's original verses can probably be updated for the Bish:

If daisies are
your favourite flower
just keep suggesting
burqa power

By the Shadow of our Hand

A chilling but essential read for all who harbour Pollyanna thoughts about the Long War. Belmont Club has always turned out excellent analysis, and the comments thread is simply breathtaking. Especially Zenster. Plus there's a link to dear Steven Den Beste, on Triage.

Compare this thread with the pathetic namecalling on, say, DPF's comments threads. Pick almost any one. Sigh.

Greens lack a Defence policy (quell surprise...)

A defence policy, people, resources and equipment to do the dirty deeds, and training etc is just what I expect my hard-won and reluctantly surrendered taxes, to fund, as the very first duty of Gummint. So, you (Greens) are quite correct, not having such a policy shows a fundamental unseriousness about Governing.

And your own straw person (Lord help me, I’m using the same woolly language) is the ‘illegality’ of Iraq. You’ll need to keep a careful eye on the documents now being released: the ‘Blessed July’ aspect alone (see, for example this) would make a Londoner think twice. The point is that ‘legality’ applies only to a Westphalian nation-state weltanschauung. And we’re definitely not in that Kansas any more, Dorothy.

New Zealand is strategically irrelevant to the new Great Game - the Western Enlightenment against the Third Caliphate, but does pose a security risk to the rest of the Anglosphere: our laughably lax immigration and citizenship attitudes, mean that we are seen as a ’soft touch’.

So a useful start to a Green defence policy might be to ponder awhile on the ’sustainability’ of this stance.

And this goes far beyond the electoral considerations. When you consider that the Reggie Krays of the world can now purchase submarines, aircraft carriers and crude nuclear devices (read William Langwiesche on A.Q Khan in recent Atlantic Monthlies) as well as the usual run of weaponry, and that NZ has the longest and certainly the least defendable coastline in the Pacific, all sorts of unhealthy scenarios swim up from the depths.

And Reggie, to those who knew him, had one persona that was utterly charming, urbane, philanthropic and which took in more than one ingenuous reporter. But then he also had his Little Moments.

We, of course, don’t want to be a pawn in someone else’s game. Fair enough, the quiet life and all. But then, as Trotsky noted, ‘You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you’.

Better to heed and prepare.

First Duty of Gummint - Security

This was my substantive comment on the Campbell and Fisk thread.....

The first duty of Gummint is the physical security of its citoyens.

Fisk is essentially saying, if you’ve seen what I’ve seen, you’d never go to war again.

But history is replete with cases of citizenries being trapped in what amounts to our modern eyes, as slaveries of some sort.

Tyrannies of all stripes are in fact extremely sustainable, particularly if they rely on fear engendered by letting 14-30 year old males (in ’security forces’ or the like), indulge their hard-wired tendencies to slaughter, rapine and general hell-raising.

So shooting your way into such self-sustaining loops, to release the lives of all involved for Better Fings, is literally the only way sometimes.

Fisk may well have seen a lot, and be prepared to spread a message of ‘let’s not keep doing this’. But he’s preaching to the choir. Anyone truly concerned with the sustainability of a way of life, will in a political sense, ensure that there are police, security and other specialists in violence, on hand to keep people safe. And answerable to that citizenry. So saying ‘ don’t keep doing this’ is at best mischievious, and at worst a recipe for takeover by folks with fewer scruples about employing violence.

And Campbell didn’t ask the most obvious question:

‘Mr Fisk, you have lived safely for 30 years in Lebanon, which for all of that time was a police state, client of Syria, funded by Iran. Who has ensured your own freedom over that time, and has that affected your judgement?’

Tweaking Fwogs - the CPT release

And in today’s crowning irony, solidly built chaps (and possibly chapesses, if the Special Forces have Embraced Diversity), armed with nasty shooty things, have barged their way into some poor cowering oppressed Iraqi’s shack, and forcibly ‘released’ those lovely peaceful CPT citoyens. And without dialoguing anyone, too!

Great read for strategic minds

In stark contrast to the woolly-headed claptrap encountered in most comments about grand strategy, this piece hits the spot quite nicely. Fasten your seat-belts. Hat tip: Arts and Letters Daily.