Could Afghanistan be in a civil war by September?

Hardly anyone is predicting that once the US and coalition troops leave Afghanistan in the next few weeks, the country will suddenly leap towards peace. It will be the opoosite. Even the normally cautious General Scott Miller, US commander in Afghanistan, is warning of a possible civil war as rival tribes fight it out for supremacy. And unless the Afghan security forces with all the training and equipment and money they have received over the last two decades can find it in their heart to defend the country from the Taliban and the many militias that have sprung up, then Afghanistan is surely doomed to more bloodshed and slaughter. Miller is worried and if he is worried everyone hoping for stability and democratic government in Afghanistan should also be worried. Biden must be worried but he has made the decision to end America's involvement in the war and he is going to stick to it. He has little alternative. The US either stays in or gets out of Afghanistan, there's no middle way, and after 20 years it's definitely time to leave. Trump thought so and Biden agreed. But what if General Miller is right and mayhem follows the departure of the last US soldier? Does the West just let them get on with it? The Pentagn's plan to keep on training the Afghan security forces but in some other country is pretty daft. It will be very expensive and won't add anything that has not already been tried and tested since the advise and training programme took over from the combat mission in 2014. Trump ordered all US troops out of Somalia but agreed to let the Pentagon, or more specifically Africa Command, continue with training Somalian forces out of the country, like in Kenya. But it hasn't worked well and now the Pentagon is talking about sending US troops back into Somalia, if Biden approves. That should be a lesson for the Pentagon. Continuing to train Afghan troops somewhere in central Asia isn't going to be effective. So if Miller is right and the bad boys launch into a mighty offensive to take Kabul, there is not a lot the US can do about it, except keep enough troops in the country to protect the huge embassy complex and the 1,000 or so diplomats and civilian staff who work there. There will be no Saigon moment hopefully, with US diplomats scambling onto helicopters to escape the capital. But the omens are looking increasingly bad.

Donald Trump "shouted" at top general

General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff for 16 months under President Trump and continuing under President Biden, must reflect every day in his office in the Pentagon how life has changed for him under the different administrations. According to a new book by a Wall Street Journal journalist Michael Bender, Milley had some pretty fiery moments with Trump, including a session of effing shouting matches. Trump has denied any such conversation took place but Bender swears he has had it all confirmed by multiple sources. The greatest dispute between Trump and his top general was over the Black Lives Matter protests in Washington last summer. Trump wanted Milley to bring in the troops to clear the streets but Milley demurred, telling the former president that he didn't have the legal authority. It's something which Trump and probably many others never understood. The chairman of the joint chiefs may be the top general in the US military and the president's principal military adviser but he is not a service commander, he is not actually in charge of troops, so he doesn't have the legal authority to bring them into Washington even if he wanted to which he definitely didn't because he opposed the idea of having active-duty soldiers filling the streets of the capital. According to Bender's book, Trump was furious and started berating Milley using highly colourful language. And the book claims Milley answered back although not in the same language. If Milley did answer back then I'm surprised he survived as joint chiefs chairman. Whatever happened, it must have been a tough old time for Milley with Trump as president who never liked being told no. Somehow I can't see Joe Biden effing and blinding at anyone, let alone the chairman of the joint chiefs.

UFOs! Is the CIA keeping something back?

The wonderful thing about UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), as the Pentagon likes to call them, is that we can all go on believing there are little aliens out there in amazing spaceships even though the CIA and the US intelligence community in general have finally said they have no evidence there are any such things floating out there watching us. Yes, but the CIA wouldn't tell us if there WERE aliens would they, most people would say. After last week's report on UFOs/UAPs which gave a pretty inconclusive answer to the question we all had in our minds, a Hill-HarrisX poll in the US revealed that 70 per cent of Americans believe the government is not telling all and that there is some secret secret stuff which will never be revealed. You see? It's because we want there to be alien spaceships. We need alien spaceships. We like the idea of another universe where beings of some sort are even now going shopping in their version of Waitrose or Morrisons or Wallmart. So we are never ever going to be satisfied with the intel boys or the Pentagon when they say, "calm down, calm down, all those flashing lights and zoomy things whizzing all over the place and frightening pilots to death are phenomena ok but not alien phenomena, or at least we don't think so". Yeah, but what about that report marked So Secret No One Must Read It Except The President? It's full of scary stuff, right? Donald Trump tapped his nose once and said he knew UFO stuff he couldn't reveal and we know he always tells the truth. So he has seen it. Why can't we lesser mortals? Last week's Pentagon report said there had been 140 UFO/UAP reports since 2004 but none of them suggested anything extraterrestrial. WE DON'T BELIEVE YOU!!!

Russian hypersonic missiles in Syria

Russia has sent two MiG-31K fighter jets armed with hypersonic, nuclear-capable “carrier-killer” ballistic missiles to its base in Syria as the Royal Navy’s HMS Queen Elizabeth strike force continues to sail in the eastern Mediterranean. It’s the first time Russia has deployed its Kinzhal hypersonic missile, claimed to have a maximum speed of ten times the speed of sound (Mach 10) and a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,243 miles). It’s the latest sign of Moscow adopting a high-profile aggressive stance towards Britain’s inaugural operational deployment of the Royal Navy’s £3.2 billion, 65,000-tonne carrier, which led last week to a confrontation in the Black Sea with HMS Defender, part of the strike force. The Russian base at Khmeimim in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia is being used to shadow American, British and other Nato warship exercises in the eastern Mediterranean. Three Tu22M3 Backfire-C strategic bombers are also currently at the Khmeimim airbase taking part in the Russian exercise in the eastern Mediterranean. The two MiG-31K Foxhounds will participate in monitoring “the actions of the [Royal Navy] aircraft carrier group”, Russian military reports said. The presence of Russia’s new hypersonic anti-ship missile at the Khmeimim airbase raises the stakes once again. A Russian ministry of defence video shows one of the MiG-31K Foxhounds armed with the Kinzhal hypersonic missile taking off from the base. The Backfire bombers are armed with long-range cruise missiles. The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (Dagger) missile was one of the new generation of weapons highlighted by President Putin who claimed Russia was in the lead in developing and deploying systems capable of of reaching speeds up to Mach 20. The Avangard missile, also nuclear-capable, is claimed to have a top speed of 20 times the speed of sound. HMS Queen Elizabeth accompanied by two destroyers, two frigates, an Astute class nuclear-powered attack submarine and two support vessels, is on a 28-week, 26,000 nautical mile maiden deployment which will take it to India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the South China Sea. The incident in the Black Sea when the Type 45 destroyer HMS Defender was hounded by Russian coastguard ships and fighter jets after leaving the south Ukrainian port of Odessa led to a series of angry statements by Moscow and London. Moscow claimed a coastguard ship fired warning shots at the Royal Navy destroyer and fighter jets dropped four bombs in front of the warship. This was denied by the Ministry of Defence in London but reports from the ship showed the crew was put on high alert and there were hostile radio messages from the Russian military. Five Russian navy warships, including a guided-missile cruiser, are participating in the eastern Mediterranean exercise.

Double Covid vaccination has to mean something surely?

It has now got to a ridiculous state where the millions of people who have received double Covid vaccinations are still being treated in exactly the same way as people who have either received one or no jabs or have refused to take them at all. Travelling to an amber country on the government's traffic light system could be so much easier and more practical if an individual with two vaccines showing on his mobile phone NHS App just has to show that and get on the plane. Why is this not happening? The UK government is talking about it but only for later in the summer, like August. So what's the point of the double vaccination if the obvious benefits of having them make no difference whatsoever - apart from keeping them safe from catching the infection of course. The sef-isolation business after returning from an amber country is tedious and over the top if you have had the two vaccines done and dusted. Why is this not being taken into account? Yesterday Malta was put on the green list but immediately Malta said they would only accept British tourists if they have had the double vaccination. Voila! The Maltese government sees the sense in this. Why can't the UK government? The traffic light system is the UK government's system, not the rest of Europe's, so Europe is far more interested in the double vaccination programme. Apart from Spain which just said all UK tourists are welcome without even having to produce a negative test, provided they fill in a special health form and get a Q code to enter the country. Passenger planes going to places like Barcelona have subsequently been pretty full. So the system works. But then they have to come back to UK and stay at home without going anywhere for ten days unless they take an extra Covid test on the fifth day which, if negative, allows them to be given their freedom. But they still have to do a test on the eighth day. So that's three Covid tests: day 2, day 5 and day 8 after returning. That's big money because it has to be done through private clinics. Meanwhile the double vaccination proof sits in the NHS App and no one in officialdom is remotely interested in looking at it. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Nikki Haley is tryng to face both ways at the same time

An esteemed Royal Navy admiral who was First Sea Lord once famously said that a warship cannot be in two places at the same time. Can't argue with that. But this is exactly what Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and ex-US ambassador to the United Nations, is tryng to do right now. She wants to run for the White House in 2024, so she has to be nice to Donald Trump but Trump himself and Trumpite Republicans can't forgive her for what she said after the infamous January 6 insurrection riots in the Capitol, accusing the former president of stirring up his supporters to march on Congress. Now after a lot of reflection she has realised that that comment pretty well destroyed her chances of being a candidate in 2024, let alone a Trump-supported candidate. So she is madly rowing back and pointing out how much she enjoyed working for Trump and how decisive he was etc etc. She's not fooling Trump or those Republican politicians who have remained 100 per cent loyal to the ex-president and have said not a word of criticism about Trump's role in the January 6 drama. Haley probably thought that by speaking out as she did against Trump that it would bring her name shooting forward as the right candidate for 2024. But she got that wrong. Trump remains the Big Man in the Republican party and she has got to fight her way out of the mess she found herself in when she spoke what she thought was the truth. In fact what WAS the truth. It's a dangerous game in politics to be honest which is why she is now talking so nicely about her former boss, even to the extent that she has vowed to step aside and back Trump all the way for the White House in 2024 if that is what he decides to do. So we're back to being in two places at once. It can't be done. She either thinks Trump behaved badly before the January 6 insurrection or she doesn't. She can't have it both ways and most Republicans will look at her recent pro-Trump statements with a large chunk of cynicism. But playing it both ways is what she has chosen to do, and if Trump eventually decides not to run, she, I have no doubt, will rush in and put her name down. In the meantime we are going to hear a lot from Nikki Haley about how great Trump is and was. Oh dear.

Kamala Harris beats Trump to the Mexican border but only just

At last the US vice president is heading for the Mexican border. It was in March that Kamala Harris was asked by Joe Biden to take responsibility for the immigration nightmare at the border. For reasons that I have never been able to understand she declined to go to the border to see for herself what all the trouble was about. Now she has decided to go but only just in time. She is going on Friday and next week one Donald Trump will be making the same journey and I'm sure he will make a big hooha about what the Biden administration is or isn't doing about immigration. And of course he has already made a lot of fuss today about how Kamala has only decided to go to the Mexican border - El Paso - once she heard he was going. Ho ho. But she opened herself up to this sort of rebuke by failing to make the trip a long time ago. There is nothing like seeing things first hand and her refusal to go until now just makes it look bad, for her and for her political future. Now when she does turn up there will be even more media focus and she will have to come away with more than a few trite comments. Had she gone in March or April she could have legitimately said she was just getting a first-hand look at the problems and would go away and think. Now, after three months have passed, she will need to produce more than that, a hint perhaps of a strategy for controlling immigration humanely. Good luck, Kamala, I think you will need it. I'm sure Trump is rubbing his hands in anticipation.