Syria: Be Careful What You Wish For...

I hear plenty of people crowing about the fall of the Asaad regime in Syria. Don't be too hasty.

First off, it's not clear which of the many anti-Asaad factions will win the overall conflict and take control of Syria. It's pretty clear the pro-Asaad factions are failing, but there are about a dozen different factions controlled by different paymasters and ideologies that it's not yet clear who will win.

One of the anti-Asaad factions is ISIS. If they win the overall game, then the West is in for yet another Middle-Eastern shitshow.

Another is a remnant of Al-Kaeda, called HKS. And I hear on the news there is talk of lifting the proscription on HKS because they may take power. FFS! No! 

If the Iran-backed factions like Hezbollah take control, then we face another similar shit-show with Israel facing the only option of taking Syrian territory to protect itself. Yet another reason for the U.N. to throw sanctions at Israel, yet if they do take territory, it will help stabilise the Middle East.

The best of the bunch may be the ex-Asaad forces that rebelled against him and started fighting against him. Sadly, the spectre of the Muslim Brotherhood stalks these forces if they get in power. But at least they may not be as radically anti-West as the more extreme fundamentalist forces. I use "May" optimistically, but I don't know about them to comment on what the end game would be for the ex-Asaad forces. 

Lets be clear, the fall of Asaad is not a good thing. As bad as he was, being a dictator like he was is the only way to keep the peace in a Muslim country. Look at what has happened in the Middle-East since Sadam Hussein and Gadhafi were neutralised. Chaos. 

One glint of light in the distance is Russia. The Naval and Air bases they have in Syria (the only bases they have with direct access to the Mediterranean) are currently under threat. The main reason the Asaad regime fell is Russia's inability to support it with weapons and expertise. Russia is expending too much blood and treasure in Ukraine. 

Now would be a good time to approach Putin for a ceasefire and peace deal in Ukraine, so he can then concentrate on saving his Mediterranean bases. That way he can claim an honourable reason for the retreat from Ukraine.

You scratch my back, I scratch yours, sort of thing. Maybe a caveat with the deal would be that Ukraine stays out of  NATO as long as Russia helps a mutually-agreed preferred faction in Syria that is favourable to both sides. In the end both countries becoming neutral between the superpowers.

That would be the best outcome, but right now the Biden regime would fuck it up. Hopefully Trump the deal maker has seen the opportunity and his team have started making the approach to Putin.

Unfortunately I've not mentioned the Kurds. The homeless Kurds on the Syrian/Turkish border will I assume be left out (again) from any support and peace deal. The Kurds seem to be the forgotten fighters, supported by no-one and oppressed on all side by Turkey and the Asaad regime. 

The Rise of the Death Cult.

No, I'm not talking about the religion of peace this time.

I'm talking about the class of elitist politicians in Europe and America that insist on pushing us ever closer to the big one, the war to end all wars. Nuclear Armageddon.

While Billionaires build luxury bunkers, the politicians of the West provoke the Russian Bear. 

Putin has already outlined his red lines. The West have crossed those lines time and time again. Yes, 20 years ago Russia was powerless to push back, but not now. Decades of Western  money paying for gas has filled the Russian coffers up so that they can now push back. Not only locally like with Ukraine, but internationally.

They now have weapons that can strike back at the West. Should the West step too far, too close to that final red line.

No matter what you think about Putin, his politics and him personally, gambling with the lives of people in the West is not acceptable.

But here we are, where the political elite of the West talk about Ukraine joining NATO. Even while Ukraine is embroiled in the war with Russia. How incredibly stupid could you be?

If Ukraine joined NATO then immediately we would have to join the war. Immediately there is an escalation that Russia have gamed they only have a chance of winning if they resort to the use of Nukes.

No if or buts. If Ukraine joins NATO, then the Nukes will fly, because Russia has to stop or slow the influx of equipment into Europe. The European ports of Antwerp, Rotterdam, etc. will be first to be hit. Denying the Americans and the British ports with which to unload heavy military equipment. 

The channel tunnel I suspect would be next. Whether the French or the British end is moot. Closure of the tunnel denies the West the ability to move heavy equipment from the UK with just a single Nuke. 

With the ports and the resupply taken care of, then Russia will also attack the large storage bases in Europe. Frankfurt would be high on the tactical nuke list to deny the airbase to the Americans.

Finally command and control structures. Parliaments, military bases, all would be on the list for nuclear attention.

Even that quarry in Scotland we're not supposed to talk about according to Professor Simon. Just in case it's not just a dumping site for nuclear waste and is actually a site for storing weapons.

Incidentally, nuclear weapons give off neutrons as part of the decay of the nuclear material, so the storage sites are detectable with the right sort of kit (<cough> Antarctica). 

Anyhoo, can we just stop with the death cult thing? I don't want to be immolated in a nuclear fire and I don't want my kids and grandkids to suffer a post-nuclear apocalypse.

Let's just stop the lunacy eh? Ukraine will NOT join NATO. 

Serious Cyber-Attacks in Progress.

 Over the past few weeks there have been a number of high profile computer system outages.

In the USA the NOTAMS system was down that halted commercial flights for a while.

In the UK, the Royal Mail halted international post for over a week because they were hacked with a ransomware attack. 

There have been instances of other computer outages reported across the Western World. And a lot more that didn't make it to the news.

This is serious. The West is being attacked by foreign actors. Maybe not directly, but online through cyber attacks. I expect that attacks against the USA, Germany and the UK will ramp up now we've all announced we're sending battalions of tanks to Ukraine. The number 14 isn't a coincidence. 14 is a standard NATO tank battalion. The USA is sending around 30 tanks, which probably means 28 tanks and maybe a couple to cannibalise for spares. Because Ukraine doesn't have the same logistical support Western armies have.

I do wonder actually how many of those 14 Challenger 2 and 14 Leopard 2 tanks will actually roll out onto the plains of Ukraine and how many will still be rolling 3 months after deployment. Because they break down. A lot. And they take quite a bit of ongoing maintenance.

Anyway, that's not the subject of this piece.

Cyber attacks are at a high at the moment. The only reason you haven't been attacked is the hackers don't think you are relevant. Although even small companies are getting clickware emails. We know the originators come from Russia. Whether state-sponsored actors, or a group of nerds in a cellar in St. Petersburg pissed off at Western support for Ukraine.

I hope all the important infrastructure companies and the NHS (remember their big cyber attack a few years ago?) are on full alert and have decent backups and cyber security in place.

Right now I'd be ramping any weekly backups up to daily or two-daily secure offline/off site backups. Because even losing a week's worth of data can be crippling to a company.

And you will have to wipe all of that week's data as you will have to completely wipe all your PCs and start again. The more regularly you do backups, the more relevant the data and the less work is involved in recreating it once the systems have been restored.

Retirement and Systemic Fragility

 Well, I've come to that point in my life where I'm starting to sort out pensions and stuff. Yeah, I'm THAT old.

One of the many deferred pensions I have is from ICL (Now Fujitsu) when I worked for them back in the 80s/90s.

Maybe there's an amount of Rose tinting going on, but looking back they were pretty good times. I gave ICL 8 years of my life and despite not being rewarded in monetary terms (I was one of the Mid-80s intake that replaced high paid engineers with young, willing but lower paid staff) the crack at work was always good amongst the ordinary workers. Management was another thing entirely, the company mired in office politics. That's partly what killed them as a manufacturer. I saw the writing on the wall and left a couple of years before the manufacturing facility in the UK was sold off and closed down.

And that's what brings me on to systemic fragility. Because ICL eventually became Fujitsu and now only focuses on software and services. It doesn't make anything any more. Even the arm of ICL in India, ICIM (International Computers India Manufacturing) eventually became Zensar Technologies and only deals in software and services.

The hardware is now all made in Taiwan or China. Or the components that make the systems are made there. 

Which is a problem. A bloody big problem, strategically. 

Because if ever China decided it would like to have a pop at invading and occupying Taiwan, the supply of chips for computer systems would dry up overnight. We've all seen the issues with car manufacturing with shortages of certain chips halting production and that was just because the chip makers had to ramp up production after the lull from Covid. 

Just think what the impact would be if we couldn't get ANY chips from Taiwan. Where else would we get them from? China? Er, I don't think so if they're the one invading Taiwan.

Just think what the effect would be globally if the West went to war with China. What would happen if the global supply of things China makes (virtually bloody everything) stops. 

In fact would we be able to manufacture the weapons needed to attack China? Because even though the technologically advanced chips for the weapons systems might be made in the West for security reasons, the ancillary chips, the ones that don't require high-level security are supplied from Taiwan.

Transistors, capacitors, resistors, all the high-quality (not the cheap Chinese crap) are mostly made in Taiwan. 

I hope weapon manufacturers are looking at their supply chain, or have already looked at it and started to use robust and secure methods of supply from inside their own country.

It doesn't have to be Taiwan. Russia has signed a pact with China, so if it kicks off over Ukraine, we could see China invading Taiwan at the same time to produce a two-front conflict thereby making it more difficult for the West to commit serious numbers into the fight. China could instead just stop exports to Western countries in solidarity with their Russian friends. 

We really as a country need to look more seriously at security of supply. Not just for goods that require security of supply, but also energy. We need to have an independent energy supply because the Russians could turn the gas tap off any time they like and we would be absolutely fucked.

The Biden Fiasco and the Blatant Censoring of Online Commentary

 Well, I think this time Facebook and Twitter have really done it. I really think they have signed their own death warrants. 

They are openly and blatantly refusing to even countenance publication in any form of the accusations laid out by the New York Post regarding Biden, his son and Ukraine. Or even any commentary on the accusations.

Now, here comes the killer blow for those "platforms". If they are censoring content, if they are actively suppressing even commentary of the accusations, then they must fear a lawsuit for doing so. In that case they are thinking like publishers. They are acting like publishers. They are publishers, not platforms. 

The distinction is complete and therefore previous "platforms" given immunity under section 230 of the CDA does not apply because they are now thinking and acting like publishers. 

Which then opens the gleeful opportunities for citizens to sue said former platforms/now publishers for the laws that apply to publishers: defamation, libel etc.

You cannot have the ability to act like a publisher without de facto being a publisher. If you act think, edit, suppress and manipulate content like a publisher, then you are a publisher. If you think and therefore act like a publisher, then you already accept the fact. Whether the entity doing the publishing is a person or a corporation, there is no difference. 

The opportunity to sue arises merely because in can be argued in court that the "platforms" are no longer acting as such. By there mere actions, they become de facto publishers and lose section 230 immunity.

I'm rubbing my hands now waiting for the first big lawsuit to drop.

Facebook and Twitter, by their actions have opened themselves to this. Jack Dorsey has realised this and has gone on record trying to justify the censorship: it's not proven, the information was obtained illegally, yadda-yadda, even using the usual management weasel-word phrases like "we didn't communicate correctly". It doesn't matter. A platform would not censor and suppress on any grounds other than possibly public safety. 

The Biden revelations do not constitute public safety and there are grounds for public interest arguments in defence of allowing commentary on them.

These so-called platforms were on shaky ground previously. I think this is the final nail in the coffin for any protections availed to them under section 230.