Week-middling: Airline security; HAMAS; Muskraine
A round-up of LinkedIn activity
Business travel and the blunt spreading knife
You could, if you wanted to, take one on board an aircraft from an Italian bistro at Brussels Airport. But, you’d have a right job asking for one on board the plane. “Excuse me, stewardess, could you bring me a metal, blunt spreading knife, please?” “A what, sir?”
What the restrictions on what you’re allowed to take on board an aircraft since 9/11 have all been aimed at is the ingenuity of terrorists to turn apparently benign instruments for everyday use into weapons that help them in their terror quest. Wooden toothpicks able to pierce the skin of ... a thing with skin. Thin skin. Or jet lighters that could be used to set the whole flaming aircraft aflame. Or shampoo. Nothing more dangerous than shampoo.
So, what, might one imagine, would a terrorist - well fed at a spiffing Italian bistro in the neutral, post-security, pre-boarding area of the airport - do with a blunt spreading knife? I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’d be one in the eye for security.
A knife is a knife is a weapon, whatever its bluntness and spreading qualities.
What did we do to deserve this?
From Jan Kallberg:
My personal opinion. HAMAS used bomb-dropping drones to attack Israeli armored vehicles protecting the border as an initial attack phase. See the video posted on Arab news channels. The technique comes directly from the War in Ukraine. Have no illusions. The attacks in Israel, killing civilians and kidnapping of children and parents as bargaining chips are directed from Moscow.
The Putin regime needed to escalate without getting into a direct conflict with NATO, divert interest from Ukraine and wipe out any normalization in the Middle East, derail the Saudi-Israeli talks, and end any decrease of the US and Allied stockpiles by raising the risk for a major conflict elsewhere. Russia is betting on a more significant conflict in The Middle East after Israel answered Hamas. Russia is on its way to becoming the same terrorist financier that the Soviet Union once was. Every terrorist group, in the 1970/1980s, that wanted to kill Westerners had a checking account in Moscow. Russia invests in chaos and death to achieve its political goals. Terror is now in the game, and those who supported Ukraine become targets for Russian-financed terrorism.
We are back in the 1980s - Russian/USSR money “outsource” to terrorists and warlords to sow chaos, death, and mayhem for the Russians' cynical goals. Russia are providing terrorist, as HAMAS, with technology, knowledge, and hardware in a new proxy war.
We don’t need to be afraid of escalation; it is already here.
(I don’t know John Antal personally, but I have read his writings - I give him credit for pointing out the developments early, the weaponized drones and command post vulnerability.)
And from me:
If the analysis is right in terms of technique, how right is it in terms of instigation and motivation?
What did Ukraine do to deserve the invasion? I dunno. You tell me.
What did Israel do to deserve this?
What did Niger do to deserve a coup d'état?
What did Armenia do to deserve being left to cope on its own with Lernayin Garabag?
What did the Kurds do?
What did Iraq do?
What did you do?
Little muskrat
Click to see article on Kyiv Post website.
It’s Mr Zelenskiy’s job to ask for aid. He’d be in dereliction of his duty to the Constitution if he failed to ask for aid, even if it’s every five minutes.
Mr Musk has no constitution to which he owes a duty (except it be as a US citizen, to the US Constitution, as a Canadian citizen, to the Canadian constitution, and as a South African citizen, to the Constitution of that place: I needed to check whether he’d already added “citizen of Mars” to his passport collection).
He can do as he blooming well pleases, every five minutes, every five hours, every whenever he wants to. He can cock snoots and sneer, he can buy social media companies with money he doesn’t have and he can blow up space rockets to his heart’s content.
Yesterday I had to explain that I cannot support Ukrainian children because my meagre means are devoted to feeding African children. But I promised to continue to be vocal in support of the one nation on this Earth that I deem to be worthy above all others of my vocal support. I promised, so I’m doing it: God bless Ukraine.
I have hard choices to make. Ukraine has hard choices to make. Mr Zelenskiy has hard choices to make.
Mr Musk has no hard choices to make. He’s just hard to understand.
Little muskrat.