Crisis in Syria and Iraq: All-in or all-out?

Posted on 23 October 2014 by SJPONeill

Josh Wineera is having a busy week…a successful engagement at the New Zealand Association for Training and Development Conference, followed by this op-ed for Fairfax. For me, a most refreshing change from the ‘usual suspect;’ domestic talking heads that are being trotted out to ‘comment’ on the developing situation in the Middle East. Read on…

To use the Texas Hold’em poker analogy, Islamic State (ISIS) is ‘all-in’ to seize the major cities on the Syrian-Turkish border as well as swathes of regional areas in western and central Iraq. The actions are clinical, calculated and surprisingly conventional. The approach is one of simple arithmetic and follows an important principle of war – mass, or more plainly ISIS has the numbers. Unlike poker however, the stakes are not casino chips but rather millions of innocent victims caught up in yet another cycle of Middle Eastern violence.

While the much-vaunted precision-guided munitions continue to be dropped by U.S.-led coalition aircraft, the unrelenting nature of ISIS ‘boots on the ground’ is the decisive factor. Attrition of its fighters is not a concern. Thousands are ready and better positioned to be ordered into the fray. To coin the phrase, ISIS is currently the side that is the fastest with the mostest and many battles throughout history have been won this way.

So, if the tactic is to seize and hold the likes of Kobani or Anbar province on the other front in Iraq, how then might this contribute to the ISIS strategy? First and foremost a narrative is likely being developed to expose the limits and ultimate failure of the ‘West’ to effectively support the likes of the Kurds and even the Government of Iraq. This is certainly being helped along with media commentators such as Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn asserting the ‘U.S. strategy is in tatters as ISIS marches on’.

Second, and more chilling, is the perception that there is no safe place in the region to escape the onslaught. While some fight, the vast majority living under threat of mortal danger are not soldiers nor capable of putting up meaningful resistance. Capitulation and being resigned to the fate that awaits them under a barbarous regime appears inevitable.

But even with air power and small contingents of international land forces can anything really be done to roll back ISIS? At one end of the spectrum there are those that still believe this is not a fight for the West. Continued intervention is not the answer they decry.

Taken further, supporters of Edward Luttwak’s ‘Give War a Chance’ proposition argue that sitting on the sidelines and waiting until all belligerents become exhausted is a better plan. Standing by while foes battle each other is one thing, however giving a free hand for systematic cruelty and genocide is quite a different argument.

On this issue, if widespread butchery and carnage is the trigger for international reaction then according to Canadian journalist Neil MacDonald intervention in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo is more warranted.”ISIS’s acolytes are just apprentices at atrocity compared to some in the Congo”.

The other end of the spectrum leads to an all-in approach by countries that have the tenacity and dedication to endure what would be another long and frustrating campaign. The 2014 all-in version should include the familiar political, economic and military assistance. The time frame for favourable conditions would need to be measured in years not months. So how will these be different, have better outcomes, than the 2003-2011 version applied in Iraq? Politically, positive change has already occurred with Haider al-Abadi confirmed as Iraq’s Prime Minister. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed al-Abadi’s formation of a new inclusive Government in Iraq.

Oversight of political reform is paramount to ensure balance and avoid marginalising the Sunni population in particular. Economically the impact of change will be less disruptive as Iraq’s southern oil fields maintain productivity and buttress the financial markets. Inter-Governmental Organisations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are not expected to have to significantly intervene.

Which leaves the lingering question of military assistance. Right now the prime means of international intervention is air strikes and combat advisors. At best these immediate efforts will help the Kurds and the Iraqi Government stem the ISIS advances. Wishful thinking might even result in a stalemate. There is no quick fix. Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby has said “people need to understand we need a little strategic patience here…it is going to take a bit of time”.

While western governments continue to debate the merits and risks of deploying ground troops, a ready-made force is already being brought into action. A U.S. Government contract issued in August called for interested vendors to provide security assistance mentors and advisors. The private security community is naturally abuzz with new possibilities.

Eric Prince, founder of controversial security contractor Blackwater, has waded into the conversation. Calling the Iraqi Army inept after billions spent on training and equipping them, Prince suggests, “if the old Blackwater team were together, I have high confidence that a multi-brigade size unit of veteran American contractors or multinational force could be rapidly assembled and deployed to be the necessary ground combat team”. He goes on stating, “a competent professional force of volunteers would serve as the pointy end of the spear and would strengthen friendly but skittish indigenous forces”.

There is much irony in calling for private security companies to fill the void of trainers and mentors to the Iraqi security forces. A number still stand accused of delivering poor training last decade.

Whatever arrangements are put in place by international military forces or private security companies, the processes and methods of training Iraqi’s and even the Kurds must be transformed. Doing the same thing and expecting different results cannot be allowed to prevail. While a focus on technical skills is expected, installing a sense of duty and ingraining societal values to repulse the long-term intentions of ISIS will be essential.
What is clear is this is a poker hand that nobody except ISIS wants to play. Folding and forfeiting interest in the situation does not appear to be an option for those governments already committed. It’s time to ante up or move on. In the meantime millions across the region continue to bleed and live in fear.

Josh Wineera is a member of the New Zealand National Forum for the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific. He is also a PhD candidate with the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago. His doctoral research is on training foreign security forces.

Why Lessons Learned Programmes Don’t Work

Posted on 25 May 2014 by SJPONeill

Budgetary battles are raging across the US Department of Defence and every service and agency desperately rounds its soapboxes, sacred idols and hobby-horses into a defense circle…it’s a desperate, no holds barred struggle for the survival of the most precious as opposed perhaps to the most needed. Unsurprisingly, this results in a steady dribble of pro/con article on the various issues or perceived issues. This one struck a chord as the five stated reasons resounded from my years in the lesson learned field…you’ll need to read the artcile itself to see that author’s take on such ‘initiatives’…

Five Reasons to Boycott the Air Force’s Savings Initiative : John Q. Public.

1. Your Time is Too Important. The lessons learned programme may be more form than function i.e. regardless of best intentions, hopes, dreams and aspirations, it does not have a clear and effective method of initiating and embedding the behavioural change that heralds the ‘lesson learned. In this is the case and sadly, so many of them and other ‘continuous improvement’ programmes are, then your time may be better spent contributing to the organisation in another way, possibly as simple as just doing your day job to the best of your ability, and fostering a local climate for change in improvement around your immediate work area.

2. Your Participation Will Harm the Air Force’s Credibility. Or whichever organisation you represent…there are few things worse for an organisations credibility than a broadly and publicly promoted programme that visibly does not work…”What? you can’t improve your own improvement programme..?“

3. The Program Enables a False Impression. An improvement initiative by its very existence promotes a perception that things must improve. Unless, however, the lessons learned programme is well-designed, well-implemented and well-lead, it is almost always doomed to fail. Once again, some time more would be done to improve the organisation if local change was encouraged and fostered – it is only very rarely that a large scale programme does not result in cookie cutter ‘solutions’ that are inflicted across an organisation and while maybe fixing one problem, create ten more.

4. The Initiative Is Itself Wasteful. Absolutely and more so if it includes an incentive programme where staff are or may be rewarded for offering suggestions under the guise of initiatives and innovations. Without a good system and excellent leadership, the great risk is that staff will fixate on the reward and dedicate more and more time to dreaming up innovations than just doing their job and resolving issues when they encounter them. Moreover, just because something is called an initiative, does not mean that it is: in fact, the more strident the initiative narrative, the less likely the programme is to be innovative and more likely it is to be just another bureaucratically-inflicted drag-producing waste of time and resources.

5. There’s no reason to associate oneself needlessly with failure. Yes, sad but true. Despite all the good intentions, if the programme is tainted – and let’s face it, most improvement initiatives are even before the ink on the initiating directive dries – then why flog a dead horse or allow it to undermine by association those things that do work.

Don’t get me wrong…I am dedicated to lessons learned concepts and practices (I hope so after all these years!) however initiating and embedding change in even a small organisation is not a simple thing and nowhere as simple as the loudest advocates might, in their simplistic ignorance, have us believe. Like any programme seeking to change a status quo, it must first understand the environment in which it will be conducted, who the people are (outside of the Borg, there is rarely any single collective group of ‘the people’), what shapes and influences them, what their hopes, dreams and aspirations are, and it must really understand how the organisation actually works (as opposed to what has been chiselled into process and procedure files.

So, when the innovation initiative evangelists coming knockin’, just think carefully about what they are really selling…

My child has a peanut allergy. This is what a lunchbox did to her

Posted on 5 February 2014 by SJPONeill

My child has a peanut allergy. This is what a lunchbox did to her.

I’m sorry but, while not unsympathetic, this just annoys me…yes, it is really sad but trying lump responsibility on to the rest of the world for what happened to this little girl is just wrong. It is symptomatic of the “my problems are everyone’s problems” attitude that typify our growing inability to take responsibility for our own problems.

In this instance, the little girl did not eat any nuts but her allergy was triggered by exposure to another child who had eaten something nut-based.

Sorry, Mum, but if your children has a disability is is YOUR responsibility to keep them safe and ensure that they can live as normal a life as possible. Wrapping your little girl in cotton wool or glad wrap is not going to help prepare her for life especially if she does not eventually outgrow her nut allergy. Even if all daycares, preschools, schools and after-schools totally ban all nut products and derivatives of nut products and and apply bio protective measure that CDC would be proud of, that will still not protect her from casual contact with nuts, nut derivatives or nut byproducts…

It may be that she does need to become like The Girl in the Plastic Bubble in order to avoid contact with the elements that trigger her allergy but it is your responsibility as a parent to implement the measures necessary to protect her from exposure to those triggers. Reasonably one might expect those with whom she is in regular contact to work with you to implement and apply those measures and to reduce as much is reasonably possible the opportunities for such exposure…But is is not reasonable, especially when it appears that she is so sensitive to the allergenic triggers to expect everyone that she may encounter during a day at school to also avoid all exposure to nut-based elements that may trigger her allergy…

We need to stop simply following our emotions in sharing such links and start thinking about what we are actually doing. This is a family that may actually be in need of some serious assistance to mitigate the effects of this little girl’s allergy but that assistance is not going to come from some knee-jerk Facebook link sharing…use your brains, folks, they are there for more reason that to keep your ears apart…

Zygons…Schmygons…

Posted on 24 November 2013 by SJPONeill

I would like to say that I made a special effort to get up early on a Sunday morning for this but even for me on a sunny Sunday morning, 9AM is comfortably civilised…

I only vaguely remember the first Doctor, William Hartnell, but grew up with the Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and, to a lesser extent, Tom Baker takes on the role. I guess it would have been midway through the Tom Baker era that I grew up and gave up such childhood tales in favour of adult things like girls and beer…I remember think that the Doctors after Tom Baker’s #4 were quite silly and frivolous and the monsters pale in the face of the Daleks, Autons, Cybermen and Abominable Snowmen…

So now, fifty years on, where are we? The Doctor is now a major exploitable franchise being worked for all it is worth. I was a latecomer to the revitalised Doctor in the mid-2000s…I equated it with my memories of silliness and frivolity and that might never have changed if I hadn’t stopped over with friends on my way back from a trip to the UK and they were watching the finale of the Christopher Ecclestone series and I hooked drawn back into the world of the Doctor. I still haven’t seen any of that series bar the finale but loved the David Tennant era with companions Rose, Martha and Donna. I thought that that era ended well but have been unimpressed totally with the much more commercially-exploited Matt Smith era where the fez, fish fingers and custard, and the whole Amy Pond thing just left me cold – mercifully the BBC resisted the temptation to thrash the Pond thing any further in the 50th Anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, that screened globally this morning…

If you haven’t seen it yet, you may not wish to read past this point…you have been warned…

There were too many cutesy distractions in this 75 minute special…although the multiple Doctor thing has been done before, there was no real sense of drama of impending threat in this story and what there might have been was continually eroded away by the Morecombe and Wise style of repartee between the Tennant and Smith Doctors: if the intention was to play the 50th for laughs, then the story should have reflected this…

The Zygons were never amongst the great or scariest of Doctor Who aliens…barely Second XI, if that…what value they added to this story is tenuous at best and resolution of this part of the plot really only seemed like a loose vehicle to enable the Tennant and Smith Doctors to work off each other. Take the Zygons out of the story, and you essentially have…the same story, just shorter – I’d be keen to see a Zygon-less bootleg version of The Day of the Doctor…

The time wasted on the Zygons could have been employed much more effectively to further develop the thirteen Doctor concept and the ultimate destruction of Gallifrey – an apparently pivotal event that the Smith Doctor regularly angsts about – we seem to have forgotten that the Tennant Doctor committed genocide on a universal level against the Daleks in his final series and that this has never been mentioned since. That may be because the Daleks have become like British Paints and ‘keep on keepin’ on‘ and so never did quite get genocided…

One of the things that I liked about the Tennant series was that it was all about hope, where the Smith era has been characterised by alternate frivolity and angst. It is revealed this morning that it was the (John) Hurt Doctor that pushed the button on Gallifrey as the only way to end the war between the Time Lords and the Daleks. Hurt’s depiction of the dilemma of sacrificing to few to save the many is very well done and if maintained, would have made this special an epic…unfortunate the writers succumbed to contemporary niceness and introduce an unlikely hope-based solution in which everyone (less the Daleks) gets to live happily ever after…

Although, yes, this is only a TV special and science-fiction at that, this is symptomatic of a malaise that seems to be affecting us more and more, a distancing from the realities of the world in favour of a cloud cuckooo vunderland where there are no harsh dilemmas and everything always turns out alright on the day. Sometimes there are no real winners, just maybe lesser losers, where hard decisions have to be made…as much I may diss the Fulda Gapists that long for a return to the less complex days of conventional conflicts, one thing that those dinosaurs knew was the use of force as an instrument of, not so much national power, but of national survival…where the needs of the few are outweighed by the needs of the many.

This is not just in the sense of wielding the big nuclear stick but also in how even tactical actions are conducted where it may be necessary to risk one element in order to enable or save a larger formation, to employ area weapons to neutralise greater threats like air defence structures, or the growing spectre of accidental or deliberate release of bio-chem weapons…and sometimes civilians and other non-combatants get caught in the middle of all this and become part of ‘the few’…

…that war can be conducted in clean surgical manner is the ongoing Myth of Desert Storm that fails to take into account that there has not been a major force on force conflict since Vietnam and the October War in the early seventies…this myth ignores cold hard realities and results is military generations that are not capable of considering the hard issues and making those hardest calls where there are no winners…just lesser losers…ultimately it is NOT all about ‘the people’ but achieving national objectives…

So this morning we were presented, in the end, a happy happy joy joy ending instead of the deeper darker theme implied in the original idea…hope is nice but sometimes you have to be prepared to get down and dirty and make those tough decisions when hope is not enough…

With the (finally) demise of the Smith Doctor, the ball is now in the 13th Doctor’s court to restore some of the drama to the Doctorverse and dispel the silliness and frivolity that have been allowed to, Seeds of Doom-like run amok and dominate the ‘verse…

The great rift

Posted on 13 October 2013 by SJPONeill

Open Letter to My U.S. Government – This Veteran is Mad as Hell – Listen Up! That’s an Order
This good Catholic girl is mad as hell (and I never use that word, so that should tell you just how mad I am!) Read more…

Yes, the great rift…and I am not referring to a major geographic feature in Africa…as an external observer, it has been fascinating and concerning to watch the US government slowly shake itself to pieces with impasse between both irresponsible factions in the Senate.

Impasses over budgets, national debt and welfare policy are not unknown nor that unexpected…the real concern is the manner in which the government has resorted to the most petty means to maximize the hurt and inconvenience for the people. This is clearly a campaign if not led, certainly endorsed at the highest levels – such pettiness could not be sustained otherwise. To bar survivors of ‘The Greatest Generation’ on what for some may be their first and last visit to the memorial erected in their honour is not only inexcusable, it is the sort of petty arrogance that would see governments unceremoniously evicted in almost every other western nation. It has already been pointed out that, when this happened in Australia in the 70s, the government was promptly sacked by the Governor-General.

How do you get to close Mount Rushmore or shut off the sea or prevent people from living in holiday homes on federal land? Yeah, sure, I get that government agencies have to close when staff can not go to work but closing websites and preventing photography or access to memorials that do not require staffing? Puhlease! Give us a break…

The scary thing about all of this is it displays the almighty rift between government apparently from the people, by the people and from the people and the people themselves – representatives who appear more interested in playing petty political games than actually doing their level best to ensure that the best interests not those they present – the actual people, not the endless and mindless lobby and special interest groups – are looked after. Big fail, Congress, epic fail, Senate, super epic fail, Mr President.

It is good to see people getting angry about this but will it do any good unless the system itself is changed, unless political representatives are made responsible to the people they apparently are from, by and for, unless that rift is closed…? As one of the comments on Cynthia’s blog states ‘…time to take your country back...’ And that’s not a call to war, it’s a call for change, to return to your core values – and that includes putting big business back in its box – in all fairness to the reigning president, he did give the banks a thrashing when he first came to power – and perhaps a period of introspection about your place in the world…

That is all.

Carry on.

The Resurgency of Insurgency

Posted on 17 September 2013 by SJPONeill

The Resurgency of Insurgency

Intervening to support an insurgency – not fight it

Josh Wineera

After 10 years of fighting two major insurgencies, many western nations can feel comfortable that they have advanced their thinking and practice of counterinsurgency operations. The intellectual and policy effort brought to bear on countering the Iraqi and Afghan insurgencies has been quite staggering, perhaps even greater than the proliferation of deterrence and containment theories promoted during the Cold War.

The establishment of new think-tanks in Washington D.C. such as the Center for New American Security, aside more traditional institutions such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has helped cultivate and revitalise military counterinsurgency strategies and doctrine. The language of counterinsurgency is ubiquitous, to the point that politicians, academics, generals and soldiers can quite easily converse about “protecting the population” and “building the capacity of the host nation”. In the 21^st century, counterinsurgency has been codified, systemised and established as ‘must-do training’ for land forces in particular. “Insurgents are bad” and “we must support the weak or fledging host government” is not just a catch-cry but is firmly embedded in the military psyche. But this is not good, not good at all.

In becoming proficient, maybe even obsessed with counterinsurgency training, the dangerous assumption is that military forces will only be used to counter insurgents and establish or re-establish a host government’s right to govern. What then if the government or the state elites are actually the problem? That either through corruption, disregard for the international system or most likely an oppressive and brutal approach to its citizenry – surely that type of government, with any preceding military intervention calls for a 180-degree turnaround from countering an insurgency to actively encouraging and supporting an insurgency to remove it. What then if the insurgents are the “good guys” and the government is the “bad guy”?

The resurgency of insurgency has been a feature of the Arab Spring. Libya, Egypt and Syria are classic examples of governments being re-characterised as ‘regimes’, with many in the international community willing to encourage insurgents to depose the regime. This of course is nothing new, aiding the weak to vanquish the strong. Military intervention in these cases has been primarily the use of strategic stand-off capabilities, such as attack aircraft, and Special Forces. Provision of weapons to the insurgents, such as lifting of the embargo in Syria, is a case in point of trying to equalise the conflict.

So what then of the counterinsurgency training of the general purpose military force? How hard or easy is it to change, or even balance the training to be prepared to support and fight with insurgents to depose recalcitrant governments and their state forces? If in a counterinsurgency sense, working with the fledging security forces of governments we like is hard, how about then in a pro-insurgency sense, the greater difficulties of fighting alongside a less structured and less organised mish-mash of rebels who seek to oust their political leaders? Where is the manual for that, where is the Field Manual FM 3-34 Counterinsurgency for supporting insurgencies?

For sure, there are doctrines that relate to associated operations such as guerrilla warfare and subversion. By and large however, these remain the purview of Special Forces. The thought that general purpose forces would re-orientate to irregular warfare, towards counterinsurgency in particular, was considered fanciful prior to 9/11. But look where we are today. There would hardly be a land forces training exercise that doesn’t incorporate some kind of insurgent activity – insurgents equals bad, host government equals good.

It is time to consider weighting an equal amount of military thinking and training around intervening and supporting other government forces as well as opposing them and supporting anti-government forces. The intellectual and policy effort has already recognised this. Some governments we like and will support, some governments we don’t and may have to take action to remove them. The pressing challenge for military planners and trainers therefore, is to prepare for both.

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Josh Wineera lectures on joint, interagency and multinational operations and irregular warfare at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Massey University. His research interests include international security, state-building and security sector reform.

Weekly Writing Challenge: Miley and the Five Thoughts

Posted on 11 September 2013 by SJPONeill

Weekly Writing Challenge: Mind the Gap | The Daily Post.

Our blogs are platforms from which we share our experiences and opinions views. For Mind the Gapchallenges, we want to hear what you think about a divisive issue. Each challenge includes a poll where you can cast your vote along with fellow Daily Post participants. After you vote, expand the topic in a blog post. Be sure to visit other participants’ posts to get some healthy discussion going.

This week’s challenge

“…Miley Cyrus, the 20-year-old singer who began her career as squeaky-clean star of the Hannah Montana television series, seems to have ditched that goody two-shoes image for good with her recent Video Music Awards (VMAs) performance. Cyrus performed with Robin Thicke wearing a nude bikini, made suggestive overtures to a foam finger, and caused legions to break down and Google twerking. Did Miley’s performance cross the line, are we making too much of it, or are we missing a chance to have a more important conversation about race and sex? You be the judge….”

miley

Well, to be honest, the music awards or almost any other similar bloated over-hyped form of ‘entertainment’ are not something that I would go out of my way to watch so long as I still had a good supply of pointed sticks to push into my eyes…but, yes, when this challenge came up, I did go and look at the clip in question online…

My first thought was that she needs to get a decent tailor and not some refugee from the Para Rubber cutting room: I mean the damn thing doesn’t even fit properly and looks more like a 1930s attempt at a incontinence nappy. If the intent was for Ms Cyrus to given the impression of being naked or close to it, then she could have gone a lot further and then, only then, perhaps have justified some of the massive outpouring of shock/horror…

My second thought was that this is all business and Ms Cyrus is an adult – if the measure of success for this exhibition was hits on various websites and possibility consequent sales of sponsors’ products, the I would assume that this diversion was wildly successful.

Thirdly I was reminded of Paul Henry’s comment, I think in response to yet another surge of Kiwi outrage over something not doubt important to those with nothing better to worry about, that ‘the people’ today seem to think that they have a moral right to be outraged.

Being on a roll with this thinking thing this afternoon, thought #4 was that all these extravaganzas are so hideously scripted and controlled that there was no way – perhaps unlike the accidental Jackson boob at the Super Bowl – that the producers and organisers of the award show – can’t really call it a ceremony after Ms Cyrus’ display – were not totally in on this from the start and thus if any one is to be held responsible, it is they…

And finally, the big missed opportunity…my fifth thought was that President Obama missed a major opportunity here: while Ms Cyrus was gyrating around the stage holding onto herself (maybe she had just over-hydrated and need ‘to go’?) he could have nuked Syria, sunk the Russian fleet (such as it is – remove the shiny paint and there’d be nothing to hold the rust together), bonked half the Senate and no one would have even whimpered…now he can’t even justify lobbing a few time-expiring missiles into another sovereign nation…

Ooops, one more thought for the Weekly Writing Challenge people: “…wearing a nude bikini…” Huh? Isn’t that just a teeny-weeny bit (clearly not polka dot) oxymoronic? She is either nude or wearing a bikini – I don’t think that you can have it both ways…

The bottom line is that the world will not end because Miley Cyrus grew up…all I want to know now is whether I can use ‘twerk’ in Scrabble…?

Kiwiscout Walks Aotearoa : Beginnings

Posted on 2 September 2013 by SJPONeill

Kiwiscout Walks Aotearoa : Beginnings.

Pat Beath has been a colleague and a mate for many years and I am most happy to support his latest endeavour, a charity walk along the Te Araroa Trail from Cape Reinga at the top of New Zealand’s North Island all the way down to the township of Bluff (where the best oysters come from) at the bottom of the South Island.

It’s an easy 3000 kilometres (well, easy to write anyway) and Pat’s given himself 5 months to complete the walk – for those that are numerically-disadvantaged, that’s an average 20 kilometres a day, every day, for five months…and while it may not sound like a lot, and yes, most of it will be through New Zealand’s unbeatable scenic beauty, it is a serious distance to walk…in case, you didn’t notice, New Zealand has the occasional hill, and then there’s that always inconvenient stretch of water separating the Islands – really, a defining point of islands when you think about it…

A little about the charity that Pat is walking to support…Shine is a national organisation that counters all natures of domestic abuse…providing a range of integrated services to do what works to stop domestic abuse – from answering that first call for help to a free national Helpline to securing victims’ homes; their other services include KIDshine, Safety First (crisis support), Safe House, No Excuses men’s stopping violence programme, training programmes, and more. I don’t think it really needs any explanation beyond that – definitely a cause worth supporting and you can do that right here at Givealittle.

I’ll be following Pat’s odyssey and hope to walk a ways with him as he comes though this part of the country…

…this part of the country…

Pretty much turn left at Owhango and follow the Traverse to the Ed Hillary Centre…as a point of reference, Mt Ruapehu is the big white thing at the bottom of the image, with Mt Doom just to its north, and Owhango is where the track makes a 90 degree turn into the bush……it looks like the track abruptly just ends there under the shadow of Mt Doom but it’s really only a provincial boundary change…

…some more of this part of the country…

…the trail hooks back past Ruapehu to the headwaters of the Whanganui River for a longish paddle down to the town of Wanganui (no ‘h’!) to follow along the west coast into the Manawatu…

Pat’s ambition is to raise $10,000 for Shine but as of Day One (today) he already has almost a grand on the clock and I am sure that will rocket higher as more and more of the green beret-ed community get in behind him…

What Coke could really do to tackle obesity | Healthy Food Guide

Posted on 7 August 2013 by SJPONeill

Yep…Coke is evil so they tell us…directly responsible for the decline in Western civilization, the death of Elvis and the cancellation of Firefly…

Proponents of the nanny state would have us believe that it is Coke’s corporate responsibility to save lazy stupid people from themselves, like the dope that OD’d on Coke in Southland, or the dummies that think they have to buy Coke because it is cheaper than milk – good thing the price of petrol keeps going up otherwise they’d be using that same rationale to feed petrol to their kids…

It was refreshing to see Healthy Food Guide questioning some of the so-called initiatives (I suppose you can’t really go round calling them ‘stupids’ and hoping that they will ‘take’) that the nanny statists think Coke should implement:

Take out all sugar-sweetened drinks from dairies near schools. Even better, take out everything except water.

Yep…that’ll work – while most kids are happy to drink out of dodgy puddles because they can, you can lead them to the Pump bottle but you cannot make them drink – and in any case, are these losers saying that, in the bigger picture, water is an environmentally better option? Sure, Spoilt Rotten from Remuera isn’t going to let little Tristan or Flower drink from a public fountain…? the only health benefit of this is that kids will walk a lot further to the closest place that sells what they want. Oh, and who will be compensating the owners of dairies close to schools…?

Expand the successful Sprite initiative in McDonalds by replacing all sugary Coke, Fanta and fruit drinks with zero-kJ versions. For the past five years or so, all Sprite sold in McDonald’s has been Sprite Zero – why not go all the way and make it all drinks? (Although we note that zero-calorie drinks which still taste sweet bring their own set of problems.)

Yep, and as someone else also said on the HFG forum, why should I be penalised when I treat myself to a rare Maccas to have to have chemical lolly water instead of the real deal? And I have been so good this year and have only been to the major food groups twice ALL year…Why should McDs pass up commercial opportunity because nanny statists are too busy to take their kids (assuming, of course, that they actually have been allowed to breed) for regular walks and exercise? Will the nanny statists be raising tax to compensate them as well…?

Stop selling larger ‘single-serve’ bottles of Coke and other drinks. A 600ml bottle is likely to be treated as one serving, no matter how many the label says it serves.

Why? What happens when I want to stock up for a big night in round the barby with mates? Will we be having our rum and cokes out of shot glasses, feeling guilty the whole time because all these midget drink containers are wasting so much more of poor old Mother Earth’s diminishing resources? I could also have a crack at the closure of neighbourhood off-licenses which make it harder to score opportunity RTDs but I think restricting booze sales is probably a good thing…

Or reduce the size of all single-serve drinks – including sports drinks, fruit drinks and iced teas – to 250ml.

Yep…that’ll fly on a hot day…at least you’ll still be able to get a normal size and so healthy milk shake instead – or will be nanny statists be killing of the traditional giraffe cup as well…?

Expand Coke’s stated policy of not marketing to kids under 12, to kids under 18 years.

Yeah, the kids will really listen…those poor little sods whose parents refuse to acknowledge the existence of the major food groups until they are adults, will just getting more thumpings for killing Coke as well – no wonder so many of them become maladjusted serial killers…

So what practical rules should we put in place…?

Well, how about we bring back the walking bus and make parental participation compulsory? Those kids without parents can be allocated one from the benefit pool (and some of them could use the exercise too).

Let’s ban SUVs from going anywhere closer than a mile (like a kilometre but bigger) to schools and kindies – maybe two miles for flat areas to ensure equivalent exercise value (EEV – just made that up but feel free to use it). Tristan or Flower will have to work out how to use those things that dangle beneath their bodies to go the last leg (hint: those things that dangle beneath their bodies).

We could also make it mandatory for all parents that inflict fifteen sports activities on their kids every weekend to actually participate in those activities (beyond sitting on the sidelines, sucking on a latte and abusing the ref) – that we might call leading by example and good parenting and, if mumsy and dadsy are getting involve in exercise and sport, kids might be a little more motivated as well…

Don’t ban your kids from technology like iThings – they will just kill you as you sleep and buy one with your inheritance – but making so rules about using them is a good idea as is being a bit more creative in their use e.g. get kids into geocaching – cans of Coke (decent size ones) might make good prizes…

What should Coke do? What it does best…and stay out of nanny state-led social engineering…it could also give some serious consideration to introducing bulk root beer to the New Zealand domestic market…(just a little personal hobby horse)

So again, good on HFG for introducing some common sense into the debate…not like that Shrieking Harpy nanny statist they had on Breakfast a couple of weeks back – although she was probably the best thing ever for Coke as she made the whole anti-Coke community look like a bunch of screaming looney tunes…

Coke is Evil and obesity is all someone else’s fault

Also noted doing the Facebook rounds this morning is some more anti-Coke propaganda…while I am not Coke’s biggest supporter, I hate these malicious tales distributed as truth…if you’ve seen the one that includes this claim “…the distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!…” then read Snopes on Coke acid; or the one about eight glasses of water a day, read Snopes on eight glasses of water.And if you are considering posting any of these ‘amazing secrets’ do us all a favour and google Snopes first…!

A Warrior Passes

Posted on 7 July 2013 by SJPONeill

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Last weekend, Kereama Graham Hare Wirangitakina passed away at his home in Waiouru. Known to many as Graham Wi or just Wiina, Graham was a friend, colleague and mentor to many of us. He was laid to rest yesterday.

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One of the many tributes to Wiina, said that this video montage was one of his favourites – as it will be for many who passed through the gates of Dieppe Barracks in the 1980s although it might be entitled The Usual Suspects

I’ve taken the liberty of including some of the tributes to Wiina to illustrate the man and the effect that he had on so many…

Hey brothers. We carried our bro into the Wharenui at the Waiouru Marae and he looked so at peace after his years of silent suffering. For those of yous that haven’t seen him for some time, he progressively got worse over the years. Spoke to his brother and mum, as sad as it is, it was a blessing in disguise and he is now at peace back with his whanau in the sunny far north. He will have a catch-up with his long lost bro Andy Warren in heavenly peace. ONWARDS brothers.

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Kereama Graham Hare Wirangitakina, I have been thinking all week about how you have influenced my life, and finally I know what to say. Long before I became a father, you explained and showed me what fatherhood actually meant. Little did I know at the time, that conversation would shape my understanding of parenting. There were many other snippets of gold in my memories of you Cpl Wi (Cpl at the time), but to me, this was undoubtedly your greatest impact on my life. I will be forever indebted to the interest you took in helping mold who I am today.

I am sorry I cannot be there to say farewell, but I will certainly be charging a very full glass of Rum to you….many times. Take it easy Wi, thanks again and RIP.

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Chur whanau just arrived back from Wi’s tangi and I can report that things went really well. Soldiers, whanau and friends came together…we sang, we laughed, we remembered, we haka’d, we had orders, we had confirmitory orders, we rehearsed, we got cheeky, we got angry, we took a spiritual journey to Te Reinga, we had the meanest weather, and we comforted one another.

Although it was a collective effort lead by capable men and women, a big mihi goes out to the bro Soli! Nei ra te mihi atu ki a koe te kaihautu o te waka nei. The spirit of Ngati Tumatauenga is well and truly alive…mai nga piki me nga heke we will always stand tall in the face of adversity. If I can sum it up in one word “SPEECHLESS”!!

E Winar, okioki i te atawhai o te Atua bro…till we meet again dear friend.

Te taimana whero
Taimana ki runga
Taimana ki raro
Taimana i te kura takahi puni

Whakamua! ONWARD…

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Wiina’s generation shaped the New Zealand Army for the better part of three decades, and through that interface, they were also a formative influence on large parts of New Zealand society at all levels. If one word could sum up this generation it would be ‘standards’ – a closer runner-up for those who know them, might also be ‘mischiefs’…

Many of ‘the usual suspects’…

I don’t remember when I first met Graham Wi, as I knew him, it would have been as a very junior soldier in 2/1 RNZIR in Burnham or 1 RNZIR in Singapore some time in the mid-80s. But my most memorable recollection of him is from 1 RNZIR after it relocated from Singapore to the Manawatu in 1989. I think it was 1993 or ’94, and responsibility for conducting infantry corps training (infantry specialist training after recruit training) had passed to Alpha Company, 1 RNZIR. To regenerate the battalion’s numbers a lot of infantry soldiers had been recruited but the recruit depot in Waiouru was unable to handle the numbers and issued an ultimatum to the effect of ‘…you want them trained, you come and train them…’ As a result, 1 RNZIR sent a platoon commander, platoon sergeant, and some corporals to Waiouru to train a platoon’s worth of infantry recruits. Graham Wi was the that platoon sergeant.

When these young soldiers passed out of their recruit training and arrived in Linton, we were all struck by their professionalism, enthusiasm and standards – read between the lines, and you might gather that not all the products of the recruit depot at this time were as impressive. Then we started to to hear whispers from Waiouru that the 1 RNZIR training team that we had sent there might not have played by the PC rules and perhaps some of the recruits had been mistreated i.e. that their professionalism, enthusiasm and standards might be more due to fear than the infantry ethos and culture.

I asked Graham about it directly. His response was a disdainful glance north (towards Waiouru) “…Nah. All we did was introduce these young men to the concept of standards and the principle that those standards weren’t coming down to meet them…we set the bar and they all came up to it…it IS that simple…” In the months we worked with those young soldiers, that message came through again and again…they were there because they wanted to be there…they sought challenges for the satisfaction of overcoming them…

Kereama Graham Hare Wirangitakina’s generation taught an army to do the job right (regardless of your personal opinion on whether it needed to be be done or not), to be an example to yourself and those around, to fault-check and get the detail right, to push on that little bit further, over just one more false crest…

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