The Naughty Russian and the Drone Disaster.

Dear friends,

I am busy working, but I’m interrupting for an extra news broadcast. As you know, Putin has been spying in Europe over the past few weeks. At night he flew drones with enormous headlights over airports and military bases. You have to understand that in Russia they can’t think of any better methods for spying.

According to defense specialists, Putin may also have been teasing us a bit with his drones. After all, we are considering seizing his billions in reserve dollars. That is, of course, perfectly obvious. That’s typical Putin. He constantly indulges in the most foolish and pointless displays of frustration. It will certainly be effective. We feel so harassed by those drones that we won’t seize those reserve dollars after all.

Meanwhile, there were persistent rumors that two journalists were arrested near Brussels Airport. They had pulled a hat deep over their ears and were launching a drone — what journalist would do something like that? Another hypothesis we certainly did not need to consider is that they might have been amateur drones. On average, only about thirty unauthorized drones fly around an airport each day.

At the moment when the panic was spreading, those alternative stories were not yet in the mainstream media. So they were not facts or realities. Only the media bring the truth about the media. Above all, remember this: you do not see reality through your kitchen window or while taking a walk; your only window onto reality is the screen on which the broadcasts of national television are shown.

Journalists may act as if they are being shot at in Kyiv while old ladies around them are walking their dogs; they may cut and paste Trump’s speeches; they publish videos about the war in Syria that even a child could verify as fabricated. But playing with drones over Zaventem, just when tens of billions need to be collected to fuel a senseless war industry? No, that’s impossible. Only conspiracy theories about Putin can be true.

I followed this story with curiosity from the beginning. Should it eventually turn out that it wasn’t actually Putin spying, I will of course continue to trust national television. Though by now I’m quite sure it will eventually turn out that he wasn’t. After all, everyone knows the whole story is too absurd for words. About as absurd as the story that Putin blew up his own Nord Stream pipeline. Eventually the media themselves said that it was Zelensky after all. That story had served its purpose, so the media could simply toss it out with the old trash — Zelensky and a few drunk officers were the culprits. Biden surely had nothing to do with it. That is important to mention. You might start thinking otherwise, because he had announced that he would blow up the Nord Stream pipeline.

For the time being, I will therefore continue to believe that naughty Putin is here playing with his drones. I even assume that he personally controlled them, together with his equally impulsive bully of a foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. He’s also typically such a choleric little child.

Yes, that’s how I am — I believe in “facts” of which I actually know they are not facts at all. That saves me the troublesome process of thinking. I’m too tired to think. I pay enough taxes for the government to think for me. If they come to take the young people to fight in a pointless war, then so be it. I’m too tired to resist war as well.

**

I’m enjoying the whole drone saga in the meantime. I read a few days into the story and learn that the Belgian Minister of Defence has returned from Latvia. He personally went there to buy a few drones — drones to chase away the Russian drones. They were enormously urgently needed — that was clear.

Besides buying drones, he also went there to take lessons in “strategic communication.” That’s cognitive warfare, he helpfully explains to his compatriot who is just a bit less versed than he is in the art of waging war. He describes that part of his mission on his Facebook page:

“Closing a deal regarding our participation in the NATO center of excellence on strategic communication, you might say cognitive warfare. With the rise of social media and AI this is more important than ever.”

You should know that talking about “strategic communication” is itself a form of strategic communication. In the past they simply spoke of propaganda. Earlier still they called it the bad habit of making people believe things. With the rise of social media they now have a problem on that point, the minister says. Not everyone at the social media will readily go along with the defence minister’s strategic communication.

So now that we know he’s training in strategic communication, might we cautiously ask whether the fuss about those Russian drones was perhaps also part of some strategic communication?

The day after the Minister’s weaponry purchase in Latvia, the story that the Russians were spying here with drones — just like the story that Putin blew up the Nord Stream pipeline — was tossed out with the household rubbish by the media. That happened faster than expected. I’m even a little disappointed.

So I now read on the website of the Belgian National Television that it was not drones but — yes indeed — a police helicopter and a cargo plane. We are grateful to the National Television for breaking the hypnosis, but if next time it does not happen before the minister spends €500 million on anti-drone drones, we propose halving the subsidies to the National Television.

Someone should explain this to me: how can you confuse a Russian military drone with a police helicopter and a cargo plane? Instead of buying drones to repel drones, wouldn’t defence have been better off buying a pair of glasses and an ordinary pair of binoculars?

Those two journalists they arrested at the airport, with a stocking over their heads and a drone in their hands, turned out in the end to be doing what journalists usually do: fabricate fiction and photos. Nothing to be surprised about, then. The only thing that still surprises me about that story is that there were people who actually believed that the Russians came here to spy.

I have another question: what could we actually need those sophisticated drones for? To fight the Russians? According to the media those Russians have been losing in Ukraine for about three years now, right? They’re fighting with tanks like from the days when the Tsars still sat on the throne? Now all of Europe has to buy hundreds of billions in weapons to fend off the Russians with their pocket knives and catapults? Or is that story about the pathetic Russians also part of strategic communication?

We all understand that governing is a difficult profession. Tossing a few billion around from time to time comes with the job. Those drones are of course pointless — never, ever will they shoot down a Russian drone here. Maybe we can ship them off to Zelensky, who could then pelt Moscow with them from a golden toilet seat. Come to think of it, yes, maybe the lessons in strategic communication will ultimately be the only thing truly useful from those purchases in Latvia.

**

I feel a certain responsibility to continue reporting on the drone saga; fulfilling the duty to repeat as seriously and objectively as possible what I learn and read in the newspapers.

The Belgian National Television had discovered that the Russian drones which forced Belgium into decisive military measures were, in the end, a police helicopter and a cargo aircraft. You can’t blame the National Television for this. They had consulted the greatest military experts.

As a small aside, I would dare recommend that the National Television also consult a virologist when it comes to drones. I think virologists know at least as much about drones as the colonel. And maybe next time we can ask the colonel what we should do when we have to go to war against viruses again.

Anyway, after it turned out that those Russian drones were anything but Russian drones, I thought we were rid of this story for a while. Until the Naughty Russian would surface again, of course.

That was mistaken — everyone makes mistakes every now and then. Someone who knows someone who still reads a mainstream newspaper sent me an article with the title: “Dutch Air Force used weapons to shoot down drones above military base.” I’m attaching the evidence here in this link.

It’s always good to read the article as well as the headlines. I’ve learned that by now. Because the article usually contains something that is somewhat the opposite of what the headline suggests. I quote directly from the article:

“Ground-based weapons were used to shoot down drones, but they left and were not recovered.”

“They left and were not recovered.” So they missed them. Or saw something flying that wasn’t flying. That could also be. I think the war against Rus and Virus will be fought more efficiently if next time we let the virologists shoot at the drones and the colonel deal with the virus.

Another option is that we ask the Germans for help. They had already offered to come help the Belgians against the drones that later turned out to be just a cargo aircraft. We were on the verge of assembling Europe’s armies around Brussels to shoot down a cargo aircraft.

In any case, we now know for sure that this is not about military drones that can be remotely controlled over long distances, say from Russia. If the story is about drones at all, then it’s about glorified toys, probably drones controlled from nearby.

Unless we’re dealing with a situation in which the gathered European armies are seeing things that aren’t there, there must be some kind of shed or garage nearby with Russians who are playing — spying — with those drones. I’m of course no expert in warfare, but if we miss such a drone and it flies away, couldn’t we follow it with another drone?

The corona-critical Headwind team has such a drone. I remember it from the recordings. And it certainly flew fast enough to outrun the National Television during the Ultima awards ceremony. So we should definitely be able to use it to follow the drone of the Underdeveloped Naughty Russian.

We follow that drone to the barn or garden shed where the Naughty Russian is hiding, and then we capture that Naughty Russian and his toys — remote control included. Instead of seizing Putin’s reserve dollars and using them to buy weapons to attack Putin, we simply seize Putin’s weapons directly. We flatten Moscow with his own toy drones. Do you understand the strategic plan?

Good. So much for the report on the drone saga for now. I ask everyone reading this to check their own garden shed. The Naughty Russian is nearby. That is certain, that is a fact, that’s what the National Television says.