Political Thread in memory of David Reid. (R.I.P.)

[The Bedlington Terrier]

"David Lammy travelling to Israel ‘to use every diplomatic lever to end war".

Jesus feckin wept, what has the Middle East done to deserve this ?

Life under Labour.

I have met this dude personally on two occasions, he's as much use as a chocolate teapot. Promoted way beyond his capabilities IMHO, why on earth do we keep on doing it? Gavin Williamson anyone?

[Swissclaret]

I have met this dude personally on two occasions, he's as much use as a chocolate teapot. Promoted way beyond his capabilities IMHO, why on earth do we keep on doing it? Gavin Williamson anyone?

The government you elect is the government you deserve - Thomas Jefferson.

Blame the numpties who voted Labour.

[sinkov]

"Small immigration protest sparks response from five police forces. Bournemouth rally fizzles out after three hours with no reports of disorder."

Two Tier Policing.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

"Small immigration protest sparks response from five police forces. Bournemouth rally fizzles out after three hours with no reports of disorder."

Two Tier Policing.

Last October me and the youngest lad went to Bournemouth to watch the Clarets get robbed by VAR (again). We were shocked at the amount of people lolling about on street corners and outside hotels and hostels.

Both of us thought Bournemouth is a powder keg waiting to explode and were equally shocked at the lack of a police presence. No tier policing.

[sinkov]

Last October me and the youngest lad went to Bournemouth to watch the Clarets get robbed by VAR (again). We were shocked at the amount of people lolling about on street corners and outside hotels and hostels.

Both of us thought Bournemouth is a powder keg waiting to explode and were equally shocked at the lack of a police presence. No tier policing.

It figures mon ami, the bizzies don't police the illegals, they don't want to know, and they ran away from the Roma in Leeds and left them to it. The Left gets a token presence, the white yobbos get the full monty. Three tier policing I suppose it should be called.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

It figures mon ami, the bizzies don't police the illegals, they don't want to know, and they ran away from the Roma in Leeds and left them to it. The Left gets a token presence, the white yobbos get the full monty. Three tier policing I suppose it should be called.

I'm now calling it No Kier Policing mon ami. The man is a joke and a bad one at that.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

It figures mon ami, the bizzies don't police the illegals, they don't want to know, and they ran away from the Roma in Leeds and left them to it. The Left gets a token presence, the white yobbos get the full monty. Three tier policing I suppose it should be called.

I'm now calling it No Kier Policing mon ami. The man is a joke and a bad one at that.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

It figures mon ami, the bizzies don't police the illegals, they don't want to know, and they ran away from the Roma in Leeds and left them to it. The Left gets a token presence, the white yobbos get the full monty. Three tier policing I suppose it should be called.

I'm now calling it No Kier Policing mon ami. The man is a joke and a bad one at that.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

I'm now calling it No Kier Policing mon ami. The man is a joke and a bad one at that.

[ballcock]

Testing Testing 123

[ballcock]

Oooooooo

[The Bedlington Terrier]

It figures mon ami, the bizzies don't police the illegals, they don't want to know, and they ran away from the Roma in Leeds and left them to it. The Left gets a token presence, the white yobbos get the full monty. Three tier policing I suppose it should be called.

I'm now calling it No Kier Policing mon ami. The man is a joke and a bad one at that.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Given that Starmer is virtually Jewish and he knows his way around the British legal system I would say the claimants have no chance of winning this.
Claims of Palestinians being tortured, left untreated in hospital and unable to escape constant bombardment have been submitted to the high court in London by lawyers seeking an order preventing the UK government continuing to grant arms export licences to British companies selling arms to Israel.
Bit daft really when the Yanks have just given the IDF billions of hi-tech armaments to kill even more Palestinians.

[sinkov]

Bit daft really

Exactly mon ami, there's a whole big, bad, corrupt world out there, full of people ready and willing to sell arms to Israel. Let's put thousands of Brits on the dole while the IDF continues on it's merry way, eradicating the terrorist scum. FFS, we couldn't stop the IRA getting weaponry but some virtue signalling Lefty tw@ts think they can stop the IDF.

[sinkov]

Here you are mon ami, try reading about the actual situation on the ground in Rafah, instead of the terrorist propaganda you continually fixate upon.

Written by Andrew Fox.
Major (Ret.) Andrew Fox served as an officer in the British Army from 2005-21, completing three tours of Afghanistan. He is Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

"The heat, the sand, the soldiers. I’m in Rafah, a war zone unlike any other. As a former soldier, it’s an unsettling experience. Every time we get out of a vehicle, I reach for a weapon I do not have. Instead of my army fatigues, I’m wearing lightweight trousers, a polo shirt and a blue helmet signifying I’m a civilian guest of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

There’s one thing that hits me more than anything else while I’m here: the damage to Gaza. It is appalling. Almost every building is damaged, and many are destroyed outright. After 7 October, Hamas had to be removed from Gaza. But they aren’t an easy adversary to take on.

Hamas has turned the whole place into one giant booby trap

There are 500 km of tunnels below Gaza, longer in distance than the entire London underground. In Rafah alone, the 162nd Division, who I’m alongside, have found ten tunnel-hidden rocket launching sites, 21 subterranean weapons production sites, and they have destroyed 200 tunnel entry shafts. Here’s the issue: each one of those tunnel shafts led to a mosque; a school; a person’s home. To destroy the tunnel system, there is inevitable damage to the buildings under which the tunnels run and to which they are connected.

Homes in Gaza, many concealing tunnel shafts, are almost all booby-trapped. The IDF has adapted to this. They now enter houses first with drones, then with dogs. Only when a house is seemingly clear do they enter, and even then only in four-man squads to minimise casualties if a bomb goes off. Hamas has cameras in each home, with cables running into the tunnels. If they see the IDF have missed an IED, they wait for troops to enter, then detonate the device.

When the IDF finds an IED, they will not enter and will simply destroy the house. They have neither the capacity nor the desire to clear every IED from Gaza. There are just too many to even try. All of this explains the damage in Rafah. Hamas has turned the whole place into one giant booby trap and the IDF’s only realistic option is to clear it explosively.

We visited an IDF brigade halfway through an operation. Armoured vehicles were grinding away behind us, and special forces teams were searching for tunnels. A machine gun fired sporadically, 100 metres away.

One IDF squad had some downtime in one of the ruined buildings in Swedish Village, named after the UN soldiers who once served here. The young Israeli soldiers, all men, are taking a moment to rest and are pranking each other. They reminded me of my own platoon in Afghanistan. The brigade’s deputy commander is my age, in his 40s. As one of the few full-time professional soldiers in the IDF, he bears the heavy weight of command on a long and violent tour. We exchange a few war stories and as we leave, he slaps his brigade patch onto my body armour. It’s a nice touch.

But why risk it? Why go into Rafah at all? Simply because the aim is to destroy Hamas. That involves finding and degrading their capability, and that capability hinges on the supply tunnels from Rafah into Egypt, some of which run 2 km beyond the Egyptian border. Hamas has created conditions which mean the IDF has no option but to destroy buildings in Gaza. The alternative is to face inestimable casualties.

Even so, the IDF has incurred significant casualties in this war. In this division alone, of 30,000 total troops, 4,039 have been injured, with 2,904 returning to combat afterwards. There have been 966 helicopter medical evacuation missions.

The division’s statistics for vehicle combat damage are fascinating. 2,831 vehicles have needed some level of repair due to enemy damage. Every single repaired vehicle has made it back to the front line. Hamas has only succeeded in destroying four armoured vehicles in nine months (two main battle tanks and two armoured personnel carriers). Objectively, this is pitiful by Hamas. They are taking an astonishingly one-sided battering.

But what about the huge civilian casualty figures? In Rafah, the IDF estimates the total number of civilians killed is fewer than 100. The place is empty. Civilians heed the IDF’s warnings and flee to the humanitarian zones when they are told to do so.

Being alive is not the same as living, however. Gazans’ homes are destroyed. As it stands, the parts of Rafah I have seen are unliveable.

Hamas must indeed be destroyed operationally. This does not mean there is not the strongest of duties on Israel and the international community to rebuild Gaza from the rubble. Gazans face a truly miserable existence for the foreseeable future. This level of destruction, necessary though it is, will be challenging to come back from. And so Israel and the international community must ensure that proper, enduring reconstruction comes afterwards."