Rolling bad news

If I’d committed a war-crime, I’d probably want to hide the evidence too.

A couple of weeks ago, special scientific instruments in remote observatories in Orkney, Peru and Western Australia measured a surge in British national pride.  The epicentre was Scotland, but it was felt throughout the United Kingdom and her dominions.  Queen Elizabeth (II) named a ship ‘the Queen Elizabeth’ and, unlike many quite lovely ships that have borne that name and are intended to transport the sort of people who really, really like buffets from port to port, this one is the very last thing in the world you want to see steaming in your direction after you have committed an act of aggression – an aircraft carrier.  Of course, there are smaller warships that carry racks of cruise missiles that can flatten cities, but fuck it, ‘Top Gun’ is not a film about clever chaps in white coats who programme guidance systems.  Aircraft carriers rule, the waves.

In fact it’s baffling that the Government is even considering not bringing the Queen Elizabeth’s sister (or more properly son) ship, the ‘Prince of Wales’ into service, as quickly as possible, because the last time I Googled ‘is the world getting safer?’, the answer still failed to come back ‘yes’.

This week, the news has made pretty grim viewing.  Rolling news has barely been able to keep up with rolling tanks, as the Israelis appear to be on something of a spree targeting, as far as I can work out, families and pharmacies.  The way they are going, they will have levelled the only kitten sanctuary in Gaza before the weekend is out.

Obviously, things are complicated.  Hammas are firing rockets into Israel, Israel are firing rockets, rolling tanks and undertaking air-strikes in Gaza.  The problem is that none of the fuckers appear to have gone to fucking school and learned how to fucking programme a fucking guidance system.  On Bonfire Night I occasionally light the blue touch paper on a rocket and hope for the best, but I’m not aiming the rocket at downtown Tel Aviv and the effect I’m hoping for is a pop and a colourful bloom of shimmering sparkles, not carnage.  When you are in charge of a weapons platform, you have to do rather more than hope for the best.

Which brings us to the arseholes who shot down an airliner this week.  The only thing that appears to be up for debate is whether the people that did it are actually evil, or just incompetent.

Now, I don’t know much about warplanes, but I do know this.  First, they don’t fly at 33,000 feet (they fly low, fast, unload everything and then back to base for tea and medals).  Secondly, they don’t fly along recognised commercial routes.  Thirdly, those inside warplanes do not watch in-flight movies and eat peanuts.  Those three things would make that dot in the sky a passenger jet and if you don’t know if it’s a warplane or a passenger jet, here’s an idea, don’t just hope for the best and press the red button.

In the absence of information, one can theorise to the point of conspiracy nutter.  Who stands to gain most and lose most (apart from the victims) as a result of this atrocity?  Was it a genuine accident?  A Ukrainian separatist militiaman is, after all, unlikely to be a professor of mechanical engineering on sabbatical and more likely to be some sheep-fucker attracted to military life by the prospect of a free balaclava, so it may have been a genuine accident.

But that looks less likely.  Barring access to the crash site is inhumane, but perfectly sensible if you want to dispose of any evidence.

Between Gaza and the Ukraine, it can seem as if the world is teetering a little.  At times like this, what you need is a counterweight.  65,000 tonnes of aircraft carrier should just about do it.  Actually, better be safe, make that 130,000 tonnes.

Of course, it could just be that the arseholes are denying access to the crash site so that they can loot iPods.  And I hope every single one has Toby Keith’s greatest hits on it.  You fuckers.