Ukraine Conflict: Sci Fi Cosplaying gone horribly wrong

[james_davis_nicoll]

People die as national policy is made by skiffy writers

Comments

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

The relevent graft:

Jerry Pournelle also told me that Leka, son of King Zog, was 7 feet tall.


Jerry should know because back in 1967, Jerry, Stefan Possony, and then-Crown Prince in Exile Leka (or Laika) organized an invasion of Albania by exiles to overthrow Communist dictator Enver Hoxha. King Hussein of Jordan agreed to provide air cover to wipe out the small Albanian air force to allow the invaders to cross the channel from Corfu, where they were training in the King Constantine of Greece's palace. Jerry spent a lot of time in Jordan training their pilots on how to pull off a sneak attack and wipe out the Albanian planes on the ground. Then, in June 1967, the Israelis pulled off their own sneak attack and wiped out the Jordanian air force on the ground, so the liberation of Albania had to be called off.

Decades later, Jerry met the President of Israel, Ezer Weizman, who had been in charge of the Israeli Air Force in 1967. Jerry explained how Weizman had wrecked his invasion of Albania. Weizman exclaimed to the effect that You were that foreigner who was training the Jordanians how to pull of a sneak attack? We thought you were a Russian training the Jordanians to attack us!

To fully unpack some of that; April 1967 is when the General's Coup ends up taking over Greece with the King's support in april, so we have muslim albanian royalist troops in fascist junta greece who are going to be supported by the jordanian airforce and all 20 of its aircraft*, on the eve of the six day war (also 1967), who themselves are being advised by a southern gentleman who can't fly a plane how to pull off low level interdiction strikes upon a warsaw pact country's airforce... with the added bonus that most of the jordanian airforce is made up of british made planes...

So open up the salt mines when considering that whole thing.

* note that Jordan as a country is landlocked and that israel, syria, lebanon and the mediterranean sea lie between jordan and albania.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Yes, the utter improbability of the account is the cherry on top of that sundae. Sailer believed Pournelle as uncritically as Heinlein believed Hubbard. If only Sailer weren't the mouthpiece for a white supremacist movement, it would be high-larious.

(I'm still trying to figure out Pournelle's alleged Republic of Estonia Award of Honor from 1968. Does the republic of Estonia know about this?)

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

There's a speck of truth in that, to the extent that during the Six Day War the Jordanian air force did attack Israel's Sirkin air base quite competently - whereupon the Israelis did the same trick right back on them, pretty much putting the RJAF out of the war.

Having said that, I'm not sure I'd hire Pournelle to train the Jordanian Navy...

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Also, Leka the Albanian Pretender was indeed supposed to be a big guy (though probably not as big as 7')

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, just a small correction: the April 1967 coup in Greece was done by the Colonels, not the the Generals -- in fact, there was a group of generals which was preparing a coup, but they were beaten to the point by their subordinates. However I agree that this sounds extremely unlikely to say the least.