They were better at garbage collecting when the actual refuse collectors were on strike.

I was just ranting about the total disconnect between words and actions here.

I’ve been writing here for 8 years or so, and I have been consistent in my plea for Malta to get involved. In 2011, in seemed there was just Daphne and myself. Everyone else up to and including Prime Minister Gonzi was blathering on about prudence.

Malta should get involved. But what it shouldn’t do is try to be too clever and dictate its own terms when its government has absolutely no idea of either military strategy or geopolitics. In other words, just find the maximum number of troops that can be spared (keeping in mind that 30 men deployed means 120 pledged) and leave the rest to the coalition.

Before it does that, it should adopt a whole new vocabulary. The word “allies”, which gets stuck in our throat since about 1972, needs to be pronounced. And none of that nonsense about acting as a mediator between factions. Malta belongs to the Gaddafi faction.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

Agreed with all points mentioned … but what exactly do you suggest Malta does? Stay by the side and refuse participation or involve itself as a base?

Sometimes I wonder if they even know what words mean. Take this nonsense about Malta offering “logistic support”. There are no foreign national evacuations now. If there is to be a military operation against Islamist forces in Libya, “logistic support” means staging for combat aircraft, so that they may be closer to the theatre of operations and therefore increase their loitering time. That makes Malta an active participant in offensive military operations. More Six Hats or a heart attack for KMB?

Turkey, whose government actually knows the meaning of words, refused to let its airfields be used for anti-ISIS operations over Syria and Iraq. And they’re NATO members, if you please.

These are the same people, please note, who withdrew Malta from Partnership for Peace and set back all efforts at information-sharing with potential NATO allies by at least ten years.

So what are we trying to do here? Play both sides, again?