Cast your mind back to a dark time called 1989. Chinese students and dissidents were being a major pain in the ass in China. They were protesting the government dictatorship, and demanding more civil freedom and democracy. This being China, of course the international media picked up on it immediately, and for once, the Chinese government seemed to have a problem keeping a lid on it.
Fast forward.Students swarmed the central Beijing park of Tiananmen Square. This was a direct challenge to the Chinese government, since Tiananmen Square also contains The Forbidden City, which has restricted access. This was a bridge too far, and brought a swift response from the government.
Tanks rolled into the streets to secure the Square area. And while pretty much every international media news feed watched, a placid Chinese man, with a shopping bag in each hand, stepped in front of the lead Chinese tank. The tank stopped. The tank tried to juke to the right, but the Chinese man shuffle stepped to stay in front of it. The tank tried to juke to the left, but the Chinese man followed suit anb clocked it. The tank commander raised the hatch, popped up, and screamed at the man, who yelled right back. The standoff seemed to go on forever before soldiers finally ran out and hoisted the man out of the way. It was the singular most spectacular example of personal courage and bravery that I have ever witnessed.
Fast forward to today. Russia has more than 130,000 troops massed along 3 sides of Ukraine’s borders. All of Europe is on war alert. So, if course, why shouldn’t Clad the Imp decide to hold massive naval live fire exercises just off the coast of Ireland? Where, just coincidentally, the data and phone communications cables are laid? Nothing to see here.
Enter the Chinese gentleman with the shopping bags for this occasion. The County Cork Fishermen. The Russians are planning, for strategic reasons to hold their exercises right in the middle of their traditional fishing grounds. And the County Cork Fisherman’s association is having none of it.
A couple of days ago, what must be a cousin of mine, Patrick Murphy, the head of the County Cork Fisherman’s association, met in Dublin with the Russian Ambassador at the embassy. And he told them in no uncertain terms that the prawn season started in those waters on Tuesday. The Russian exercises are scheduled to start on Thursday. Patrick Murphy told the Russian ambassador that starting on Tuesday, the County Cork fishing fleet, 60 boats strong, would be out there in the waters, trawling for prawn. And the Russian navy had better take care to provide a safe distance.
After he left, the Russian government once again reiterated their intention to hold live fire naval exercises in the area, and that any interference from Irish fishing boats would be both unwide, as well as physically dangerous. And today Murphy reiterated that all 60 boats would be out there, so the Russians had better watch their P’s and Q’s.
I swear to God, it’s the Chinese dude with the shopping bags all over again. One lone, brave man forced an international conversation on China’s heavy handed police state tactics.
And now you have a bunch of Irish fishermen telling Putin that they were fishing these waters long before he got her, and they’ll be fishing them long afterwards, so bugger off! And I swear, as God is my witness, if I ever get back to County Cork, I’ll stand every last one of them a pint, if it costs me my last punt. Don’t touch that dial.
Of course it’s a Murphy, probably a long-lost cousin several times removed, standing up to the Russian bear.
I don’t think the Irish fishermen are going to be alone out there. That fiber optic cable is very important to the US and Europe and they are not going to stand by and let Vlad cut it.
Tuckedd, they’ll be out there, in full force…Take my word for it…Those are traditional fishing grounds for centuries. They’re not going anywhere…The bigger problem is if Vlad licks his nuts, and there’s suddenly an international incident…Then, all bets are off…
Good for them, I wonder why the Russian navy needs to do live fire exercises there? The ocean is a pretty big place and I am sure vlad’s navy can go somewhere else.
As a jarhead who joined up while we were still in Beirut I must add the name (and actions) of Capt. Charles Johnson, USMC to this discussion. Reagan yanked us out of there while I was still in training (aftermath of the Barracks bombing) but in early 1983 tensions between the Corps and the Israelis in the adjoining sector came to a head and provoked an “incident” between “allies.” (Don’t get me started beyond this matter!) I met and got to know several people who served there during my time on active duty.
Bearing in mind that our forces were there in the first place trying to help our “ally” contain and one day clean up the fucking mess they made because for all their vaunted reputation they (the Israeli armed forces) couldn’t project power a mere hundred kilometers beyond its own border we found ourselves in a tactical deployment where Marines and Israelis were responsible for adjoining sectors around the airport. To avoid inflaming already high tensions in the middle east there was little official contact between the two, but there was a shitload of UN-official contact and those insufferable Israeli pricks took perverse delight in insulting my Marine Corps, questioning our ability and even courage. Of course we wanted to do more to take the fight to the gomers, but orders are orders and as I said ours and the rest of U.S. Forces mission there was to try and keep a really bad situation from getting worse and things spiraling into an all-out war in the region. THAT meant trying to be quite selective in where we shot/shelled, all the while trying to prevail upon Israel to accept some way of backing down and leaving that country.
So the insults flowed, and leading up to the tank incident there’d been a half dozen or so lesser encounters with the Israelis trying to provoke, or to put it more accurately embarrass us. It came to a head when three of their tanks tried to make a run though our sector. Capt. Johnson ran out there and stood them down with nothing but his .45. The Israeli commander in the lead tank wasn’t thrilled of course, but there were three tanks and only one Marine so he ordered the other two to advance. It didn’t quite get reported that way but Capt. Johnson stuck his .45 in that smug sonofabitch’s face and told him to stand his tanks down. That prick, and the Israeli government would later try to paint Johnson as some type of rogue who was out of line and that the whole thing was a “misunderstanding.” Bullshit. There was NO reason for them to go parading their tanks through Marine lines and if you recall one big political concern was the appearance of the U.S. and Israelis coordinating and maybe practicing a joint attack – exactly the kind of thing our own and others wanted to prevent. Israel of course WANTED us to openly join up with them on some type of joint mission beyond the perimeter as a statement that we were going to back up every move they made!
Capt. Johnson literally risked being run over by a tank. He also risked being Court Martialed (even though he was right to do what he did, and I’ve got to give credit to Cap Weinberger for backing him up) for drawing down on a senior officer of an “ally.” But he faced them down and forced them to retreat and in the process not only stood up for the honor of the Corps but quite possibly prevented that awful situation from becoming an all-out war in the region fracturing tenuous alliances.
Sometimes just one person can make a difference. I for one wouldn’t mind seeing some old retired British Naval person with a decent sized cabin cruiser head out there with the fishing boats, perhaps with some pals including a couple from the Royal Marines. Dressed in civvies of course but wearing ballcaps noting their branch of service. Just to let the fucking Rooskies know that there were old-timers who’d be more than happy to teach their fleet a lesson with the not so subtle message that there were still a shitload of people they’d trained and led still on active duty who’d be happy to remind Russia who REALLY ruled the seas during the Cold War. And since. And it sure as hell wasn’t Russia!
Murfster, a mhic. You’d have a big problem spending your last pound (we only ever call them ‘punt’ when we’re speaking Irish)
The problem you will face is that the Irish pound no longer exisats as a currency ever since the Euro was adopted LOL
But, apart from that, the place isn’t known as ‘Rebel Cork’ for nothing
When the Irish tell you what’s expected of you, they mean every word of it. Seems to me Putin’s boys are confusing them with the English under Boris Johnson, who are much more of a pack of pushovers in the upper echelons. Irish don’t care about threats one way or the other. They already made up their mind what they were going to do before you even opened your mouth, tovarish. And if you know what’s good for you, you will back…the eff…off.
Brad Pitt’s Irish gypsy, bare knuckle boxer, who gets revenge on the English mobster, who killed his mum, comes to mind.
My family is from Cork too, so when I first heard of this on Rachel Maddow I damn near fell out of my chair laughing. After hearing the lads talk, and finding out the Russian Ambassador made promises when he met with a couple, and then denied everything as soon as they left, I suspect some Russian Commanders and Sea Captains are going to find out that homie don’t play.
I think everyone with a boat ought to join these brave Irish fishermen: the British, French, Spanish, Norwegians, Finns, Swedes, Italians, US, everybody. Fishermen, yachts, other pleasure craft, you name it. If it floats, it goes. Scatter boats all around that area. I don’t think the Irish should have to go it alone. It’s obvious that Russia is targeting the cables. They shouldn’t get away with this.
One of the most disturbing things said by Patrick Murphy, honcho of the fishermen’s organisation, was that he’s received absolutely NO help nor support from his own (Irish) govt. And because he didn’t mention the English, via the Royal Navy, I assume there were no brave souls there either. But I hope the Russkies understand that the Oirish take no shit and are in no way intimidated by a bunch of foreigners invading their fishing grounds.
I can assure you there’s no shortage of courage/bravery in the Royal Navy. However, like our own armed forces they follow the orders of the civilians above them in their chain-of-command. That starts at 10 Downing Street, and since BoJo is the British version of Trump (even to the point of accepting guidance and assistance from Putin, albeit no so openly or as much of it) it’s not surprising there hasn’t been a response from their government or their navy on this matter. Not to mention the British are actually (like other NATO countries) mostly focused on responding to the more intense problem of Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine. Putin’s stunt off the coast of Ireland is sabre rattling while we are focused on a bigger problem he’s created. He knows damn well that an actual attack, and on Britain’s “patch” would mean huge trouble both in the moment and at that spot but would lead to an all-out war with the west because we’d deploy and his Navy simply is no match for ours and Great Britain’s, much less all that along with the rest of NATO.
What he didn’t count on was the Irish (and civilians at that) standing up, turning around and dropping their trousers at him. He tried to troll NATO with the stunt in Irish waters, and those fishermen decide to respond in-kind & in the process upped the ante. It got the world’s attention and newsies will be keeping an eye on things, not to mention some satellite time will be devoted to those waters and you can bet U.S. and western subs will be nearby documenting exactly what ships are where and what they are doing. And when. The good news this morning is that Russia seems to have backed down, and will move their “exercise” away from where they’d planned to threaten Ireland. Putin, being Russian where chess is a national obsession fancies himself a Grand Master but although he’s a damned good player he sometimes blunders because he’s not as capable a strategist as he thinks he is. In this case he got so focused on the key pieces he was moving and attacking he lost track of the other pieces on the board – in this case “pawns” in the form of a bunch of Irish fishermen. CIVILIANS who weren’t going to just sit in port and let him fuck around in THEIR waters. It’s the same mistake Bin Laden made with the 911 attacks. I said in the aftermath and for years afterwards George W. Bush and his neocons weren’t the ones that caused Bin Laden to avoid new attacks on American soil like the 911 attacks. It was those CIVILIANS, regular Americans who once they knew what was going down organized themselves to rush the hijackers and break into the cockpit knowing that it would mean dying in a crash. But they died on their own terms instead of allowing the hijackers to crash a target back in DC. Had it come down to it I truly believe some of those bullheaded Irish fishing captains would have died at sea resisting Putin’s ships and he’d have found himself and his country in deep shit, along with his plans for Ukraine. He seems to have belatedly realized the same thing.
Oh, he’ll try something else either there or somewhere else down the road. But I think he basically ignored a nail on the road of his Ukraine ambitions and punctured a tire. A slow leak to be sure, but I think (or hope at least) it was enough to slow him down and provide time for some type of de-escalation to take place.