Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)

[Wile E. Coyote]

The boring fella who is defo not wanting to stage a coup won.

The other fella, ie the one supported with armed security by the colourful Horațiu Potra (who is the Romanian Prighozin, ie he is organising Romanian mercenaries to fight and die in the Congo to protect Romanian mine owners) lost. Horațiu Potra was previously in the French Foreign Legion and head of security for Qatar, he has also previously been arrested and his properties raided, where cash and weaponry were found. He now appears wanted for acts of intimidation as 20 of his armed mercenaries were found with lists of prominent politicians and journalists, so they say. Anyway, out on bail.... Horațiu Potra has now gone missing.

Wiley reckons Doha is the place to look.

Whether this was a real attempt or not I have zero idea.

[Mick Harper]

The Romanians have had thirty-three years of 'boring fellas' and voted 53-47* in favour of this one being better than the second-best non-boring one. I do not say they are in error but I would like them to have had an opportunity to choose the first-past-the-first-post one. As Argentina and America have shown us, you never know where the saviour will come from. It is rarely the official loonie. Maybe the democrats will allow it next time.

* At least they did not make the 'Maduro Mistake' and declare it to be 51-49.

[Mick Harper]

Pakistan/India, Who Won?

Undoubtedly Pakistan. Why so? Well, India had put itself in the wrong from the beginning by accusing Pakistan of being 'behind' the Kashmiri killings of twenty-five Indian tourists. They had no evidence for this. Only the justification that Pakistan has 'for years' been supporting various Kashmiri separatist groups.

This is true enough in itself but the Pakistanis have (just about) done enough recently to sever ties so just bombing the shit out of Pakistan targets was not called for. But Pakistan also did its bit by making sure its retaliatory strikes were well within the local norms for what is right and proper in these circumstances.

The Pakistan military has thus undergone a sudden leap from zero to hero among Pakistanis which is a crying shame because they have been the shadow government of Pakistan ever since there has been a Pakistan and are--the real fruitcakes aside--possibly the worst government in the world.

It also means the end of any chance that Imran Khan will be freed any time soon from his unjustified life sentence. Not entirely unjustified though--when Khan was in office he did much the same to his opponents. He came to power because he was the army candidate and was thrown out of power when he turned against the army. So there is something to be said in his favour. More than something, given the way Pakistan is run.

PS None of the governments of the ex-Raj--Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar--are great adverts for British legacy administrations.

[Mick Harper]

I have been discovering things about Baluchistan. I hadn't known, for example, that it was not directly governed by, but came vaguely under the aegis of, the British and were given the choice about their future in 1947.

[Mick Harper]

Ever heard of a country insisting part of it belongs to another country and that other country insisting it doesn't? It happened thisaway:

1. The border between Serbia and Croatia was fixed in the 19th century as running down the centre line of the Danube.

2. When the Serbia/Croatia war of the 1990's ended, Serbia assumed the border ran down the centre line of the Danube, as per usual.

3. Not so, said the Croats, it was fixed as running down the centre line of the 19th century Danube, not the re-engineered Danube of the twentieth century. Please can we have our 120 square kilometres of land back? It's ours according to a solomon binding treaty.

4. No, you can't, said the Serbs, and anyway what about our bits on your side of the Danube now but weren't on your side of the 19th century Danube?

5. "Oh, they're not in Croatia. That's Serbian territory as far as we're concerned. We wish you'd come and claim them because some twat has set up an independent republic of Fredonia or somesuch in one of them, knowing we can't touch him. He's a right bleedin' nuisance."

6. "Not on your nellie, smellie. If we did that, we'd be tacitly conceding your claim to the big stuff. He's your problem. Best of."

[Mick Harper]

But don't shed too many tears for Croatia. They have a dispute with Slovenia based on the river that forms the boundary between them. But this time it is Croatia claiming the twentieth century river and Slovenia the 19th century one!

Croatia's rank hypocrisy has been compounded by first agreeing to allow the UN's Permanent Commission on Borders to decide the issue and then rejecting the ruling (they split the difference) because of pro-Slovenian bias. The UN is a nest of Slovenian sympathisers. Known for it.

[Mick Harper]