Nato tanks symbolise a shift in American and European strategy away from stopping a Russian conquest of Ukraine, and towards supplying enough offensive weapons to produce a Ukrainian victory 📨 Read Patrick Cockburn's latest newsletter here ⤵️
The decision by Nato powers led by Germany and the US, to send the Leopard 2, M-1 Abrams, Challenger 2 and other heavy tanks to Ukraine is being presented as a game-changer in the war, tipping the military balance decisively towards Ukraine
Disappointment stems from the effectiveness of an enemy’s counter-measures to eliminate or mitigate any threat. “Remember the enemy also has a vote,” is an old military nostrum. It is a common belief that the supply of American Stinger missiles to anti-Soviet Afghan guerrillas in the early 1980s turned the tide in the war there. But this was always something of a myth, much reinforced by the movie.
The “military experts” populating television screens and interviewed with awed respect make it all sound simple and predictable. It is worth reflecting that many of these retired American and British generals once conducted notably unsuccessful military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Asking people to risk their lives in war was no part of this contract, and for long Putin relied on the poorer parts of Russia like Dagestan for recruits and on mercenaries in the Wagner group. This was always going to fail, but the Kremlin is quite skilled in digging itself out of holes of its own making, though in this case the hole may be too deep.
But only in the last 24 hours has media attention focused on Zahawi’s profitable involvement in the oil industry in Iraqi Kurdistan. Though born in Baghdad, he is well connected in Kurdistan as a Faili Kurd from Baghdad whose family has roots in Khanaqin – a town I know well – lying in the southern extension of Iraqi Kurdistan close to the Iranian border. The Faili Kurds are Shia Muslims and were savagely persecuted by Saddam Hussein’s regime in the late 1970s.was paid £1.
Not all of the businessmen connected to Gulf Keystone were so scrupulous. Last year, its co-founder, Todd Kozel, received a jail sentence in the US for failing to file tax returns from 2011 to 2015. He was ordered to pay $29.5 million. Careless, careless fellow.Members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary on rifle drill in Northern Ireland.
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