Posts by Adam Ward

NASA's greatest clanger

Clangers ... some people are eating them

I haven't looked at these poor knitware creatures the same since someone pointed out that a Bedfordshire Clanger is a food item. Apparently, in Bedfordshire, they hunt and kill these magnificent aliens.

A full recipe, with "Pork" as an alternative ingredient in these PC times, can be found here:

http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/LeisureAndCulture/HistoryAndHeritage/BedfordshireClanger.aspx

See... they are even proud of their alien hunting ways! Presumably the Soup Dragon was the starter.

Save the clanger...

Were the snatched Brit sailors in 'disputed waters'?

Blame Iran?

Blaming Iran for this is simply silly. Iran hasn't invaded anyone since, well, its hard to say. Not this millennium, or the last one. The time of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian probably. We, on the other hand, have been very active in the Middle East, particularly in the field of illegal and immoral actions. Normally you have to have clean hands to cry for justice - the Iranians do, we don't.

Now as for the main article.

As for the Navy issue, the Iranians appeared to act reasonably, arguing that this or that (The GPS was working... we thought we were in the right place. Really.) is an excuse for the Royal Navy makes the British look whiny. No one was hurt, no one was killed, a few people were slightly embarrassed and no one was tortured to death. So far that makes Iranian behaviour in the field somewhat better than that of the Coalition troops in Iraq.

Of course the fact that the Iranians behave better than we do is the real source of the national humiliation - aren't we supposed to be the moral leaders here? Had an Iranian diplomat fallen into US hands then well, it'd be on with the orange "torture me" jumpsuit and the water boarding. As indeed did happen in December 2006.

Of course we could argue that the Royal Navy looking for stolen cars (which is what they were doing) in the Persian Gulf is at least as pointless as the Royal Navy looking for drugs in the Carribean. Who gives a rats-ass if the stolen car rackets in Iraq are making a little pin-money (compared to the $2bn a year in oil smuggling, and $56bn that's gone missing since 2005 its nothing. Sending a frigate to stop the car thieves in a river area is just using a gold plated sledgehammer, to use Lewis' phrase (page 214 Lions Donkeys and Dinosaurs, his excellent and rollicking Essex Boys guide to the Armed forces, by the way).

I'm actually surprised at the article. The whole affair makes Lewis' point for him; frigates and destroyers are plain useless for modern war - had HMS Ocean or a copy of her been on site then there would have been additional helicopters to cover the Marines, and provide the BBC camera crew their vantage point. Its little noted but the only helicopter to hand was pulled off station for a publicity photo-shoot.

Army says farewell to UK's 'bugger-off' airbag drone

Foreign soliders in British Army

Its little noted how many non-UK soldiers are serving in the British Army these days, beyond the famous Gurkhas. Mostly this is because the army is overstretched and UK teenagers have far better things to do than play cannon fodder in Iraq or Afghanistan. Despite massive cuts in battalion numbers, and further cuts in battalion strengths, the UK army is still 10% understrength. We need the foreigners to fight the war in Iraq, without them, we are boned.

In 2006 the percentage went past 10% foreign personnel, with people from 57 nations. These nations are often Commonwealth, but also include places such as the Ukraine. There are, ballpark, around 3,000 Ghurkhas, and around 7,000 others currently in the army. Fiji is the largest provider, with around 2,000. Jamaica and South Africa are next, each with around 1,000 soldiers. After that its Zimbabwe with around 500.

We don't make an issue of but former British Army soldiers from Fiji have been responsible for much of the internal political troubles of Fiji as former SAS men have been involved in every coup attempt to date.

Joe Stalin,

You're arguing that the poor bloody infantry get bad value, which is probably true, but they're volunteers and work directly for the MOD bosses. Taxpayers hardly volunteer and get no say in how inept the MOD is. You'll forgive the taxpayer if we look at the amount that the MOD spends (we're now 2nd on the planet) and say hang on a minute, where did the money go? Or more accurately, in the case of Phoenix, which wall was it pissed against?

Forces pay mess blamed on human error

@Sean Casaidhe

"As for those who say no-one cares about what pay Soldier A is getting, come off it - if I could identify an operation in which the SBS (for example) was involved, then check the pay of Royal Marines and find out who's getting all the various combat allowances, I could identify say 100 Royal Marines, their families, and then we'll see how efficient the Special Forces are when their friends and family are getting bumped off at home."

So, lets get this straight... We're spending a quarter of a billion quid in order to protect the names of some (but not all) military people from vaguely defined person or persons unknown for personal, rather than collective vengeance? At a time when military units are in real danger in real daily fire-fights and need more effective kit urgently? I repeat: are the MOD quite mad? Its like having a million pound lock on a ten pound bike. I blame too many bad movies and books where the villains hunt down a specific individual.

I note that you can't provide a reality based example of this kind of operation. On planet Earth if the bad people don't like a group - if we're going to have to use an example we'll use Royal Marines or even a group of British special forces (Such as the SBS) - they'll simply park a car bomb at the MacDonalds nearest the unit base on a Saturday morning and maybe whack the dads, but certainly hit the wife and kids. Or pick a pub near the barracks and blow it shreds,. Or they'll wait at the station to see if a few physically fit lads, walking together, and with short haircuts turn up then spray them with automatic weapons fire on the flat, cover less, platform. Or they'll wait for something like a reunion or march or band event and bomb it. These methods all worked for the IRA, anyway. Hunting individuals is what people do with war criminals, and it usually goes through the courts. Actually that might be the most effective use for this system, as it'll prove who was where on the day - its not worth the money.

So what do we lose for the costs of dealing with this fairy-land threat? In 2000 Britain spend around £222 million on all its armoured fighting vehicles and only £90million on guided weapons (Heyman, 2002:17-18). We're talking £250m on a pay system. This is a massive sum of money and, as I've already noted, enough to form an entire infantry battalion.

Alternatively if we're going to insist on treating every special forces person as a potential hostage to future enemy operations, like a cabinet minister, then we could simply pay them a lot better basic salary and give no penny-pinching operational bonuses to give away their identity; an SAS trooper gets around £25k a year - paying the entire SAS an additional £25k a year each on top of their basic would cost around (assume 2 full regiments, at full strength - which the SAS aren' - 1200 troops) £30 million a year... Tahdaaah, we've already saved enough to buy a whole swarm of cruise missiles, or a big chunk of an infantry battalion. See? A far more reality based method of handling the issue that seemingly motivates this particular fiasco.

I submit that this cash is simply wasted and that there are far better things to spend the money on, rather than sub-James Bond plots, I would suggest that its clear that British troops clearly need body armour (in fact better kit in general), a decent weapon or three, some proper air support, and probably some creature comforts; that's reality based spending, a massively expensive pay system isn't.

"So cop on."

Whatever that means. I assume its an insult. Nice, but lets face it, irrelevant.

Madness

"The payroll input information is not only confidential, but also highly secret, as an enemy could potentially work out the size, composition and possibly the mission of a military force by virtue of this information. The requirement for very tight security leads to considerable expense."

Initial reaction: What? Are you completely mad? Enemy intelligence agencies actually caring about British force composition? That assumes a nation state that we're going to war with, without American backing. And lets face it no one cares about the British sepoys. More to the point anyone that cares to can work out what units are where by looking at the local papers online.

Actually can we name one nation that we've fought in the past 50 years where this kind of information has been relevant? Its this kind of muddle-headed thinking that wastes so much cash. And for that kind of stupidity we spent enough cash to have an actual infantry battalion in existence. You know, a useful thing.

MoD's Baron techwealth quits for Le Mans biofuel bid

Re Defense Procurement

"Some would say that when the government takes money out of the UK economy in taxes, it has an obligation to put it back through spending, not send it abroad."

Really? Loads of British government contracts involve money going abroad. Every IT contract to EDS or IBM involves large foreign owned companies. What makes defence so special? Apparently the desire to make sure that people don't have the kit they need.

" Defense spending on UK products represents a stimulus to the british economy, maintaining british jobs and developing high-technology industry. Defense R&D in particular is an investment in science in general, not just in the military."

Simply no. Current mega-budget items are things like Nimrod (a must for anorak 1950s aircraft enthusiasts) or aircraft carriers. Neither has a real world application. Look, its been a British government fallacy for years, doubtless in some drug induced haze an Admiral fantasises that the Nimrod boys will leave their ancient comet and invent a better DVD player. Its simply not going to happen. Lets take a test - all the readers that have PS2 or PS3 or something similar at home go "Whoo". Everyone with an SA-80 go "yee-hoo" I'm willing to bet that there are a lot more "Whoo" out there,

To put it another way - Japan imports much of her military kit and she's been pretty damn innovative (although she does also have a number of US made helicopters built by Kawasaki). Admittedly Japan doesn't go in for massive military operations.

"Equally pertinant is the fact that American kit is cheap because US companies are able to achieve greater economies of scale by flogging the stuff around the world. "

So by your argument it appears that nearly every other country on the planet agrees that US kit is a lot better than their British competitors. Who are we to stand in the way of the bulk of international opinion? Might as well get something decent for our money.

Look, the SA-80 was bought by only the poor suckers in Jamaica, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. In the case of at least 1 of these the likelihood of the military using their weapons on people who actually have guns is nearly zero so the SA-80 is a perfectly respectable weapon for that purpose. Ethical people will be glad to hear that the SA-80 was given as part of the foreign aid - at least the poor suckers (or their population) didn't have to pay for them.

"If we sold more stuff abroad, and the US less, the price differential would not be so noticeable."

Hm... SA-80A2 rifle costs around $2000 a pop (we have around 200k of them, at a cost of £450m), the M-16A2 $400 at list price, the AK-47 is available worldwide from $50 upwards. The M-16 is considered to be a highly capable rifle, the AK-47 and her many variants are legendary. The SA-80 is, at best lets face it, slowly recovering from a reputation as a death trap ("The SA-80 is a lethal weapon. Often to its user"). A recent test firing showed it to be highly reliable, but sources in Afghanistan and Iraq still say that the weapon is deeply flaky.

"Besides, it's one thing to buy US parts because they're cheaper, it's quite another to lack the ability to produce them yourself. The DIS is designed to maintain capabilities, not necessarily to produce everything in the UK. "

So we can go to war with the Americans? Cough, gag, gasp. My money is on the Yanks. In fact, I surrender now. Look, the reality is that Iranians have F-14's flying nearly 3 decades after they broke military ties with the Americans and that includes time spent fighting a massive ground war, neither of which the British have done. The argument that we need to keep throwing masses of money away to keep some navvies on-line in case we decide in a mad moment to burn Washington down again is in reality just an argument that the Iranians are, apparently, a lot smarter than the RAF techies. Its possible, sure, but I doubt it.

The reality is that all this spending money, which was once fine when we were rich, is that we want the ability to re-enact the massive failure that was Suez. That the military in the UK is able to get away with this kind of delusion is a sign of how inept our politicians are.

"Maintaining capabilities occasionally requires buying the more expensive option."

Sure. But the UK always goes expensive, and never gets the capability it needs. Buying the better US helicopter gets us more effective kit, sooner and - for the same money - more helicopters. Going the Merlin route gets nothing immediately, gets less in the future, and gets fewer helicopters.

If you mean we spend more to get less is the same as maintaining capabilities the question is capability for what? My guess is more waste. Each job in the UK defence industry is subsidised to the tune of, give or take, £15,000 a year. The dole payment for these useless workers is not £15k a year.

Of course you might like the fact that the British military pays too much, doesn't get what it needs, and faces cash crises like 2001 when entire infantry regiments were eliminated to pay for the worthless kit that they had ordered in previous years (Eurofighter, we're looking at you - we might note that the highly capable Sea Harrier was dumped for the Eurofighter).

"Free trade is all very well, but the world does not show any signs of becoming a peaceful utopia any time soon, so there are certain things you need to be able to produce for yourself."

Such as? We buy in an awful lot of kit, we spend an awful lot of money and money is very tight right now. The UK cannot afford to have one system for each service to play in a particular game. The obvious thing to do is stop wasting money on prestige projects and military stupidity. An example? Lets take something like anti-submarine warfare. We have, on the books or currently awaited:

Merlin Mk1 helicopters at a cost of £4-5bn

Nimrod MRA4 patrol planes £3-£4bn

Frigates £2-4bn

Attack submarines £3bn

Total cost: £12 to 16bn. Thats a lot of equipment that could be of use in Iraq or Afghanistan. Or we could waste it re-enacting the Battle of the Atlantic.

So who will this kit be used on? Well the most likely opponents are the Iranians. They have 3 Kilo-class submarines.costing in total around £400m. In other words we're spending some 30 to 40 times what the Iranians are to deal with a threat that doesn't really exist. Nice. Welcome to bankruptcy.

Met's de Menezes photo 'manipulated', says prosecution

Mad Mike, This is getting tiresome

Mad Mike,

This is getting terribly, terribly silly. You're simply not dealing with 3 basic, important, facts:

1) De Menzies was not a suicide bomber.

2) The police did not think he was a suicide bomber.

3) Kratos was not called. SO19 were, according to Commander Dick (great name), ordered to arrest the suspect and search him. According to that position SO19 went straight off the rails.

Point 3 is the critical one. It means that everything you say is irrelevant. It doesn't matter what should be done if you're meeting a suicide bomber, it matters what should be done if you're shooting someone innocent in the head.

"Well, bearing in mind the number of people a suicide bomber can kill in one go, quite good actually."

Yes, but we don't pay the suicide bombers. Nor do we set their priorities. We understand that the government can't always get it right. On the other hand the government or police created a policy where it was OK to bump off people. That's a lot more serious.

"What do you think was going on in NI for years? The SAS etc. taking out terrorists before they blew things up, or on the way, or as it happened?"

With the exception of a few ambushes the SAS rarely did much good in Northern Ireland, it was mainly a police and intelligence issue. Far more to the point the British soldiers in Northern Ireland operated under a far tighter set of rules than the SO19 people did. Without an order to fire or clear personal danger (of which there was neither in the De Menzies case) the soldier could expect to face murder charges and, if convicted, face a life sentence. The SO19 plod got away scot-free.

In fact after the one time that the SAS did an ambush in Gibraltar MI5 and MI6 never used them again for intelligence operations. As of 2003 the SAS are considered to be too unreliable for complicated intelligence operations (the SAS habit of all wearing jeans, trainers and black leather jackets and walking in lock-step makes them less than useful for appearing inconspicuous). Equally the SAS get a 24 hour period to make up their statements, usually some variant of the "suspect was making a twisting gesture. I thought he was reaching for a gun". You'd be amazed how many IRA people made twisting gestures just before being shot. Cynics might think it was a standard lawyer approved wording.

On the other hand SO19 make the SAS look like Ninja warriors, as SO19 now appear to be either unable or unwilling to understand the orders that they're being given.

"The Israelis have stopped a good number as well. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but asking politely doesn't work."

Sigh. Israel remains the "how not to do it" gold-standard. You may be aware that they've had an insurgency running for nearly 3 decades now. They're now reduced to building a wall to protect themselves from the majority of the people of the West Bank. A few years back there was a minor scandal in Israel when it turned out that their border checkpoints were staffed by inmates from a local mental asylum. Understandably quite a number of completely innocent Palestinians have died because of this.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7363.htm

The video above shows a 13 year old girl (misidentified as 10) being shot by mistake. She was on her way to school. Apparently her school bag turned out to contain school books. She was shot 12-17 times - twice in the head and then, apparently to clear the magazine, ten to fifteen times in the body. You'll be glad to hear that this misuse of ammunition caused a court martial for "illegal use of a weapon". The killing is, of course, quite all right. The captain involved was found not guilty in record time.

You'd doubtless call this a success, but I do not. I see this as the end result for the UK - a nightmarish future for our nation whilst the police run out of control assassination squads. We can live with suicide bombers, but assassination squads will destroy us as a nation.

"So, if you have any other ideas and am willing to try it personally next time, please feel free to volunteer..........................deafening silence I'm sure."

Volunteer for what? The police? With 5 applicants for every post do they actually need the extra people? Are you joining the army? The army are looking for recruits as less than 1 person applies per infantry slot.

"More than happy to criticise those who are willing to act and take risks on your behalf, but somewhat slow in coming forwards when asked to do it yourself."

First, the police never asked me if the policy that they created was sane, a moments thought would have revealed that it was not. More importantly they never went to Parliament and announced that this was the policy. So its rather hard to say that they're doing it on "our behalf".

I'm actually rather more worried about the police shooting me in the head, thanks. There are a lot more police officers than suicide bombers.

"Meaning. Sorry, I was talking rubbish and you got me."

I think that you're talking gibberish and everyone other than you knows it.

"It's a fact. When you have a split second to make the decision, mistakes will be made."

So don't get in that position. The police didn't have to be in that position. They chose the option that put them there.

"And the fact is, that's what police have when something like this occurs. It's not trite, it's fact. There are various courses you can go on and experience things like this. Try it. Then, you'll find out how good your split second decisions are."

Errrm. No the police did not have to shoot De Menzies. In fact it now appears that the order that was given to do a controlled halt of De Menzies and search him. Of course if that is true then everything you've babbled is meaningless. Still we won't let nasty reality get in the way.

"What's this supposed to mean? What does a terrorist look like? If you know, I'm sure the Met would appreciate your help."

That's rather his point. Everyone looks like a terrorist. I suppose that these complicated concepts are rather leaping past you. To repeat De Menzies wasn't a suicide bomber, the police command did not think he was, they say that they wanted a controlled halt not an execution.

"I suppose you mean you look like an Arab?"

I'm white and European so I look like a Bosnian Muslim. Or a convert, like Richard Reed. Everyone looks like a terrorist.

"Well, if you're worried in this country, go to the Middle East. The chances of being killed there are far higher."

What? By the Met? If you think that Dubai is rougher than London for Ex-pats you really are Mad, Mike.

"The other alternative of course, is for everyone, including Arab communities, to help the police. This includes Mosques etc.etc."

Do you have any evidence that mosques in the UK weren't helping the police?

"The chances of being accidently killed go up enourmously when the police and security services know these people are around but get no help in identifying them."

Sigh. In this case they knew who the bomber was, where he lived, what he looked like, what his bank account number was, who his friends were, and the fact that his sister had a flat in Stretham. Its rather hard to see what extra information anyone could provide that would be useful at that stage. Even with all that it still didn't stop the police from gunning down the wrong man completely.

"For every one of the bombers on 7/7, people after the event said they knew they were radical etc.etc. Yet, what did they do?"

Errm. No they didn't. The bombers on 7/7 were on the outer fringe of radical Islam. Its why the thing came as such a complete surprise. They're not called "cleanskins" for nothing. We didn't know or care a thing about them until 7/7.

" WIthout good quality intelligence, the Met will make more and more mistakes. So, your own safety is partly in your own hands and that of the Arab/Muslim community."

So, lets get this straight, if we don't give the police more information about random people being unhappy over British foreign policy, more completely innocent people will be gunned down by the police? I'm having trouble with this logic. Maybe if we didn't do the bit where the police get trigger happy. Alternatively how about we don't have police that created policies that are determined to re-enact the last part of "True Lies"?

@Mad Mike

Mad Mike

"Firstly, intelligence is never perfect. As identification is a matter of perception, there will always be a significant number of errors. Trying to work out if the misidentification is 'reasonable' is pointless as different people perceive in different ways and therefore some people will misidentify someone when others wouldn't etc. Also, outside your own racial grouping, misidentification goes up significantly, as you are less used to that racial groupings features etc. That is known, proven fact."

So you'd accept that operating a killing policy based on a fast glance identification would be a really, really cripplingly stupid thing to do. We're on the same page here.

"Secondly, shoot to kill is the only policy that can be used against a suicide bomber. Shoot to kill gives you the ability to intercept and stop the bomber when you want to rather than when they want. This allows you to contain the danger and try to minimise casualties. Additionally, it reduces the risk to you as it minimises the risk of the suicide bomber detonating the bomb."

Here we diverge. You've argued that its very difficult to stop a bomber, yet argue that in circumstances when a) We know who the bomber is b) Know where they are c) Know that they have a bomb and d) Have an armed policeman nearby then e) We can stop them. If we know a-c then stopping them before the bomb is moving around is the smartest course, otherwise its pure movie histrionics.

"Someone mentioned release triggers being a deterent against this. Well, perhaps you would like to tell me the last time a suicide bomber used a release trigger? I personally, have never heard of it."

Shrug. I have. The Israelis operate on the basis of this being a standard. Al Qaeda in Iraq also, supposedly, use this. We know that they're used as a backup in Al Qaeda operations for example the Kenya (vehicle) bomb in 1998 certainly used this method (we know that the primary igniter failed, but the release trigger didn't - this allowed one of the bombers to escape, he was later arrested by the Kenyan police. I note this because the British police, in very similar circumstances, were unable to even consider an arrest. We may judge the competence of the Kenyan police and the Met appropriately).

"Finally. Contrary to a lot of respondents comments, I doubt if there is anyone in the Met police who went home that night and started boasting about 'wasting' someone etc.etc. as some postings suggest. I imagine most were extremely upset and shocked by the wrong person being shot."

Imagine away. I, on the other hand, know that the chief constable was personally humiliated on 7/7 as when the bombs went off he was just back from a Today programme interview when he's said that the Met were the Gold Standard of counter-terrorism. I also know that when De Menzies was shot he was told that De Menzies was the right man, because the court has been told so. I'm sure that he was neither shocked nor upset that night. The next day it might have been very different.

"Taking a human life is a very traumatic experience to police. Strangely enough, they are not all Dirty Harrys. It would be better if people didn't assume everyone was like the films.""

So, just to check, your solution to the world not being like Dirty Harry (based on a real police officer named Dave Toshi by the way) is to rely on the movie solution of the last minute rescue. I rather prefer the knock on the door in the middle of the night method, its a lot less cool but does actually get the job done. Its when you combine it with overenthusiastic police that you get Forest Gate.

"So, as my post said. The issue here is not that misidentification took place. This, whilst regretable, will always."

Hm. So lets get this straight. You'll accept that misidentification will always happen and that its acceptable for people to be bumped off by the police because in some vague indefinable way the police might one day be right. This does mean that we are now paying a bunch of people to randomly kill us in order to keep us safer.

" The issue here isn't that the person was shot, as given the belief in the targets intended action, this was the only recourse."

For De Menzies its very much the issue that he was shot. For the rest of us the police's beliefs (not information in note - "beliefs" a fascinating mixture of religious fervour here) are quite concerning. Far more to the point you're simply not dealing with the issue that Kratos was never initiated, which means that all the burble about the police believing they were dealing with an active suicide bomber is simply tosh. No Kratos means no suicide bomber. Now the SO19 guys might have assumed that they were dealing with whatever they wanted to, including Godzilla and the Sailor Moon team. But assuming something doesn't make it so.

" The issue here is the actions after the event when the police realised they had made an error. That is the real issue. The coverups and misinformation afterwards."

Fairly major issue here too. It means that the police went from cockup to conspiracy.

"Before anyone replies, perhaps they would also like to consider applying for a position with the Mets firearms teams. Perhaps they would like to consider approaching armed (guns, bombs, whatever) people and how they would feel."

Blah blah blah. Heard all this crap over Iraq particularly when people were recruiting for the dreadful, dismal CPA. In reality the policy that the police created was immature and destined to fail and a child could see that this was the case.

"Perhaps they would like to consider placing themselves in the line of fire to protect the public. Perhaps they would like to take the split second decision to fire or not given the extremely fast moving situation and adrenelin etc. pumping round their bodies. And when they have gone to an incident with armed police and experienced what they do. Perhaps then, thay are qualified to judge..............."

Police? Safe as houses. 36 have died in the last 20 years. I'm pretty sure that more chartered accountants have died at their desks in the last 20 years. So, just to check, why haven't you joined the Army? They see a lot more suicide bomber action than the police do and their casualty rate is a lot higher.

@Graham Dawson

Right, sorry about the delay.

"It isn't right to blame US foreign policy for islamic terrorism, regardless of what's happened here in the UK. Islamic terrorists started blowing things up on Carter's watch, this despite the fact that the US actually aided the creation of the islamic republic of iran by withdrawing support for the Shah at a critical moment."

Sigh. No they didn't. You're confusing US withdrawal of support for Batista in 1958 after he used US tanks to crush a Naval rebellion with Iran. Or you're confusing David Owen's refusal to sell Iran British riot kit to put down the riots (so the Iranians used machineguns instead). US policy in Iran remained, to the end, supportive of the Shah as Iran was "an Island of Stability in the Middle East". As late as August 1978 the CIA were confidently saying that the Shah would go on another decade or more.

" It went from amateurish nothings to outright nastiness within the space of a few years as Islamic groups ramped up their assaults against Israeli and US targets at a time when Israel was already making peace overtures to its neighbours,"

Overthrowing a US puppet state is an amateurish nothing? Wow. Way to set that bar really high. What do they have to do to be professional?

Look, the sad reality is that Iran doesn't give much of a monkey's about Israel. Israel was selling Iran weapons, particularly Hawk and TOW missiles. Iran did care about the little invasion that the US and Iraq organised for them, and the longest land war in the 20th Century that followed. You may have heard rumours of it between 1980 and 88.

"trying to actually give back the territory it took during the previous two was (where, incidentally, its islamic neighbours were the aggressors)"

Other than the Israeli surprise attack in 1967 you mean.

"and the US was bending over backwards to be nice to the arab world because oil prices were so high. This was when the PLO decided it would be quite fun to slaughter the entire Israeli team at the munich olympics "

Ok. Stop the burble here. The PLO aren't Islamic, they're theoretically Marxists. Second I think Speilberg shouldn't have made his damn film. Third the entire point of the Munich operation was a kidnapping to get prisoners released from Israel. Fourth the kidnappers never intended to kill anyone, the dead were either incredibly stupid in not doing what the man with gun tells them to do, or were killed during a 2 hour firefight in a dreadfully stupidly planned and amateurish hostage rescue attempt (so bad in fact that the 4 German police chosen as the lead assault force deserted their posts rather than take part).

"and other islamic groups decided it would be highly entertaining to board cruise ships and throw disabled people overboard because they looked a bit jewish."

Now its Klinghoffer the opera. OK Klinghoffer was Jewish. Second he was in a wheelchair. Third he was American. Fourth Israel had just invaded. Lebanon with US support. Items 1-3 are quite enough to get someone killed. Throw in point 4 and its very bad. Point 5... An Israeli tank had recently chased down and crushed a Palestinian in a wheelchair, something of a cause celebre in the Middle East. So they've got a Jewish guy in a wheelchair who is also American. Do we need to draw a picture?

But, and its a big but... the people that you are pointing are aren't an Islamic group, they're Arab Nationalists.

"Islamic terrorism hit its current stride during the US-led balkan war, which was *defending* ethnic albianian muslims against the serbs. Several islamic groups decided that this would be a great time to tart attacking the people that were helping to defend their brethren."

Errrm. No. Islamic terrorism hit its current stride in Israel and Lebanon. Saying that its anything to do with the Balkans is purely egotistical.

"The only reason we weren't targeted over the majority of this period was because the Home Office turned a blind eye to terrorist organisations operating within the country and funding their counterparts overseas with money gathered here."

Good for the home office, and something to be encouraged. More to the point the foreign office worked with local governments to try and deal with the issues that caused Islamic resistance, or at least protect people speaking out against some pretty nasty regimes.

" The muslim rulers of Andalusia kept jewish bankers around for the same reason - why kill them when you can get money out of them?"

Errrm. Are you really sure that you want to mention that when the Christians reconquered Spain they immediately threw the Jews out in 1458 (?), many of who chose to go an live in the Arabic world, particularly Istanbul rather than deal with the Spanish Inquisition. Because you know, by mentioning this it completely blows your entire point about the general nastiness of Islam out of the water.

" When we started to crack down on these organisations they turned on us as well. Of course that blind eye didn't stop islamic terrorists from attacking British interests overseas..."

Of course we were rather bombing Muslims in their home countries at the time. You know, its hard to argue with the author of Imperial Hubris when he says that most Westerners don't understand a damn thing other than money.

"You've mischaracterised the entire conflict."

As opposed to misunderstanding it and not knowing what you are talking about.

" This idea that Islam is always the victim and that the west is always the aggressor is... quain, but it doesn't match reality. "

Bin Laden says otherwise. Quite a lot of people believe him. Either they are all wrong or we are. I'd go with the idea that what Bin Laden is saying resonates in the Middle East as it does seem that he has an awful lot of people willing to die for what he thinks.

"The majority of Islam's history is one of conquest and violence."

Actually its really not, when compared to the history of Western Europe. One of the major periods of expansion in Islam is when the Monophysites in Syria and Egypt converted en masse to Islam which was far closer to their belief structure than Orthodoxy.

"The peaceful periods in Islam's history are short, and characterised by an initial flush of learning and enlightenment as new technologies and knowledge were gleaned from conquered territories and spread about the ummah (which could take anything up to a century as empires grew), followed by a reversion to fundamentalist, dogmatic hatred of everything that wasn't of the book."

Simply gibberish. Communication wasn't that slow in the period, learning in the Islamic world was venerated and competitive, and the idea that the Arabs were conquering "more advanced" peoples is simply laughable. At the time you're talking about Western Europe was in the middle of the Dark Ages and the Byzantines were no more advanced than the Persians.

"Our current foreign policy is based on the idea that Islam is, as it claims to be, a religion of peace. It isn't."

I think its terribly sensible to operate on the basis that they want peace because, you see, there are a hell of a lot of them and they appear to be winning.

"It's a highly aggressive, tribal religion based on conquest and subjugation. "

Snigger. Just to check... we didn't invade Iraq, right? They obviously invaded us. Our troops were just on a training mission and made a wrong turn at Albuquerque (in best Bugs Bunny style) and turned up in Basra? Lebanon, in 58 and 82, just an accident yer honour.

"It has a very strict honour code that is based, fundamentally, on lying."

Really Dr Evil? No. No it doesn't. You've no evidence for this.

"Once these two facts are acknowledged we can formulate a suitable policy for dealing with, and existing alongside, islam. As long as we deny these facts we will be flailing about, alternating between outright appeasement and pointless war."

We haven't tried appeasement. Appeasement would mean being a bit harsh on the Israelis and asking them to give up their preferential status. Look Bin Laden wants 6, fairly simple, things:

1) Ending all US aid to Israel. Without US support Israel will have to collapse. This effectively means the elimination of the Jewish state and in its place creation of a unified state. (That this state, because of the number of the Palestinians, will be Islamic is obvious).

2) Withdrawal of Western military units from the Arabic peninsula.

3) Ending US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

4) End of US support for anti-Muslim operations in China, Russia and India.

5) Restoration of Muslim control over Muslim oil, paid for at full market value

6) Replacement of current pro-Western dictatorships by Islamic regimes. This can be done by democracy, as the experience in Iraq has shown.

So 6 fairly easy points that are well within the ability of the West to do, should we choose a policy of appeasement. Its just that we won't. On the other hand its quite hard to motivate people to die in Basra so that we can keep military forces in Oman.

@Mad Mike and Graham

"Why are they arguing about this. Unless the prosecution is seriously trying to prove the Met police knew it wasn't Osman, does it matter whether the photo was changed or not."

The Met is trying to prove that it had reasonable suspicion to think that De Menzies and Osman were the same person. The Defence (in this case the Met) dropped the image into court. The prosecution caught onto the fact that the image had been doctored.

In a UK courtroom this is really serious. Ordinary people like you and me would be facing perjury charges right now. Judges hate perjurers with a passion.

" The Met made an incorrect identification for whatever reason. That is fact. At that point, the outcome was somewhat fixed given what the believed target was supposed to be."

Which is again the point. The Met failed in its public duties which do not include, despite what some people believe, running assassination teams. Since Gibraltar even the SAS look askance at that kind of thing.

"Unfortunately, it is a given with suicide bombers that errors in identification cannot be corrected later. People are incorrectly identified all the time. The difference is that they don't have a large amount of explosive strapped to their bodies and suicidal intent."

No. The "difference is" that De Menzies didn't have explosives and the Met shot him. Note the and carefully. Quite a lot of people in London and across the UK don't have explosives. It is, in fact, more or less the default position. Therefore the important part is that the Met shot him.

"By defintion, you can't allow a suicide bomber to defend himself (by saying I'm not that man) because if you do, they will detonate the bomb."

Sigh. This has been Israeli policy for decades. Its comprehensively failed, even so, to be fair, the Israeli experience is that this might be the case. On the other hand the Israelis do bump off large numbers of completely innocent people including children in pursuit of this policy. I suspect that the Israeli experience is not one we want to start copying, mainly as we really cannot start running checkpoints and still operate a modern economy without massive support from a foreign power. Also people get upset when snipers put a round (hollowpoint or not) through the head of their nine year old.

Far more to the point its clear that the Met command did not actually think that De Menzies was a real bomber. They allowed him onto not one but two London buses, barely days after a London bus had been blown to smithereens. They did not react when he went to Brixton station (which was closed that day) .They did not active Operation Kratos (the anti-suicide bomber Operation). The only order given was to a gung-ho group of gun handling lads who were, in their own admission, "up for it" to stop De Menzies "at all costs". Hyperbolic orders given in panic to a group of ill-trained police gunmen are a recipe for disaster.

"This was a very regretable event, but it will occur again as long as suicide bombers are around."

Excellent. The victory for terrorism is that now I can pay the police to murder people like me. At least terrorists don't ask for very decent pensions. I used to think that the Argentine Junta were bad for running death squads against ill-defined "terrorists", now I realise that I pay for the Met to do the same to people like me.

"The worst part of the whole case for me was the misleading statements being issued by the Met long after they realised their mistake. As soon as they did, they should have admitted it and started trying to do the right thing. Instead, they mislead which made everything look bad and is if people were trying to hide things."

Its not "as if" they were trying to hide things. They actually were. The team involved apparently did not inform the Met Commissioner that they had killed "a Brazilian Tourist" for nearly an entire day. Whilst Special Branch and the observation coppers got caught faking their own logs during that time period.

Mind you the Met did send our strings of inaccurate statements to encourage the dimmer members of the public to think that De Menzies was a bad man, despite knowing that he was not. The most fatuous of which was that De Menzies had leapt the turnstiles at the station (he didn't - the Met issued a blurry photo of one of its own officers). Then there was the recent De Menzies "had taken cocaine at some point in the past". Then there was this latest fake photo. De Menzies was killed by the police, then was trashed in a desperate attempt to make his killing / murder / assassination somehow "OK".

"A large part of the responsibility for this should be attached to the commissioner who made or authorised the misleading statements."

Yep. He should resign. But he won't.

"For whatever reason, we are at war with certain parties. And with any war, civilian casualties are to be expected and cannot be avoided. This man was the first, but won't be the last."

We're at war with Brazil? Does anyone know? Civilian casualties - including deliberate assassination - of civilians of neutral parties are, shall we say, somewhat problematical under the Geneva Convention. And if we're at war are we actually going to treat the people that we've captured as prisoners of war? Don't think so. Saying we're at war, when we don't act as if we are at war, is just hypocritical bunk.

Graham:

"Forget Lockerbie did we?"

Key word is Islamic. Lockerbie was run, according to the British government and the Scottish courts, by Libyan intelligence. Libya is many things, but it is not an Islamic state.

Not to put too fine a point on it but you have no idea what you're talking about, on either Iran, Munich, Klinghoffer or Islamic history. I'll chop the rest of this piece apart when I get leisure.

Met used 'dum-dum' ammo on de Menezes

Interesting but irrelevant

I think Lewis misses the key thing here. The killing of De Menzies was only OK if operation Kratos was in operation. As the trial made clear on the 3rd of October Kratos was never authorised. Although a badly worded order to "stop him all costs" was given, that does not actually give the police a license to kill.

In short whether a certain kind of ammunition was used or not, the SO19 team went well outside of their legal role in a likely combination of panic and glory-seeking.

After months of denial, Microsoft cops to IE vulnerability

Um, Simon

Simon please calm down.

"Just because people use IE DOESN'T mean they are at risk from being "enslaved in a botnet"."

No, but like heavy drinking and too much fatty foods its certainly an indicator of a coming health problem.

"Using various other software such as virus protection, anti-spyware and firewalls combat most of these problems."

Key word you use is: Most. Please note that earlier you talk about risk, you'd accept that, even with extensive additional software systems beyond Internet Explorer, there will remain a risk with using Internet Explorer.

"Secondly, you're more likely to get caught out surfing "questionable" sites. Is there anything you'd like to tell the group about your surfing habits?"

This rather nasty little slur is not particularly true. It might have been a few years ago, say for example in 1999, but the people involved in malware have become a lot smarter in how they deliver payloads. I know of at least one hair-styling site intended to appeal to teenage girls that was a trojan delivery portal. In the last week e-mail round robin letters purportedly out of Burma looking for support against the Junta were being used as a Trojan delivery system.

"Grow up, IE isn't as bad as you Firefox fanbois make out - you seem to forget that no software is totally secure."

I rather like the tabs in Firefox. Firefox isn't completely secure, what is in this wicked vale of tears? But even by your own admission IE has large vulnerabilities and does not fix them in a timely manner. In a world with zero day exploits, 3 months is far too long.

" If IE is so bad why did Firefox trust anything to be passed to it from IE?"

Errrm. As the article makes clear, as soon as the Firefox people realised how vulnerable the system was (back in July) they no longer trusted IE. You might as well ask what IE was doing to the other packages and what benefit the user was meant to get from it.

How Saudi slush kept UK aero biz afloat

RAF Doctrine and the JP233

JonB

Lewis is referring to the RAF low level airfield attack doctrine which caused the decimation. As you pointed out all of these casualties were operating against Iraqi airfields. RAF doctrine at the time was that this was the RAF speciality (air force versus air force was (is) much more in vogue than air support for pongoes). In fact without this form of operation the entire existence of the RAF was in doubt. The RAF couldn't compete with Stealth or Cruise Missiles. That meant that the USAF could do most things better, with more people, more often.

So the RAF chose a speciality that the USAF would not compete with - if only because the USAF has stealth and cruise missiles and doesn't need to throw people away in order to strut like peacocks. The RAF aim was to drive fast (600 MPH) and low, drop the bomb, and run. In the 1980s rather a lot of pilots turned themselves into pizza practising this in Wales. They still do train this way, as its kind of fun, but like the Horse Guards practising in shiny breastplates on real horses its completely impractical for war.

Sadly for the pilots who died in practise the entire thing was a failure. It turns out that in real life, somewhere in the middle of the low-level airfield attack, loads of people armed with everything from rocks to AK47s and SAMs are going to try to kill you.

So the RAF lost six aircraft out of forty five Tornado aircraft. That's the literal meaning of decimation all right, no question. Five of these aircraft were lost in the first seven days against people with no real air force at all. The only anomaly is the one on the 24th January when a bomb popped prematurely. The remaining casualty (number six) was lost in a mid-level shootdown / crash. These numbers are quite grim - the RAF Tornadoes took 10 per cent casualties within seven days of their anti-airfield operations. The rest of the Coalition air force? 0.05 per cent casualties per sortie in the entire Desert Storm operation (and that includes the massive RAF casualties). The two numbers are frightening when compared. Fly RAF and die, it makes Aeroflot looks safe.

The net result was that the RAF doctrine from the 1970s died in 1991. Bear in mind this doctrine was intended to go against a real Soviet air defence mobilised for World War 3 in East Germany, not some second-rate, dirt poor, 3rd world nation listed under "where?". The RAF casualty rate was unacceptable even against the Iraqis - against the Russians the RAF would have been combat ineffective within hours.

Today, in 2007, the RAF justifies this kind of operation after the event by claiming, more or less, that it paralysed Iraqi air operations. This didn't stop the Iraqi airforce in 1991 flying to Iran. Still, details, eh? The alternative would be to say that the RAF high command, for nearly 15 years, were living in a dream-world. That would be cripplingly embarrassing so it'll have to wait another 30 years or so to be confirmed.

Post Gulf War 1 the RAF went heavily into medium and high altitude smart weapons as seen in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq 2. The Storm Shadow, a second rate Cruise Missile, is part of this new realism. The entire low level doctrine was dumped, along with everything to do with it. Its quite rare now to hear of an RAF plane splattered along a Welsh valley.

With the doctrine went its trinkets - the JP233 was canned because frankly it was, in a world in which Cruise Missiles exist, suicidally worthless. It joins a long line of similarly impractical British inventions such as the Sticky Mine where, within about 5 minutes of combat time, everyone brighter than a chinchilla realises that its worthless - except the taxpayer that bought the damn thing.

TeeCee,

The Aviation Myths website is right in strict detail, but utterly wrong in its spirit.

Of the 5 aircraft shot down all were on low-level anti airfield attacks. Its just that the JP233 was so specialised that not all the planes needed it. The JP233 cannister was intended to slow down the bulldozers repairing the big holes in the runway from the 1000 pounders. Basically the aim was to use submunitions to make it take a half a day, rather than an hour. The plane that took 3 minutes to auger in did so because it took that long for the entire flight system to sieze up. It took the missile hit on the way out of the target area. Saying that it was 3 minutes later is more than a little sly - the proximate cause was the low level airfield attack.

Dell offers XP again amidst Vista complaints

10% failure rate at Dell

I bought a Dell Inspiron 1501 with Vista this week. It wouldn't load up as Windows Genuine Advantage listed the Dell-provided software as pirate. So it fell over.

Naturally I rang the poor helpdesk and they let slip that around 10% of the Notepads sold by Dell have exactly this problem.

My notepad, after a reinstall of Vista failed twice, is going to be replaced, something of a first for me in 20 years of IT for a software failure. I begged for any other operating system, but Dells rules say that us Europeans are just going to have to suffer Vista.

Best solution: Be prepared to complain and spend a couple of hours on the phone. Dell are pretty good but Vista is a dead stinking dog.