{"id":7409,"date":"2018-05-15T13:51:01","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T11:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7409"},"modified":"2018-05-15T14:00:23","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T12:00:23","slug":"when-the-unserious-meet-the-serious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/7409\/","title":{"rendered":"When the Unserious meet the Serious"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">If, as Israel\u2019s ambassador claims, yesterday\u2019s action was \u201cmeasured and surgical\u201d then I\u2019d hate to see what he thinks \u201cunmeasured and indiscriminate\u201d looks like.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wesstreeting\/status\/996299927448969217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 15, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>is more an indication of the intellect and general knowledge of British MPs than a criticism of the Israeli ambassador. Whether or not you agree with the IDF&#8217;s use of live rounds and accept Hamas&#8217; claims of the number of dead and that some were children, shooting people with rifles under those circumstances is hardly the epitome of an unmeasured and indiscriminate military response. Machine-gunning them would be a lot worse, strafing them from the air even more so. When the Russian army took Grozny in 1999-2000, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Battle_of_Grozny_(1999%E2%80%932000)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this<\/a> is how they went about it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Russian strategy in 1999 was to hold back tanks and\u00a0armored personnel carriers\u00a0and subject the entrenched Chechens to an intensive heavy\u00a0artillery barrage\u00a0and\u00a0aerial bombardment\u00a0before engaging them with relatively small groups of\u00a0infantry, many with prior training in\u00a0urban warfare. The Russian forces relied heavily on\u00a0rocket artillery\u00a0such as\u00a0BM-21 Grad, BM-27 Uragan,\u00a0BM-30 Smerch,\u00a0ballistic missiles\u00a0(SCUD,\u00a0OTR-21 Tochka),\u00a0cluster bombs and\u00a0fuel air explosives. (The\u00a0TOS-1, a\u00a0multiple rocket launcher\u00a0with\u00a0thermobaric weapon\u00a0warheads, played a particularly prominent role in the assault). These weapons wore down the Chechens, both physically and psychologically, and\u00a0air strikeswere also used to attack fighters hiding in basements; such attacks were designed for maximum psychological pressure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This was the result:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Grozny.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7410\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Grozny.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"736\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Grozny.png 900w, http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Grozny-300x245.png 300w, http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Grozny-768x628.png 768w, http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Grozny-367x300.png 367w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If asked, perhaps the Israeli ambassador would cite the above as an example of\u00a0what he thinks \u201cunmeasured and indiscriminate\u201d looks like. More likely, though, he&#8217;d have referred to Russia&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/09\/29\/world\/middleeast\/russias-brutal-bombing-of-aleppo-may-be-calculated-and-it-may-be-working.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bombing of Aleppo<\/a>\u00a0in 2016:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The\u00a0effects of Russia\u2019s bombing campaign\u00a0in the Syrian city of Aleppo \u2014 destroying hospitals and schools, choking off basic supplies, and killing aid workers and hundreds of civilians over just days \u2014 raise a question: What could possibly motivate such brutality?<\/p>\n<p>Observers attribute Russia\u2019s bombing to recklessness, cruelty or Moscow\u2019s desperate thrashing in what the White House has called a \u201cquagmire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But many analysts take a different view: Russia and its Syrian government allies, they say, could be massacring Aleppo\u2019s civilians as part of a calculated strategy, aimed beyond this one city.<\/p>\n<p>The strategy, more about politics than advancing the battle lines, appears to be designed to pressure rebels to ally themselves with extremists, eroding the rebels\u2019 legitimacy; give Russia veto power over any high-level diplomacy; and exhaust Syrian civilians who might otherwise support the opposition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is not to excuse what the IDF are doing on the border with Gaza (although personally I don&#8217;t see they had any other option). It is merely to point out that British MPs accuse Israel of unrestrained and indiscriminate brutality only because they are utterly ignorant of what the genuine article looks like, even when there are recent examples of it. Either that, or they&#8217;re lying.<\/p>\n<p>Whichever it is, it comes as no surprise Russia refused to take them seriously over the Skripal affair. You don&#8217;t have to like anyone&#8217;s policies or behaviour very much to realise the world is rapidly dividing into politicians and nations that are serious, and those that are not. Russia and Israel are clearly on one side; MPs like Wes Streeting are very much on the other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This: If, as Israel\u2019s ambassador claims, yesterday\u2019s action was \u201cmeasured and surgical\u201d then I\u2019d hate to see what he thinks \u201cunmeasured and indiscriminate\u201d looks like. \u2014 Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) May 15, 2018 is more an indication of the intellect &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/7409\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,20,3,40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7409"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7412,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409\/revisions\/7412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}