Wednesday, October 29, 2014

"Straining" Kuwait? Really Canadian Press?

There's a Canadian Press piece on CBC announcing the arrival of RCAF fighter-bombers in Kuwait tonight.
Canadian warplanes have taken up position in Kuwait, a country straining to hold back the tide of Islamic extremism from its borders.
"[S]training"? A few lines later we learn it is actually more of a "debate" in Kuwait about something happening a very long way away on the other side of a mass of heavily armed Shia militias and the Iraqi Army.
With Islamic State fighters on the outskirts of Baghdad, about 600 kilometres away, much of the debate in the tiny country is about how much of a security threat is posed by the extremist movement, and also whether it is a long-term political danger.
 Incidently, the Canadian government travel advisory service notice on Kuwait reads:
There is no nationwide advisory in effect for Kuwait. However, you should exercise a high degree of caution due to crime and the general threat of terrorist attacks.
 Just for fun I looked up the UK travel advisory service notice for Canada.
There is a general threat from terrorism. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers. You should monitor media reports and remain vigilant.
How 'bout that, eh?

4 comments:

Steve said...

Today we learn ISIS has shoulder fired missiles courtesy of Qtar and Saudi. Of course they handed them off to reliable partners and then they got lost.

How much of this pablum will we ingest until a collective puke?

The Mound of Sound said...

I was going to mention the item Steve refers to. ISIS is said to have FN-6 missiles. Apparently they originally came from Kuwait and Qatar, two nations fingered for financially supporting ISIS.

Hey, since we already have warplanes in Kuwait, why don't we take out the local targets first?

Boris said...

MoS, Bit of a tricky thing, I think, to pick apart the funding and equiping structure supporting ISIS. Wheels within wheels I'm sure.

Still, it's one thing to get a portable air defence capability and it is quite another to train enough use it effectively. Most of what I've read suggests it's MANPADS and NATO standard aircraft can generally operate and bomb from altitudes higher than these kinds missile and are equipped with warning and countermeasures. Portable missiles like this are meant for use on a battlefield against comparatively low-flying tactical aircraft. Still, if ISIS actually manages to down a plane or two, the fallout from a captured and beheaded pilot would be massive.

I'm becoming more of the mind that that part of the fallout of Western meddling the ME is a massive internal tension brewing between militant local Shia and Sunni Muslims (and indirectly Israel) that will need to explode before it gets better. This is only the beginning.

Steve said...

@Boris, fallout or a plan comming together?

BTW anybody seen Bandar Bush lately?