The Current Thing

War war, not jaw jaw

16th October 2023 Jonathon Davies America, Politics, US, War 0
On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched a surprise attack, claiming to have fired more than 5,000 rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip within a 20-minute span
Tasnim News Agency Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

In the last piece I wrote I explained what I thought was going on with the war in Ukraine. Namely, China was pulling the strings in its geopolitical strategy to wage unrestricted war on the West. The meaning of this is that everything is used for war, from politics, culture, economics and actual conflict. China wants to be the dominant global power, dethroning the USA. It has been building ups the BRICS alliance and adding members, with its reach and influence growing. This is an effort to rival the US, NATO and the EU. China has been busy winning friends in African and South America, while also building up economic reliance on China with webs of patronage and debt.

China’s strategy is starting to become clearer. The aim is to drain the resources of the USA, the West and its allies. The first part of this was for Russia to engage in war in the Ukraine. This was ironically favoured by the USA and the West and by China and BRICS. Both sides saw it as an opportunity to wear down their opponents in a drawn-out conflict. Men, weapons, money and resources have been thrown at the conflict with near wild abandon. I have lost count of the amount of billions of dollars that the US has sent to Kiev. Germany reported running out of weapons to send. The UK also has sent more than we can afford. If the Russians were to break through, you have to ask what resistance European countries to put up to stop the Russian tanks rolling passed the Rhine. Equally, Russia is being drained. Troops have been called up from all over Russia, there were whispers of soldiers from Syria, and Putin met Kim from North Korea in order to purchase more ammunition.

As I have said before this theatre of conflict is going nowhere fast. Both sides have ground to a relative halt. The much-vaunted Ukrainian counteroffensive has petered out. But this is merely phase one. US and NATO resources (and most likely soldiers) have been tied down or used up. The net step in the Chinese plan is to stretch them ever more thinly. So we come to the latest Current Thing.

This is the Hamas attack from Gaza into Israel. Now, just like the Ukrainian war I am not taking sides. I think war is generally bad and civilians who get caught up in it suffer the most, usually at the behest of the rich, the powerful and the political class of all stripes who you know will never set foot there and never see any of the fighting. What this does signify is the next phase of the global conflict. Again, both sides are content to fight. I will explain why. The Chinese strategy appears to be to induce its allies to fight in order to achieve what they want locally. China then backs them from afar, without being seen to gets its hands too dirty. For Iran, a BRICS nation, this is the struggle to be the dominant local Muslim power, and its conflict with Israel. What does China get? More US and NATO troops and resources bogged down. Already the US has sent ships and aircraft to the area. The Royal Navy has too. Israel is a key US ally. Biden immediately released $6 billion in aid to Israel. It appears they are going to be very busy in the coming weeks and months.

Why are Israel and the US/NATO keen on conflict? Israel, under Netanyahu, also wants to pursue its goals of destroying Hamas and fighting Iran. This attack by Hamas, false flag or no, gives it every opportunity to do so. Western opinion is on Israel’s side, the media is pumping out atrocity stories without stop, Israel can contemplate action that may have otherwise brought international condemnation, namely the full-scale ground invasion of Gaza. What does the US get? Many Neo-Con Warhawks have been spoiling for a fight with Iran for years, and directly or indirectly with China and Russia. With BRICS on the rise and US dominance waning, the thinking for them is if not now, when? Leave it to late and any perceived military advantage may have gone as China ramps up carrier production and US global reach and economic might dwindles. Fight while we can is their mantra.

I expect to see this situation replicated elsewhere. For example, there have been rumblings in Kosovo. Serbia wants the province back, after it broke away and became a NATO protectorate. Serbia is an age-old ally of Russia. Russia entered WW I on their behalf, as well as sending in troops during the NATO bombing of Serbia in the 1990s. Getting the Serbs to stir up trouble there seems an obvious ploy to tie down yet more NATO troops. Niger (yes, it’s a country) in Africa had the pro-Western government overthrown to be replaced with a pro-China/Russia regime. The USA backed Nigeria threatened to invade. It remains to be seen how that plays out. As mentioned, North Korea is involved. Their only ally is China. They have already sold weapons to Russia. What price would you get for betting that trouble starts on the border with South Korea, where there are US bases and troops stationed? Japan also has its security guaranteed by the USA. Japan is also the age-old rival of China. Don’t rule out something there either. The end game? Tie up so many NATO troops and drain Western countries of resources, then China goes for what it really want, which is Taiwan. By the time this all plays out there may not be much in the way to stop them. Trump could have stopped it all. But he sent mean tweets so we had to remove him.

Back to Hamas and Israel. It is astonishing the speed with which the Current Thing switched from Ukraine to Israel. Many people were left with barely enough time to swap flag emojis in their bio on social media. Gone are the stories of suffering and destruction on the eastern front. Now all pivots to the Middle East. Yet many accepted this without a thought. If you ever wanted to see how good the politicians and the media are at manipulation this was it. Wall to wall rolling coverage, landmarks lit up in Israel colours, Israeli flag on public buildings, ructions because the English FA won’t light up the Wembley arches with the Israeli flag. Never mind that it’s got nothing to do with football. I wouldn’t be surprised if rugby players take the knee for it in the Rugby World Cup. We are being railroaded into another war whether we like it or not. All thoughts of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria conveniently put out of mind.

Many like myself aren’t on any side. I don’t care about Israel or Palestine. I’ve never been there and likely never will. I know no-one from there. The conflict is complex and has been going on for over 70 years. Yet I am berated by many to pick a side. “If you are not with us, you are against us.” My answer is no. I care about the UK. The navy has been deployed to the Med. God forbid they do something useful like patrol the Channel. There are homeless veterans on our streets, victims of previous Middle East wars started by unscrupulous politicians. While our ex-service-men are left to rot, those same politicians are trying to start yet another war in the same region. Never mind terrorists abroad, we’ve got plenty already here and their numbers are growing by the day. It is with no little irony that many of the same people who constantly tell us to embrace diversity and have called yours truly and many of you “fascists” and the ubiquitous “far-right” are now “shocked” and “appalled” that the very migrants they have encouraged here are on the streets shouting death to Israel. We tried to warn you. You get what you ordered.

Was the attack allowed to happen? I don’t know. It does seem odd that the much-vaunted Israeli intelligence services knew nothing of the attack. Even more so that most of the Gaza border was undefended and it took over six hours for a response. Allegedly most of the IDF was near the West Bank. If your biggest enemy is Hamas in Gaza, why do you leave a minimal defence? How could the Iron Dome be defeated by drones and paragliders? Yet now we hear 600,000 troops have rapidly amassed for a presumed invasion. If they were genuinely caught unawares then this is the biggest security failure in Israeli history. Heads should roll. But they haven’t. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.
 

© Jonathon Davies 2023
 

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