Whanganui Chronicle
  • Whanganui Chronicle home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Taranaki
  • National Park
  • Whakapapa
  • Ohakune
  • Raetihi
  • Taihape
  • Marton
  • Feilding
  • Palmerston North

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • New Plymouth
  • Whanganui
  • Palmertson North
  • Levin

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Whanganui Chronicle

Frank Greenall: Abandoning Kurds opens door for Isis to rise again

By Frank Greenall
Columnist·Whanganui Chronicle·
16 Oct, 2019 04:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Ruhul Amin from Aberdeen Scotland appearing in an ISIS recruitment video.

Ruhul Amin from Aberdeen Scotland appearing in an ISIS recruitment video.

COMMENT:

There's loose cannons, and a loose cannon ...

It's a tad hubristic that the USA often refers to itself as America, given a couple of dozen other nations also inhabit the continent of that name.

It also prides itself on being aka Land of the Free. It might have to change that to Land of the Loose – as in Loose Cannon.

It's bad enough having a loose cannon on board, off its mountings and chaotically careering around, but worse if the loose cannon happens to be Head of State.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

READ MORE:
• Frank Greenall: Look to past to fix future
• Frank Greenall: Try counting what matters
• Frank Greenall: Daring to do something different to solve gang problem…
• Frank Greenall: Tales of whales, trails and fails

The USA's general Middle East policy has equally been in loose cannon mode. Although exacerbated by events of 9/11, it's been crashing around the Middle East pretty much since World War II, partly because its mega-military likes to regularly flex its muscles, but also because it gets real edgy if its lifeblood oil supply lines ever appear threatened.

A totally trashed Iraq still bears chilling witness to the damage a loose cannon can do, especially when the cannon's deliberately let loose under wholly false pretences.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

However, having stirred up a massive hornets' nest of ISIS fruitcakes lusting after martyrdom and virginal pie in the sky, at least US forces eventually helped bring the putative caliphate to heel, courtesy of the Kurds.

This meant deciding that the Syrian Assassin al-Assad was a good guy after all, and that it was OK to swap sides. The Kurds may not have helped out on the Normandy beaches, but hey, the great purger Uncle Joe Stalin was there when we needed him, and Putin and al-Assad are practically cousins.

Discover more

New Zealand

Caught on camera: Man's brazen bid to steal $123 rump

15 Oct 12:48 AM

Change of focus for Whanganui and Partners chairman

15 Oct 04:00 PM

Rain bad news for Parapara slip site

15 Oct 02:13 AM

Raising rents without improvements is 'extortion'

15 Oct 08:31 PM

But whew! Isis subdued, with thousands of their combatants and dependents in the pokey - again courtesy of the Kurds. Thank the lucky stars, you'd think.

But this is where the steel trap mind of the current US President kicks in. "Gee," it thinks, "what to do now? I know! Let's pull plug on the Kurds so they have to let all those Isis dudes go, the Turks go berserk, the whole region gets re-destabilised, and then we can have fun sending in the cavalry again later!"

Meanwhile back at the White House, anyone who's been employed longer than five minutes is being projectile vomited out the revolving front door in case five minutes has been long enough to acquire sundry incriminating information.

Frank Greenall
Frank Greenall

Then there's another type of loose cannon. Some believe the premium global issue of the moment is the high tackle fiasco, as showcased at the Rugby World Cup in Japan.

A generation or two back, there were two key rugby canons: you didn't kick a player in the head, and a high tackle was anything over the height of the armpits.

I haven't been able to dig up what the official tackle rule was back then (perhaps there's an old-school referee out there who knows?), but the armpit line was the prevailing dictum, strictly applying at all levels. Sensibly, that meant there was a decent margin of error should the arms slip up in the tackle, as often happens.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

However, at some point the current rule crept in allowing tackling up to "the line of the shoulders". Now, the line of the shoulders is also where the neck starts, which is rightly considered part of the head. That means there is NO margin for error whatsoever – which in a fast-paced high-contact sport is ludicrous.

This change was accompanied by the present common mad practice of tacklers going into the tackle in a fully vertical position – purportedly to smother the ball. Surprise surprise, there were suddenly a raft of sickening head-to-head clashes never before present in the game, which is where most of the damage is now being done.

The current farcical effort to stem head contact is a reaction to a situation totally of the Union's own making. All that's needed is a return to the previous tackle canon – nothing higher than the armpit line.

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Whanganui Chronicle

Whanganui Chronicle

Why Ruapehu voted against bigger water model

11 Jul 05:02 AM
Whanganui Chronicle

Search for missing man continues after car pulled from river

10 Jul 11:09 PM
Whanganui Chronicle

Community group seeks to manage historic reserve

10 Jul 06:00 PM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Whanganui Chronicle

Why Ruapehu voted against bigger water model

Why Ruapehu voted against bigger water model

11 Jul 05:02 AM

Officials say a multi-council body would save their community $40 million.

Search for missing man continues after car pulled from river

Search for missing man continues after car pulled from river

10 Jul 11:09 PM
Community group seeks to manage historic reserve

Community group seeks to manage historic reserve

10 Jul 06:00 PM
Chaos as Ruapehu council rejects officials' advice on water

Chaos as Ruapehu council rejects officials' advice on water

10 Jul 03:15 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Whanganui Chronicle e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Whanganui Chronicle
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP