Fear and Loathing

T.E. Lawrence	In 1918, the regular forces of British Commanding Officer General Edmund Allenby defeated the remaining Turkish Army in Palestine. A final and conclusive strike at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 left the road to Damascus open. By the time Allenby arrived Colonel T.E. Lawrence and the Arabs were already installed. With Lawrence translating Allenby attempted to deliver the message to Prince Feisal that his newly-appointed Arab government would not be recognized and the city was to be handed over to the French. Both Lawrence and Feisal reacted angrily to Western duplicity. The irregular troops that had pursued the Arab Revolt against the Turks now set their sights on the British and French, and their fury was very great indeed.
Arabist

After this fateful meeting Allenby asked his commander for leave and returned to England a broken man. Allenby was promoted to Field Marshal and later served as Britain's High Commissioner in Egypt from 1919 to 1925. He outlived Lawrence by one year.

~ quotation by Steve Payne

In 1922, volunteer troops of the Empire Legion reinforced the Anglo-French garrison at Çanakkale, the narrowest point of the Dardanelles. Not only was the Greek Army in full retreat from Smyrna, but the Chanak Incident was about to kick off big time. Having just replaced Lloyd George's war-time coaliton government, incoming British Prime Minister Lord Curzon feared the War in Asia Minor was about to escalate into the Second Great War - on his watch. That was why an Empire Legion comprising British, Canadian, ANZAC, SA, Rhodesian, Indian volunteers was just the ticket. MacKenzie King's government in Canada was against intervention, and the British public had no appetite for conflict. Curzon also had one eye on the Labour Party who were threatening the Conservatives now that the Liberals had imploded. Curzon had made his own calculations. He hoped that the veterans of the Empire Legion could reprise their recent stunning victory with White Forces in Northern Russian, dismantling the new Soviet regime. It was a new kind of armed foreign policy, in which the Great Powers would fight covert wars with irregular troops. Curzon was very much aware that on the other side of Turkey, was Colonel T.E. Lawrence and Prince Feisal whose own irregular troops were fighting a new Arab Revolt, against their new masters - the British and the French governments who had simply replaced the Turkish occupation in the Middle East.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Bernard Montgomery	"Einsatzgruppe Egypt" [the Nazi Death Squad] was standing by in Athens and was ready to disembark for Palestine in the summer of 1942 [to extend the Holocaust into Palestine], attached to the "Afrika Korps" led by General Erwin Rommel." ~ Monty justifying the extension of the British Mandate in Palestine
Imperialist

Field Marshall Montgomery, Chief of the Imperial General Staff reacting to pressure for Britain to withdraw its forces from Palestine in response to Jewish terrorism. Montgomery said that if not for the British victory at El Alamein, Nazi Germany would have expanded the extermination of Jews beyond the borders of Europe and into British-controlled Palestine during World War Two. Montgomery presented the Irgun bombed of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem with evidence that death squads known as "Einsatzgruppe Egypt" were standing by in Athens and was ready to disembark for Palestine in the summer of 1942. This group would be attached to the "Afrika Korps" led by the famed desert commander General Erwin Rommel. The Middle East death squad, similar to those operating throughout eastern Europe during the war, was to be led by SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Walther Rauff. "The central plan for the group was the realization of the Holocaust in Palestine," said Montgomery, "But since Germany never conquered British-controlled Palestine, plans for bringing the Holocaust to what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories never came to fruition."

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Woodrow Wilson	"The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. " ~ Woodrow Wilson, Global Peace Architect
US President

Before his refusal to meet with Ho Chi Minh at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Uncle Ho requested an appointment to urge that the principle of self-determination should also apply to the population of the French Union Colony of Indochina. Wilson believed that the principles codified in the Treaty of Versailles should extend no further than Europe, seeing no parallel exclusion of African Americans from the US Constitution. A historic opportunity was missed whilst there was still time to prevent a mistake becoming a human catastrophe. The full story of Minh's Peace Conference Gambit is described at Today in Alternative History

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Mobile Phones	In 2011, the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme, said that because it can take more than a decade for cancer symptoms to become detectable only now was it possible to "say for certain" that handsets can cause the disease. MTHR had been running more than a dozen studies assessing the effects on human health, reporting as late as 2007 that "Phone safety is still an unknown". The independent group of scientists had received more than £10m from the UK Government and the mobile phone industry.
Market Collapses

Professor Lawrie Challis, the MTHR chairman, said: "We can now say with confidence that cancer can appear through excessive use of mobile phone handsets". Bluetooth technology and hands free sets are expected to be the "winners" when consumer confidence returns.

~ quotation by Steve Payne

FDR	"First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. " ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
US President

Whilst the fears of isolationists prevented the United States from joining World War II. A generation later, America faced the Empires of Germany and Japan alone as described by Harry Turtledove In the Presence of Mine Enemies

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Glubb Pasha	In 1941, 'the internecine struggles of the Arabs,' Glubb Pasha told Count László de Almásy and Colonel Ned Lawrence 'are more in the minds of Arab politicians than the struggle against the Jews. Azzam Pasha, the mufti and the Syrian government would sooner see the Jews get the whole of Palestine than that King Abdullah should benefit.'
The Mufti was more than keen for the Final Solution to be brought to the British mandate in Palestine. On balance, Lawrence was confident that Glubb Pasha could be expected to do the "right thing" in a forthcoming war of independence. After all, who could not be impressed by what Lawrence called "the eternal miracle of Jewry?"
~ variant by Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the genius of Susan Shwartz and Michael Ondaatje

Ulysses spacecr..	In 1994, on this day the Ulysses probe passed the Sun's south pole. The spacecraft was launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery by NASA and the European Space Agency, equipped with instruments to characterize fields, particles, and dust. Part of the InterPlanetary Network (IPN), Ulysses provided the first clues to the Sun's accelerating gamma ray bursts.
By 2030, the IPN had been renamed to the United Nations Committee for Survival of Life on Earth and increasingly desperate measures were being attempted to deal with this planet-threatening solar development.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1990, George Alec Effinger published his counter-history masterpiece Everything But Honour, posing the question What if Robert E. Lee fought for the Confederacy and the Civil War was over after Lincoln issued an Emancipation Proclamation? Thinking things would be better, a white supremacist working in 1938 Imperial Germany goes back in time to make Lee follow a different path.	Robert E. Lee
~ entry by Steve Payne

Annapolis	1788, the North American Union Constitutional Convention in Annapolis set the date for the country's first Governor-General's election. Victoria became the temporary capital as Britain restructured the Thirteen Colonies and Canada into self-autonomous Dominions.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1940, Italy invaded Egypt. A group of officers, headed by Gamal Abdul Nassar, and Anwar el-Sadat, secretly side with the Italians, ridding Egypt of Britain's presence. The “factional” account was told by counter-historian Ken Follett in his masterpiece ”The Keys to Rebecca” (1980). In a tribute to Philip K Dick's 1964 counter-factual novel Man in the High Castle, Follett presented a book within a book, 'The Sphinx Lies Heavy'.
Set in Britain in 1956, the proud nation has humiliated President Nasser by seizing back the Suez Canal after nationalisation. All because some ten years earlier Britain defended Egypt from the Italians, and chose not to punish a group of officers, headed by Gamal Abdul Nassar, and Anwar el-Sadat who secretly side with the invaders. Like Dick before him, the essence of Follett's masterpiece is the duality of his frightening visions.
~ entry by Steve Payne

God save the queen, the fascist regime They made you a moron, potential H-bomb God save the queen she ain't no human being There is no future in England's dreaming
God Save the Queen	Don't be told what you want, Don't be told what you need There's no future, no future, No future for you God save the queen We mean it man We love our queen God saves And our figurehead is not what she seems ~ Lyrics to “God Save the Queen” - Click to Watch
God Save the Queen

In 1977, an off-site Cabinet meeting by the executors of the Plot Against British Prime Minister Harold Wilson entered day two at Chequers. Interim Prime Minister Lord Louis Mountbatten and his deputy Major General Ord Wingate, DSO were in the Chair. Also present was the Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher and the Minister for Citizenship Mary Whitehouse who had just finished watching the latest installment of horror - the Sex Pistols playing "God Save the Queen". Both military leaders had a strong sense of perspective. They understood fully that the problem went back to 1951, with the Conservative victory when Churchill formed his first peacetime administration. He had little feel for what should be done. He confided to Oliver Lyttleton that "In the worst of the war I could always see how to do it. Today's problems's are elusive and intangible." Afterwards, Mountbatten and Wingate retired with brandys and cigars. Privately, Ord thought the Sex Pistols were right about one thing. In that haunting line "And our figurehead is not what she seems", there was a nugget of wisdom. After all, had not the Queen engineered Harold Wilson out of power to be replaced by Interim Prime Minister Louis Mountbatten? The lyrics are available at at Plyrics

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Doctrines

	In 2013, General John Abizaid former head of Central Command paid tribute to the late US President Donald Rumsfeld, who had passed away the week before. The war on terror had delivered a bastion of democracy in the Middle East, securing the region and providing the platform for a New World Order - said Abizaid, repeating the Rumsfeld Doctrine. However, it might not have been. During the late summer of 2003, the invasion of Iraq had been threatened by insurgents consisting of five thousand Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein.

General Abizaid, declared 'When you understand that they were organized into a cellular structure, that . . . they had access to a lot of money and a lot of ammunition, you'll understand how dangerous they were.' It has been intimated that Rumsfeld expanded a highly secret operation, Operation Copper Green, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Controversially, author Seymour Hersh has alleged that Rumsfeld encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. Contemporary historians consider it unlikely that the allegations about prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison will ever by revealed. Copper Green has already joined Hanger 18 and the Kennedy Assassination in the popular file of conspiracy theories, yet the effectiveness of Rumsfeld's policies cannot be denied.

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	In 2006, Welsh Prime Minister Rhodri Morgan officially opened the new debating chamber for the National Assembly in Cardiff. The Assembly was formed under the Government of Wales Act 1998, by the Labour government, following a referendum in 1997. The name Wales was derived from the Germanic Walha meaning stranger or foreigner and the Welsh Language and culture persisted in the region after annexation by the Laws in Wales Act 1535 in the reign of Henry VIII of England, who ironically was himself partly of Welsh ancestry.

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	In 1914, Gilbert John Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto, KG, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC died. Described by Sir Wilfrid Laurier as 'taking his duties to heart,an energetic man who welcomed many challenges and responsibilities' Lord Minto was an enthusiastic imperialist who served as both Governor General of Canada and Viceroy of India. He served under Lord Roberts in the second Afghan War (1878 - 1879), accompanying Sir Louis Cavagnari on his triumphant mission to Kabul which resulted in the annexation of Afghanistan to the British Empire.

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	In 2007, the US and neighboring countries were plunged into darkness. The crisis is a nearly identical repetition of May 19, 1780 - dubbed New England's Dark Day, - when an unusual darkening of the day sky was observed over the New England states and parts of Canada. The darkness was so complete that candles were required from noon until midnight and did not disperse until the middle of the next night. Many have blamed the genocide of First Nation peoples for the catastrophes that have befallen the American people, asking if a nation so created, can long endure.

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Klaus Fuchs	In 1950, Communist spy Klaus Fuchs was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for espionage. The former scientist had leaked details of Project Rainbow, the US Navy's invisibility project to the Soviet Union. The technology had been credited with the successful execution of X-Day, in which America Carriers had arrived in Tokyo harbour by stealth. Four years later, both sides would deploy the technology, and also bioweapons, at the horrific battle of Incheon on the Korean Peninsula. It was to be a zero sum game with an appalling loss of life.
Traitor

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In 1956, during the build-up to the Suez Crisis, King Hussein of Jordan refused to bow to anti-British pressure and dismiss Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb. Better known as Glubb Pasha, he headed the Arab Legion, repaying this loyalty by capturing Jerusalem for Hussein in the Six Day War.

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In 2000, Hans Blix was appointed Executive Chairman of United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) with a public mandate to inspect possible nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Iraq. He found something alright, most people wished he hadn't when they heard what is was...

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In 2000, Hans Blix was appointed Executive Chairman of United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) with a public mandate to inspect possible nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Iraq. Due to Blix vigilence and determination, the UN discovered a large arsenal of Scud missiles containing monsterous arachnid eggs at the nuclear reactor site at Osirak.

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In 2000, Hans Blix was appointed Executive Chairman of United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) with a public mandate to inspect possible nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Iraq. A total lack of progress and utter contempt from the Western Allies followed. The public was amazed by Blix's calm patience. Three years later the truth emerged. This double agent had been leaking military secrets to the Iraqis, preparing Saddam Hussein and his regime for the poorly planned American invasion. George Bush was forced to resign as an ironic regime change scenario played out.

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In 1954, the biggest explosion ever made by man was witnessed in the Pacific when US scientists explode their second H-bomb at Bikini Atoll.

The species endangering tragedy that followed was most accurately described with the publication of 'Web', a written account from Arnold Delgrange, a man suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Delgrange had led a failed attempt to establish a utopian colony on an island in the Pacific Ocean remote from civilization, which has suffered fall out and been cursed by the original inhabitants. As a result, intelligent and communally acting spiders had evolved on the island, acting in a manner that endangers all life in the vicinity. Dr Camilla Cogent first realised that the spiders inhabiting the island chosen for the utopian experiment have evolved intelligence, it is her actions that allow Arnold Delgrange to survive to tell the tale.

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Bikini Atoll	In 1954, the biggest explosion ever made by man was witnessed in the Pacific when US scientists explode their second H-bomb at Bikini Atoll. Rather than bombing Beijing, US President Thomas Dewey ordered that a demonstration shot of the hydrogen bomb be given, but the Chines refuse to surrender. The regional conflict on the Korean peninsula was now getting very dangerously out of control.
H Bomb

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In 1910, the actor David Niven was born. In his 1971 autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon he mentioning his private conversations with Oswald Mosley, Edward VIII, the bombings, and what it was like entering a nearly completely destroyed Germany with the invasion forces. He said once: 'I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war.' Niven never made any public statement of approval for the rise of fascism in Anglo-America, and most probably he suited the role of English officer and gentleman rather than sought it.

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	In 1984, the son of Lt. Colonel Nicholson wrote an open letter to The Times newspaper, counter-signed by the one hundred living service veterans of the 1942-3 Burma Railway construction. British prisoners of war were forced to build the 415 kilometre (258 mile) railway, by the Imperial Japanese Army. The bridge formed one of many infrastructure pieces built during the Greater East Asia War.

The letter ended on a poignant note ~ When you go home, tell them of us and say for your tomorrow we gave our today. . The fiery controversy created by the revelations of John Lennon's extramarital affair with Mrs Toshi Ichiyanagi continued to rage throughout the vanquished nation.

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	In 2008, a dead U.S. spy satellite in deteriorating orbit hit the Earth within Drakan Territory somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft survived its blazing descent through the atmosphere scattering debris - some of it potentially hazardous - over several hundred miles. The satellite is outfitted with thrusters, small engines used to position it in space, that contain the toxic rocket fuel hydrazine. Hydrazine can cause harm to anyone who contacts it.

The satellite, known by its military designation US 193, was launched in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor. Alliance for Democracy officials did not want this equipment to fall into the wrong hands. 'The Drakas spend an enormous amount of time trying to steal Alliance technology,' said John Pike, a defense and intelligence expert. 'To have our most sophisticated radar intelligence satellite - have big pieces of it fall into their hands - was not our preferred outcome.' Where US 193 landed was difficult to predict until the satellite descended to about 59 miles above the Earth and entered the atmosphere. It begin to burn up, with flares visible from the ground, said Ted Molczan, a Canadian satellite tracker. From that point on, he said, it took about 30 minutes to fall. Archon Von Strakenberg accused the U.S. of a clandestine attempt to strike the Domination with a space bio-weapon ~ The Draka will conquer the world for two reasons; because we must and because we can. And yet of the two forces the second is the greater; we do this because we choose to do it. By the sovereign Will and force of arms the Draka will rule the Earth, and in so doing remake themselves. We shall conquer and beat the Nations of the Earth into the dust and reforge them in our self wrought Image; the Final Society without weakness or mercy, hard and pure. Our descendants will walk the hillside of that future, innocent beneath the stars, with no more between them and their naked will than a wolf has. THEN there will be Gods in the Earth.

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