Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Caroline Affair

Let us begin with a joke.

A CNN reporter, a BBC reporter and an Israeli commando are captured by ISIS in Syria. The terrorist leader told them he would grant them any last request before they were beheaded. The CNN reporter said, "Well, I'm American, so I would like one last burger with fries." The leader instructed an aide to bring a burger and fries. The reporter ate it and said "Now, I can die."
The BBC correspondent said, "I want to take out my tape and describe the scene here and what's going to happen. Maybe one day someone will hear it and know I was on duty until the end."
The ISIS leader ordered the aide to hand over a tape and dictated some remarks. The reporter then said, "Now I can die knowing I stayed true to the end."
The ISIS leader then turned to the Israeli commando and said: "And now, Mr. tough Israeli guy, what is your last wish?"
"Kick me in the ass," the soldier said.
"What?" The leader asked, "Are you joking with us in your final hour?"
"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass," the Israeli insisted.
So the terrorist leader pushed him into an open area and kicked him in his ass. The soldier fell over, but rolled to his knees, pulled out a 9mm pistol from under his shirt and shot the leader dead. He jumped into his bag, pulled out an Uzi machine gun and shot the rest of the terrorists.
"Why didn't you just shoot them at the beginning? Why did you ask them to kick your ass first? "
"What?" The Israeli replied, "And that you will report that I started and I am the aggressor?"

And why am I telling you this? Good thing you asked because it is a result of things I hear on social media. So let’s embark on our story of the day. 

Is it true that the United States and Britain are allies? Yes, it is, but that was not always the case. England once controlled a part of America but after gaining independence England, the conflict did not end. Is that a hint to us, here in the Middle East?

War broke out again in 1812 and this is actually the beginning of the story. Wait with me until the end because it connects to the joke I told you. So after the war there were negotiations and the parties resolved the disputes between them. However, there were those in the United States who still claimed that part of Canada belonged to the United States and in Canada there were those who dreamed of independence from Britain.

In 1837 a failed revolt took place against British rule. Part of the revolt was in Quebec, which is French-speaking. In Ontario, on the other hand, many of the leaders of the uprising were American immigrants to Canada. Their leader was a Scottish Baron named William Mackenzie. The revolt was quickly defeated. Mackenzie fled to Buffalo, where he persuaded a number of Americans to join his cause. Mackenzie and other Canadian rebels, backed by American citizens, fled to an island in the Niagara River, in an American steamboat called the Caroline.

Canadian militia, on orders from the British, crossed the Niagara River and captured the steamboat while it was docked in American waters. The militia set fire to the Caroline and threw the ship over Niagara Falls.

These actions strained US-England relations almost to the brink of war. The American side saw the raid as a blatant and unshakable attack on a neutral state. The British and Canadian sides justified the need to deal with security threats that the United States was unwilling or unable to neutralize. The U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster and a new British envoy to the United States, Alexander Baring, Lord Ashburton, met and together agreed on a law, and shortly afterwards the border issues were largely resolved by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.

Today, the Caroline event is considered a legal argument in international law for anticipatory self-defense. Webster's statement on behalf of the United States, and Ashburton's agreement that a nation must show "the need for self-defense, immediate, overwhelming, with no options and no moment to hesitate," entered into international law and is known as a condition of pre-emptive strike.

Now we have studied a long distant past and it has been many years since we were at school, studying history, so you are probably asking "Who cares today?"

And now we come to the Six Day War. Did you think otherwise? So as you may remember, or not, in May 1967, Nasser, the Egyptian ruler, for those who do not remember, demanded that the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, remove the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) from Sinai. This force had separated the Egyptians and Israel from the 1956 Sinai War.

This was, of course, according to the agreement placing the UNEF in Sinai, and It was his full right. But on that day Cairo Radio broadcast "All Egypt is now ready to plunge into a total war that will put an end to Israel."

A few days later, Syrian President Dr. Norddin al-Atasi declared "We want a full-scale popular liberation war...to destroy the Zionist enemy" and there were similar voices throughout the region even from distant places like Algeria. I will not quote everything that was broadcast by Arab media in May /June 1967 but we all know what happened. Israel carried out a pre-emptive strike against Egypt and others.

In military schools, or at least so I am told, the Caroline event is cited as a justification for Israel's preemptive strike since all the conditions existed. Thank you Daniel! It was also the justification for destroying the nuclear reactor in Iraq. Today's prosecution or Hague investigators would have probably not have accepted the argument due to their lack of impartiality, but I'm not a jurist, I'm a simple philatelist.

So if one day you find yourself in a dark alley and a few people approach you menacingly and say, "We’re going to beat the crap out of you" and you're Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Dam, or even the same commando from the beginning, then shout “Caroline Event" and do what needs to be done before they carry out their threat and if not, run away, because even if you have a weapon for self-defense, the prosecution will cut you to threads.

Here is a free frank item sent 1843 and signed by Secretary of State Daniel Webster. This is valid in the exhibiting world because his signature and position had a direct influence on the postal rate, meaning free. Free franking privileges were granted to Secretaries of State from 1792.






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