So, yes, I'm back from touring a part of Europe which I only visited once, over forty years ago. The independent island of Ireland, with part of it still occupied by the British, who are nevertheless getting ready to 'free' Taiwan, on the other side of the globe, and who insist that the people in th…
Blog posts : "In English"
An essay about living the dream
I’ll be on the road for awhile, emulating this Jack Kerouac sense of freedom, merely scanning events from time to time, or not at all. There are numerous channels, blogs and websites to serve those anxious to know what is happening, and where we are going with this war in Ukraine. It is true that th…
An essay on losing ground
Ukrainian forces are gaining territory around Bakhmut as the Russians are withdrawing, though Bakhmut itself has been almost entirely captured. A few blocks remaining. The Western media are showing video confirmation of Russian soldiers ‘on the run’. While the Russians reported that they destroyed…
An essay on Best Friends Forever
How do you turn your Ugly Duckling girlfriend into a much sought after ‘Superstar’? Rent four goons at the local fitness center for week, dress them like Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones hunting ‘aliens’, and guarding ‘State Secrets’, and let them accompany her on her trip through Paris, or …
An essay on crossed signals
‘But it was a trap, and Ukraine lost around two hundred soldiers, and some three hundred were wounded’. Clearly a ‘Russian sources’ report, whereas the ‘Western sources’ only reported gains in the ‘Bakhmut’-area, although they meant an adjacent area on the southern flank held by the Ru…
An essay on not coming around
Stuck in the mud. When did we run out of ideas? Innovation invariably kicks off with an avant garde. In rare cases a single individual with a mesmerizing, entirely different approach. In 1986 the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk wrote a novel, ‘Der Zauberbaum’, in which he traced the origins of…
An essay on defining victory
Predictably the Western media, commenting on the ninth of May celebrations in Russia, stated that Russia was further removed from victory in Ukraine than ever. In part this can be attributed to psychological warfare, as an attempt to dislodge the Russian people from the leadership, using ‘Victory …
An essay about a Chinese curse
If progress is minimal, while you are expected to report on what is happening, you tend to zoom in on details. Then, if something huge is developing just outside your peripheral eyesight, you do not see it until it is too late. What is more, by focussing on details you may not understand the functio…
An essay on various types of leadership
Why even bother? A couple of weeks ago we accompanied a neighbor and friend on his last journey. Heavy smoker, not shy to pour himself another glass of wine or jenever, the Dutch gin, gone within a week after it was revealed he had lung cancer. But from casual comments when we spoke about the news, …
An essay about people of limited value
With Zelensky on tour in Europe, and the Russians licking their wounds from the inconsequential drone attack on the Kremlin flagpole, the entire world is getting ready for the Ukrainian/NATO Spring Offensive, to follow on the heels of the crowning of King Charles III in the country which conceived t…
An essay about reaching out where warmongers won't
The simple fact that Zelensky was ‘out of town’ when a drone reached the Kremlin, doesn’t prove that he had prior knowledge, though it is an odd coincidence, clearly. Moreover, though the Russians and various other commentators assume Ukraine/NATO has set its sights on Putin personally, and th…
An essay about Milley's prayer for the war to last another two years
General Milley, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, offered as his assessment of the war in Ukraine that it may very well last another two years before ‘rational folks’ in Russia will reach the conclusion that they need to cave in to NATO’s demands. I don’t think that is a realistic scenario, sinc…
An essay on full disclosure
Full disclosure. An increasing number of governments want to know who is buttering your bread, and where you got your information from, if they have a sense that you may have left the herd. So, I need to share with you that I’m off the leash. Previously I had a paid subscription to a mainstream Dutc…
An essay about skating on thin ice
‘Im Westen Nichts Neues’, the hugely successful anti-war novel by the author Erich Maria Remarque, published in 1929, did nothing to prevent another World War ten years later. But it may have had an impact on ‘military thinking’, since the Germans tried to avoid wars of attrition, introducing …
An essay about what is on the menu
What’s on the menu today? After explaining, in two separate interviews, that the ‘Minsk Accord’ was never meant to be implemented, since it was intended to ‘buy time’ for NATO to prepare Ukraine for this war with Russia, Merkel is changing tack, saying that everything she did was in ‘Goo…
An essay about a Big Club
Almost from the very beginning, Ukraine and NATO were focussed almost exclusively on Crimea and the Black Sea fleet. Today they managed to hit a large fuel depot in Sevastopol serving the Russian Navy. Images of the fire were shared on the internet by the Russians themselves. It followed on the heel…
An essay on new patrons for a McDonald's franchise
All eyes on Lu Hui, the Chinese diplomat for ‘Eurasian Affairs’, who has been charged by Beijing to broker a deal between Ukraine and Russia and end the war. Though the previous deal, brokered by Turkey and Israel a year ago, subsequently destroyed by US and UK pressure on Zelensky to stay in the …
An essay on speedballing the news
The ‘Collective West’ is saying that Ukraine has been provided with everything they need to kick off this ‘Spring Offensive’. Independent observers, the Ukrainians themselves, and the Russians disagree. Ukraine never got the weapons, or ammunition they requested, and they are publicly, on nati…
An essay on Zelensky calling Xi for help
The Big news today, related to the war in Ukraine, is that Zelensky called Xi Jinping. Neither Xi, nor Zelensky called me to debrief me personally. And at the time of writing there were no formal official statements yet. Since the ‘leaks’ revealed that the US is tapping Zelensky’s phone, we must a…
20 blog posts
« Newer | Older »