I’m reading Tom Segev’s One Palestine, Complete for my history class. It’s about the British Mandate years, and so far (60ish pages in) pretty good–he certainly doesn’t romanticize anybody, but he doesn’t strike me as unfair. I know he’s controversial in some circles, so it’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds.

Anyway, it seems that one tactic that the British used is this:

At sunset British planes would circle over concentrations of Turkish forces and drop opium cigarettes on them…The result: “On November 6 a high percentage of the Turkish army at Sheria and Gaza were drowsy and fuddled. Some of the prisoners taken were scarcely coherent and quite incapable of resistance.”

I continue not to be a fan of war and war-making, but as tactics go, I will hand it to the colonel who came up with that one: Stone ’em to death, or at least a nice, not-so-bloody defeat.

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