With Britain unable to bring in reinforcements the rebels advance across the Libyan coast has been halted. With the exception of the Tajoora suburb government troops are in full control of the capital Tripoli and have pushed out into the surrounding area.
In Zuwarah they have retaken the suburbs without a shot being fired and have a small group of rebels surrounded in centre of town. The Libyan army claim that they are delaying moving into arrest this group because the rebels are armed with heavy weapons and the Libyan army want to avoid civilians being killed in any crossfire. In the meantime the government forces have surrounded Mistarah and are working their way through the suburbs where they have encountered armed resistance from the rebels. As government troops still hold a wide are around Sirte it is unlikely that the rebels in Zuwarah and Mistarah will be reinforced by their allies in Benghazi. Rebel forces are also reportedly attacking British military aircraft to prevent them from leaving.
However these developments do not mean that Britain has fully ended it's involvement in the Libyan rebellion. Firstly they have Mustafa Adbel-Jalil who has appointed himself leader of the government of "Free Libya" in the east of the country. Qaddafi's former Justice Minister, Adbel-Jalil is the sort of man who aspires to be a British puppet. After defecting he tried to find favour with the British by doing a series of interviews in which he claimed that Qaddafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. Although this is the sort of propaganda that Britain dreams of at the time they were still confident of a rapid military victory over Qaddafi so dismissed Adbel-Jalil and his claims because he had no evidence to support them. However with the rebel advance stalled the British are now looking towards Adbel-Jalil to see if they can present him to the world as a legitimate alternative to the Libyan government.
The second area where Britain has significant influence over the Libyan rebels is through the Libyan Youth Movement who have been very active posting false and incorrect information on the new media sites such as Twitter and Youtube. Although I don't think they know why they've been doing it they've started referring to government forces as "Loyalists." Ahead of the Republic of Ireland general election (25/02/11) this was a deliberate attempt by the British to invoke the language of the Northern Ireland Troubles where Irish Republicans like the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) fought groups loyal to the British Crown like the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). This was done to remind everyone that Qaddafi supported the IRA in an attempt to influence the outcome of the democratic election the the ROI.
Although the IRA were, at times, a brutal organisation, especially in their treatment of the INLA, Qaddafi's support for them is actually an important part of the history of the 20th century. Starting in the mid-1980's Qaddafi's support co-incided with the IRA changing their tactics to focus more on destroying buildings and economic targets rather then killing people. Eventually this forced the Loyalist paramilitaries to change their tactics too raising the moral tone of the entire conflict. Also the vast majority of what Qaddafi gave the IRA was never used. Instead it was stockpiled and it was when the British became aware of these stockpiles in the mid/late-1990's they realised that they couldn't defeat the IRA militarily opening the door to the Northern Irish peace process that Britain is currently trying to undo.
While the Libyan Youth Movement haven't mentioned it yet Qaddafi also supported Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC). It was this support that allowed the ANC to avoid falling into the Soviet Union's sphere of influence and by doing so remain tolerable to the USA during the Cold War leading, eventually, to the fall of apartheid in South Africa. Having said that the fact that the advance of the Libya rebels has led to something of an ethnic purge of black Africans from Libya helping to bring an end to apartheid is likely to count against Qaddafi in the eyes of many of the rebels.
Monday, 28 February 2011
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Big Mistake by the UN.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have today (27/2) concluded their emergency session into the situation in LIbya. It appears that they have been largely fooled by events of Saturday (26/2) where Britain made a big show of sending in special forces to remove 150 of the 450 oil workers that Britain has in the country.
This gave the UNSC the confidence to unanimously impose a resolution against Libya. The first part of this resolution is to refer the events in Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC). In Britain this is wrongly being reported as Qaddafi being reported to the ICC. This is not the case. What the ICC will do is investigate the atrocities that appear to have been committed in the east of the country to determine who committed them before pursuing criminal charges where appropriate. From what I've seen of the situation this is more likely to send shivers down the spines of the rebels because the loyalty of the army in the east of Libya was in doubt long before they formally came out against Qaddafi.
The second part of the resolution is more troubling. It freezes the international assets of Qaddafi and members of his inner circle and imposes travel bans that prevent them from leaving Libya. This is a serious problem because it removes the option for this to end with Qaddafi leaving Libya for a third country and leaves him with no option other then to fight to the death. At the moment the numbers of government and rebel forces in Libya are pretty evenly matched with the better trained and better equipped government forces seemingly holding a slight advantage. Now that they've been told that surrender is not an option they're going to have to fight back even harder increasing the chances of a prolonged and bloody conflict in Libya.
The third part of the resolution - an arms embargo on Libya - is designed to limit this conflict by stopping the supply of arms to both sides. Sadly experience of African arms embargoes teaches us that this will not work. All it will achieve is making sure that the people who will continue to supply arms to both sides will be the sort of people who have no ethical problem breaking a UN arms embargo. Also these embargoes normally do nothing to stop private security companies bringing in weapons to supply their staff. This increases the chances that the coming war in Libya will be a brutal war fought with small arms rather then a surgical war fought with strategic weapons.
The only positive, and why many in the UN felt comfortable voting for this resolution, is that Qaddafi and Libya have been subject to so many of these UNSC resolutions in the past that this stinker is likely to be ignored.
This gave the UNSC the confidence to unanimously impose a resolution against Libya. The first part of this resolution is to refer the events in Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC). In Britain this is wrongly being reported as Qaddafi being reported to the ICC. This is not the case. What the ICC will do is investigate the atrocities that appear to have been committed in the east of the country to determine who committed them before pursuing criminal charges where appropriate. From what I've seen of the situation this is more likely to send shivers down the spines of the rebels because the loyalty of the army in the east of Libya was in doubt long before they formally came out against Qaddafi.
The second part of the resolution is more troubling. It freezes the international assets of Qaddafi and members of his inner circle and imposes travel bans that prevent them from leaving Libya. This is a serious problem because it removes the option for this to end with Qaddafi leaving Libya for a third country and leaves him with no option other then to fight to the death. At the moment the numbers of government and rebel forces in Libya are pretty evenly matched with the better trained and better equipped government forces seemingly holding a slight advantage. Now that they've been told that surrender is not an option they're going to have to fight back even harder increasing the chances of a prolonged and bloody conflict in Libya.
The third part of the resolution - an arms embargo on Libya - is designed to limit this conflict by stopping the supply of arms to both sides. Sadly experience of African arms embargoes teaches us that this will not work. All it will achieve is making sure that the people who will continue to supply arms to both sides will be the sort of people who have no ethical problem breaking a UN arms embargo. Also these embargoes normally do nothing to stop private security companies bringing in weapons to supply their staff. This increases the chances that the coming war in Libya will be a brutal war fought with small arms rather then a surgical war fought with strategic weapons.
The only positive, and why many in the UN felt comfortable voting for this resolution, is that Qaddafi and Libya have been subject to so many of these UNSC resolutions in the past that this stinker is likely to be ignored.
Friday, 25 February 2011
More Gore.
For my sins I've been watching more videos from Libya. Most are too short and too low quality to be of any use. However there are four that I've seen so far that are interesting.
The first was filmed on a coastal road in Benghazi on the "Day of Rage", February 15th. It shows a large group of mainly young, unarmed protesters wandering about in the road. What I think has happened is that they been part of a protest march that has been turned back by an unseen police/army roadblock and are gradually making their way back from the way they've come. Then semi-automatic rifle shots can be heard and a figure in the crowd falls to the ground. As the camera operator moves closer you can see that it is a young man who has been shot through the head. Unfortunately you can't see whether the shot has come from the roadblock or from a sniper hiding in one of the surrounding buildings. However if I had to guess I would say that it is an aimed shot from the roadblock.
The second video also comes from February 15th and was filmed in a built up area that I assume was Benghazi. Again it shows a crowd of young people wandering around in the road. After the sound of gun shots the camera operator runs up to a young man who is lying on the ground after being shot in the shoulder. Amid the panic the man is given basic first aid before being bundled (alive) into a car and driven away. As this video doesn't show the moment the man was shot it is impossible to tell where it was fired from let alone who fired it. Based on the wound though my guess would be that it was fired by someone in the crowd, on ground level with a handgun. However it is impossible to say who that person was.
The third video is very short at only around 30 seconds long. It was filmed later in the week, February 17/18th and appears to be from Darnah. It shows two young men, teenagers really, armed with a semi-automatic pistol and a small sub-machine gun. They are hiding in an alleyway as they exchange fire with an unseen gunman hiding in the window of a near-by building. The video is too short to see how the exchange of fire ends.
The fourth video was filmed in the courtyard of a house in what I assume is Darnah on or around February 17/18th. It shows a group of five or six men examining the corpse of a sub-Saharan man who appears to have been one of the infamous mercenary snipers. As the man has been disarmed before being beaten/hacked to death by a mob I don't think he was a particularly well trained soldier if he received any military training at all. He is though wearing blue camouflage fatigues. These are Russian military surplus and have swamped the sub-Saharan market because they are dirt cheap. As they are urban pattern camouflage designed for use in the north-Caucasus they tend to be favoured by the police and armed security guards who work in towns and on industrial sites. By contrast Qaddafi's mercenaries tend to be better trained, drilled into conventional military units and better equipped with desert pattern camouflage. Therefore I would say that this guy was employed as an armed security guard for an oil company and had been shipped into Darnah by his company from either a Libyan oil field or from an oil field in a neighbouring country like Niger. Obviously it would have been nice to interview him or one of his colleagues but there are a lot of rumours about the rebels killing their prisoners and dumping their bodies in unmarked graves.
Meanwhile the United Nations are locked into a marathon session to debate a British and, to a lesser extent, French proposal for targeted economic sanctions, weapon import bans and no-fly zones against Libya. Although this sounds like a warm and cuddly attempt to keep the peace the British are really trying to make sure that Libya turns into a Democratic Republic of Congo style nightmare. The idea is that because British oil companies still have control of oil drilling sites in Libya they will be able to continue to pump oil out of the country amid the carnage.
The first was filmed on a coastal road in Benghazi on the "Day of Rage", February 15th. It shows a large group of mainly young, unarmed protesters wandering about in the road. What I think has happened is that they been part of a protest march that has been turned back by an unseen police/army roadblock and are gradually making their way back from the way they've come. Then semi-automatic rifle shots can be heard and a figure in the crowd falls to the ground. As the camera operator moves closer you can see that it is a young man who has been shot through the head. Unfortunately you can't see whether the shot has come from the roadblock or from a sniper hiding in one of the surrounding buildings. However if I had to guess I would say that it is an aimed shot from the roadblock.
The second video also comes from February 15th and was filmed in a built up area that I assume was Benghazi. Again it shows a crowd of young people wandering around in the road. After the sound of gun shots the camera operator runs up to a young man who is lying on the ground after being shot in the shoulder. Amid the panic the man is given basic first aid before being bundled (alive) into a car and driven away. As this video doesn't show the moment the man was shot it is impossible to tell where it was fired from let alone who fired it. Based on the wound though my guess would be that it was fired by someone in the crowd, on ground level with a handgun. However it is impossible to say who that person was.
The third video is very short at only around 30 seconds long. It was filmed later in the week, February 17/18th and appears to be from Darnah. It shows two young men, teenagers really, armed with a semi-automatic pistol and a small sub-machine gun. They are hiding in an alleyway as they exchange fire with an unseen gunman hiding in the window of a near-by building. The video is too short to see how the exchange of fire ends.
The fourth video was filmed in the courtyard of a house in what I assume is Darnah on or around February 17/18th. It shows a group of five or six men examining the corpse of a sub-Saharan man who appears to have been one of the infamous mercenary snipers. As the man has been disarmed before being beaten/hacked to death by a mob I don't think he was a particularly well trained soldier if he received any military training at all. He is though wearing blue camouflage fatigues. These are Russian military surplus and have swamped the sub-Saharan market because they are dirt cheap. As they are urban pattern camouflage designed for use in the north-Caucasus they tend to be favoured by the police and armed security guards who work in towns and on industrial sites. By contrast Qaddafi's mercenaries tend to be better trained, drilled into conventional military units and better equipped with desert pattern camouflage. Therefore I would say that this guy was employed as an armed security guard for an oil company and had been shipped into Darnah by his company from either a Libyan oil field or from an oil field in a neighbouring country like Niger. Obviously it would have been nice to interview him or one of his colleagues but there are a lot of rumours about the rebels killing their prisoners and dumping their bodies in unmarked graves.
Meanwhile the United Nations are locked into a marathon session to debate a British and, to a lesser extent, French proposal for targeted economic sanctions, weapon import bans and no-fly zones against Libya. Although this sounds like a warm and cuddly attempt to keep the peace the British are really trying to make sure that Libya turns into a Democratic Republic of Congo style nightmare. The idea is that because British oil companies still have control of oil drilling sites in Libya they will be able to continue to pump oil out of the country amid the carnage.
It Never Bahrains But it Pours.
In between Egypt's revolution and Libya's attempt at collective suicide there was another attempted uprising in the middle-east. In Bahrain protesters flocked into the capital's Pearl Square calling for the overthrow of Bahrain's monarchy. It was after it emerged that Pearl square was really just a roundabout things started getting weird.
Firstly there was a regional debate over whether the army should be used to police these middle-eastern protests. Most everyone agreed that it was a bad idea as it tends to make people more angry and make the protests bigger. The King of Bahrain then decided to send in the military to clear protesters from Pearl Square and in doing so open a dialogue with Britain over the Climate Camp movement.
Then there was a regional debate over the role that Marxist trade unions had played in the Egyptian uprising. Again most people agreed that it only increased the protests but then the King of Bahrain ordered his state sponsored trade union to issue a call out for protesters to return to Pearl Square. A few did and I believe they still remain there much like a few veterans of Britain's Democracy Village/Peacestrike remain in a depressing little camp outside Parliament square.
So, in short, the King of Bahrain was arranging the protests in his own country to gather intelligence on the good guys and make himself richer by creating instability in the middle east to drive up the oil price. The Libya situation was the British monarchy attempting to insulate itself against these price rises by stealing Libya's oil reserves.
I'm sorry I didn't mention this earlier but I didn't think the best way to calm down the protests was explaining to the protesters that the King of Bahrain can be a bit of an a**hole at times. It is important that the protests in Bahrain stop though because all the protesters are achieving at the moment is strengthening the King's position and I'm guessing that's the exact opposite of what they're trying to do.
Firstly there was a regional debate over whether the army should be used to police these middle-eastern protests. Most everyone agreed that it was a bad idea as it tends to make people more angry and make the protests bigger. The King of Bahrain then decided to send in the military to clear protesters from Pearl Square and in doing so open a dialogue with Britain over the Climate Camp movement.
Then there was a regional debate over the role that Marxist trade unions had played in the Egyptian uprising. Again most people agreed that it only increased the protests but then the King of Bahrain ordered his state sponsored trade union to issue a call out for protesters to return to Pearl Square. A few did and I believe they still remain there much like a few veterans of Britain's Democracy Village/Peacestrike remain in a depressing little camp outside Parliament square.
So, in short, the King of Bahrain was arranging the protests in his own country to gather intelligence on the good guys and make himself richer by creating instability in the middle east to drive up the oil price. The Libya situation was the British monarchy attempting to insulate itself against these price rises by stealing Libya's oil reserves.
I'm sorry I didn't mention this earlier but I didn't think the best way to calm down the protests was explaining to the protesters that the King of Bahrain can be a bit of an a**hole at times. It is important that the protests in Bahrain stop though because all the protesters are achieving at the moment is strengthening the King's position and I'm guessing that's the exact opposite of what they're trying to do.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Video Nasties.
Over the last few days I've been searching Youtube for videos of what has been going on in Libya. Most of what I've seen so far contains real life corpses and the actual moment in which real people have died. That means I won't be posting them up here because they are most certainly not suitable for work and remain as some of the most unpleasant things I've ever seen on the Internet.
Apart from that the main problem I've had is that I can't read Arabic so it would help me and everyone else in the digital community if when people upload videos to Youtube they include in the title the English name of the nearest city and the western date in the form dd/mm/yy. So for example;
"Benghazi24/02/11" "Darnah23/02/11" "Tripoli22/02/11" "Maradah21/02/11" etc.
One of the videos I have managed to see though is the famous one which shows anti-Qaddafi protesters being attacked by what are claimed to be Qaddafi's mercenaries. For me two things about this video stood out;
1. These men are not mercenaries in the sense that they are hired soldiers. They're weren't wearing any form of military dress and they were not armed with anything more dangerous then sticks and stones. In fact at one point you can see one of the anti-Qaddafi protesters shooting at them with a handgun. Most likely these men are migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa shipped in months ago to work on the oil fields as labourers and lowly security guards before being bussed into Benghazi by the oil companies.
2. They're wearing new yellow plastic construction helmets. I once famously appeared at an anti-government protest in London wearing a yellow plastic construction helmet. So I think the oil companies who unleashed these men on Benghazi gave them those helmets to give ordinary Libyans the idea that I am one of Qaddafi's mercenaries.
That is completely untrue because I am most certainly not getting paid for this. In fact by doing this I'm being forced to miss the cricket.
Apart from that the main problem I've had is that I can't read Arabic so it would help me and everyone else in the digital community if when people upload videos to Youtube they include in the title the English name of the nearest city and the western date in the form dd/mm/yy. So for example;
"Benghazi24/02/11" "Darnah23/02/11" "Tripoli22/02/11" "Maradah21/02/11" etc.
One of the videos I have managed to see though is the famous one which shows anti-Qaddafi protesters being attacked by what are claimed to be Qaddafi's mercenaries. For me two things about this video stood out;
1. These men are not mercenaries in the sense that they are hired soldiers. They're weren't wearing any form of military dress and they were not armed with anything more dangerous then sticks and stones. In fact at one point you can see one of the anti-Qaddafi protesters shooting at them with a handgun. Most likely these men are migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa shipped in months ago to work on the oil fields as labourers and lowly security guards before being bussed into Benghazi by the oil companies.
2. They're wearing new yellow plastic construction helmets. I once famously appeared at an anti-government protest in London wearing a yellow plastic construction helmet. So I think the oil companies who unleashed these men on Benghazi gave them those helmets to give ordinary Libyans the idea that I am one of Qaddafi's mercenaries.
That is completely untrue because I am most certainly not getting paid for this. In fact by doing this I'm being forced to miss the cricket.
Britain's Evacuating.
The British government has finally begun the process of evacuating its passport holders from Libya. This was meant to start yesterday (23/2) but the charter flight's take off from Gatwick airport was delayed "due to a technical fault." This entirely made up excuse was the Brits way of acknowledging to the international community that the situation in Libya is technically Britain's fault. It is important to remember that this was just an acknowledgement rather then an admission of guilt or an assurance that the faulty behaviour had ceased. It also served as a warning to the Libyan rebels that things are not going according to the Brits plan.
It is because of this plan that Britain has not moved sooner to rescue it's passport holders. The idea was that Britain would send a small force into the north-eastern tribal region of Libya in order to instigate an armed uprising. Britain would then use the plight of the British passport holders trapped in the fighting as leverage to get the international community to allow them to reinforce the small uprising with mercenaries and Royal Marine Commandos under the guise of a rescue mission. This is very similar to what Britain did at the start of the first Gulf war when British Airways (BA) chose to land a passenger jet in Kuwait several hours after Iraqi forces had invaded. The passengers were promptly taken prisoner by the Iraqis and used by the British as anti-Saddam propaganda in the run up to the war.
The Brits are currently liaising amongst themselves and the rebels to decide if they dare go ahead with a big assault without these reinforcements because Colonel Qaddafi had the good sense to use the early days of the conflict to wipe much of the rebels airfields, supply dumps and heavy armour.
It is because of this plan that Britain has not moved sooner to rescue it's passport holders. The idea was that Britain would send a small force into the north-eastern tribal region of Libya in order to instigate an armed uprising. Britain would then use the plight of the British passport holders trapped in the fighting as leverage to get the international community to allow them to reinforce the small uprising with mercenaries and Royal Marine Commandos under the guise of a rescue mission. This is very similar to what Britain did at the start of the first Gulf war when British Airways (BA) chose to land a passenger jet in Kuwait several hours after Iraqi forces had invaded. The passengers were promptly taken prisoner by the Iraqis and used by the British as anti-Saddam propaganda in the run up to the war.
The Brits are currently liaising amongst themselves and the rebels to decide if they dare go ahead with a big assault without these reinforcements because Colonel Qaddafi had the good sense to use the early days of the conflict to wipe much of the rebels airfields, supply dumps and heavy armour.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Baffling
This afternoon (23/2) some British news channels have started to admit that they've been able to get journalists into and high resolution video out of Benghazi in eastern Libya for the last three days. One of they things they've been showing is a small (approx 20 people) anti-Gaddafi protest that looked very much as if it had been posed for the camera. Amongst the protesters one man was carrying a sign which read, in English, "Free Libya" and next to him was a man carrying a sign, also in English, reading "Oil For the West."
This was such a strange sign for someone to be carrying at a demonstration I'm still trying to work out which one of two things was going through the man's mind. Either;
1. He thought he could get western support to overthrow Qaddafi by promising to sell Libya's oil to the west once Gaddafi was gone. What he probably didn't know is that Qaddafi was always going to sell oil to the west. The only argument is over to who exactly and how much they will be paying.
or
2. He knew all about the oil stuff and was holding up the sign to mock the anti-Gaddafi protesters.
So that guy is either a complete idiot or an absolute genius. I just can't decide which at the moment.
This was such a strange sign for someone to be carrying at a demonstration I'm still trying to work out which one of two things was going through the man's mind. Either;
1. He thought he could get western support to overthrow Qaddafi by promising to sell Libya's oil to the west once Gaddafi was gone. What he probably didn't know is that Qaddafi was always going to sell oil to the west. The only argument is over to who exactly and how much they will be paying.
or
2. He knew all about the oil stuff and was holding up the sign to mock the anti-Gaddafi protesters.
So that guy is either a complete idiot or an absolute genius. I just can't decide which at the moment.
Gaddafi's Speech.
Yesterday, February 22nd, Libyan leader, Colonel Qaddafi made his first major speech since serious unrest has started to grip the country. At a little over an hour long this was a short and concise speech by Gaddafi's standards. Apart from re-assuring the people that rumours about him having fled the country were false the main aim of the speech was to bring peace back to the country and if you look at what's going on in the country you can see why everyone thinks it's important for peace to return.
With the exception of some small, staged photo-opportunities all pre-text of political protest or a popular uprising has disappeared and been replaced with pro and anti-Gaddafi armed militia's engaging in street battles and destroying buildings. So far this sort of urban warfare is estimated to have killed 1000 people. The only positive about the situation is that the next few days could well be the peak of the violence because, in Tripoli at least, the anti-Qaddafi protesters seem to be shrinking in number and fragmenting while Qaddafi's supporters seem to be mobilising and organising to take their country back.
If that is the case it still leaves the problem that the unrest has caused Libya to become geographically split with government forces in control of the west of the country around the city of Tripoli while rebel forces are at their strongest in the east of the country around the city of Benghazi. It is this sort of geographic split that causes civil wars and leads to countries breaking apart. Therefore Britain is frantically lobbying the United Nations (UN) to step in an keep the peace although they have yet to call for a full military intervention. Even in a limited role I think this is the last thing the UN wants to do at the moment because intervening now would serve to formalise and strengthen a division that is currently fluid and subject to change. At best partitioning Libya in this way would lead to a Korean style stand-off and a refugee crisis. At worst it will give both sides time to re-group, re-arm and draw up proper battle plans before launching into a full on war. Sadly I think this might be exactly what Britain wants because it's talk of using military aircraft to force their way into Libya to rescue British nationals and it's choice to station a Royal Navy warship, HMS Cumberland, just outside Libyan waters while harassing the Libyan government with repeated requests to allow it to dock in Benghazi is surely the definition of gunboat diplomacy.
The only other interesting thing to come out of the Libya situation in recent days is that the Egyptians are reporting the Libyan government forces have abandoned their posts on the border between the two countries leaving that border open. This could be evidence that the Libyan government has all but lost control of the east of the country. Alternatively it could be evidence that they still have quite a lot of control in the area and have opened the border to allow Libyans to flee into Egypt to escape the fighting and allow journalists in from Egypt to investigate the atrocities that are rumoured to be going on in the area. At the moment any journalists attempting the journey have been turned back by rebel militias. To me that sounds odd because surely it can only help the rebels cause if they were able to show the world what they claim Gaddafi is doing to them.
With the exception of some small, staged photo-opportunities all pre-text of political protest or a popular uprising has disappeared and been replaced with pro and anti-Gaddafi armed militia's engaging in street battles and destroying buildings. So far this sort of urban warfare is estimated to have killed 1000 people. The only positive about the situation is that the next few days could well be the peak of the violence because, in Tripoli at least, the anti-Qaddafi protesters seem to be shrinking in number and fragmenting while Qaddafi's supporters seem to be mobilising and organising to take their country back.
If that is the case it still leaves the problem that the unrest has caused Libya to become geographically split with government forces in control of the west of the country around the city of Tripoli while rebel forces are at their strongest in the east of the country around the city of Benghazi. It is this sort of geographic split that causes civil wars and leads to countries breaking apart. Therefore Britain is frantically lobbying the United Nations (UN) to step in an keep the peace although they have yet to call for a full military intervention. Even in a limited role I think this is the last thing the UN wants to do at the moment because intervening now would serve to formalise and strengthen a division that is currently fluid and subject to change. At best partitioning Libya in this way would lead to a Korean style stand-off and a refugee crisis. At worst it will give both sides time to re-group, re-arm and draw up proper battle plans before launching into a full on war. Sadly I think this might be exactly what Britain wants because it's talk of using military aircraft to force their way into Libya to rescue British nationals and it's choice to station a Royal Navy warship, HMS Cumberland, just outside Libyan waters while harassing the Libyan government with repeated requests to allow it to dock in Benghazi is surely the definition of gunboat diplomacy.
The only other interesting thing to come out of the Libya situation in recent days is that the Egyptians are reporting the Libyan government forces have abandoned their posts on the border between the two countries leaving that border open. This could be evidence that the Libyan government has all but lost control of the east of the country. Alternatively it could be evidence that they still have quite a lot of control in the area and have opened the border to allow Libyans to flee into Egypt to escape the fighting and allow journalists in from Egypt to investigate the atrocities that are rumoured to be going on in the area. At the moment any journalists attempting the journey have been turned back by rebel militias. To me that sounds odd because surely it can only help the rebels cause if they were able to show the world what they claim Gaddafi is doing to them.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Well File Me Under Drunk
And leave me 'till morning. Because 00:50 (GMT) is about my bedtime puls 50 minutes.
Hey, Hey it's Tuesday
And just to confuse everyone I went to the gym today rather then on a Monday as I normally do. This was mainly done because so far my weekend has looked like this; Saturday: Drinking. Sunday: Drunk. Monday: Hungover. And yes cooking Sunday night dinner was definitely a chore but I was hoping I could sneak that past without anyone noticing.
However I have been fighting that Monday morning feeling by going to the pub for dinner. My steak was actually improved by the chef's attempt to make me vomit by marinating it in Weatherspoons secret, spicy sauce and the arrival of the two stunningly beautiful, Scandinavian, blond barmaids causing a glut of men around the bar which delayed my access to beer. Apart from that though no immediate problems have arisen and as you may have noticed this has left me getting increasingly more drunk so it's probably best not for me to deal with Libyan issues tonight although Britain's suggestion of sending in a warship is unlikely to calm things down.
I can't though let the day pass without mentioning New Zealand's earthquake. At around 00:50 (GMT) a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck New Zealand's second city of ChristChurch. Although a 6.3 earthquake is at the lower end of significant earthquakes this one struck at a very shallow depth of just 5 kilometres below the ground. As a result the majority of the explosive force was sent upwards towards the people and buildings. As many of these buildings had already been damaged by an earlier earthquake in September 2010 and significant aftershocks in December 2010 this earthquake made a right fucking mess with lots of destruction and, at current count, 65 dead plus at least 100 missing. New Zealand though is an economically developed country and a member of the Commonwealth so should be able to deal with this tragedy without me sticking my oar in and making matters much worse.
However I have been fighting that Monday morning feeling by going to the pub for dinner. My steak was actually improved by the chef's attempt to make me vomit by marinating it in Weatherspoons secret, spicy sauce and the arrival of the two stunningly beautiful, Scandinavian, blond barmaids causing a glut of men around the bar which delayed my access to beer. Apart from that though no immediate problems have arisen and as you may have noticed this has left me getting increasingly more drunk so it's probably best not for me to deal with Libyan issues tonight although Britain's suggestion of sending in a warship is unlikely to calm things down.
I can't though let the day pass without mentioning New Zealand's earthquake. At around 00:50 (GMT) a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck New Zealand's second city of ChristChurch. Although a 6.3 earthquake is at the lower end of significant earthquakes this one struck at a very shallow depth of just 5 kilometres below the ground. As a result the majority of the explosive force was sent upwards towards the people and buildings. As many of these buildings had already been damaged by an earlier earthquake in September 2010 and significant aftershocks in December 2010 this earthquake made a right fucking mess with lots of destruction and, at current count, 65 dead plus at least 100 missing. New Zealand though is an economically developed country and a member of the Commonwealth so should be able to deal with this tragedy without me sticking my oar in and making matters much worse.
Defence Systems Limited.
Formed in 1981 by the former second in command of Britain's elite Special Air Service (SAS) Defence Systems Limited (DSL) describe themselves as a Private Security Military Contractor (PSMC) which is a polite and legal way of saying that they provide mercenaries to anyone who wants to start a war. With their head office just across the road from Buckingham Palace they initially built their business providing security for the City of London Corporation which is just a trading name for the British Royal Family. DSL then began to expand their operations by working alongside infamous South African PSMC, Executive Outcomes. After Executive Outcomes were forced out of business due to legal issues and the fall of apartheid DSL emerged as the main supplier of military contractors to British Petroleum (BP).
This allowed DSL to expand their business throughout South America, the former USSR and South East Asia. Their main area of operations though is in sub-Saharan Africa where they've provided services to British oil and mining companies in countries like Nigeria, Uganda, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Niger. From their regional headquarters in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo they've been accused of providing mercenaries to all sides involved in the multitude of armed conflicts that have gripped the DRC since the early 1990's. However DSL's greatest hits if you like include;
It is also rumoured that DSL consultants have secretly been operating in Libya as part of the 2009 deal that BAE won to provide the Libyan military with communications equipment. If true this would allow DSL excellent access to the Libyan military establishment providing them with the opportunity to both "turn" key figures and send out false messages across the Libyan military communications networks.
This allowed DSL to expand their business throughout South America, the former USSR and South East Asia. Their main area of operations though is in sub-Saharan Africa where they've provided services to British oil and mining companies in countries like Nigeria, Uganda, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Niger. From their regional headquarters in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo they've been accused of providing mercenaries to all sides involved in the multitude of armed conflicts that have gripped the DRC since the early 1990's. However DSL's greatest hits if you like include;
- In 1984 they were accused of assisting Executive Outcomes in the massacre of MPLA rebels on behalf of UNITA rebels in Angola.
- In 1986 they were accused of attempting to assassinate the Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni on behalf Milton Obote's regime.
- In 1997 they were implicated in the other Sandline scandal when another British PSMC, Sandline were caught supplying mercenaries to the conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia that now form the basis of the Charles Taylor war crimes trial. Sandline were accused of supplying Taylor's opponents while DSL were accused of supporting him
- In 1998 the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning a Colombian subsidiary of DSL called Defence Systems Columbia (DSC) for funding, training and arming Colombian death squads.
It is also rumoured that DSL consultants have secretly been operating in Libya as part of the 2009 deal that BAE won to provide the Libyan military with communications equipment. If true this would allow DSL excellent access to the Libyan military establishment providing them with the opportunity to both "turn" key figures and send out false messages across the Libyan military communications networks.
Monday, 21 February 2011
Embarrassing.
Unbeknown to me European Union Foreign Ministers were meeting today. Officially the main item on agenda was meant to be problems that Bosnia and Serbia are still having some 22 years after their revolution. However the British foreign minister, William Hague tried to hijack the meeting to get the EU to issue a statement calling for Libya's Colonel Qadaffi to step down. As part of this diplomatic effort Hague claimed that he had clear information that Qadaffi had already fled the country and was heading for Venezuela.
It was a little embarrassing then when the Venezuelans announced that if Gadaffi was heading in their direction he certainly hadn't bothered to tell them. Then the UN Secretary General released a statement confirming that he had spoken to Gadaffi and he was most certainly still in Libya's capital, Tripoli. This forced Britain to announce that it would be removing their people from Libya which is both a sort of diplomatic signal of apology and a lie.
In the UK Libyan ex-pats are said to be planning a demonstration in London calling for the violence to stop. While they're in the capital they may want to pay a visit to the HQ of Defence Systems Limited who are BP's go to guys when they need some African locals massacred. Shell of course tend to use Integrated Risk Management Services.
It was a little embarrassing then when the Venezuelans announced that if Gadaffi was heading in their direction he certainly hadn't bothered to tell them. Then the UN Secretary General released a statement confirming that he had spoken to Gadaffi and he was most certainly still in Libya's capital, Tripoli. This forced Britain to announce that it would be removing their people from Libya which is both a sort of diplomatic signal of apology and a lie.
In the UK Libyan ex-pats are said to be planning a demonstration in London calling for the violence to stop. While they're in the capital they may want to pay a visit to the HQ of Defence Systems Limited who are BP's go to guys when they need some African locals massacred. Shell of course tend to use Integrated Risk Management Services.
Libya, Libya, Libya.
It would appear that over the weekend Libya has become the latest nation to fall victim to the revolutionary hysteria that is sweeping the middle-east. Although it's very difficult to find out what's true and what's just rumour it appears that events in Libya seem to be following the template laid out during Iran's failed Green Revolution.
It begins with foreign agitators encouraging political rivals of the existing leadership to get their supporters to mount small anti-government protests. In Libya's case this is being done by tribal warlords based around the north-eastern city of Banghazi. Then wild and unfounded rumours are circulated both about the size and success of these protests and the brutality the authorities have used to suppress the protests. In Iran these included entirely false claims that the Iranian army were using helicopters to attack protesters with chemical weapons and people, including news organisations like CNN and the BBC, trying to pass off stock footage of the 2008 Greek revolt as evidence that rioting was spreading across Iran. The idea is that these rumours will help spread small, localised protests across the country both by convincing people that there is more opposition to the government then there really is and by undermining the government and state run broadcasters by making it look like they're lying when they're really telling the truth. As a general rule the more extreme the rumours become then the less success the protests are actually having. In Libya this seems to be forcing the already heavily armed warlords to move away from a popular revolution in favour of an armed insurgency leading to the prospect of a Nigeria style civil war.
As to why Libya is experiencing this instability it's really quite simple and exactly the same reason why Nigeria experienced it. Libya has got lots of oil. Since Qaddafi has been bringing the country in from the diplomatic cold post-9/11 there has been increasing competition between western oil companies over who gets to profit from that oil. A few years ago British Petroleum (BP) thought they'd got an edge in that contest by helping to broker a deal between the Libyan and British government that saw the Lockerbie bomber released from prison early. However just as soon as al-Megrahi was released BP realised that Gaddafi had played them and had no intention of selling them oil rights. Therefore Britain is driving Libya's unrest in order to replace one Libyan dictator with another Libyan dictator who is more likely to do business with BP. In fact I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that the majority of those 300 or so supposed killed were actually oil company funded mercenaries shooting it out amongst themselves much like the do in Nigeria or Angola.
It begins with foreign agitators encouraging political rivals of the existing leadership to get their supporters to mount small anti-government protests. In Libya's case this is being done by tribal warlords based around the north-eastern city of Banghazi. Then wild and unfounded rumours are circulated both about the size and success of these protests and the brutality the authorities have used to suppress the protests. In Iran these included entirely false claims that the Iranian army were using helicopters to attack protesters with chemical weapons and people, including news organisations like CNN and the BBC, trying to pass off stock footage of the 2008 Greek revolt as evidence that rioting was spreading across Iran. The idea is that these rumours will help spread small, localised protests across the country both by convincing people that there is more opposition to the government then there really is and by undermining the government and state run broadcasters by making it look like they're lying when they're really telling the truth. As a general rule the more extreme the rumours become then the less success the protests are actually having. In Libya this seems to be forcing the already heavily armed warlords to move away from a popular revolution in favour of an armed insurgency leading to the prospect of a Nigeria style civil war.
As to why Libya is experiencing this instability it's really quite simple and exactly the same reason why Nigeria experienced it. Libya has got lots of oil. Since Qaddafi has been bringing the country in from the diplomatic cold post-9/11 there has been increasing competition between western oil companies over who gets to profit from that oil. A few years ago British Petroleum (BP) thought they'd got an edge in that contest by helping to broker a deal between the Libyan and British government that saw the Lockerbie bomber released from prison early. However just as soon as al-Megrahi was released BP realised that Gaddafi had played them and had no intention of selling them oil rights. Therefore Britain is driving Libya's unrest in order to replace one Libyan dictator with another Libyan dictator who is more likely to do business with BP. In fact I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that the majority of those 300 or so supposed killed were actually oil company funded mercenaries shooting it out amongst themselves much like the do in Nigeria or Angola.
Well That Went.
On Saturday (19/2) I went out for a drink with a friend and his girlfriend. We started off by watching the Man U V Crawley Town match at a pub in central Croydon. The rather spending the rest of the evening getting increasingly more drunk in that monument to binge drinking we decided to pretend to be all mature by going for a meal in a restaurant.
The problem was the restaurant was playing the old trick of slowing down the food service so the customers end up buying more drinks while they're waiting. This led to an atmosphere souring discussion about whether they seriously expected us to pay for service that bad and who would be affected if we didn't because you don't want to punish a waitress if it's a chef that's causing the problem.
This was eventually sorted out politely and equitably but we were so overwhelmed by the achingly middle class nature of the argument that we were forced to go to another pub to recover. There I was rewarded by being forced to down a quadruple brandy served with ice. This totally wiped me out and I think I'm still a little bit drunk now. So nearly a successful evening
The problem was the restaurant was playing the old trick of slowing down the food service so the customers end up buying more drinks while they're waiting. This led to an atmosphere souring discussion about whether they seriously expected us to pay for service that bad and who would be affected if we didn't because you don't want to punish a waitress if it's a chef that's causing the problem.
This was eventually sorted out politely and equitably but we were so overwhelmed by the achingly middle class nature of the argument that we were forced to go to another pub to recover. There I was rewarded by being forced to down a quadruple brandy served with ice. This totally wiped me out and I think I'm still a little bit drunk now. So nearly a successful evening
Saturday, 19 February 2011
Cairo's Communists
On Friday (18/2) hundreds of thousands of Egyptians gathered in Cairo's Tahrir square both to celebrate their revolution and to keep up the pressure for meaningful change in their country.
Sadly this has not been enough for some small groups who have been calling for even more protests in the last week. These have tended to be organised labour groups answering a call from western trade unions who have a broadly Marxist ideology. The funny thing is that from the 1960's up to the fall of the USSR Egypt was actually a closer ally of the Soviets then it was of the USA and there are still many reminders of that relationship alive in Egyptian society. These include Egypt's command economy where the government fixes the prices of everyday essentials like fuel, sugar and flour. It was the failure of this economic model that helped drive Egypt's revolution in the first place.
So you could argue that the people calling for further protests are actually being counter-revolutionary by fighting to put things back the way they were before. This is very similar to what happened in eastern Europe following the collapse of the USSR.
Starting with Poland in April 1989 the next seven months saw revolutions, counter-revolutions, coups, riots and crackdowns sweep across seven countries. The rapid pace of this change affecting so many people at the same time meant that no-one was able to bring proper and stable change to their country. This led to a very dark two decades for eastern Europe with countries like Ukraine and Bulgaria slipping into poverty and corruption while countries like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia violently broke apart amid civil war, genocide, UN peacekeeping missions and NATO bombing campaigns. Some people say that this chaos was orchestrated by the USA in order to break these Eastern European nations into small, easy to control parts and help Israel's campaign against the Palestinians.
So, to me, this current wave of protest that is sweeping across the middle east looks less like Arabs bravely fighting off US repression and more like poorly educated Arabs getting themselves killed in order to strengthen America's hold over the middle east which is a shame because I think we all know who dictates America's middle east policy.
Sadly this has not been enough for some small groups who have been calling for even more protests in the last week. These have tended to be organised labour groups answering a call from western trade unions who have a broadly Marxist ideology. The funny thing is that from the 1960's up to the fall of the USSR Egypt was actually a closer ally of the Soviets then it was of the USA and there are still many reminders of that relationship alive in Egyptian society. These include Egypt's command economy where the government fixes the prices of everyday essentials like fuel, sugar and flour. It was the failure of this economic model that helped drive Egypt's revolution in the first place.
So you could argue that the people calling for further protests are actually being counter-revolutionary by fighting to put things back the way they were before. This is very similar to what happened in eastern Europe following the collapse of the USSR.
Starting with Poland in April 1989 the next seven months saw revolutions, counter-revolutions, coups, riots and crackdowns sweep across seven countries. The rapid pace of this change affecting so many people at the same time meant that no-one was able to bring proper and stable change to their country. This led to a very dark two decades for eastern Europe with countries like Ukraine and Bulgaria slipping into poverty and corruption while countries like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia violently broke apart amid civil war, genocide, UN peacekeeping missions and NATO bombing campaigns. Some people say that this chaos was orchestrated by the USA in order to break these Eastern European nations into small, easy to control parts and help Israel's campaign against the Palestinians.
So, to me, this current wave of protest that is sweeping across the middle east looks less like Arabs bravely fighting off US repression and more like poorly educated Arabs getting themselves killed in order to strengthen America's hold over the middle east which is a shame because I think we all know who dictates America's middle east policy.
Friday, 18 February 2011
Look I Said Probably.
Yes I know it's been more like a couple hours then a couple of days since my last post but I forgot to mention something.
Recently I've been listening to a lot more music so when was on Amazon I was tempted to buy some new CD's but the BRITS prevented me. In fact after the Imelda May debacle I'm serious considering only listening to artists who I assume are already dead. So if someone can find a tactful way of explaining that to Diana Ross everything will be just fine.
Recently I've been listening to a lot more music so when was on Amazon I was tempted to buy some new CD's but the BRITS prevented me. In fact after the Imelda May debacle I'm serious considering only listening to artists who I assume are already dead. So if someone can find a tactful way of explaining that to Diana Ross everything will be just fine.
My Amazon Has Arrived.
I placed the order in the very early hours of Tuesday (15/2) and two thirds arrived on Wednesday (16/2) and the final third arrived on Thursday (17/2). The vast majority of what I brought was a film called "Serenity" and the second series of a US TV Show called "Dollhouse." These are both sort of sequels to the show "Firefly" so seeing as how I'd already taken the Sci-Fi hit I though I may as well fulfill the book. I don't know when I'm going to get time to watch them though because I've still got a box set of "The Pacific" sitting on a shelf gathering dust.
The third thing I brought was a low budget film that I've seen before called "Battle in Seattle." It tells the story of the N30 anti-WTO organisations in Seattle back in 1999. Even though it's a work of fiction it's actually a fairly accurate portrayal of the event even down to the toe-curlingly awful dialogue between the earnest activists. So if you don't know anything about the N30 protests this films actually quite a good place to start.
Now I know I may have offended some people by actually paying to watch these works but I've gone to the trouble of explaining to everyone what I'd brought so do you think Anonymous could leave Amazon alone this time?
Also this will probably be my last post for a couple of days because tomorrow I'm going out for a drink with a friend. There shouldn't be anything dramatic about this because it's just a social drink. In fact it would be a lot easier if I didn't have to fill out a movement order because maintaining normal social relationships is actually an essential part of my recovery.
The third thing I brought was a low budget film that I've seen before called "Battle in Seattle." It tells the story of the N30 anti-WTO organisations in Seattle back in 1999. Even though it's a work of fiction it's actually a fairly accurate portrayal of the event even down to the toe-curlingly awful dialogue between the earnest activists. So if you don't know anything about the N30 protests this films actually quite a good place to start.
Now I know I may have offended some people by actually paying to watch these works but I've gone to the trouble of explaining to everyone what I'd brought so do you think Anonymous could leave Amazon alone this time?
Also this will probably be my last post for a couple of days because tomorrow I'm going out for a drink with a friend. There shouldn't be anything dramatic about this because it's just a social drink. In fact it would be a lot easier if I didn't have to fill out a movement order because maintaining normal social relationships is actually an essential part of my recovery.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
A General Apology.
Here in the UK we have Channel 4 show called "10 o'clock Live." As the name suggest it goes out live on Channel 4 at around 22:00 every Thursday evening. If you'd seen it you would understand that this explains both why I'm a little bit late and why I've been watching DVD's all evening.
However the important thing to remember is that I am here and I will return tomorrow when I'm mildly less stoned.
However the important thing to remember is that I am here and I will return tomorrow when I'm mildly less stoned.
On Thursdays I Tend to Clean the Bathroom.
I haven't mentioned it before because quite frankly I'm thinking about something else whilst I'm doing it.
Today I've been thinking about these protests in Libya where they're trying to get rid of their leader, Colonel Gaddafi. I just need to check, this is the same Colonel Gaddafi who made the Brits look absolutely ridiculous during the release of the Lockerbie bomber? If it is then the Libyans probably want to hang on to him for a little while longer. After all if you believe the stories then that is a man who really knows how to organise a meeting.
Today I've been thinking about these protests in Libya where they're trying to get rid of their leader, Colonel Gaddafi. I just need to check, this is the same Colonel Gaddafi who made the Brits look absolutely ridiculous during the release of the Lockerbie bomber? If it is then the Libyans probably want to hang on to him for a little while longer. After all if you believe the stories then that is a man who really knows how to organise a meeting.
Yeah Probably and Important Detail.
The reason why I know that the building used as the exterior location for MI5 Headquarters in the TV show "Spooks" is actually Freemasons Central Hall in London is because my grandmother worked there as a cleaner for about 20 years. When you consider my grandfather's profession this should tell you something about the relationship between the British Crown and the international Freemason movement. The Senior Judge involved in the Court of Protection case was also pretty obviously a low level Freemason. So what he thought he was doing during that case was protecting the future of a property built by and therefore still owned by the Freemasons.
On a related topic one of the directors of the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT) is a Croydon based man named John Brewster. He played a central role in bringing the Pathways Housing Association and the Presentation Housing Association into the super-sized Notting Hill Housing Trust. In the late-1980's/early-1990's there was rumoured to be a prolific paedophile active in the Croydon area named John Brewster. Obviously John Brewster is a very common name so although they are of similar age there is no evidence that it's the same John Brewster. Likewise there's not even clear evidence to support the rumours about the paedophile John Brewster. However if you were aware of the NHHT John Brewster and the rumours about the paedophile John Brewster it would only be reasonable that you got confused.
On a related topic one of the directors of the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT) is a Croydon based man named John Brewster. He played a central role in bringing the Pathways Housing Association and the Presentation Housing Association into the super-sized Notting Hill Housing Trust. In the late-1980's/early-1990's there was rumoured to be a prolific paedophile active in the Croydon area named John Brewster. Obviously John Brewster is a very common name so although they are of similar age there is no evidence that it's the same John Brewster. Likewise there's not even clear evidence to support the rumours about the paedophile John Brewster. However if you were aware of the NHHT John Brewster and the rumours about the paedophile John Brewster it would only be reasonable that you got confused.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
So That Was the BRITs.
Less of an awards ceremony more of a field trip for students at the BRITs school of preforming arts based in, yes you've guessed it, Croydon. Apparently they meet critical mass on the trains at Clapham Junction and then continue to annoy people all the way to down Selhurst. Really I'm surprised that Croydon Courts haven't had to deal with more train related fatalities.
Speaking of which the most nominated artist was a guy called "Tiny Tempah." His break through single was called "Pass Out" and I'm certainly familiar with it because I had it played through the adjoining wall I share with the "henhouse" for about every day for two months. However if you look through the paperwork that I submitted to Croydon Magistrates Court you won't find it mentioned once. The henhouse is currently unoccupied with the human occupants apparently replaced electronic surveillance equipment.
Another big performer of the night was a guy called "Plan B." He took to the stage with some dancers dressed as hooligans and other dancers dressed as members of the Metropolitan Police's riot squad to stage a faux prison riot. Although this was mainly an attempt to insult the band known as "Take That" it's also worth a mention because the video for Plan B's first single, "She Said" was actually filmed at Croydon Crown Court.
The surprise of the night though was the appearance of the Canadian, female artist "Avril Lavigne." If you've ever broken into my house and rifled through my CD collection (no-one has today) you may have noticed that I have a copy of Avril Lavigne's album "Let Go." Sadly though it is only an empty CD case because I've never brought an Avril Lavigne CD and I've got no idea how it got there. God I miss drugs.
Apart from that I've been to the supermarket and brought some slippers before confirming that my grandmother is not yet dead. Now I intend to pretend to spend the next two hours reading up the latest news on the Internet but the sad fact is I'll probably just get drunk and fall asleep because surely a nineteen day week is enough to earn anyone a day off.
Speaking of which the most nominated artist was a guy called "Tiny Tempah." His break through single was called "Pass Out" and I'm certainly familiar with it because I had it played through the adjoining wall I share with the "henhouse" for about every day for two months. However if you look through the paperwork that I submitted to Croydon Magistrates Court you won't find it mentioned once. The henhouse is currently unoccupied with the human occupants apparently replaced electronic surveillance equipment.
Another big performer of the night was a guy called "Plan B." He took to the stage with some dancers dressed as hooligans and other dancers dressed as members of the Metropolitan Police's riot squad to stage a faux prison riot. Although this was mainly an attempt to insult the band known as "Take That" it's also worth a mention because the video for Plan B's first single, "She Said" was actually filmed at Croydon Crown Court.
The surprise of the night though was the appearance of the Canadian, female artist "Avril Lavigne." If you've ever broken into my house and rifled through my CD collection (no-one has today) you may have noticed that I have a copy of Avril Lavigne's album "Let Go." Sadly though it is only an empty CD case because I've never brought an Avril Lavigne CD and I've got no idea how it got there. God I miss drugs.
Apart from that I've been to the supermarket and brought some slippers before confirming that my grandmother is not yet dead. Now I intend to pretend to spend the next two hours reading up the latest news on the Internet but the sad fact is I'll probably just get drunk and fall asleep because surely a nineteen day week is enough to earn anyone a day off.
Sorry My Mistake
The BRIT music awards are actually being held tonight (15/2). I got confused. In recent years, following what can only be described as a series of unsavoury incidents, it was decided that the BRIT awards would be held on one night and then a pre-recorded, edited version would be shown on TV the following night. Obviously that has changed.
Or to put it another way; I'm back from the pub, everything is fine, I'm a little bit drunk and I've got some beers in so may the long descent into drunken insanity begin.
Or to put it another way; I'm back from the pub, everything is fine, I'm a little bit drunk and I've got some beers in so may the long descent into drunken insanity begin.
Monday, 14 February 2011
Great Now the Iranians Are at it (!)
While I've been giving myself a headache trying to stop Egypt being turned into yet another Israel/US client state some dumb Iranians have been trying to resuscitate their failed Green Revolution.
I should explain then that there was a reason why I left Iran of my list of middle eastern countries that shouldn't attempt an uprising. That's because I thought it was obvious that unrest in that country would only be good for one middle eastern nation and it isn't Iran.
Now do I really need to go a list every country from Morocco, across the Maghreb, round the Arab Peninsula and all the way back up to Turkey before the message starts to get across?
I should explain then that there was a reason why I left Iran of my list of middle eastern countries that shouldn't attempt an uprising. That's because I thought it was obvious that unrest in that country would only be good for one middle eastern nation and it isn't Iran.
Now do I really need to go a list every country from Morocco, across the Maghreb, round the Arab Peninsula and all the way back up to Turkey before the message starts to get across?
Egypt's Policing Problem.
In recent weeks the people of Egypt have risen up against their President and his despised state of emergency law. Ironically the revolution that it took to achieve this has placed Egypt in something of a state of emergency with the institutions that make up civil society suffering from temporary paralysis and the army on the streets to keep the peace.
This last part is a particular problem because the one thing that has come out of pretty much every peacekeeping mission the UN have undertaken is that an army is no good at acting as a civilian police force. Whenever they are forced to do so one of two things normally happens. Either you get incidents like the Bloody Sunday Massacre in Northern Ireland or the army is forced to adapt so much that it loses its aggressive edge and becomes ineffective as a fighting force. The Egyptian military leadership know this and therefore want to get off the streets and out of the policing role as quickly as possible.
That is going to be difficult to achieve because while the post-revolution euphoria is helping to control crime at the moment this won't last for ever and the Egyptian public's hatred of the police means that if they try to fill the vacuum it will only make matters worse. Egypt though does have a couple of things that will work in it's favour.
The first is that it has a large, conscript army. As always with a conscript army this has created something of a two tier system with a central core of highly motivated, highly trained professional soldiers who are in the army because they want to be and because they're good at it. Surrounding them you have less well motivated, less well trained conscripts who didn't really want to be in the army in the first place and are just counting the days until they can go home. There is also the military police who are trained and experienced in preforming a policing role within the confines of a military structure.
The second positive is that Egypt has a large and complicated police force. Very broadly speaking it can be divided between the Municipal police who deal with day to day crime and the Central Security Force (CSF) who handle riot control, surveillance and generally crushing political dissent. Annoyingly the CSF also seem to handle all of the police's communications and logistics which makes it more difficult to separate the two. While it's not really my place to say I think it is the CSF who draw the real hatred from the Egyptian public while the Municipal police are tolerated in much the same way the police are tolerated in any western society.
So what I would do if I was trying to solve the problem is to withdraw the highly trained "shock troops" from the streets as quickly as possible. I would then get the military police to supervise conscript units to carry out soft posture neighbourhood patrols. That means they drive through the streets and answer emergency calls in soft-skinned vehicles wearing berets and side arms rather then in armoured vehicles wearing body armour and assault rifles. This will buy time so the Municipal police can be sorted through to find out who enjoyed attacking the protesters out of political ideology and who was just doing what they were told in order to get a paycheck. Once the majority of the "bad apples" have been rooted out the Municipal police can start to carry out joint patrols with the army units and assuming there aren't and major problems the army can gradually be withdrawn and the Municipal police can be left to do the job themselves. This process could take up to six months so if possible it might be worth forming special units made up of soldiers who are coming towards the end of their time in the army as not to impact on the structure of the military too much. This also has the added advantage that a few of these soldiers might find they actually enjoy policing and therefore want to join the new police force full time when they leave the army.
Of course this still leaves the much more complicated task of what to do with the CSF. While I think it's an absolute that they need to be disbanded and have some of their duties phased out completely and others transferred to either the Municipal police or a new federal style police force as long as they're kept off the streets I wouldn't be in huge rush to do disband them. Apart from being a really complicated task that would take years in a western society the CSF are actually considered some of the best trained and most capable police forces amongst repressive regimes. That means it would be a good thing for Egypt if as much of that talent and training could be held onto once the worst offenders have either been fired or put in prison. In the meantime as many members of the Municipal police and the conscript units need to be put through the CSF's public order training program so they are able to use the available tactics and equipment to peacefully, safely and democratically police protests and disorder in the short term.
Obviously I've never even been to Egypt so this is only meant to be a (very) rough guide which will be added too by people who have more knowledge and experience of the specific situation in Egypt.
This last part is a particular problem because the one thing that has come out of pretty much every peacekeeping mission the UN have undertaken is that an army is no good at acting as a civilian police force. Whenever they are forced to do so one of two things normally happens. Either you get incidents like the Bloody Sunday Massacre in Northern Ireland or the army is forced to adapt so much that it loses its aggressive edge and becomes ineffective as a fighting force. The Egyptian military leadership know this and therefore want to get off the streets and out of the policing role as quickly as possible.
That is going to be difficult to achieve because while the post-revolution euphoria is helping to control crime at the moment this won't last for ever and the Egyptian public's hatred of the police means that if they try to fill the vacuum it will only make matters worse. Egypt though does have a couple of things that will work in it's favour.
The first is that it has a large, conscript army. As always with a conscript army this has created something of a two tier system with a central core of highly motivated, highly trained professional soldiers who are in the army because they want to be and because they're good at it. Surrounding them you have less well motivated, less well trained conscripts who didn't really want to be in the army in the first place and are just counting the days until they can go home. There is also the military police who are trained and experienced in preforming a policing role within the confines of a military structure.
The second positive is that Egypt has a large and complicated police force. Very broadly speaking it can be divided between the Municipal police who deal with day to day crime and the Central Security Force (CSF) who handle riot control, surveillance and generally crushing political dissent. Annoyingly the CSF also seem to handle all of the police's communications and logistics which makes it more difficult to separate the two. While it's not really my place to say I think it is the CSF who draw the real hatred from the Egyptian public while the Municipal police are tolerated in much the same way the police are tolerated in any western society.
So what I would do if I was trying to solve the problem is to withdraw the highly trained "shock troops" from the streets as quickly as possible. I would then get the military police to supervise conscript units to carry out soft posture neighbourhood patrols. That means they drive through the streets and answer emergency calls in soft-skinned vehicles wearing berets and side arms rather then in armoured vehicles wearing body armour and assault rifles. This will buy time so the Municipal police can be sorted through to find out who enjoyed attacking the protesters out of political ideology and who was just doing what they were told in order to get a paycheck. Once the majority of the "bad apples" have been rooted out the Municipal police can start to carry out joint patrols with the army units and assuming there aren't and major problems the army can gradually be withdrawn and the Municipal police can be left to do the job themselves. This process could take up to six months so if possible it might be worth forming special units made up of soldiers who are coming towards the end of their time in the army as not to impact on the structure of the military too much. This also has the added advantage that a few of these soldiers might find they actually enjoy policing and therefore want to join the new police force full time when they leave the army.
Of course this still leaves the much more complicated task of what to do with the CSF. While I think it's an absolute that they need to be disbanded and have some of their duties phased out completely and others transferred to either the Municipal police or a new federal style police force as long as they're kept off the streets I wouldn't be in huge rush to do disband them. Apart from being a really complicated task that would take years in a western society the CSF are actually considered some of the best trained and most capable police forces amongst repressive regimes. That means it would be a good thing for Egypt if as much of that talent and training could be held onto once the worst offenders have either been fired or put in prison. In the meantime as many members of the Municipal police and the conscript units need to be put through the CSF's public order training program so they are able to use the available tactics and equipment to peacefully, safely and democratically police protests and disorder in the short term.
Obviously I've never even been to Egypt so this is only meant to be a (very) rough guide which will be added too by people who have more knowledge and experience of the specific situation in Egypt.
Sunday, 13 February 2011
I Smell Awards.
In Britain the BAFTA film awards have just finished and in the USA the Grammy music awards will shortly begin. Then tomorrow there is the BRITS music awards and the Oscars are on February 28th. The Haitians have very sensibly moved the second part of their Presidential election to March.
As for me I'm fine.
As for me I'm fine.
Egyptian Friction
Today (13/2) the traditional start of the Egyptian working week has seen clashes between protesters and the Egyptian military as soldiers attempted to clear demonstrators out of Tahrir square. The level of violence used by either side was so low that if it had taken place at a British football match I probably wouldn't even bother to mention it.
The problem the protesters have is that although Mubarak has resigned very little has actually changed. The state of emergency is still in effect, the government and civil service are still packed with member's of Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Mubarak appointed Prime Minister has started to make worrying statements about the need to restore "order" and "security" to Egypt rather then the more democratic values of "peace" and "stability." This creates the fear amongst the demonstrators that as soon as the protests end Egypt will fall back to the way it was only with Suleiman as dictator rather then Mubarak. The military could help to reduce this fear by explaining the details of how they are going to turn Egypt into a democratic nation. I think it's still too early to start fixing dates and setting rigid timetables but the military should certainly open a dialogue with the Egyptian people over the problems it has with electing a new Parliament and amending the constitution such as the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and what safeguards can be but in place to solve those problems such as a separation of Church (or Mosque) and State or a cap on the number of seats any one party can hold in Parliament.
The problems facing the military are probably even more complicated. Their first problem is that they're the military. This means that there is nothing in their culture or training that prepares them for policing a civilian population or running a democratic society. So they're being forced to learn just like everybody else in Egypt is being forced to learn. The military's second problem is one of security and secrecy. What they are being asked to do is completely re-form the very core of the Egyptian state under the full glare of the World's media and the ever watchful eyes of their regional rivals. This is the sort of thing that makes people involved in military intelligence cry. It's just my personal opinion but the extraordinary nature of the situation means that it may be worth turning traditional doctrine upside down. Already there is Israeli, American and Islamist involvement in the situation in Egypt and the European Union and the United Nations are expected to get involved soon. Rather then trying to manage all these conflicting influences within secret committees it might be worth making the process as open as possible by using a Parliamentary system so the scrutiny of ordinary Egyptians helps to keep all these outsiders honest.
The third major problem the Egyptian military has is that the disruption caused by the protests in terms of strikes, days of lost business, blocked roads and travel bans keeping tourists away is costing Egypt and estimated US$200million per day. If this carries on for much longer it won't matter what sort of government Egypt has because the entire country will be bankrupt.
Therefore rather then trying to silence the protesters the military is trying to break up the demonstrations so the roads can be re-opened, people can get to work and the travel bans can be lifted. Although I think the historic nature of what is going on in Egypt is actually more likely to attract tourist then deter them the protesters can help the military with this problem by limiting their big protests to once a week on Friday's and restricting the protest camp in Tahrir square to the grassy, pedestrian areas rather then the roads. This compromise will allow Tahrir square to continue to act as a focal point for the revolution which is important in maintaining momentum while still allowing people to go about their day to day business.
The problem the protesters have is that although Mubarak has resigned very little has actually changed. The state of emergency is still in effect, the government and civil service are still packed with member's of Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Mubarak appointed Prime Minister has started to make worrying statements about the need to restore "order" and "security" to Egypt rather then the more democratic values of "peace" and "stability." This creates the fear amongst the demonstrators that as soon as the protests end Egypt will fall back to the way it was only with Suleiman as dictator rather then Mubarak. The military could help to reduce this fear by explaining the details of how they are going to turn Egypt into a democratic nation. I think it's still too early to start fixing dates and setting rigid timetables but the military should certainly open a dialogue with the Egyptian people over the problems it has with electing a new Parliament and amending the constitution such as the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and what safeguards can be but in place to solve those problems such as a separation of Church (or Mosque) and State or a cap on the number of seats any one party can hold in Parliament.
The problems facing the military are probably even more complicated. Their first problem is that they're the military. This means that there is nothing in their culture or training that prepares them for policing a civilian population or running a democratic society. So they're being forced to learn just like everybody else in Egypt is being forced to learn. The military's second problem is one of security and secrecy. What they are being asked to do is completely re-form the very core of the Egyptian state under the full glare of the World's media and the ever watchful eyes of their regional rivals. This is the sort of thing that makes people involved in military intelligence cry. It's just my personal opinion but the extraordinary nature of the situation means that it may be worth turning traditional doctrine upside down. Already there is Israeli, American and Islamist involvement in the situation in Egypt and the European Union and the United Nations are expected to get involved soon. Rather then trying to manage all these conflicting influences within secret committees it might be worth making the process as open as possible by using a Parliamentary system so the scrutiny of ordinary Egyptians helps to keep all these outsiders honest.
The third major problem the Egyptian military has is that the disruption caused by the protests in terms of strikes, days of lost business, blocked roads and travel bans keeping tourists away is costing Egypt and estimated US$200million per day. If this carries on for much longer it won't matter what sort of government Egypt has because the entire country will be bankrupt.
Therefore rather then trying to silence the protesters the military is trying to break up the demonstrations so the roads can be re-opened, people can get to work and the travel bans can be lifted. Although I think the historic nature of what is going on in Egypt is actually more likely to attract tourist then deter them the protesters can help the military with this problem by limiting their big protests to once a week on Friday's and restricting the protest camp in Tahrir square to the grassy, pedestrian areas rather then the roads. This compromise will allow Tahrir square to continue to act as a focal point for the revolution which is important in maintaining momentum while still allowing people to go about their day to day business.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Algeria, Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Following the momentous events in Tunisia and Egypt there are no doubt people in these and other middle eastern countries who think that they too can rise up and overthrow their rulers. I cannot overstate how wrong these people are.
While the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were undoubtedly created and carried out by the protesters themselves for them to become the success they are they had to rely on the help and support of a wide variety of people in all walks of life from across the world. The speed of change and the complexity of the situations, especially in Egypt have stretched a lot of these people close to breaking point and left many exhausted. I personally feel as though I've shortened my life by ten years and am having nightmares about Yemen. That means that if there are any further uprisings in the near future they are unlikely to receive anywhere near the same level of support and therefore much more likely to end in bloody failure.
Also the revolutions in the Tunisia and Egypt are far from complete. Despite all the victories they've won without the skill, hard work, vigilance and patience of their people these revolutions can still end in spectacular failure. In fact the uprising in Egypt served to distract many Tunisians from their own revolution leading to some sporadic outbreaks of disorder and some issues arising over the future direction the new Tunisian government might take. So please no more uprisings until everybody has had the chance to catch their breath and solidify the progress that has already been made.
While the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were undoubtedly created and carried out by the protesters themselves for them to become the success they are they had to rely on the help and support of a wide variety of people in all walks of life from across the world. The speed of change and the complexity of the situations, especially in Egypt have stretched a lot of these people close to breaking point and left many exhausted. I personally feel as though I've shortened my life by ten years and am having nightmares about Yemen. That means that if there are any further uprisings in the near future they are unlikely to receive anywhere near the same level of support and therefore much more likely to end in bloody failure.
Also the revolutions in the Tunisia and Egypt are far from complete. Despite all the victories they've won without the skill, hard work, vigilance and patience of their people these revolutions can still end in spectacular failure. In fact the uprising in Egypt served to distract many Tunisians from their own revolution leading to some sporadic outbreaks of disorder and some issues arising over the future direction the new Tunisian government might take. So please no more uprisings until everybody has had the chance to catch their breath and solidify the progress that has already been made.
Friday, 11 February 2011
Surely This Was Obvious.
In a land long ago under the Presidency of George W Bush the big, bad CIA engaged in a practice known as "Extraordinary Rendition." This involved capturing enemy combatants (mainly Muslims) and transporting them to a third location for interrogation. The weak ones broke under the enhanced techniques at Guantanamo Bay while the slightly tougher ones had to be flown to secret prisons in various Eastern European nations. The really tough ones though were sent to Egypt where they were dealt with by Omar Suleiman's intelligence service and according to some reports Suleiman himself personally took part in a few of the torture sessions.
So far before the Palestine Papers were released Omar Suleiman was deeply unpopular amongst Egyptians. In fact you could say that Mubarak only appointed him as vice-President in order to enrage the protesters further. In short that means that the longer that the CIA continue to back Suleiman the less and less likely it becomes that Egypt will experience an orderly transition of power.
Now if you need further evidence of how badly the Americans totally failed to organise the current situation in Egypt then the sad fact is that they hadn't even bothered to update their contingency plan since Bush left.
And yes the above is the post that the Mubarak regime were hoping would save them. The idea was that if they could cling on to power long enough they would provoke me into starting a loud and massive argument between the American establishment. Once their Zionist allies have received this intelligence boost they would reward the NDP by keeping them in power. I'm not sure how that was meant to happen and I really don't know why the CIA were so keen on the idea.
Now I would like to dedicate the rest of this post to the late, great Leslie Nielsen but given the crash at Cork airport I thought that might cause too many problems around Tahrir square and really is it not time for you to go to bed for now?
So far before the Palestine Papers were released Omar Suleiman was deeply unpopular amongst Egyptians. In fact you could say that Mubarak only appointed him as vice-President in order to enrage the protesters further. In short that means that the longer that the CIA continue to back Suleiman the less and less likely it becomes that Egypt will experience an orderly transition of power.
Now if you need further evidence of how badly the Americans totally failed to organise the current situation in Egypt then the sad fact is that they hadn't even bothered to update their contingency plan since Bush left.
And yes the above is the post that the Mubarak regime were hoping would save them. The idea was that if they could cling on to power long enough they would provoke me into starting a loud and massive argument between the American establishment. Once their Zionist allies have received this intelligence boost they would reward the NDP by keeping them in power. I'm not sure how that was meant to happen and I really don't know why the CIA were so keen on the idea.
Now I would like to dedicate the rest of this post to the late, great Leslie Nielsen but given the crash at Cork airport I thought that might cause too many problems around Tahrir square and really is it not time for you to go to bed for now?
Mubarak Has Gone.
After thirty years of rule and 18 days of protest the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down from office. He has now left Cairo and is looking forward to a quiet retirement in the resort town of Sharm el-Shiekh.
The only small problem is that rather then following the Egyptian constitution and handing power to the Parliamentary speaker Mubarak has instead passed power to the military, led by vice-President Omar Suleiman who has become known as the CIA's torturer in chief. This means that it is very difficult to argue that Egypt's regime has changed and it's days as a military dictatorship are over.
However for now this is only a small problem because it is still very early days and this is probably the first time in the last thirty years when Egypt has actually been in a state of emergency. So for tonight at least I think Tahrir square is going to been the scene of the worlds largest party.
The only small problem is that rather then following the Egyptian constitution and handing power to the Parliamentary speaker Mubarak has instead passed power to the military, led by vice-President Omar Suleiman who has become known as the CIA's torturer in chief. This means that it is very difficult to argue that Egypt's regime has changed and it's days as a military dictatorship are over.
However for now this is only a small problem because it is still very early days and this is probably the first time in the last thirty years when Egypt has actually been in a state of emergency. So for tonight at least I think Tahrir square is going to been the scene of the worlds largest party.
Anarchists to Ruin Royal Wedding.
On the one day when i didn't get time to buy a newspaper The Sun newspaper ran this story as a front page exclusive. Apparently they'd infiltrated a top secret meeting of British anarchists and uncovered plans to ruin April's Royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. Proving that you can't always believe what you read in the papers the Sun's reporting was very different from the accounts I've heard of the same meeting.
As you may have noticed Britain is in a very difficult financial position with earnings and livings standards falling at rates not seen since the 1920's - a period in British economic history where things got so bad the great depression of the 1930's was actually considered a marked improvement. As a result protests and widespread civil unrest is expected. In order to monitor and control this unrest Britain's security service, MI5 have set up an organisation known as "Network X" to suck in those who may have been radicalised by November's "Day X" student protests. Network X held it's second open, public meeting in Manchester about a month ago. Most of those in attendance were undercover police officers and members of front organisations like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) along with a few students and people associated with Climate Camp. However some of the larger anarchist groups did send low level delegations to the meeting.
The keynote speaker at the event was a man called Chris Knight who you may remember as the organiser of the London G20 kettle and the man who brought you the 2010 Democracy Village which helped engineer the coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Mr Knight used his speech to outline a frankly ridiculous plan to disrupt the Royal wedding. The main idea was that a week before the wedding groups of protesters would storm and occupy key strategic locations including the Royal Courts of Justice, several central London police stations and the Wellington Army Barracks located next to Buckingham Palace. Then assuming that the defeat of the British army within it's own capital city didn't mean that the Royal wedding was cancelled further groups of protesters would hide amongst the crowds only to spring out and block the path of the Royal convoy with barricades and smoke bombs before storming Westminster Abbey.
After a period of consensus based, non-hierarchical decision making and, quite frankly, giggling the anarchists announced that they would be prepared to help Mr Knight's plan by organising a protest featuring over 100 naked prostitutes danced around and giant penis. This is of course a creative and polite way of saying that Chris Knight is a massive cock. He started his career as part of the governments university counter-extremism screening program and when the economic crisis struck he got promoted into organising protests that serve the state's anti-protest agenda. The most depressing part of his story is that he doesn't even get paid for his work because the boost he gets to his tiny little ego is reward enough for him.
As you may have noticed Britain is in a very difficult financial position with earnings and livings standards falling at rates not seen since the 1920's - a period in British economic history where things got so bad the great depression of the 1930's was actually considered a marked improvement. As a result protests and widespread civil unrest is expected. In order to monitor and control this unrest Britain's security service, MI5 have set up an organisation known as "Network X" to suck in those who may have been radicalised by November's "Day X" student protests. Network X held it's second open, public meeting in Manchester about a month ago. Most of those in attendance were undercover police officers and members of front organisations like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) along with a few students and people associated with Climate Camp. However some of the larger anarchist groups did send low level delegations to the meeting.
The keynote speaker at the event was a man called Chris Knight who you may remember as the organiser of the London G20 kettle and the man who brought you the 2010 Democracy Village which helped engineer the coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Mr Knight used his speech to outline a frankly ridiculous plan to disrupt the Royal wedding. The main idea was that a week before the wedding groups of protesters would storm and occupy key strategic locations including the Royal Courts of Justice, several central London police stations and the Wellington Army Barracks located next to Buckingham Palace. Then assuming that the defeat of the British army within it's own capital city didn't mean that the Royal wedding was cancelled further groups of protesters would hide amongst the crowds only to spring out and block the path of the Royal convoy with barricades and smoke bombs before storming Westminster Abbey.
After a period of consensus based, non-hierarchical decision making and, quite frankly, giggling the anarchists announced that they would be prepared to help Mr Knight's plan by organising a protest featuring over 100 naked prostitutes danced around and giant penis. This is of course a creative and polite way of saying that Chris Knight is a massive cock. He started his career as part of the governments university counter-extremism screening program and when the economic crisis struck he got promoted into organising protests that serve the state's anti-protest agenda. The most depressing part of his story is that he doesn't even get paid for his work because the boost he gets to his tiny little ego is reward enough for him.
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Pedantry Alert.
There is an important difference between a military coup and a military mutiny.
In a military coup the military conspires amongst itself and then tries to impose it's will on the people. If you believe the rumours about Sadat's assassination this is how Mubarak came to power in Egypt in the first place. In a military mutiny however the public conspire amongst themselves and then the military impose the will of the people on an unpopular or illegitimate leader.
What is happening in Egypt at the moment is a mutiny with broadly two camps in the military. One camp which simply wishes to overthrow Mubarak and another camp which wishes to overthrow Mubarak and replace him with Suleiman because that's the CIA's choice.
The problem I have is that Mubarak has so badly lost his grip on reality he doesn't know that's going on. Instead he thinks that if he can trick me into some complicated mind game his British allies will reward him by helping him break the protests and allow him to stay in power after September. Obviously this makes it very difficult for me to post about the situation in Egypt or indeed anything else because today I posted about my problems with British Gas and Mubarak assumed that something to do with him.
So basically what I'm saying is that regardless of what I may or may not post tomorrow it's all down to the Egyptian people
In a military coup the military conspires amongst itself and then tries to impose it's will on the people. If you believe the rumours about Sadat's assassination this is how Mubarak came to power in Egypt in the first place. In a military mutiny however the public conspire amongst themselves and then the military impose the will of the people on an unpopular or illegitimate leader.
What is happening in Egypt at the moment is a mutiny with broadly two camps in the military. One camp which simply wishes to overthrow Mubarak and another camp which wishes to overthrow Mubarak and replace him with Suleiman because that's the CIA's choice.
The problem I have is that Mubarak has so badly lost his grip on reality he doesn't know that's going on. Instead he thinks that if he can trick me into some complicated mind game his British allies will reward him by helping him break the protests and allow him to stay in power after September. Obviously this makes it very difficult for me to post about the situation in Egypt or indeed anything else because today I posted about my problems with British Gas and Mubarak assumed that something to do with him.
So basically what I'm saying is that regardless of what I may or may not post tomorrow it's all down to the Egyptian people
The Ego Has Landed !
For the past 17 days the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has faced unprecedented protests calling for him to leave power. After 7 days the size and scale of these demonstrations forced him to announce that he would be stepping down in September in the hope that this would be enough the quell the protests.
Since then the protests have become larger, more frequent and more widespread across the country and hundreds of demonstrators have been killed or disappeared. Both Egypt's currency and credit rating have collapsed forcing Mubarak to close the country's stock market to prevent investors pulling all their money out of the country. Egypt is estimated to be losing US$200million for every day that Mubarak remains in power.
Today (10/2) this prompted sections of the Egyptian military to do their duty by the constitution and protect the country by mutinying. This forced Mubarak to flee to Sharm-el-Shiekh while the commanders of the Egyptian military held a meeting. At this meeting the leaders of the Egyptian military appear to have supported the mutiny and announced that Mubarak would be addressing the nation at 20:00 GMT presumably to announce his resignation. 20:00 GMT came and went with no sign of Mubarak but by 21:00 a pre-recorded message was shown in which Mubarak announced that everything was fine and he will be staying in power until September. Although with large sections of the military now against him I'm not sure how he's going to do that.
So it would appear that yes Mubarak is taking his cue from ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story Gordon Brown was overwhelmingly told to leave by the British people in March 2009. However rather then leaving with dignity he clung on to power until he was constitutional forced to hold a General Election in May 2010 and although it was clear that he'd lost that election he still refused to go until almost two weeks later.
He is now so hated in British politics that he is unable to show his face in public even though he is still, technically, an elected MP.
Since then the protests have become larger, more frequent and more widespread across the country and hundreds of demonstrators have been killed or disappeared. Both Egypt's currency and credit rating have collapsed forcing Mubarak to close the country's stock market to prevent investors pulling all their money out of the country. Egypt is estimated to be losing US$200million for every day that Mubarak remains in power.
Today (10/2) this prompted sections of the Egyptian military to do their duty by the constitution and protect the country by mutinying. This forced Mubarak to flee to Sharm-el-Shiekh while the commanders of the Egyptian military held a meeting. At this meeting the leaders of the Egyptian military appear to have supported the mutiny and announced that Mubarak would be addressing the nation at 20:00 GMT presumably to announce his resignation. 20:00 GMT came and went with no sign of Mubarak but by 21:00 a pre-recorded message was shown in which Mubarak announced that everything was fine and he will be staying in power until September. Although with large sections of the military now against him I'm not sure how he's going to do that.
So it would appear that yes Mubarak is taking his cue from ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story Gordon Brown was overwhelmingly told to leave by the British people in March 2009. However rather then leaving with dignity he clung on to power until he was constitutional forced to hold a General Election in May 2010 and although it was clear that he'd lost that election he still refused to go until almost two weeks later.
He is now so hated in British politics that he is unable to show his face in public even though he is still, technically, an elected MP.
The British Gas Saga.
Both my father and grandmother have maintenance contracts with British Gas to service their gas boilers, central heating systems, hot water systems and gas fires.
On Tuesday, February 1st they both had their annual service and safety inspections done and both passed without any problem. That night the gas tap on my grandmother's tap failed open, filling her house with poisonous and highly explosive natural gas. Luckily she was mentally aware enough to notice the problem and after some 3AM drama the gas supply was turned off, the windows were opened and disaster was averted. The next day another British Gas engineer turned up, replaced the faulty parts and got everything working again. Now the gas fire in question is quite old so I can't definitively say it was sabotaged but the fact it was certified as safe just 11 hours earlier doesn't look good does it.
Then on Tuesday, February 8th the boiler in my father's house stopped working meaning no hot water and no heat. A third British Gas engineer came out that same day, re-started the boiler and told my father there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. 90 minutes later it stopped working again. This meant a fourth British Gas engineer came round on Wednesday, February 9th and after he'd taken the boiler to bits and called in a fifth engineer with a replacement part he got it working again and it is still working now. The once we'd found a way to make sure the kitchen was kept nice and warm the refrigerator broke spoiling all the food and forcing us to buy a new one. So this week has mostly been taken up with grumbling and swearing.
Oh and reports that Hosni Mubarak has hired ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to plan his exit strategy cannot be confirmed at this time.
On Tuesday, February 1st they both had their annual service and safety inspections done and both passed without any problem. That night the gas tap on my grandmother's tap failed open, filling her house with poisonous and highly explosive natural gas. Luckily she was mentally aware enough to notice the problem and after some 3AM drama the gas supply was turned off, the windows were opened and disaster was averted. The next day another British Gas engineer turned up, replaced the faulty parts and got everything working again. Now the gas fire in question is quite old so I can't definitively say it was sabotaged but the fact it was certified as safe just 11 hours earlier doesn't look good does it.
Then on Tuesday, February 8th the boiler in my father's house stopped working meaning no hot water and no heat. A third British Gas engineer came out that same day, re-started the boiler and told my father there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. 90 minutes later it stopped working again. This meant a fourth British Gas engineer came round on Wednesday, February 9th and after he'd taken the boiler to bits and called in a fifth engineer with a replacement part he got it working again and it is still working now. The once we'd found a way to make sure the kitchen was kept nice and warm the refrigerator broke spoiling all the food and forcing us to buy a new one. So this week has mostly been taken up with grumbling and swearing.
Oh and reports that Hosni Mubarak has hired ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to plan his exit strategy cannot be confirmed at this time.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Unbelieveable!
No not the fact that it's a Tuesday night and I've come back from the pub, a little bit drunk, to discover that everything is OK. Instead it is today that once again the momentous event of me having my haircut has once again occurred. While it was a severe haircut I'm not going to tell you where I had it done for a reason that is about to become immediately obvious.
According to the gossip since my last visit one of the women who works in the salon has picked up her very own stalker. Apparently some middle-aged man has been following her about and loitering outside her children's school. The local police have been informed but as usual don't appear to be making any progress. Now like bar staff hairdressing is one of those professions where some customer's can get a little bit confused about the social boundary between staff and customer so this might have absolutely nothing to do with me. However it is also possible that someone in the council has got some weirdo to terrorise this woman in order to start the rumour that I've got someone to intimidate her in revenge for her giving me a bad haircut. Although I would dispute the fact that she's ever given me a bad haircut I'm the sort of man who will walk home caked in his own vomit so I think it's fair to say that a bad haircut is not the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me.
In related news British Telecom (BT) have removed the telegraph pole outside my house. Officially this has been done due to some "new technical specifications" however I think it was done because the pole was blocking the sight line from my grandmother's house to the council spy living across the road. Also we've been going through another episode of the long saga with the British Gas maintenance engineers. The next episode is coming tomorrow morning but as no-one's actually been blown up yet that's probably a story that needs to be told in more detail at a later date.
In television news yesterday some amateurs tried a smash and grab robbery on a jewellers in some rubbish British town. A passing old lady took one look and decided they were a bunch of amateurs so decided to stop the robbery by clattering them over the head with her handbag. While I think there may be some element of Britain raising questions about a spate of similar robbery's in London I think it would be more useful to interview the bunch amateurs rather then the old lady.
According to the gossip since my last visit one of the women who works in the salon has picked up her very own stalker. Apparently some middle-aged man has been following her about and loitering outside her children's school. The local police have been informed but as usual don't appear to be making any progress. Now like bar staff hairdressing is one of those professions where some customer's can get a little bit confused about the social boundary between staff and customer so this might have absolutely nothing to do with me. However it is also possible that someone in the council has got some weirdo to terrorise this woman in order to start the rumour that I've got someone to intimidate her in revenge for her giving me a bad haircut. Although I would dispute the fact that she's ever given me a bad haircut I'm the sort of man who will walk home caked in his own vomit so I think it's fair to say that a bad haircut is not the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me.
In related news British Telecom (BT) have removed the telegraph pole outside my house. Officially this has been done due to some "new technical specifications" however I think it was done because the pole was blocking the sight line from my grandmother's house to the council spy living across the road. Also we've been going through another episode of the long saga with the British Gas maintenance engineers. The next episode is coming tomorrow morning but as no-one's actually been blown up yet that's probably a story that needs to be told in more detail at a later date.
In television news yesterday some amateurs tried a smash and grab robbery on a jewellers in some rubbish British town. A passing old lady took one look and decided they were a bunch of amateurs so decided to stop the robbery by clattering them over the head with her handbag. While I think there may be some element of Britain raising questions about a spate of similar robbery's in London I think it would be more useful to interview the bunch amateurs rather then the old lady.
Moscow Bombing.
On January 24th a suicide bomber attacked Moscow's Domodedvo airport killing 35 and injuring 180 more.
Now Russia is vast country with a long and complicated history. It has given the world such literary greats such as Tolstoy, Chekhov and Nabokov along with composers like Tchaikovsky and artists such as Faberge. It was also the first nation to embrace the ideology of Communism and has dominated the language of socialism and revolution ever since. As the USSR it fought bravely alongside the UK and the USA against the Fascism of Hitler and after that war conquered most of Europe. It went on to brutally put down uprisings in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland before the Communist Empire finally collapsed in the early 1990's leaving the country with the sort of capitalism that had many people looking fondly towards the past. The Russian's are also famously grumpy and ferocious drinkers.
However for now the most important thing you need to know about them is that they are the closest thing Iran has to a friend at the moment. They helped to build Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant and due to the complexities of international loans still own most of the equity. Apart from providing money and technical support Russia has also given Iran lots of diplomatic help blocking calls for further sanctions at the United Nations and working with other nations to provide fuel swap deals that would stop Iran enriching uranium. In return they have put pressure on Iran to improve the way it treats women and homosexuals while getting Iran to moderate the brutality it used to put down 2009's failed Green Revolution. In short Russia is the most important country in Israel's world at the moment and Israel has been targeting it heavily.
Overtly this has been done by appointing the former Moscow bouncer, Avigdor Lieberman to the post of foreign minister. This has allowed the native Russian speaker to make frequent trips to the country where he has been able to strengthen the diplomatic ties between the two country's and has apparently prevented the sale of a Russian made air defence system to Iran. More covertly Israel has been trying to get Russia to feel Israel's pain by funding and training Islamic terror groups in the North Caucasus. After all the predominately white and poorly educated Muslims in the region are unlikely to be able to tell the difference between, say, a Syrian middle eastern man and an Israeli middle eastern man. This relationship first led to the Moscow underground bombings in March 2010 and since then the link has got stronger to the point where Mossad are now able to pick the targets and direct the attacks.
The trigger for the Domodedvo attack came in the form of the Israeli report into the Mavi Marmara shootings that was released on January 23rd. To the surprise of no-one this cleared Israel of any wrongdoing and placed the blame for the incident firmly on the Muslims on board. This is exactly the sort of thing that would encourage Islamic terrorists to seek vengeance by launching an attack. However I think the relationship between Israel and these North Caucasus groups is now so strong that it might be worth going back over the Arabic translations of the Israeli statements to see if actual code words were used. The idea was that the much more unexpected release of the Palestine Papers later that same day would serve to bury the Marmara report and trigger the Egyptian uprising just in time for the World Economic Forum. Then after the Domodedvo attack had taken place conspiracy theories would emerge that wrongly claimed that the Palestine Paper's were faked as a way to cover up Israel's involvement in the bombing. These incorrect conspiracy theories would then serve to restore the Palestinians faith in Fatah and the Palestinian Authority whilst breaking the Egyptian uprising just in time for the killing to start. At this point I don't think I'll be the first person to point out that this plan has gone a little bit wrong.
Oh and while we're vaguely on the subject does anyone else think that maybe Israel has been supporting the 9/11 Truth campaign as a way to discredit anyone who suggests that Israel may be involved in false flag operations?
Now Russia is vast country with a long and complicated history. It has given the world such literary greats such as Tolstoy, Chekhov and Nabokov along with composers like Tchaikovsky and artists such as Faberge. It was also the first nation to embrace the ideology of Communism and has dominated the language of socialism and revolution ever since. As the USSR it fought bravely alongside the UK and the USA against the Fascism of Hitler and after that war conquered most of Europe. It went on to brutally put down uprisings in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland before the Communist Empire finally collapsed in the early 1990's leaving the country with the sort of capitalism that had many people looking fondly towards the past. The Russian's are also famously grumpy and ferocious drinkers.
However for now the most important thing you need to know about them is that they are the closest thing Iran has to a friend at the moment. They helped to build Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant and due to the complexities of international loans still own most of the equity. Apart from providing money and technical support Russia has also given Iran lots of diplomatic help blocking calls for further sanctions at the United Nations and working with other nations to provide fuel swap deals that would stop Iran enriching uranium. In return they have put pressure on Iran to improve the way it treats women and homosexuals while getting Iran to moderate the brutality it used to put down 2009's failed Green Revolution. In short Russia is the most important country in Israel's world at the moment and Israel has been targeting it heavily.
Overtly this has been done by appointing the former Moscow bouncer, Avigdor Lieberman to the post of foreign minister. This has allowed the native Russian speaker to make frequent trips to the country where he has been able to strengthen the diplomatic ties between the two country's and has apparently prevented the sale of a Russian made air defence system to Iran. More covertly Israel has been trying to get Russia to feel Israel's pain by funding and training Islamic terror groups in the North Caucasus. After all the predominately white and poorly educated Muslims in the region are unlikely to be able to tell the difference between, say, a Syrian middle eastern man and an Israeli middle eastern man. This relationship first led to the Moscow underground bombings in March 2010 and since then the link has got stronger to the point where Mossad are now able to pick the targets and direct the attacks.
The trigger for the Domodedvo attack came in the form of the Israeli report into the Mavi Marmara shootings that was released on January 23rd. To the surprise of no-one this cleared Israel of any wrongdoing and placed the blame for the incident firmly on the Muslims on board. This is exactly the sort of thing that would encourage Islamic terrorists to seek vengeance by launching an attack. However I think the relationship between Israel and these North Caucasus groups is now so strong that it might be worth going back over the Arabic translations of the Israeli statements to see if actual code words were used. The idea was that the much more unexpected release of the Palestine Papers later that same day would serve to bury the Marmara report and trigger the Egyptian uprising just in time for the World Economic Forum. Then after the Domodedvo attack had taken place conspiracy theories would emerge that wrongly claimed that the Palestine Paper's were faked as a way to cover up Israel's involvement in the bombing. These incorrect conspiracy theories would then serve to restore the Palestinians faith in Fatah and the Palestinian Authority whilst breaking the Egyptian uprising just in time for the killing to start. At this point I don't think I'll be the first person to point out that this plan has gone a little bit wrong.
Oh and while we're vaguely on the subject does anyone else think that maybe Israel has been supporting the 9/11 Truth campaign as a way to discredit anyone who suggests that Israel may be involved in false flag operations?
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Daddy's Back!
And apparently I'm feeling a little bit arrogant.
In Egypt the daily rate for street thugs has risen from 50 Egyptian Pounds to 100 Egyptian Pounds but there are still very few takers. So while the anti-Mubarak protesters have been out in force, for this weekend, Egypt has been more peaceful then parts of the UK.
Meanwhile the European Union has joined the United States call for the process by which President Mubarak stands down to begin immediately. This is a diplomatic way of saying that Mubarak must leave and he must go sooner rather then later. This appears to have prompted the resignation/sacking of senior members of the ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) politburo including Mubarak's son, Gamal. Criminal investigations have also been launched into senior Egyptian civil servants including those running the Interior Ministry who are responsible for Egypt's police. So, on the surface at least, the question in Egypt is no longer whether Mubarak will stay on as President but when will he leave and what will replace him.
Annoyingly the most sensible suggestion has come from the Muslim Brotherhood. Their idea is simply to follow the Egyptian constitution and have the speaker of the house take temporary charge much as would happen if an 82 year old President died in office. This would allow a new Parliament to be elected so it could debate and vote through the constitutional changes needed so a free and fair Presidential election can be held in September. As Egypt's uprising was driven by a wide variety of groups including business leaders, trade unions, the middle classes, Islamists and people who'd simply had enough getting these groups together within the open and civilised forum of a Parliament to negotiate a solution is by far the best idea. In fact you could say that this is exactly what Parliaments are designed to do in a democracy.
Although I don't agree the worry is that the Muslim Brotherhood will dominate this Parliament and use that dominance to swing the result of the Presidential election and future elections in their favour so they can set up an Iran-style theocracy. So the idea would be made much more palatable if the Muslim Brotherhood were prepared to limit their influence in that Parliament by capping the number of candidates they field to, say, forty.
Despite all this good news there are still worrying and not so subtle signs that Mubarak and those close to him have yet to fully accept that he will be leaving power. Therefore for the security and safety of those who have taken part in the protests I think that the street protests need to continue at a rate of at least one a week until Mubarak finally stands down. However I will be reducing my personal involvement in the situation because if it becomes a battle of wills between me and Mubarak this is likely to go on for far longer then it needs to.
In Egypt the daily rate for street thugs has risen from 50 Egyptian Pounds to 100 Egyptian Pounds but there are still very few takers. So while the anti-Mubarak protesters have been out in force, for this weekend, Egypt has been more peaceful then parts of the UK.
Meanwhile the European Union has joined the United States call for the process by which President Mubarak stands down to begin immediately. This is a diplomatic way of saying that Mubarak must leave and he must go sooner rather then later. This appears to have prompted the resignation/sacking of senior members of the ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) politburo including Mubarak's son, Gamal. Criminal investigations have also been launched into senior Egyptian civil servants including those running the Interior Ministry who are responsible for Egypt's police. So, on the surface at least, the question in Egypt is no longer whether Mubarak will stay on as President but when will he leave and what will replace him.
Annoyingly the most sensible suggestion has come from the Muslim Brotherhood. Their idea is simply to follow the Egyptian constitution and have the speaker of the house take temporary charge much as would happen if an 82 year old President died in office. This would allow a new Parliament to be elected so it could debate and vote through the constitutional changes needed so a free and fair Presidential election can be held in September. As Egypt's uprising was driven by a wide variety of groups including business leaders, trade unions, the middle classes, Islamists and people who'd simply had enough getting these groups together within the open and civilised forum of a Parliament to negotiate a solution is by far the best idea. In fact you could say that this is exactly what Parliaments are designed to do in a democracy.
Although I don't agree the worry is that the Muslim Brotherhood will dominate this Parliament and use that dominance to swing the result of the Presidential election and future elections in their favour so they can set up an Iran-style theocracy. So the idea would be made much more palatable if the Muslim Brotherhood were prepared to limit their influence in that Parliament by capping the number of candidates they field to, say, forty.
Despite all this good news there are still worrying and not so subtle signs that Mubarak and those close to him have yet to fully accept that he will be leaving power. Therefore for the security and safety of those who have taken part in the protests I think that the street protests need to continue at a rate of at least one a week until Mubarak finally stands down. However I will be reducing my personal involvement in the situation because if it becomes a battle of wills between me and Mubarak this is likely to go on for far longer then it needs to.
Friday, 4 February 2011
Now Here's a Scary Thought.
In the middle east there is this country called Israel. They desperately want to attack another country in the middle east called Iran. When that happens tradition dictates that Iran must respond by attacking Israel leading to something called a war.
Elsewhere in the middle east there is a country called Egypt where the President has overwhelmingly been told to go by his people but is desperately trying to cling to power until at least September. At best this will lead to a nasty, summer long, stand-off that will destroy the Egyptian tourism industry. At worst it will lead to a bloody massacre that will increase anti-Israeli feeling across the Arab world. Already the situation in Egypt is preventing essentials like food an fuel from getting into Gaza increasing pressure on Hamas to attack Israel.
So if Israel attacks Iran before Mubarak stands down it will provoke a huge war. That war won't be enough to bring about the rapture but it will be one of the most brutal wars the middle east has ever seen. Under those circumstances how far do you think Israel will be prepared to go to defend itself?
Elsewhere in the middle east there is a country called Egypt where the President has overwhelmingly been told to go by his people but is desperately trying to cling to power until at least September. At best this will lead to a nasty, summer long, stand-off that will destroy the Egyptian tourism industry. At worst it will lead to a bloody massacre that will increase anti-Israeli feeling across the Arab world. Already the situation in Egypt is preventing essentials like food an fuel from getting into Gaza increasing pressure on Hamas to attack Israel.
So if Israel attacks Iran before Mubarak stands down it will provoke a huge war. That war won't be enough to bring about the rapture but it will be one of the most brutal wars the middle east has ever seen. Under those circumstances how far do you think Israel will be prepared to go to defend itself?
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Is Suleiman Still Talking?
Today (3/2) viewers of Egyptian state TV were treated to a seemingly endless interview with the country's newly appointed vice-President, Omar Suleiman.
The main purpose of the interview was to give Egyptian news something to report without having to mention the automatic gunfire and 10 confirmed killed that has been going on in streets of Cairo today. It also served the purpose of providing the reassuring glow of a functioning government in corner of any Egyptian households who might still be loyal to Mubarak.
Likewise I've heard but not seen that Mubarak himself has been appearing on ABC America to assure his supporters that he's still got the magic to wrap the Jews and the Americans round his little finger.
In Suleiman's interview he appeared to trying to filibuster the entire nation as he covered a vast range of topics including those "foreign elements who are trying to cause chaos in Egypt." While a name check is always appreciated the main topics he covered were;
The main purpose of the interview was to give Egyptian news something to report without having to mention the automatic gunfire and 10 confirmed killed that has been going on in streets of Cairo today. It also served the purpose of providing the reassuring glow of a functioning government in corner of any Egyptian households who might still be loyal to Mubarak.
Likewise I've heard but not seen that Mubarak himself has been appearing on ABC America to assure his supporters that he's still got the magic to wrap the Jews and the Americans round his little finger.
In Suleiman's interview he appeared to trying to filibuster the entire nation as he covered a vast range of topics including those "foreign elements who are trying to cause chaos in Egypt." While a name check is always appreciated the main topics he covered were;
- He promised to launch an investigation into who was responsible for ordering the thugs into Tahrir square although he ran into some trouble trying to explain why the fact that these thugs were plain clothes policemen didn't mean that mean that Egypt's noble police had been infiltrated by those nasty foreign trouble makers.
- He announced that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood had been offered the chance to join in a dialogue about forming a new government. This was an attempt to further consolidate Mubarak's position with the international community because while the Muslim Brotherhood are not the Taliban by any stretch of the imagination they are an Islamist party so their presence in the Egyptian government would be problematic to many people, myself included.
- Mainly he played for time. He claimed that Egypt's government needed 21 days to sort this out, 70 days to sort that out and 3 months to sort the other out. Basically he was just shouting random numbers at people so the only thing I can say to that;
It's Begun.
Yesterday, February 2nd almost medieval violence returned to the streets of Egypt as gangs of men armed with sticks, whips and machetes started to attack anti-government demonstrations. In Cairo, where the violence has been at it's worst, this first day has killed a minimum of five and injured at least 836 more.
Officially the violence has been caused by honest, hard working Egyptians who have been so outraged by the protests that they've spontaneously decided to take action to support their much loved President. In reality the protesters have been able to capture and search some of the attackers revealing them to be a mix of plain clothed police officers, members of Mubarak's political party and simply paid thugs. In Alexandria where the protests are at their strongest these armed gangs have been force to rely on uniformed police escorts in order to move around the city. The only good news is that because these pro-Mubarak supporters are just men for hire they will lack the stamina of legitimate protesters.
The purpose of the Mubarak regime getting thugs to attack the protesters is twofold. Firstly it reduces the number of people able to take part in protests by either killing them, seriously injuring them or making them too scared to take part. Secondly the violence creates the illusion that the anti-government protests are causing chaos in Egypt so Egypt and the world needs Mubarak to stay on so he can restore security and stability.
Having lived with Mubarak for thirty years the protesters know that if they back down now the violence will only get worse so they have called for another day of mass demonstrations on Friday February 4th. The worry here is that they will again focus their protests of Tahrir square. In the spring of 2010 people in Thailand staged mass protests against their government. These demonstrations focused on occupying and setting up a protest camp in the Ratchaprasong district of the capital. After probing attacks by the Thai security forces the protesters started setting up barricades and ended up trapped inside their own fortified camp. The Thai security forces then simply used snipers to kill the protest leaders before finally setting fire to the camp. Therefore it would be a better idea if the Egyptian protesters also used mobile demonstrations that focused on multiple locations.
Also there is no longer any point on relying on the BBC for news on the situation in Egypt. They've started producing special programming that means they are now acting as a 24hr a day pro-Mubarak propaganda service. They're failing to report that what they call pro-Mubarak protesters are being moved under police escort and they're refusing to show photographs where captured thugs are having their police ID cards taken off them. Also all presenters and guests are under strict orders to promote the official line that Mubarak has already made great concessions and most Egyptians fully support him and want the protests to stop. I knew it was a mistake to explain the situation to the Brits.
Officially the violence has been caused by honest, hard working Egyptians who have been so outraged by the protests that they've spontaneously decided to take action to support their much loved President. In reality the protesters have been able to capture and search some of the attackers revealing them to be a mix of plain clothed police officers, members of Mubarak's political party and simply paid thugs. In Alexandria where the protests are at their strongest these armed gangs have been force to rely on uniformed police escorts in order to move around the city. The only good news is that because these pro-Mubarak supporters are just men for hire they will lack the stamina of legitimate protesters.
The purpose of the Mubarak regime getting thugs to attack the protesters is twofold. Firstly it reduces the number of people able to take part in protests by either killing them, seriously injuring them or making them too scared to take part. Secondly the violence creates the illusion that the anti-government protests are causing chaos in Egypt so Egypt and the world needs Mubarak to stay on so he can restore security and stability.
Having lived with Mubarak for thirty years the protesters know that if they back down now the violence will only get worse so they have called for another day of mass demonstrations on Friday February 4th. The worry here is that they will again focus their protests of Tahrir square. In the spring of 2010 people in Thailand staged mass protests against their government. These demonstrations focused on occupying and setting up a protest camp in the Ratchaprasong district of the capital. After probing attacks by the Thai security forces the protesters started setting up barricades and ended up trapped inside their own fortified camp. The Thai security forces then simply used snipers to kill the protest leaders before finally setting fire to the camp. Therefore it would be a better idea if the Egyptian protesters also used mobile demonstrations that focused on multiple locations.
Also there is no longer any point on relying on the BBC for news on the situation in Egypt. They've started producing special programming that means they are now acting as a 24hr a day pro-Mubarak propaganda service. They're failing to report that what they call pro-Mubarak protesters are being moved under police escort and they're refusing to show photographs where captured thugs are having their police ID cards taken off them. Also all presenters and guests are under strict orders to promote the official line that Mubarak has already made great concessions and most Egyptians fully support him and want the protests to stop. I knew it was a mistake to explain the situation to the Brits.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Egypt's Uprising.
Over the past eight days the people of Egypt have taken to the streets calling for the resignation of the President, Hosni Mubarak. Although in terms of overthrowing a dictator eight days is barely the blink of an eye the Egyptian protesters have already made great progress.
When Mubarak started this uprising he saw it as a way of guaranteeing that his son, Gamal would take over as President in September. About 30 seconds into the process Mubarak discovered that there wouldn't be any support for this so he set about making sure that he could remain as President. By January 31st even this looked like it wouldn't be possible as the Egyptian army announced that they would be tolerating further protests and the vice-President, Omar Suleiman started making statements that sounded like his audition to the international community for the role of President of Egypt.
With obvious cracks starting to form at the heart of the Egyptian establishment on February 1st Mubarak was forced to make a rambling speech on state television in which he announced that he would be standing down as President in September and mumbled something about amending the constitution to bring in Presidential term limits. Although for all 30 years of Mubarak's rule Egypt has been in a state of emergency that has suspended the constitution this was clearly enough for the Egyptian army who, today (2/2), ordered the protesters to leave the streets in what can only be described as threatening terms.
This is a major problem because the protesters are past the point of no return. If they leave the streets now the army will also leave the streets and be replaced by the police. Based on how they've behaved in the past the Egyptian police will now spend the next seven months hunting down, kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing the protesters leading to the massive loss of life seen after the failed uprisings in Iran and Burma. With the opposition destroyed there will be nothing to stop Mubarak going back on his word and continuing as President come September.
It would be a much better idea then if the protesters stayed on the streets and forced Mubarak to stand down immediately and the Egyptian army took control of the country until September. Then a civilised election, where the peace treaty with Israel and the status of the Suez Canal are sacrosanct, can be held away from the fire and fury of insurrection.
When Mubarak started this uprising he saw it as a way of guaranteeing that his son, Gamal would take over as President in September. About 30 seconds into the process Mubarak discovered that there wouldn't be any support for this so he set about making sure that he could remain as President. By January 31st even this looked like it wouldn't be possible as the Egyptian army announced that they would be tolerating further protests and the vice-President, Omar Suleiman started making statements that sounded like his audition to the international community for the role of President of Egypt.
With obvious cracks starting to form at the heart of the Egyptian establishment on February 1st Mubarak was forced to make a rambling speech on state television in which he announced that he would be standing down as President in September and mumbled something about amending the constitution to bring in Presidential term limits. Although for all 30 years of Mubarak's rule Egypt has been in a state of emergency that has suspended the constitution this was clearly enough for the Egyptian army who, today (2/2), ordered the protesters to leave the streets in what can only be described as threatening terms.
This is a major problem because the protesters are past the point of no return. If they leave the streets now the army will also leave the streets and be replaced by the police. Based on how they've behaved in the past the Egyptian police will now spend the next seven months hunting down, kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing the protesters leading to the massive loss of life seen after the failed uprisings in Iran and Burma. With the opposition destroyed there will be nothing to stop Mubarak going back on his word and continuing as President come September.
It would be a much better idea then if the protesters stayed on the streets and forced Mubarak to stand down immediately and the Egyptian army took control of the country until September. Then a civilised election, where the peace treaty with Israel and the status of the Suez Canal are sacrosanct, can be held away from the fire and fury of insurrection.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
It's Tuesday.
And as usual I'm back from the pub and a little bit drunk so it's probably not the best time for me to go messing about with middle eastern politics. That means I'll be leaving the Egypt situation alone for tonigh tbecause unless Hosni Mubarak's about to announce his immediate resignation the protests are still going to be there tomorrow.
I should though take the time to clear up one thing about Haiti. Jude Celestin is not the Americans puppet. If anything he's my puppet and as you may have noticed I'm both quite lazy and really easily distracted. So when I endorse someone for a job I do so because I think they're capable of doing that job without having to bother me any further.
I should though take the time to clear up one thing about Haiti. Jude Celestin is not the Americans puppet. If anything he's my puppet and as you may have noticed I'm both quite lazy and really easily distracted. So when I endorse someone for a job I do so because I think they're capable of doing that job without having to bother me any further.
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