All those prophets

There was something of an obi wan kenobe to the final performance of the late Ayatollah Khamenei.

The death toll from the school bombing is nearing 150. Of course I do not know, and likely never will, whether there has been a single death, whether a bomb did in fact head for a girls school or not. The first casualty of war being truth and all that. However, on the balance of probability and, giving due consideration to the M.O of the combatants, I am reasonably confident that the reports are, if not wholly, then at least proximally, true. After all, the arch proponents of propaganda are the protagonists for the rules based order, that being whatsoever they determine, and though the enemies to such a delightful arrangement have, undoubtedly, learnt from the masters, they are merely Padawan to the Sith or is it, Jedi.

We have borne witness to just over four years of attritional warfare ranging across the fertile plains of an confected Ukraine. Over that entire time and, more recently, to a greater degree, we have seen that warfare reach deep into the hinterland on both sides of the slowly shifting line of control. The civilian death toll has been moderate to say the least. One side has evidenced less concern over targeting than another but that is not to my point here. The point being that it, the targeting of a girls school, is, without any doubt, wholly deliberate.

To what end you might ask? To induce mis-calculation is the answer. If the war in Ukraine is any guide, then the calculus of escalation is the territory. We are in a civilisational war, the end game to which is either one of the beginning of a civilisation or the total eradication of the multi-generational hope that we might achieve one.

Somewhere, floating around on the waters of the high seas, is a lurking hulk. It brings death and destruction. On board are some thousands of souls. Now, if they were to go bang, and all in one go…. Well, we’ve seen that film before.