Yesterday (29/4/11) my friend who was no fan of the Royal wedding drove up to take me down to Brighton. He timed the journey so we were on the road during the wedding. When we got down to Brighton we went out for a quick beer and to run a few errands. We then had a small BBQ in his garden before heading into the centre of the town for something of a pub crawl.
It soon became apparent that the people of Brighton had taken the idea of a street party that little bit further. The first one I came across was was being held at the bottom of North Street. As this is right in the centre of the town and more or less directly across the road from Brighton police station it was soon shut down by the police. I second party I accidentally wandered into was being held further out of town towards the marina. Although the police were happy to leave this one alone it suffered from the rain, an incorrect rumour that it had been cancelled and the fact that the police monitoring it were directing party goers to a supposedly much bigger but non-existent rave near Ditchling. As me and my friend have been away from that scene for so long we couldn't be bothered with it and instead went home to watch Inception which worryingly made perfect sense from start to finish.
Today (30/4/11) we took a trip into town to do a post-mortem on the night before and gradually make my way back to London where I arrived at around 19:00. As the people I was with were intent on giving the MayDay protests a wide berth apart from an obviously high police presence I managed to miss that completely. I gather it was quite small with only around 200 people turning up. Apparently there was also some rioting in Bristol on Friday night.
Saturday 30 April 2011
Thursday 28 April 2011
The Alternative Vote Referendum
Hiding beneath the Royal Wedding there will be local elections across most of Britain on May 5th. More importantly, on the same date, there will also be a binding, national referendum on changing the voting system from the First Past The Post (FPTP) to the Alternative Vote (AV) system. So try and stay awake as I try to explain the difference between the two systems.
First Past The Post (FPTP) is the voting system that people are familiar with across the democratic world. Here you are given a ballot paper listing all the candidates and you put across next to the name of the candidate you want to win. Then all the ballot papers are counted and the candidate with the most number of crosses next to their name wins.
Under the Alternative Vote (AV) system you are also given a ballot paper listing all the candidates. The difference is that rather then choosing one candidate you rank all the candidates in order of preference. So you put a "1" next to your first choice, a "2" next to your second choice and so on until you've put a number next to the name of every candidate on the ballot paper. Then all the ballot papers are collected and all the ballots counted. In the unlikely event that this gives one candidate more then 50% of the total number of votes cast then voting stops and that candidate is declared the winner. If, as is more likely, no candidate reaches the 50% threshold then the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc votes on those ballot papers are added to the totals of the other candidates and if this gives one candidate more then 50% of the vote then they are declared the winner. However if still now candidate reaches the 50% threshold then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and all the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc votes on those ballot papers are added to the other candidates. This process continues until one of the candidates reaches 50% of the vote and can last for up to a week. The closest thing to the AV system that British voters will be familiar with is the voting system for the European Parliament which allowed voters a first and second choice and saw the Fascist British National Party (BNP) win their first two parliamentary seats.
The main argument for the AV system is that it gives a fairer result by allowing supporters of minority parties (eg LibDems/BNP) to still have their votes counted in areas where one of the main parties (eg Conservative/Labour) dominate. This is simply not true because in most areas in Britain the winning candidate already wins with more then 50% of the vote under the FPTP system. Therefore AV only has a chance of affecting the election in around 2% of the 625 Parliamentary seats or just 12 MP's.
What AV will be much more successful in doing is massively increasing the scope for electoral fraud by creating a counting system so complicated that you need a maths A-Level to even begin to understand. Under FPTP you are left with a pile of ballot papers that can be checked by hand for fraud. Under AV you are left with multiple piles with some ballot papers being counted in three or four different piles at different times during the counting process. This makes it much harder to check for fraud and there has been a lot of talk about bringing in computerised voting machines to cope with the extra work load. You only need to look at America's 2000 Presidential election to see how easily computerised voting machines can be abused.
This corrosion of democracy can be seen in the only three countries in the world where the AV system is used. Papa New Guinea and Fiji are out and out military dictatorships where the newspaper's routinely publish blank pages to protest the amount of news that government censorship won't allow them to publish. In Australia people quickly realised that a vote under AV had so little impact of the government they would end up with they stopped voting and it had to be made compulsory. Australia's current government is a four party coalition with a majority of one. We are all waiting for a strong gust of wind that will cause a Canada style collapse that will leave Australia governed directly by the Queen of England rather then by an elected Parliament.
In Britain even the debate about AV is killing politics. At a time when the British economy is bumping along the bottom, we're still at war in Afghanistan and we've just started another war against Libya political debate has been reduced to LibDem MP's siding with Conservative MP's to argue with Labour MP's who have also sided with Conservative MP's about whether AV will cost us £220 million or £225 million. Or to put it more simply a change to AV will silence the voice of the British people and lead to us getting more governments like the government we've got now.
So on May 5th I will be voting NO to AV and the most annoying bit is that I will actually have to go out and vote. Otherwise the people who do get excited about changes to the voting system will go out and vote in their droves and the the voting system will be changed without most of the people in Britain even noticing.
First Past The Post (FPTP) is the voting system that people are familiar with across the democratic world. Here you are given a ballot paper listing all the candidates and you put across next to the name of the candidate you want to win. Then all the ballot papers are counted and the candidate with the most number of crosses next to their name wins.
Under the Alternative Vote (AV) system you are also given a ballot paper listing all the candidates. The difference is that rather then choosing one candidate you rank all the candidates in order of preference. So you put a "1" next to your first choice, a "2" next to your second choice and so on until you've put a number next to the name of every candidate on the ballot paper. Then all the ballot papers are collected and all the ballots counted. In the unlikely event that this gives one candidate more then 50% of the total number of votes cast then voting stops and that candidate is declared the winner. If, as is more likely, no candidate reaches the 50% threshold then the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc votes on those ballot papers are added to the totals of the other candidates and if this gives one candidate more then 50% of the vote then they are declared the winner. However if still now candidate reaches the 50% threshold then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and all the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc votes on those ballot papers are added to the other candidates. This process continues until one of the candidates reaches 50% of the vote and can last for up to a week. The closest thing to the AV system that British voters will be familiar with is the voting system for the European Parliament which allowed voters a first and second choice and saw the Fascist British National Party (BNP) win their first two parliamentary seats.
The main argument for the AV system is that it gives a fairer result by allowing supporters of minority parties (eg LibDems/BNP) to still have their votes counted in areas where one of the main parties (eg Conservative/Labour) dominate. This is simply not true because in most areas in Britain the winning candidate already wins with more then 50% of the vote under the FPTP system. Therefore AV only has a chance of affecting the election in around 2% of the 625 Parliamentary seats or just 12 MP's.
What AV will be much more successful in doing is massively increasing the scope for electoral fraud by creating a counting system so complicated that you need a maths A-Level to even begin to understand. Under FPTP you are left with a pile of ballot papers that can be checked by hand for fraud. Under AV you are left with multiple piles with some ballot papers being counted in three or four different piles at different times during the counting process. This makes it much harder to check for fraud and there has been a lot of talk about bringing in computerised voting machines to cope with the extra work load. You only need to look at America's 2000 Presidential election to see how easily computerised voting machines can be abused.
This corrosion of democracy can be seen in the only three countries in the world where the AV system is used. Papa New Guinea and Fiji are out and out military dictatorships where the newspaper's routinely publish blank pages to protest the amount of news that government censorship won't allow them to publish. In Australia people quickly realised that a vote under AV had so little impact of the government they would end up with they stopped voting and it had to be made compulsory. Australia's current government is a four party coalition with a majority of one. We are all waiting for a strong gust of wind that will cause a Canada style collapse that will leave Australia governed directly by the Queen of England rather then by an elected Parliament.
In Britain even the debate about AV is killing politics. At a time when the British economy is bumping along the bottom, we're still at war in Afghanistan and we've just started another war against Libya political debate has been reduced to LibDem MP's siding with Conservative MP's to argue with Labour MP's who have also sided with Conservative MP's about whether AV will cost us £220 million or £225 million. Or to put it more simply a change to AV will silence the voice of the British people and lead to us getting more governments like the government we've got now.
So on May 5th I will be voting NO to AV and the most annoying bit is that I will actually have to go out and vote. Otherwise the people who do get excited about changes to the voting system will go out and vote in their droves and the the voting system will be changed without most of the people in Britain even noticing.
Quick Correction.
Ages ago I said that when Kate Middleton marries Prince William of Wales she will become known as "Princess Catherine." This was merely to highlight the change in her name from the informal Kate to the formal Catherine. It was not meant to be a comment on her official title.
As Ms Middleton is not of Royal blood she can never be know as "Princess Catherine." Her official title is expected to be announced at 08:00(local) tomorrow (29/4/11) and is believed to be "Catherine, Princess William of Wales" but ultimately it is at the Queens discretion.
In other news following on from yesterday's raids in Brighton & Hove the Met police raided three squats in the Hackney, Sipson and Camberwell areas of London at around 07:15 today (28/4.11). Not even the police could pretend that these raids were related to the Royal Wedding rather then MayDay. However 20 people were arrested at the Camberwell and Hackney squats for an offence of stealing electricity. They are currently being held a various London police stations so there is no word as to whether they are being questioned or charged. The question now is when they will be released from police custody. If they're released after the Royal Wedding then they will be coming close to the maximum 36 hours that they can be held without charge. If they are released before the Royal Wedding then all the police have done is left a bunch of newly homeless anarchists with no other option then to wander the streets of London looking for trouble.
It also appears that, at the time of writing, that everything is quiet and peaceful in Bristol.
As Ms Middleton is not of Royal blood she can never be know as "Princess Catherine." Her official title is expected to be announced at 08:00(local) tomorrow (29/4/11) and is believed to be "Catherine, Princess William of Wales" but ultimately it is at the Queens discretion.
In other news following on from yesterday's raids in Brighton & Hove the Met police raided three squats in the Hackney, Sipson and Camberwell areas of London at around 07:15 today (28/4.11). Not even the police could pretend that these raids were related to the Royal Wedding rather then MayDay. However 20 people were arrested at the Camberwell and Hackney squats for an offence of stealing electricity. They are currently being held a various London police stations so there is no word as to whether they are being questioned or charged. The question now is when they will be released from police custody. If they're released after the Royal Wedding then they will be coming close to the maximum 36 hours that they can be held without charge. If they are released before the Royal Wedding then all the police have done is left a bunch of newly homeless anarchists with no other option then to wander the streets of London looking for trouble.
It also appears that, at the time of writing, that everything is quiet and peaceful in Bristol.
America's Storms.
While Britain has been stunned by some incredibly pleasant weather America has been equally stunned by some incredibly unpleasant weather. Starting on April 15th America has seen the largest single Tornado system in history. In just two days it caused 115 separate tornadoes across 14 states including one that was caught on CCTV as it tore through St Louis airport. As almost always these tornadoes were accompanied by storm rains and flash flooding as far north as Washington state and forced the emergency shutdown of two nuclear power stations.
This has been followed by even more tornadoes which caused further damage. There are now 16 separate states of emergency in effect over the United States and in Alabama and South Carolina the National Guard has been deployed to deal with the devastation. With many bodies still to be recovered the current death toll stands at 220.
Obviously I don't want to make light of what is clearly a tragic set of circumstances. However when you consider that the America backed government of Afghanistan use this flag;
While the American back Libyan rebels use this incredibly similar flag;
I think there's a phrase about seeding the breeze and reaping the whirlwind in this story somewhere.
This has been followed by even more tornadoes which caused further damage. There are now 16 separate states of emergency in effect over the United States and in Alabama and South Carolina the National Guard has been deployed to deal with the devastation. With many bodies still to be recovered the current death toll stands at 220.
Obviously I don't want to make light of what is clearly a tragic set of circumstances. However when you consider that the America backed government of Afghanistan use this flag;
While the American back Libyan rebels use this incredibly similar flag;
I think there's a phrase about seeding the breeze and reaping the whirlwind in this story somewhere.
It's That Time of Year Again.
Yesterday (27/4/11) London's Metropolitan Police (the Met) raided three properties in Brighton & Hove - a full two counties outside their jurisdiction. The purpose of the raids was to execute arrest warrants relating to offences committed during 2010's student protests. However as only one of the seven arrests related to the warrant the true purpose of the raids seems to have been to evict two squats without due process that would have included forcing the person attempting to take possession to prove that they were the rightful owner of the property.
The seven who were arrested were all transported to London where they weren't even questioned before being released on police bail - effectively dumping them in the middle of a strange city in just their pyjamas. Therefore the whole operation stinks of being a harassment mission designed to disrupt protest networks ahead of April 30th's "Brighton MayDay" protests. It also has the effect of the police busing potential troublemakers into London ahead of the Royal Wedding.
Also yesterday the Met announced that of the 277 people arrested during the student protests they have charged just 16. The majority of the rest remain of police bail some four months after the event. One of those charged is Alfie Meadows who received widespread media attention after being so badly beaten by the police on the December 9th protest that he needed emergency brain surgery to save his life. Obviously I will need to look in detail at the alleged offence and the evidence the police have to support it but at first sight the decision to charge Mr Meadows seems to be driven by the notion of "If you cause trouble for the police then the police will cause trouble for you!"
In Bristol, at around 20:30, a protest has been called in Stokes Croft tonight (28/4/11) to mark the one week anniversary of the last week's Stokes Croft riot. Last night (27/4/11) someone tried showing a amateur film about that riot in a private residence in the Mina Park area of the town. The police responded by sending two dozen officers to try and shut the event down using anti-rave legislation. Although completely illegal the police's efforts seem to have been successful even if they did lead to a non-violent stand-off between the police and local residents. I should explain that Bristol likes to think of itself as the trendy and creative home to artists like, Roni Size, Massive Attack and Banksy. In reality the town hasn't had a hit in more then a decade. Since then it's fashionable and dare we say bourgeois lifestyle has been paid for by the government through Quango's, research grants, enterprise zones and other forms of subsidy. With government spending cuts most of this funding has now gone meaning that Bristol is feeling a lot of pain. Officially tonight's protests has been called off but if enough people turn up anyway it could create a tense start to the Royal Wedding as Bristol tries it's hand at four day eventing.
The seven who were arrested were all transported to London where they weren't even questioned before being released on police bail - effectively dumping them in the middle of a strange city in just their pyjamas. Therefore the whole operation stinks of being a harassment mission designed to disrupt protest networks ahead of April 30th's "Brighton MayDay" protests. It also has the effect of the police busing potential troublemakers into London ahead of the Royal Wedding.
Also yesterday the Met announced that of the 277 people arrested during the student protests they have charged just 16. The majority of the rest remain of police bail some four months after the event. One of those charged is Alfie Meadows who received widespread media attention after being so badly beaten by the police on the December 9th protest that he needed emergency brain surgery to save his life. Obviously I will need to look in detail at the alleged offence and the evidence the police have to support it but at first sight the decision to charge Mr Meadows seems to be driven by the notion of "If you cause trouble for the police then the police will cause trouble for you!"
In Bristol, at around 20:30, a protest has been called in Stokes Croft tonight (28/4/11) to mark the one week anniversary of the last week's Stokes Croft riot. Last night (27/4/11) someone tried showing a amateur film about that riot in a private residence in the Mina Park area of the town. The police responded by sending two dozen officers to try and shut the event down using anti-rave legislation. Although completely illegal the police's efforts seem to have been successful even if they did lead to a non-violent stand-off between the police and local residents. I should explain that Bristol likes to think of itself as the trendy and creative home to artists like, Roni Size, Massive Attack and Banksy. In reality the town hasn't had a hit in more then a decade. Since then it's fashionable and dare we say bourgeois lifestyle has been paid for by the government through Quango's, research grants, enterprise zones and other forms of subsidy. With government spending cuts most of this funding has now gone meaning that Bristol is feeling a lot of pain. Officially tonight's protests has been called off but if enough people turn up anyway it could create a tense start to the Royal Wedding as Bristol tries it's hand at four day eventing.
Tuesday 26 April 2011
Well Bang Goes My Credibility.
Today I've posted a card to congratulate Prince William and Katherine Middleton on their impending wedding. More specifically I did the lifting and carrying to allow my grandmother to send them a card. I don't even know what's in it.
Also my cousin is back safe from Afghanistan and just in time too by the looks of things.
Also my cousin is back safe from Afghanistan and just in time too by the looks of things.
Operation Oil Theft: Month 2, Week 2, Day 1.
While the Christian world has been distracted by Easter the war against Libya has continued. There has been little reporting of what is happening on the eastern front line close to Ajdabiya. This is due to a combination of the fact that there has been little fighting above skirmishes and that western media organisations are suppressing news from the region to avoid revealing details of the weapons and military training that western governments are supplying to the rebels.
Instead media attention has focused on Misrata where fighting continues. On Thursday (21/4/11) Libyan government forces withdrew from Misrata in order to allow local tribal leaders to negotiate a ceasefire with the rebels. On Saturday (23/4/11) the rebels rejected this offer of talks so government forces again re-entered the town under a barrage of artillery and rocket fire killing 24 rebel fighters making it one of the bloodiest days of the battle for Misrata so far. Over the following two days roughly another 15 rebels were killed per day and Misrata is now starting to look like Mogadishu in Somalia.
Even before the rebels rejected ceasefire negotiations on Friday (22/4/11) the US military were forced to admit that the fighting in Libya had ground into a stalemate. This prompted furious denials from Britain and France and on Saturday it prompted the Gulf State of Kuwait to pledge US$ 180 million to keep the rebels solvent during the fighting. The timing of this announcement was mainly designed to help lift the rebels spirits but also shows just how much the overthrow of the Libyan government is worth to the Kuwaitis - a country that really should know better. In the early hours of Monday (25/4/11) NATO aircraft, believed to be British, bombed Qaddafi's compound in Tripoli. Apart from being a clear attempt at assassination this very large attack also revealed Britain's frustration that the Libyan government has not crumbled as fast as they would have liked. It was also an attempt to give hope to rebel cells in Tripoli and beyond who seem to be organised along the lines of resistance movements in occupied Europe during the second world war.
Also over the weekend the Syrian government have moved to crack down on anti-government protests in the country and on Monday (25/4/11) this prompted Britain, France and Portugal to circulate a draft statement at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Amongst people who worry about this sort of thing I think it's an open secret that the protests in Syria are being orchestrated by Israel in order to destabilise the Syrian government on account of the two countries still, technically, being at war with each other. Obviously this puts America in a very difficult position diplomatically where it would be all to easy to make a mistake. Therefore Britain, France and Portugal are bringing the matter to the UNSC in order to put more pressure on America and distract attention away from what is going on in Libya. Well Portugal are more sort of going along with it because they're broke and seriously believe that France and Britain can block the European Union (EU) bailout they need. So I think the UNSC should sort out the mess they've made of Libya before they even consider making another mess in Syria.
Instead media attention has focused on Misrata where fighting continues. On Thursday (21/4/11) Libyan government forces withdrew from Misrata in order to allow local tribal leaders to negotiate a ceasefire with the rebels. On Saturday (23/4/11) the rebels rejected this offer of talks so government forces again re-entered the town under a barrage of artillery and rocket fire killing 24 rebel fighters making it one of the bloodiest days of the battle for Misrata so far. Over the following two days roughly another 15 rebels were killed per day and Misrata is now starting to look like Mogadishu in Somalia.
Even before the rebels rejected ceasefire negotiations on Friday (22/4/11) the US military were forced to admit that the fighting in Libya had ground into a stalemate. This prompted furious denials from Britain and France and on Saturday it prompted the Gulf State of Kuwait to pledge US$ 180 million to keep the rebels solvent during the fighting. The timing of this announcement was mainly designed to help lift the rebels spirits but also shows just how much the overthrow of the Libyan government is worth to the Kuwaitis - a country that really should know better. In the early hours of Monday (25/4/11) NATO aircraft, believed to be British, bombed Qaddafi's compound in Tripoli. Apart from being a clear attempt at assassination this very large attack also revealed Britain's frustration that the Libyan government has not crumbled as fast as they would have liked. It was also an attempt to give hope to rebel cells in Tripoli and beyond who seem to be organised along the lines of resistance movements in occupied Europe during the second world war.
Also over the weekend the Syrian government have moved to crack down on anti-government protests in the country and on Monday (25/4/11) this prompted Britain, France and Portugal to circulate a draft statement at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Amongst people who worry about this sort of thing I think it's an open secret that the protests in Syria are being orchestrated by Israel in order to destabilise the Syrian government on account of the two countries still, technically, being at war with each other. Obviously this puts America in a very difficult position diplomatically where it would be all to easy to make a mistake. Therefore Britain, France and Portugal are bringing the matter to the UNSC in order to put more pressure on America and distract attention away from what is going on in Libya. Well Portugal are more sort of going along with it because they're broke and seriously believe that France and Britain can block the European Union (EU) bailout they need. So I think the UNSC should sort out the mess they've made of Libya before they even consider making another mess in Syria.
Monday 25 April 2011
What's Happening With MayDay?
May the 1st or MayDay is an important day in Europe. Loosely based on a Pagan festival celebrating the start of spring it's widely celebrated in country life with May Fayre's and agricultural shows. It is also International Workers Day where Trade Unions celebrate the progress that has been made in workers rights and campaign on areas where progress still needs to be made. In recent years and especially in Britain it has also become associated with anarchists and they're sometimes spectacular protests.
Against a backdrop of recession and economic cuts and following the student riots, the "Ritz Blitz" on the March 26 TUC march and recent events in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol many people may be expecting MayDay 2011 to be a big event. The problem is that this year MayDay falls on a Sunday in the middle of a four day holiday weekend. That makes it quite difficult to smash the state and destroy capitalism on account of them being closed.
Also because I've been a bit busy with everyone else's revolutions and civil wars I've not really had time to find out what's being planned in Britain. However in London on May 1st there will be the International Workers Day march. This is a long standing and state authorised march that starts at Clerkenwell Green at 11:00 before marching, in an orderly fashion, to Trafalgar Square at for around 13:00. There will then be a short rally with speeches before everyone packs up and goes home.
In Bristol on April 30th some people from the anti-cuts alliance will be holding a "Defend Our Mayday" protest. The idea of this is to hand out leaflets explaining the history of Mayday in order to generate opposition to the idea that was recently floated by the right-wing, nationalist Conservative Party to abolish the MayDay Bank Holiday and replace it with a Trafalgar Day Bank Holiday in October. When this protest was originally organised I think it was just meant to be a few people, possibly with a banner, handing out leaflets to passers by. However after the riot in Stokes Croft on April 21st I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to what will happen.
The largest event though appears to be taking place in Brighton on April 30th. On Saturday April 23rd the South Coast Climate Camp* http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/ set up in a disused school in Lewes near Brighton. During this week they will be doing the standard Climate Camp things of holding discussions on climate change and what to do about it, skill sharing, holding performances like music and poetry and reaching out to the local community to educate them about the environment. This will culminate on April 30th when the Climate Campers will take part in a day of mass direct action. This could be to take part in the "Brighton MayDay" protest http://brightonmayday.wordpress.com/ that will begin at around 12:00 at an, as yet, unspecified location in the city. I think the original plan was for this to be a local protest policed by the local police. However if numbers are swelled by people from outside of Brighton the London's Metropolitan police have made a point of inviting Sussex police and neighbouring Hampshire police up to every major protest in London since 2009's anti-G20 protests in order to train them in the latest public order policing techniques. As a result they are now much better then they used to be so should be able to deal with this on their own.
Personally I'm actually a bit annoyed about the Brighton protest. Before I'd heard about it I'd arranged to use the public holiday created by the Royal Wedding to go down to Brighton to catch up with my mates. This is not going to make that any less complicated. As for the Royal Wedding itself it appears that nothing is being planned. Of course this doesn't mean that some idiot won't turn up and try something stupid but they're certainly not part of the mainstream.
*Now that it looks like the world is on the verge of doing something about climate change and Climate Camp played a role in that key people within the UK Climate Camp movement have suddenly decided to pull out. Without their financial and logistical support it looks unlikely there will be another Climate Camp in the UK on scale of what we've seen in previous years any time soon. However smaller, local groups are working to change that. This is one of those efforts and should be considered the main Climate Camp for 2011.
Against a backdrop of recession and economic cuts and following the student riots, the "Ritz Blitz" on the March 26 TUC march and recent events in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol many people may be expecting MayDay 2011 to be a big event. The problem is that this year MayDay falls on a Sunday in the middle of a four day holiday weekend. That makes it quite difficult to smash the state and destroy capitalism on account of them being closed.
Also because I've been a bit busy with everyone else's revolutions and civil wars I've not really had time to find out what's being planned in Britain. However in London on May 1st there will be the International Workers Day march. This is a long standing and state authorised march that starts at Clerkenwell Green at 11:00 before marching, in an orderly fashion, to Trafalgar Square at for around 13:00. There will then be a short rally with speeches before everyone packs up and goes home.
In Bristol on April 30th some people from the anti-cuts alliance will be holding a "Defend Our Mayday" protest. The idea of this is to hand out leaflets explaining the history of Mayday in order to generate opposition to the idea that was recently floated by the right-wing, nationalist Conservative Party to abolish the MayDay Bank Holiday and replace it with a Trafalgar Day Bank Holiday in October. When this protest was originally organised I think it was just meant to be a few people, possibly with a banner, handing out leaflets to passers by. However after the riot in Stokes Croft on April 21st I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to what will happen.
The largest event though appears to be taking place in Brighton on April 30th. On Saturday April 23rd the South Coast Climate Camp* http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/ set up in a disused school in Lewes near Brighton. During this week they will be doing the standard Climate Camp things of holding discussions on climate change and what to do about it, skill sharing, holding performances like music and poetry and reaching out to the local community to educate them about the environment. This will culminate on April 30th when the Climate Campers will take part in a day of mass direct action. This could be to take part in the "Brighton MayDay" protest http://brightonmayday.wordpress.com/ that will begin at around 12:00 at an, as yet, unspecified location in the city. I think the original plan was for this to be a local protest policed by the local police. However if numbers are swelled by people from outside of Brighton the London's Metropolitan police have made a point of inviting Sussex police and neighbouring Hampshire police up to every major protest in London since 2009's anti-G20 protests in order to train them in the latest public order policing techniques. As a result they are now much better then they used to be so should be able to deal with this on their own.
Personally I'm actually a bit annoyed about the Brighton protest. Before I'd heard about it I'd arranged to use the public holiday created by the Royal Wedding to go down to Brighton to catch up with my mates. This is not going to make that any less complicated. As for the Royal Wedding itself it appears that nothing is being planned. Of course this doesn't mean that some idiot won't turn up and try something stupid but they're certainly not part of the mainstream.
*Now that it looks like the world is on the verge of doing something about climate change and Climate Camp played a role in that key people within the UK Climate Camp movement have suddenly decided to pull out. Without their financial and logistical support it looks unlikely there will be another Climate Camp in the UK on scale of what we've seen in previous years any time soon. However smaller, local groups are working to change that. This is one of those efforts and should be considered the main Climate Camp for 2011.
Saturday 23 April 2011
Bristol's Riot.
For the past couple of months there have been tensions in Bristol, UK between a local landlord who has been leasing a property to the supermarket Tesco and protesters who were based in near by squat - more or less with the permission of the local council who own the property. At around 17:00 (local) on April 21st the local (Avon&Somerset) police received and anonymous telephone call telling them that the occupants of the squat were preparing petrol bombs to use against the Tesco store. As this is considered a terrorist offence the police had no option then to raid the squat and carry out a de facto eviction. As part of the planning for this raid Avon & Somerset police activated a mutual aid agreement with neighbouring South Wales police that put their officers on stand by in case there was trouble and more officers were needed.
At around 21:00 local the police moved in to carry out the raid. This part of the operation went quite well with the police quickly securing the property, arresting it's occupants and recovering objects including petrol, glass bottles and cloth - all of which can be used to make petrol bombs. The problem arose after local residents, many of whom had already started celebrating the long weekend, realised that the police had evicted the squat without due process and started to complain to the officers on the scene. Complaining quickly turned into fighting and the police came under attack from bottles, rocks and fists. As the situation got out of control Avon & Somerset were forced to call in the reserve officers from South Wales. They arrived on the scene at around 23:00 local and deployed riot helmets, long shields and baton charges. Although this is the tactic in the training manual questions will be asked about the decision to use it because on this occasion it only really served to arm the rioters as many of these long shields were snatched away from the police officers using them. By around 02:00 the rioters got bored, went home and the riot ended almost as quickly as it began.
Although that risk is reducing there is still a worry that this small riot could become the trigger for a larger riot. The high risk period for this happening will be between the evening of Sunday (24/4/11) and 00:00 on the morning of Tuesday (26/4/11). Bizarrely one of the main risk factors will be the new series of the TV show Doctor Who which will be shown this evening. If it's bad people will be upset and there will be a riot. If it's good then people will be happy and there won't be a riot. So no pressure there then.
At around 21:00 local the police moved in to carry out the raid. This part of the operation went quite well with the police quickly securing the property, arresting it's occupants and recovering objects including petrol, glass bottles and cloth - all of which can be used to make petrol bombs. The problem arose after local residents, many of whom had already started celebrating the long weekend, realised that the police had evicted the squat without due process and started to complain to the officers on the scene. Complaining quickly turned into fighting and the police came under attack from bottles, rocks and fists. As the situation got out of control Avon & Somerset were forced to call in the reserve officers from South Wales. They arrived on the scene at around 23:00 local and deployed riot helmets, long shields and baton charges. Although this is the tactic in the training manual questions will be asked about the decision to use it because on this occasion it only really served to arm the rioters as many of these long shields were snatched away from the police officers using them. By around 02:00 the rioters got bored, went home and the riot ended almost as quickly as it began.
Although that risk is reducing there is still a worry that this small riot could become the trigger for a larger riot. The high risk period for this happening will be between the evening of Sunday (24/4/11) and 00:00 on the morning of Tuesday (26/4/11). Bizarrely one of the main risk factors will be the new series of the TV show Doctor Who which will be shown this evening. If it's bad people will be upset and there will be a riot. If it's good then people will be happy and there won't be a riot. So no pressure there then.
Friday 22 April 2011
Hello and Good Evening.
I am most certainly not drunk. However I arrived home at around 21:45 GMT and then decided to listen to lots of music in the garden. We started with a little Imelda May then moved on to a lot of Johnny Cash before studying Florence, the Machine and her impressive set of Lungs. Now it's 23:45 and I'm listening to Columbia's 1999 relealse of The Clash single collection while trying to forget about Olvia Munn's tight little fanny.
Operation Oil Theft: Month 2, Week 1, Day 5.
Yesterday (21/4/11) rebels in Libya announced that they had seized a government held border post in the mountainous tribal region bordering Tunisia. This claim has not been verified. Already skilled in media manipulation the rebels are claiming this gain is a humanitarian victory because it will allow them to deliver aid to the Libyan people. The only worry is that the Libyan government has already given permission for the UN to supply aid within secure areas. So by making this gain the rebels have probably only made it more difficult to deliver aid to that area possibly leading to a debate between the Libyan government and the UN over what is a "secure area" and will the UN need to bring in Defence Systems Limited as security if they're going to visit it.
The real reason why the rebels are celebrating seizing this border crossing is that it is believed to be part of a major Libyan government supply route, mainly used for fuel. Therefore by controlling it the rebels will be able to choke off supplies to the majority of the Libyan people then use humanitarian aid to buy support for their cause. This is actually quite an advanced military tactic which was pioneered by Britain's SAS so it does make you wonder just how many western Special Forces cells there are in Libya.
Also yesterday America announced that it will be using armed Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UVA) known as the Predator Drone in Libya. As with everything else in the Libya conflict this is merely a formalisation of something that's already happening rather then a statement of intent. The timing of the announcement relates to events in Pakistan which it would be unwise for me to comment on further because the initial idea was so ill-conceived.
However the announcement does highlight just how little thought America has put into the Libya situation and how they're still treating is as something of a joke. Rather then considering the complex diplomatic, moral and strategic implications of launching an unprovoked war of aggression against a sovereign nation Obama seems to be treating Libya as just an opportunity to feed that (rather large) part of his ego that sees himself as the Prince of Peace who is going save all of (wo)man kind. You would have thought he'd learnt his lesson after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize caused him to very nearly destroy the entire middle east peace process - something which is looking distinctly creaky at the moment.
The real reason why the rebels are celebrating seizing this border crossing is that it is believed to be part of a major Libyan government supply route, mainly used for fuel. Therefore by controlling it the rebels will be able to choke off supplies to the majority of the Libyan people then use humanitarian aid to buy support for their cause. This is actually quite an advanced military tactic which was pioneered by Britain's SAS so it does make you wonder just how many western Special Forces cells there are in Libya.
Also yesterday America announced that it will be using armed Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UVA) known as the Predator Drone in Libya. As with everything else in the Libya conflict this is merely a formalisation of something that's already happening rather then a statement of intent. The timing of the announcement relates to events in Pakistan which it would be unwise for me to comment on further because the initial idea was so ill-conceived.
However the announcement does highlight just how little thought America has put into the Libya situation and how they're still treating is as something of a joke. Rather then considering the complex diplomatic, moral and strategic implications of launching an unprovoked war of aggression against a sovereign nation Obama seems to be treating Libya as just an opportunity to feed that (rather large) part of his ego that sees himself as the Prince of Peace who is going save all of (wo)man kind. You would have thought he'd learnt his lesson after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize caused him to very nearly destroy the entire middle east peace process - something which is looking distinctly creaky at the moment.
It's Going to be a Long Weekend.
In Bristol, UK like in many other British towns the supermarket giant Tesco have been on a mission to own everything. This has mainly involved using the Starbucks tactic of opening dozens of loss making stores in a very small area in order to force all the competition out of business before closing most of the stores down. The most recent Tesco store, I believe the 31st in Bristol, opened a couple of weeks ago in the St Pauls / Stokes Croft area which is famous from the St Pauls riots of the early 1980's and has been a long standing hotbed for oh so trendy alternativism.
In response to the store opening the local residents mounted a campaign of boycott and protest against the Tesco store which was co-ordinated from a council sponsored squat just across the road. Obviously the boycott and the extra security they'd been forced to hire was costing Tesco's significant amounts of money and negative publicity as the campaign was recently featured on the BBC's national news.
It should come as no surprise then to people who are familiar with local politics in Britain that yesterday (21/4/11) the local, Avon & Somerset, police suddenly discovered that they had credible intelligence that a terrorist attack was being planned from the squat and decided to raid it at around 20:00 GMT. This raid went a bit wrong as the occupants of the squat and the local residents decided to fight back leading to a six hour mini-riot complete with burning barricades and saw a maximum of 20 people arrested and 4 police officers lightly injured.
Given St Paul's history, the fact that it's going to be a sunny four day holiday weekend and social tensions had been running high across the country before the incitement of the Royal Wedding was announced there are significant worries that this small riot could spread and grow into a much larger riot that approaches the scale of those seen in the 1980's.
In response to the store opening the local residents mounted a campaign of boycott and protest against the Tesco store which was co-ordinated from a council sponsored squat just across the road. Obviously the boycott and the extra security they'd been forced to hire was costing Tesco's significant amounts of money and negative publicity as the campaign was recently featured on the BBC's national news.
It should come as no surprise then to people who are familiar with local politics in Britain that yesterday (21/4/11) the local, Avon & Somerset, police suddenly discovered that they had credible intelligence that a terrorist attack was being planned from the squat and decided to raid it at around 20:00 GMT. This raid went a bit wrong as the occupants of the squat and the local residents decided to fight back leading to a six hour mini-riot complete with burning barricades and saw a maximum of 20 people arrested and 4 police officers lightly injured.
Given St Paul's history, the fact that it's going to be a sunny four day holiday weekend and social tensions had been running high across the country before the incitement of the Royal Wedding was announced there are significant worries that this small riot could spread and grow into a much larger riot that approaches the scale of those seen in the 1980's.
Thursday 21 April 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Month 2, Week 1, Day 4.
Yesterday (20/4/11) it emerged that a British photojournalist, Tim Hetherington and an American photojournalist, Chris Hondros were killed in Misrata while two more journalists were seriously wounded. There are conflicting reports of the circumstances of their deaths with some claiming that they were killed in a Libyan government mortar attack while others claim they were killed by a RPG fired as part of a rebel ambush. Whatever the truth the incident highlights how difficult and dangerous it can be to bring news out of a war zone and brings the number of journalists killed since the start of the Libyan war to six.
Also yesterday the American President, Barack Obama announced that America will be supplying the Libyan rebels with $25million worth of non-lethal equipment made up of US military surplus. Apart from being an attempt to shift the focus of the US budget debate on to the amount of money wasted by the US military this announcement is very worrying because it indicates that Obama has invested so much of his vanity into the success of the Libyan rebels it has blinded him to wider consequences of the conflict.
It has long been known that America's major weakness is it's dependency on foreign oil. This undermines national security and sovereignty by making America subservient to unpleasant and oppressive regimes led by the Saudi Royal Family. Quite apart from the fact that the values of these regimes should be morally abhorrent to anyone who swears allegiance to the Constitution of the United States it also puts American lives at risk. After all Al Qeda were originally set up to overthrow the Saudi Royal Family and only started attacking America because of the support that America gives to Saudi Arabia.
Even to George W Bush the severity of this problem was so apparent that it prompted him to radically change America's energy policy in the later stages of his presidency. This change involved reducing oil consumption by focusing on green technologies and reducing the amount of American oil that was being pumped in order to extend the life of America's oil reserves. This new energy policy was one of Bush's few achievements and was so successful that it was copied by other nations with Britain's new tax on North Sea oil production and Norway's response to it looking a lot like a discreet way to ban off shore drilling. It has however had a dramatic effect on Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states because with western nations reducing their oil production while global demand is increasing their oil reserves are being drained at an alarming rate. Saudi Arabia in particular is said to only have around 70-90 years left before the oil runs out and their Monarchy become just some unpleasant people living in the desert.
As the invites the next week's Royal wedding show the British Monarchy are really good friends with the Monarchs of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States and rely on them for much of their power. So to help them Britain has embarked on this mission to overthrow the Libyan government in order to make sure that Libyan oil is brought onto the global market as soon as possible. This vast amount of new oil on the market will reduce demand from middle eastern oil and allow the Gulf States to extend the life of their oil reserves and increase the length of time that they will be able to hold America and the world to ransom. By exploiting the increase in the oil price created by the conflict and using the BP/Gulf of Mexico oil spill Britain is also trying to reduce America's global power by putting pressure on the US government to restart off shore drilling and doing so shorten the life of America's oil reserves.
So from an American perspective the attempts to overthrow Qaddafi are nothing short of suicidal and I cannot understand how Obama is, in good conscience, going along with them especially as it seems to contradict his own energy policy. It is perhaps appropriate then that all this is happening around the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion because in that story there is at least one good lesson for American President's about the importance of being prepared to lose the battle in order to win the war.
Edited to Add: And I knew at the time of writing that by publishing this on the internet it makes it more difficult for American intelligence to back out of Libya but they're still trying to work out stuff that happened five years ago so there's little chance of them managing to work it out on their own.
Also yesterday the American President, Barack Obama announced that America will be supplying the Libyan rebels with $25million worth of non-lethal equipment made up of US military surplus. Apart from being an attempt to shift the focus of the US budget debate on to the amount of money wasted by the US military this announcement is very worrying because it indicates that Obama has invested so much of his vanity into the success of the Libyan rebels it has blinded him to wider consequences of the conflict.
It has long been known that America's major weakness is it's dependency on foreign oil. This undermines national security and sovereignty by making America subservient to unpleasant and oppressive regimes led by the Saudi Royal Family. Quite apart from the fact that the values of these regimes should be morally abhorrent to anyone who swears allegiance to the Constitution of the United States it also puts American lives at risk. After all Al Qeda were originally set up to overthrow the Saudi Royal Family and only started attacking America because of the support that America gives to Saudi Arabia.
Even to George W Bush the severity of this problem was so apparent that it prompted him to radically change America's energy policy in the later stages of his presidency. This change involved reducing oil consumption by focusing on green technologies and reducing the amount of American oil that was being pumped in order to extend the life of America's oil reserves. This new energy policy was one of Bush's few achievements and was so successful that it was copied by other nations with Britain's new tax on North Sea oil production and Norway's response to it looking a lot like a discreet way to ban off shore drilling. It has however had a dramatic effect on Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states because with western nations reducing their oil production while global demand is increasing their oil reserves are being drained at an alarming rate. Saudi Arabia in particular is said to only have around 70-90 years left before the oil runs out and their Monarchy become just some unpleasant people living in the desert.
As the invites the next week's Royal wedding show the British Monarchy are really good friends with the Monarchs of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States and rely on them for much of their power. So to help them Britain has embarked on this mission to overthrow the Libyan government in order to make sure that Libyan oil is brought onto the global market as soon as possible. This vast amount of new oil on the market will reduce demand from middle eastern oil and allow the Gulf States to extend the life of their oil reserves and increase the length of time that they will be able to hold America and the world to ransom. By exploiting the increase in the oil price created by the conflict and using the BP/Gulf of Mexico oil spill Britain is also trying to reduce America's global power by putting pressure on the US government to restart off shore drilling and doing so shorten the life of America's oil reserves.
So from an American perspective the attempts to overthrow Qaddafi are nothing short of suicidal and I cannot understand how Obama is, in good conscience, going along with them especially as it seems to contradict his own energy policy. It is perhaps appropriate then that all this is happening around the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion because in that story there is at least one good lesson for American President's about the importance of being prepared to lose the battle in order to win the war.
Edited to Add: And I knew at the time of writing that by publishing this on the internet it makes it more difficult for American intelligence to back out of Libya but they're still trying to work out stuff that happened five years ago so there's little chance of them managing to work it out on their own.
Wednesday 20 April 2011
America's Credit Downgrade Threat.
On Monday April 18th stock markets worldwide dropped dramatically as the credit rating agency Standard & Poor warned that it had downgraded the outlook for America's credit rating. This is the first step before actually downgrading America's credit rating from the excellent AAA to AA. Much like if a persons credit rating is downgraded this will effect the amount of money that the American government will be able to borrow in the future, how long they will be able to borrow it for and how much interest they will have to pay.
Obviously there are a number of factors behind this downgrade threat. For example there are concerns that America seems to be playing the game much like the British did just before they crashed back to earth in 2008. Also when America's air traffic controllers finally wake up they will realise that the worst thing for America's long term interests would be for the mission in Libya to actually succeed. The main concern though is the political argument over America's debt ceiling. By law America's national debt is limited to $14.3 trillion and that limit is expected to be reached by mid-May amid deep partisan divisions over whether or not to raise that ceiling. If the Republicans and the Democrats can't agree to raise that ceiling then the American government will run out of money, be forced to default on the debt it already has and see it's credit rating downgraded to junk status like Ireland and Greece.
If the worlds biggest economy goes bankrupt then there will be no-one to bail it out and capitalism as we know it will cease to exist. So by issuing the warning S&P were telling America's politicians that they really need to pull their fingers out.
Obviously there are a number of factors behind this downgrade threat. For example there are concerns that America seems to be playing the game much like the British did just before they crashed back to earth in 2008. Also when America's air traffic controllers finally wake up they will realise that the worst thing for America's long term interests would be for the mission in Libya to actually succeed. The main concern though is the political argument over America's debt ceiling. By law America's national debt is limited to $14.3 trillion and that limit is expected to be reached by mid-May amid deep partisan divisions over whether or not to raise that ceiling. If the Republicans and the Democrats can't agree to raise that ceiling then the American government will run out of money, be forced to default on the debt it already has and see it's credit rating downgraded to junk status like Ireland and Greece.
If the worlds biggest economy goes bankrupt then there will be no-one to bail it out and capitalism as we know it will cease to exist. So by issuing the warning S&P were telling America's politicians that they really need to pull their fingers out.
Operation Oil Theft: Month 2, Week 1, Day 3.
Following Britain's announcement yesterday (19/4/11) France and Italy have today (20/4/11) announced that they will also be sending military advisers to Libya to help the rebels. Like the British advisers both of the ten man teams will be made up of officers from conventional military regiments and will not be wearing military uniform. There is no word yet if they will supply the rebels with weapons or engage in combat. I'm not sure about the Italians but the French advisers most certainly will be supplying the rebels with both weapons and weapons training as today's announcement is merely the formalisation of something that's been going on for a couple of weeks.
Without going into too much detail one the weapons that has been turning up the hands of the Libyan rebels is the MILAN anti-tank weapons system. Basically this is a wire guided missile launcher that is much more advanced then the RPG-7 and requires a lot of training to use effectively. Not only that but the ammunition, which costs around US$25,000 per shot, must be supplied in special factory sealed tubes which actually form part of the launcher. As a result there are only a handful of factories world wide, all of them in NATO countries, that are capable of producing MILAN ammunition and all of them are licensed by Euromissile, the French manufacturer. Therefore it would be impossible for the rebels to be supplied with MILAN's without the French government giving their permission.
Also today it has emerged that the Libyan Foreign Minister has indicated that the Libyan government might be prepared to discuss Muammer Qaddafi leaving office. Although this is being heralded in Britain as a sign of cracking amid the Libyan government it actually represents a hardening of their position. Part of the African Union ceasefire which the Libyan government accepted but the rebels rejected included plans for Muammer Qaddafi to hand over power to his son, Saif Qaddafi who would oversee the countries transition to democracy. So the fact that the Libyan government are now only prepared to discuss the idea is something of a step backwards.
Without going into too much detail one the weapons that has been turning up the hands of the Libyan rebels is the MILAN anti-tank weapons system. Basically this is a wire guided missile launcher that is much more advanced then the RPG-7 and requires a lot of training to use effectively. Not only that but the ammunition, which costs around US$25,000 per shot, must be supplied in special factory sealed tubes which actually form part of the launcher. As a result there are only a handful of factories world wide, all of them in NATO countries, that are capable of producing MILAN ammunition and all of them are licensed by Euromissile, the French manufacturer. Therefore it would be impossible for the rebels to be supplied with MILAN's without the French government giving their permission.
Also today it has emerged that the Libyan Foreign Minister has indicated that the Libyan government might be prepared to discuss Muammer Qaddafi leaving office. Although this is being heralded in Britain as a sign of cracking amid the Libyan government it actually represents a hardening of their position. Part of the African Union ceasefire which the Libyan government accepted but the rebels rejected included plans for Muammer Qaddafi to hand over power to his son, Saif Qaddafi who would oversee the countries transition to democracy. So the fact that the Libyan government are now only prepared to discuss the idea is something of a step backwards.
Hello Sunshine.
After something of a harsh winter the weather in Britain seems to have decided not to bother with spring and moved straight to summer. This means we're currently enjoying 14-15 hours of unbroken sunshine and daytime temperatures of around 25C.
Yesterday I used the opportunity to finally get into town. After a trip the bank and buying some tedious work stuff like notebooks and folders I brought some new clothes. Specifically some light coloured trousers, a couple of T-shirts and a couple of shirts because the clothes I brought a few years ago are now starting to look a bit ragged. I also brought a couple of bargain bucket CD's and some cigarettes before stopping off for a quick beer in a very pleasant pub garden.
Also you may have noticed that I've sort of stopped making those "It's Tuesday and I'm back from the pub posts." The main reason for this is that after months of nothing happening I'd sort of run out of things to say. Also those posts were giving the Americans encouragement to perpetuate a situation that they'd been claiming to try and end for a couple of years. I might bring the posts back during big, international events but until then it's safe to say that the absence of a post proves the absence of a problem.
Yesterday I used the opportunity to finally get into town. After a trip the bank and buying some tedious work stuff like notebooks and folders I brought some new clothes. Specifically some light coloured trousers, a couple of T-shirts and a couple of shirts because the clothes I brought a few years ago are now starting to look a bit ragged. I also brought a couple of bargain bucket CD's and some cigarettes before stopping off for a quick beer in a very pleasant pub garden.
Also you may have noticed that I've sort of stopped making those "It's Tuesday and I'm back from the pub posts." The main reason for this is that after months of nothing happening I'd sort of run out of things to say. Also those posts were giving the Americans encouragement to perpetuate a situation that they'd been claiming to try and end for a couple of years. I might bring the posts back during big, international events but until then it's safe to say that the absence of a post proves the absence of a problem.
Tuesday 19 April 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Month 2, Week 1, Day 2.
Over the past 24 hours nothing much of note has happened in Libya.
Today (19/4/11) the leaders of the rebels Transitional National Council (TNC) met the Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini in Rome. The main purpose of the meeting to was to attempt to give legitimacy to the TNC on the international stage and to further that end they appear to have had their name upgraded to the National Transitional Council (NTC) because that sounds more permanent and more encompassing of the entire nation of Libya rather then the small area of the country the rebels actually control. The Italian Foreign Minister did also use the meeting as an opportunity to announce that the next meeting of the Libya Contact Group that was set up as part of the London Summit process will take place in Italy in early to mid-May. The sole order of business for that meeting will be to work out how best to sell oil from rebel held areas of Libya.
Also today Britain announced that it will be sending military advisers to Benghazi to assist the rebels. It appears that these advisers will be officers from conventional military regiments and will assist with tactics, communications and logistics. Britain is keen to stress that this isn't an example of Vietnam style mission creep and the advisers won't wear military uniform, provide the rebels with arms or engage in any fighting. In fact, at the moment, the advisers main mission seems to be to muscle in on what the Americans are already doing with the rebels around Al Marj.
In making the announcement of the deployment of British military advisers the British Foreign Minister, William Hague once again repeated his oft repeated claim that there can be no peace for Libya until Qaddafi goes which raises the obvious question of why not?
Today (19/4/11) the leaders of the rebels Transitional National Council (TNC) met the Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini in Rome. The main purpose of the meeting to was to attempt to give legitimacy to the TNC on the international stage and to further that end they appear to have had their name upgraded to the National Transitional Council (NTC) because that sounds more permanent and more encompassing of the entire nation of Libya rather then the small area of the country the rebels actually control. The Italian Foreign Minister did also use the meeting as an opportunity to announce that the next meeting of the Libya Contact Group that was set up as part of the London Summit process will take place in Italy in early to mid-May. The sole order of business for that meeting will be to work out how best to sell oil from rebel held areas of Libya.
Also today Britain announced that it will be sending military advisers to Benghazi to assist the rebels. It appears that these advisers will be officers from conventional military regiments and will assist with tactics, communications and logistics. Britain is keen to stress that this isn't an example of Vietnam style mission creep and the advisers won't wear military uniform, provide the rebels with arms or engage in any fighting. In fact, at the moment, the advisers main mission seems to be to muscle in on what the Americans are already doing with the rebels around Al Marj.
In making the announcement of the deployment of British military advisers the British Foreign Minister, William Hague once again repeated his oft repeated claim that there can be no peace for Libya until Qaddafi goes which raises the obvious question of why not?
Monday 18 April 2011
Operation Oil Theft: [M]onth 2, Week 1, Day 1.
Yesterday (17/4/11) Libyan government forces attempted to re-take Ajdibiya. They were repelled by rebel forces so again around two dozen people were killed or wounded and no progress was made.
This continuing stalemate has forced the coalition of foreign forces to attempt to remake the case for military intervention in Libya to the international community. Britain has today (18/4/11) been attempting to do this by convening an informal meeting at the United Nations to discuss the humanitarian situation in Misrata. The idea being that they would shock everyone with tales of suffering from the city and this would be used as an excuse to intensify the bombing campaign to increase pressure on the Libyan government in order to affect regime change. This appears to have backfired somewhat with the UN giving Britain permission to evacuate some 5000 people from Misrata and suggesting that if Britain is really that concerned about the lack of medical supplies it might want to provide the city with some medical supplies rather then video cameras.
At the meeting the UN were also able to announce that away from Britain's efforts the Libyan government had given permission for a UN mission to set up in Tripoli to monitor the humanitarian situation. Normally this should be celebrated but in this case it could cause more problems then it solves. When the UN operate in war zones they do so with armed security personnel even when a UN peacekeeping force is not in place. This armed security is provided by Private Military Security Contractors (PMSC) and one of the largest suppliers of security to the UN is a British company called Defense Systems Limited (DSL). Apart from providing security for the UN DSL also work closely with British Petroleum (BP) and there are still many unanswered questions about the role the company played in the start of the Libyan revolt. Therefore dispatching more DSL staff to Libya is only likely to make the situation worse.
Also in an attempt to shore up support for the operation the Americans yesterday (17/4/11) gave an estimate of how long they think the operation will last although never missing an opportunity to prey on the weak and vulnerable this was disguised as a comment on the Japanese nuclear crisis. While I think the situation around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will continue to cause the Japanese problems for the next 30 years 6-9 months seems like a fair estimate for what the Americans are planing for Libya.
The reason why yesterday's attempt to re-take Ajdabiya failed was because you know those weapons and training that western forces are not giving the Libyan rebels well they're starting to turn up on the front line. That means that my best guess is that the rebel training camp near Al Marj being operated by American and (under duress) Egyptian special forces is running a three week training program covering drill, weapons handling, battlefield communications, and basic tactics with an intake of around 100 new students per week. That means after 6 months they will have trained up around 2520 rebel fighters and after 9 months they will have trained up around 3780 rebels. Once the order is given these fighters will launch a full scale offensive, with NATO air support, against the Libyan government's approx 10,000 better trained combat veterans. However as the Libyan government forces are expected to experience significant force depletion after a 10 month NATO bombing campaign and are spread out across most of Libya the hope is that the rebel force will be strong enough to advance on Tripoli and overthrow the government.
This continuing stalemate has forced the coalition of foreign forces to attempt to remake the case for military intervention in Libya to the international community. Britain has today (18/4/11) been attempting to do this by convening an informal meeting at the United Nations to discuss the humanitarian situation in Misrata. The idea being that they would shock everyone with tales of suffering from the city and this would be used as an excuse to intensify the bombing campaign to increase pressure on the Libyan government in order to affect regime change. This appears to have backfired somewhat with the UN giving Britain permission to evacuate some 5000 people from Misrata and suggesting that if Britain is really that concerned about the lack of medical supplies it might want to provide the city with some medical supplies rather then video cameras.
At the meeting the UN were also able to announce that away from Britain's efforts the Libyan government had given permission for a UN mission to set up in Tripoli to monitor the humanitarian situation. Normally this should be celebrated but in this case it could cause more problems then it solves. When the UN operate in war zones they do so with armed security personnel even when a UN peacekeeping force is not in place. This armed security is provided by Private Military Security Contractors (PMSC) and one of the largest suppliers of security to the UN is a British company called Defense Systems Limited (DSL). Apart from providing security for the UN DSL also work closely with British Petroleum (BP) and there are still many unanswered questions about the role the company played in the start of the Libyan revolt. Therefore dispatching more DSL staff to Libya is only likely to make the situation worse.
Also in an attempt to shore up support for the operation the Americans yesterday (17/4/11) gave an estimate of how long they think the operation will last although never missing an opportunity to prey on the weak and vulnerable this was disguised as a comment on the Japanese nuclear crisis. While I think the situation around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will continue to cause the Japanese problems for the next 30 years 6-9 months seems like a fair estimate for what the Americans are planing for Libya.
The reason why yesterday's attempt to re-take Ajdabiya failed was because you know those weapons and training that western forces are not giving the Libyan rebels well they're starting to turn up on the front line. That means that my best guess is that the rebel training camp near Al Marj being operated by American and (under duress) Egyptian special forces is running a three week training program covering drill, weapons handling, battlefield communications, and basic tactics with an intake of around 100 new students per week. That means after 6 months they will have trained up around 2520 rebel fighters and after 9 months they will have trained up around 3780 rebels. Once the order is given these fighters will launch a full scale offensive, with NATO air support, against the Libyan government's approx 10,000 better trained combat veterans. However as the Libyan government forces are expected to experience significant force depletion after a 10 month NATO bombing campaign and are spread out across most of Libya the hope is that the rebel force will be strong enough to advance on Tripoli and overthrow the government.
Sunday 17 April 2011
The M1 Motorway Fire.
On Friday April 15th Britain's first and most important motorway, the M1, which links Manchester and the North of the UK to London and the South of the UK was shut after a large fire at a scrapyard beneath the motorway. This caused travel chaos ahead of a busy weekend of sport which saw the London marathon, both semi-finals of the FA Cup being held at Wembley stadium and the Premier League match between Arsenal and Liverpool at Arsenal's north London stadium. As the fire has also caused structural damage to the motorway it looks as though it could also cause disruption to the travel plans of people who are planning a holiday for the coming four day Easter Bank holiday weekend and the four day Royal Wedding/Mayday Public/Bank holiday* the following weekend. This has led to a lot of people suggesting that it is a very unfortunate time for such a dramatic event to take place.
That it most certainly is. If you've looked at the Libyan rebels in any depth you'd know that a very high proportion of them are British citizens from cities like London, Edinburgh and Manchester. In fact if you were feeling cheeky you might suggest that you've got more chance of hearing a Manchester accent in Benghazi then you've got at an average Manchester United game. That would make it very tempting to have the Libyan rebels temporarily represented in the football code book by Manchester City - Manchester United's great rivals and the football team supported by people who actually come from Manchester.
Yesterday's (16/4/11) FA Cup semi-final was a grudge match between Manchester United and Manchester City. As Manchester United already represent the British state in the football code book then if someone had suggested updating that book to include Manchester City as the Libyan rebels then that game, which Manchester City won 1-0, along with Moussa Koussa's appointment as Britain's envoy to the rebels could have contributed to an entirely false impression of a fractured relationship between Britain and the Libyan rebels. Sadly no-one did mention that change to the code book which certainly made travel to the Manchester derby difficult.
The presence of a scrapyard though also means that there was a Dale Farm element to the story. For those of you who have not been following Dale Farm is a large Traveller/Gypsy camp in Essex, UK which was built on a former scrapyard and is facing eviction. With all legal routes exhausted the Dale Farm residents are just waiting for the local (Basildon) council to issue a 28 day notice. This will give the residents 28 days to voluntarily vacate the site before bailiffs and the police will clear the site by force. Now I'm not saying that this will get violent but Constant & Co are the bailiffs employed to do the job and the United Nations have appointed Ivory Coast style observers to monitor the eviction. The Brits are really not happy about this because a UN report into their efforts to cleanse an ethnic group from an area doesn't really fit in with their image as a champion of human rights who are bravely trying to protect the people of Libya. In fact there are rumours that UN involvement means that the Brits may back down but I don't know how much stock to put in those whispers because ahead of the eviction there is likely to be a lot of intelligence gathering, false information flying about and attempts to probe the sites defences. Besides the game proper doesn't start until the 28 day notice has been issued and the residents haven't even begun to dig the trenches yet.
*Contrary to popular belief the day of the Royal Wedding is not a Bank holiday. It is merely a public holiday meaning that all the legal employment protections that come with a Bank holiday do not apply. So if you do get a paid day off it's at the discretion of your employer.
That it most certainly is. If you've looked at the Libyan rebels in any depth you'd know that a very high proportion of them are British citizens from cities like London, Edinburgh and Manchester. In fact if you were feeling cheeky you might suggest that you've got more chance of hearing a Manchester accent in Benghazi then you've got at an average Manchester United game. That would make it very tempting to have the Libyan rebels temporarily represented in the football code book by Manchester City - Manchester United's great rivals and the football team supported by people who actually come from Manchester.
Yesterday's (16/4/11) FA Cup semi-final was a grudge match between Manchester United and Manchester City. As Manchester United already represent the British state in the football code book then if someone had suggested updating that book to include Manchester City as the Libyan rebels then that game, which Manchester City won 1-0, along with Moussa Koussa's appointment as Britain's envoy to the rebels could have contributed to an entirely false impression of a fractured relationship between Britain and the Libyan rebels. Sadly no-one did mention that change to the code book which certainly made travel to the Manchester derby difficult.
The presence of a scrapyard though also means that there was a Dale Farm element to the story. For those of you who have not been following Dale Farm is a large Traveller/Gypsy camp in Essex, UK which was built on a former scrapyard and is facing eviction. With all legal routes exhausted the Dale Farm residents are just waiting for the local (Basildon) council to issue a 28 day notice. This will give the residents 28 days to voluntarily vacate the site before bailiffs and the police will clear the site by force. Now I'm not saying that this will get violent but Constant & Co are the bailiffs employed to do the job and the United Nations have appointed Ivory Coast style observers to monitor the eviction. The Brits are really not happy about this because a UN report into their efforts to cleanse an ethnic group from an area doesn't really fit in with their image as a champion of human rights who are bravely trying to protect the people of Libya. In fact there are rumours that UN involvement means that the Brits may back down but I don't know how much stock to put in those whispers because ahead of the eviction there is likely to be a lot of intelligence gathering, false information flying about and attempts to probe the sites defences. Besides the game proper doesn't start until the 28 day notice has been issued and the residents haven't even begun to dig the trenches yet.
*Contrary to popular belief the day of the Royal Wedding is not a Bank holiday. It is merely a public holiday meaning that all the legal employment protections that come with a Bank holiday do not apply. So if you do get a paid day off it's at the discretion of your employer.
That NATO Meeting.
On Thursday (14/4/11) and Friday (15/4/11) of last week NATO foreign ministers held a meeting in which the operation against Libya was discussed at great length. However the meeting was not called specifically to discuss Libya. It was actually meant to be a routine meeting to discuss eastern Europe - NATO's traditional area of operations. So I think it's worth looking at what the meeting would have discussed if Libya hadn't forced everything else off the agenda.
The most pressing topic would have been the situation in Belarus. Here the President, Alexander Lukashenko is still refusing to acknowledge let alone investigate claims that he stole last December's election. There has been no let up in the state security crackdown on opposition supporters with more and more of the over 700 arrested being found guilty in questionable trials and being given long prison sentences. What is more worrying though is the reaction to last weeks bombing of a railway station in Minsk. Although five men have confessed to the attack those confessions are believed to have been obtained under torture and are widely considered to be false leaving the finger of suspicion still pointing at Lukashenko and his supporters. This fits into a pattern of behaviour that saw similar bombings in 2005 and 2008.
The NATO foreign ministers should also have discussed the situation in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Having come into being with the support of a NATO bombing campaign during the break up of the former Yugoslavia Bosnia & Herzegovina is currently in the grip of a deep political crisis. The predominately Serb Repubika Srpska region wants to see the entire country break apart so it can be free to join Serbia proper. The Bosniak-Croat Federation which makes up the other part of the country and is home to a mix of Bosniaks, Bosniak-Muslims and Croats is not doing any better. In October 2010 the mainly Bosniak Social Democrats won a disputed election but have been unable to form a government because the Croat parties refuse to recognise the election result. With no end to the stalemate in sight Bosnia & Herzegovina have been suspended by the European Football Association (UEFA) and seasoned Balkans watchers are warning that the international community may have to intervene again in the country to avoid it breaking apart and a possible repeat of the ethnic violence of the 1990's.
Tensions in the area are not being helped by the fact that on Friday (15/4/11) the International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted two senior Croat generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Yugoslav civil war. The convictions relate to a NATO sanctioned operation to drive Serb forces out of Krajina. Although Operation Storm as it was known was carried out with NATO air support it saw Croat forces under the command of Gotovina and Markac kill at least 150 civilians as they purposefully shelled residential areas in order to ethnically cleanse over 200,000 Serb civilians from the region.
In Serbia itself opposition political parties are trying to bring down the government in order to force an early election. Tension is expected to rise further when 9 top commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) go on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during and after the 1999 Kosovo war. The charge is that while NATO was bombing Serbia to protect the Kosovars the KLA were routinely killing both military and civilian Serb prisoners. Then after NATO helped Kosovo break away from Serbia the KLA decided to start making money by kidnapping and murdering civilians of all ethnicity's in order to harvest their organs and sell them on the black market in incidents that gave rise to the infamous Israeli blood libel. So I guess the guys NATO were backing in that fight weren't exactly the good guys either.
The most pressing topic would have been the situation in Belarus. Here the President, Alexander Lukashenko is still refusing to acknowledge let alone investigate claims that he stole last December's election. There has been no let up in the state security crackdown on opposition supporters with more and more of the over 700 arrested being found guilty in questionable trials and being given long prison sentences. What is more worrying though is the reaction to last weeks bombing of a railway station in Minsk. Although five men have confessed to the attack those confessions are believed to have been obtained under torture and are widely considered to be false leaving the finger of suspicion still pointing at Lukashenko and his supporters. This fits into a pattern of behaviour that saw similar bombings in 2005 and 2008.
The NATO foreign ministers should also have discussed the situation in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Having come into being with the support of a NATO bombing campaign during the break up of the former Yugoslavia Bosnia & Herzegovina is currently in the grip of a deep political crisis. The predominately Serb Repubika Srpska region wants to see the entire country break apart so it can be free to join Serbia proper. The Bosniak-Croat Federation which makes up the other part of the country and is home to a mix of Bosniaks, Bosniak-Muslims and Croats is not doing any better. In October 2010 the mainly Bosniak Social Democrats won a disputed election but have been unable to form a government because the Croat parties refuse to recognise the election result. With no end to the stalemate in sight Bosnia & Herzegovina have been suspended by the European Football Association (UEFA) and seasoned Balkans watchers are warning that the international community may have to intervene again in the country to avoid it breaking apart and a possible repeat of the ethnic violence of the 1990's.
Tensions in the area are not being helped by the fact that on Friday (15/4/11) the International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted two senior Croat generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Yugoslav civil war. The convictions relate to a NATO sanctioned operation to drive Serb forces out of Krajina. Although Operation Storm as it was known was carried out with NATO air support it saw Croat forces under the command of Gotovina and Markac kill at least 150 civilians as they purposefully shelled residential areas in order to ethnically cleanse over 200,000 Serb civilians from the region.
In Serbia itself opposition political parties are trying to bring down the government in order to force an early election. Tension is expected to rise further when 9 top commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) go on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during and after the 1999 Kosovo war. The charge is that while NATO was bombing Serbia to protect the Kosovars the KLA were routinely killing both military and civilian Serb prisoners. Then after NATO helped Kosovo break away from Serbia the KLA decided to start making money by kidnapping and murdering civilians of all ethnicity's in order to harvest their organs and sell them on the black market in incidents that gave rise to the infamous Israeli blood libel. So I guess the guys NATO were backing in that fight weren't exactly the good guys either.
Saturday 16 April 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Week 5, Day 1,
With it becoming increasingly apparent that if the world knew then what it knows now the UN would never have authorised military action against Libya Britain, France and the US are looking for new ways to justify their unprovoked aggression. The latest attempt is the revelation that Libyan government forces are using cluster munitions.
Although not an uncommon tactic of war and one that NATO pioneered the use of cluster munitions is a deeply troubling tactic. Cluster munitions work by launching a projectile, in this case from a mortar, into the sky. This projectile then breaks apart in mid-air and releases a cloud of smaller, explosive bomblets over a wide area. Apart from the indiscriminate nature of bombing such a wide area the main problem of cluster munitions is that only about 70% of these bomblets actually explode first time. The other 30% just lie there on the ground waiting to explode when they're picked up by children, farmers or scrap metal collectors. Cluster munitions are still killing and injuring people in places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Lebanon and Kosovo often decades after the fighting has ended.
The most worrying thing about the use of cluster munitions in Libya though is that it is something that only started to happen after foreign military intervention begun. Therefore I can't help but thinking that it was something that could have been avoided if foreign aircraft hadn't spent the last five weeks destroying the Libyan government's stockpiles of conventional munitions and instead allowed them the space to safely and humanely put down the foreign sponsored armed uprising.
Although not an uncommon tactic of war and one that NATO pioneered the use of cluster munitions is a deeply troubling tactic. Cluster munitions work by launching a projectile, in this case from a mortar, into the sky. This projectile then breaks apart in mid-air and releases a cloud of smaller, explosive bomblets over a wide area. Apart from the indiscriminate nature of bombing such a wide area the main problem of cluster munitions is that only about 70% of these bomblets actually explode first time. The other 30% just lie there on the ground waiting to explode when they're picked up by children, farmers or scrap metal collectors. Cluster munitions are still killing and injuring people in places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Lebanon and Kosovo often decades after the fighting has ended.
The most worrying thing about the use of cluster munitions in Libya though is that it is something that only started to happen after foreign military intervention begun. Therefore I can't help but thinking that it was something that could have been avoided if foreign aircraft hadn't spent the last five weeks destroying the Libyan government's stockpiles of conventional munitions and instead allowed them the space to safely and humanely put down the foreign sponsored armed uprising.
Friday 15 April 2011
And the Sideshow Continues.
Yesterday (14/4/11) the British Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron gave a speech in which he called for immigration to be cut. Before he'd even given the speech Vince Cable, a Liberal Democrat (LibDem) minister in the ConDem coalition criticised the speech for fuelling extremism. This led to lots of people getting all excited about how it showed a split was emerging between the Conservatives and the LibDems and the coalition could collapse at any second.
It's a shame then that it was all contrived. On May 5th there will be local elections in parts of the UK and Parliamentary elections in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The LibDems are worried that they are losing their identity in the coalition on account of them just saying yes to all of the Conservative policies. So the leader of the Conservatives and the leader of the LibDems got together and planned to have this little tiff in order to convince the voters that there is a difference between the two parties and that either party has some sort of influence over an immigration policy that was decided on about six months before they were "elected."
So I don't know how Britain is going to export democracy to Libya because it died out here about two years ago.
It's a shame then that it was all contrived. On May 5th there will be local elections in parts of the UK and Parliamentary elections in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The LibDems are worried that they are losing their identity in the coalition on account of them just saying yes to all of the Conservative policies. So the leader of the Conservatives and the leader of the LibDems got together and planned to have this little tiff in order to convince the voters that there is a difference between the two parties and that either party has some sort of influence over an immigration policy that was decided on about six months before they were "elected."
So I don't know how Britain is going to export democracy to Libya because it died out here about two years ago.
Operation Oil Theft: Week 4 Day 7.
Technically this is yesterday's (14/4/11) news but I almost missed it because for some funny reason it wasn't widely reported in Britain.
While NATO foreign ministers were meeting in Berlin the leaders of the BRIC's economic group were also meeting. While most of that meeting was dedicated to economic matters the leaders did release a statement in which they declared that the use of force in Libya should be avoided. This is important because 5 of the members of the BRIC's group are also members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). If they are indicating that they do not support the NATO operation against Libya then coupled with the results of the previous vote it suggests that there are now 7 members of the UNSC who would be prepared to vote to stop that operation - just 2 votes short of the 9 vote threshold.
Obviously Britain, France and French Lebanon are non-starters for those extra two votes. As basically a trading name of the Shell oil company Nigeria will be difficult. However I think those 9 votes are achievable and could rise as high as 11. The key will be what America does. If it keeps making statements in support of the NATO operation those extra votes will remain unavailable and the operation will continue. However if America takes a more ambivalent position those votes will become available and the operation will cease. So for all the talk of taking a back seat America is actually the linchpin allowing the attacks on Libya to continue. Whether or not this will change is hard to gauge because while America is certainly testing the waters of the debate with talk of it "looking beyond resolution 1973(2011)" America has been having a lot of trouble over recent years accepting the change that has already happened.
Also now footage of the attacks have been shown across the world NATO is now admitting that attacks took place in Tripoli yesterday. They are though still denying that these attacks caused civilian casualties.
While NATO foreign ministers were meeting in Berlin the leaders of the BRIC's economic group were also meeting. While most of that meeting was dedicated to economic matters the leaders did release a statement in which they declared that the use of force in Libya should be avoided. This is important because 5 of the members of the BRIC's group are also members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). If they are indicating that they do not support the NATO operation against Libya then coupled with the results of the previous vote it suggests that there are now 7 members of the UNSC who would be prepared to vote to stop that operation - just 2 votes short of the 9 vote threshold.
Obviously Britain, France and French Lebanon are non-starters for those extra two votes. As basically a trading name of the Shell oil company Nigeria will be difficult. However I think those 9 votes are achievable and could rise as high as 11. The key will be what America does. If it keeps making statements in support of the NATO operation those extra votes will remain unavailable and the operation will continue. However if America takes a more ambivalent position those votes will become available and the operation will cease. So for all the talk of taking a back seat America is actually the linchpin allowing the attacks on Libya to continue. Whether or not this will change is hard to gauge because while America is certainly testing the waters of the debate with talk of it "looking beyond resolution 1973(2011)" America has been having a lot of trouble over recent years accepting the change that has already happened.
Also now footage of the attacks have been shown across the world NATO is now admitting that attacks took place in Tripoli yesterday. They are though still denying that these attacks caused civilian casualties.
Thursday 14 April 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Week 4 Day 6.
Three days after rejecting a ceasefire the Libyan rebels today (14/4/11) warned that the world was just days away from seeing a massacre in Misrata. Just as the warning that the world was days away from a massacre in Benghazi came on the day the United Nation's Security Council (UNSC) met today's warning came on the day that NATO foreign ministers were meeting in Berlin to discuss the operation against Libya.
Britain and France were intent on using this meeting to get other NATO members to widen the scope of the operation and contribute aircraft to the war effort. Although in diplomatic circles it's strong statement to make I think it's fair to say that they failed in this objective. No country committed any aircraft, Spain announced that it won't be renewing it's involvement and America pointedly stated it's commitment to "the NATO operation" with the "and nothing more" being left unsaid.
As the meeting broke up in Berlin, Tripoli was rocked by a series of large explosions as aircraft dropped between 7 and 10 bombs on the city. As almost exactly the same thing happened yesterday (13/4/11) as the contact group meeting broke up in Doha rather then being a legitimate attack on a military target this was more of a terror attack designed to intimidate Qaddafi and the people of Tripoli by sending the message that the coalition is still together and can strike anywhere and at any time.
What is interesting is that NATO have now denied that this attack, which I've seen footage of, ever took place. Either this means that the attack was carried out by British, French or Qatari aircraft operating unilaterally outside of the NATO command structure or NATO don't want to admit that this is what the operation has come too.
Britain and France were intent on using this meeting to get other NATO members to widen the scope of the operation and contribute aircraft to the war effort. Although in diplomatic circles it's strong statement to make I think it's fair to say that they failed in this objective. No country committed any aircraft, Spain announced that it won't be renewing it's involvement and America pointedly stated it's commitment to "the NATO operation" with the "and nothing more" being left unsaid.
As the meeting broke up in Berlin, Tripoli was rocked by a series of large explosions as aircraft dropped between 7 and 10 bombs on the city. As almost exactly the same thing happened yesterday (13/4/11) as the contact group meeting broke up in Doha rather then being a legitimate attack on a military target this was more of a terror attack designed to intimidate Qaddafi and the people of Tripoli by sending the message that the coalition is still together and can strike anywhere and at any time.
What is interesting is that NATO have now denied that this attack, which I've seen footage of, ever took place. Either this means that the attack was carried out by British, French or Qatari aircraft operating unilaterally outside of the NATO command structure or NATO don't want to admit that this is what the operation has come too.
Wednesday 13 April 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Week 4 Day 5
With the rebels refusing to sign up to a ceasefire events in Libya have continued in their usual pattern. Rebel and government forces have continued to exchange fire around Ajdibiya and Misurata with both sides reporting casualties but neither side making any progress. Foreign aircraft continue to bomb government forces on the ground but here something of a two tier operation has begun to emerge. British, French and Qatari aircraft are really the only ones continuing to attack ground targets while the other members of the NATO commanded coalition are content to sit back and enforce the no-fly zone by patrolling the skies above Libya. This has led to Britain accusing the other NATO allies of not pulling their weight and Britain's David Cameron and France's Nicholas Sarkozy are to have dinner together tonight (13/4/11) in Paris to discuss the matter.
Elsewhere the first meeting of the Libyan contact group that was set up at the London conference of March 29th has today taken place in Doha, Qatar. This should be viewed as one of the first steps of a long process. So rather then attempting to gain agreement on a concrete set of proposals it was more designed to formalise Free Libya's Transitional National Council (TNC) and build it into something that can operate in international diplomatic circles while sending out the message to Qaddafi that the world is uniting behind and alternative government of Libya.
That said the meeting did agree to allow the Qataris to set up a sort of trust fund to hold the revenues from rebel oil exports and possibly Libyan assets that have been frozen overseas. This is convenient way of getting around the legally difficult question of whether foreign countries are allowed to arm the rebels. Instead they simply enable the rebels to buy their own weapons. Amid all the talk of oil for guns deals the meeting was warned that unless the conflict ends soon upwards of 3.5 million Libyan civilians will require what is referred to as "first need aid" such as food and water. I hate to be so cold and calculating but given that the population of Benghazi is only around 1 million if this is the fate that faces the Libyan people then it would have been more humane to allow the massacre to happen if there ever was going to be a massacre.
That sobering thought aside the other interesting aspect of the Doha meeting was the unveiling of former Libyan Foreign Minister, Moussa Koussa as Britain's envoy to the Libyan rebels. This was a wonderfully theatrical exercise in diplomatic deception designed to send out a variety of messages to a variety of people.
In the first it was designed to encourage further defections from the Libyan government by sending out the message that no matter what they'd done if they defect to Britain they'll be allowed to walk away both free and rich.
Secondly it was designed to create an illusion of distance between Britain and the Libyan rebels. Although the Libyan rebellion, and in the case of the Libyan Youth Movement literally, was born and raised in Britain appointing an envoy to reach out the rebels gives the impression that Britain has much less influence over the rebels then it really does.
Thirdly Koussa's appointment helps to create the impression that Britain does not intend to turn Libya into a Somalia style failed state because Koussa specifically warned about that in his first public appearance after defecting. However with no clear end point in sight Britain's plan for Libya seems to be to keeping bombing it until the money runs out which is a clear recipe for a Somalia style failed state. In fact it's how Britain helped turn Somalia into it's current state.
Edited to change title because the month doesn't come up until next week.
Elsewhere the first meeting of the Libyan contact group that was set up at the London conference of March 29th has today taken place in Doha, Qatar. This should be viewed as one of the first steps of a long process. So rather then attempting to gain agreement on a concrete set of proposals it was more designed to formalise Free Libya's Transitional National Council (TNC) and build it into something that can operate in international diplomatic circles while sending out the message to Qaddafi that the world is uniting behind and alternative government of Libya.
That said the meeting did agree to allow the Qataris to set up a sort of trust fund to hold the revenues from rebel oil exports and possibly Libyan assets that have been frozen overseas. This is convenient way of getting around the legally difficult question of whether foreign countries are allowed to arm the rebels. Instead they simply enable the rebels to buy their own weapons. Amid all the talk of oil for guns deals the meeting was warned that unless the conflict ends soon upwards of 3.5 million Libyan civilians will require what is referred to as "first need aid" such as food and water. I hate to be so cold and calculating but given that the population of Benghazi is only around 1 million if this is the fate that faces the Libyan people then it would have been more humane to allow the massacre to happen if there ever was going to be a massacre.
That sobering thought aside the other interesting aspect of the Doha meeting was the unveiling of former Libyan Foreign Minister, Moussa Koussa as Britain's envoy to the Libyan rebels. This was a wonderfully theatrical exercise in diplomatic deception designed to send out a variety of messages to a variety of people.
In the first it was designed to encourage further defections from the Libyan government by sending out the message that no matter what they'd done if they defect to Britain they'll be allowed to walk away both free and rich.
Secondly it was designed to create an illusion of distance between Britain and the Libyan rebels. Although the Libyan rebellion, and in the case of the Libyan Youth Movement literally, was born and raised in Britain appointing an envoy to reach out the rebels gives the impression that Britain has much less influence over the rebels then it really does.
Thirdly Koussa's appointment helps to create the impression that Britain does not intend to turn Libya into a Somalia style failed state because Koussa specifically warned about that in his first public appearance after defecting. However with no clear end point in sight Britain's plan for Libya seems to be to keeping bombing it until the money runs out which is a clear recipe for a Somalia style failed state. In fact it's how Britain helped turn Somalia into it's current state.
Edited to change title because the month doesn't come up until next week.
Tuesday 12 April 2011
And Breathe.
After yesterday's (11/4/11) hectic events I should clear up a couple of points.
In her speech acknowledging the arrest of Ivorian ex-President Laurent Gbagbo the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said that it showed that dictators across the world can be brought to justice for their crimes or words to that effect. This was clearly an attempt to get the Libyan rebels to agree to the African Union's ceasefire proposal by suggesting that despite any ceasefire western special forces could still go and capture Qaddafi. The fact that the rebels still rejected the ceasefire and America is forced to communicate with them in this way shows just how little influence America has over the rebels.
By contrast the French have been coming under a lot of pressure due to the comparison between the situations in Cote D'Ivorie and Libya. Also after five months of meddling in Cote D'Ivorie they have really started getting on people's nerves. So they acted against Gbagbo simply to bring the situation to as swift an end as possible and possibly inflame the situation in the country as much as possible in order to make it difficult for Alassane Ouattara to take over the Presidency.
As for the situation in Cote D'Ivorie itself following Gbagbo's arrest it's actually been quite peaceful. There has been some sporadic gunfire across the Abidjan and some young Gbagbo supporters did stage a violent protest outside a French military base but by Ivorian standards kids throwing stones doesn't really count as violence. However I should point out that on the very same day that the French moved in to arrest Gbagbo in Cote D'Ivorie they made it illegal for Muslim women in France to wear the veil. So I can't explain how unlikely it is that the French overthrew the mildly Christian Gbagbo to be replace him with the mildly Islamic Ouattara. In fact Ouattara taking over is probably going to reduce the amount of meddling that France does in Cote D'Ivorie in the future.
In her speech acknowledging the arrest of Ivorian ex-President Laurent Gbagbo the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said that it showed that dictators across the world can be brought to justice for their crimes or words to that effect. This was clearly an attempt to get the Libyan rebels to agree to the African Union's ceasefire proposal by suggesting that despite any ceasefire western special forces could still go and capture Qaddafi. The fact that the rebels still rejected the ceasefire and America is forced to communicate with them in this way shows just how little influence America has over the rebels.
By contrast the French have been coming under a lot of pressure due to the comparison between the situations in Cote D'Ivorie and Libya. Also after five months of meddling in Cote D'Ivorie they have really started getting on people's nerves. So they acted against Gbagbo simply to bring the situation to as swift an end as possible and possibly inflame the situation in the country as much as possible in order to make it difficult for Alassane Ouattara to take over the Presidency.
As for the situation in Cote D'Ivorie itself following Gbagbo's arrest it's actually been quite peaceful. There has been some sporadic gunfire across the Abidjan and some young Gbagbo supporters did stage a violent protest outside a French military base but by Ivorian standards kids throwing stones doesn't really count as violence. However I should point out that on the very same day that the French moved in to arrest Gbagbo in Cote D'Ivorie they made it illegal for Muslim women in France to wear the veil. So I can't explain how unlikely it is that the French overthrew the mildly Christian Gbagbo to be replace him with the mildly Islamic Ouattara. In fact Ouattara taking over is probably going to reduce the amount of meddling that France does in Cote D'Ivorie in the future.
Monday 11 April 2011
Sound Familiar?
Back in December 2010 Belarus in eastern Europe held it's Presidential election. Although international election monitors were not permitted to observe the vote it was said to be carried out amid a culture of intimidation and fear with one of the candidates, Uladzimir Niaklajeu being so badly beaten on his way to a campaign rally that he was hospitalised for several months.
When the incumbent strongman President, Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected with 79.67% of the vote while his closest challenger, Andrei Sannikau received only 2.43% there were widespread accusations of vote rigging. These quickly led to protests which led to riots which led to a government crackdown that saw Internet sites like Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter etc being blocked and opposition TV stations being raided by state security and forced off the air. Although exact figures are hard to come by around 700 people including 7 Presidential candidates were arrested and are currently working their way through the Belarusian court system with some facing sentences of up to 15 years in prison. At one point Uladzimir Nikajeu was kidnapped from his hospital bed by masked men and I'm not sure if he's yet been released.
Today (11/4/11) a bomb exploded at a railway station in Minsk, the Belarusian capital killing at least seven. With not a great deal of information to go on it appears that one of two things has happened. Either the opposition to Lukashenko carried out the bombing in order to draw attention to their cause. This would be a major change in tactics because their previous attempts have been along the lines of writing to the pop star Shakira. Alternatively Lukashenko carried out the bombing as a false flag attack in order to justify a further crackdown on the opposition. This seems more likely and would tally with attacks on government buildings that took place on election day which were widely blamed on agent provocateurs. However I really do need more information before I can call it definitively one way or another.
Going off topic slightly I should point out that between my last post and Jacob Zuma's absence from the African Union (AU) visit to Benghazi some people may have got the mistaken impression that South Africa was only supporting the idea to reduce AU support for the NATO attacks on Libya. They weren't. Like the USA South Africa will support any attempts to bring a ceasefire to Libya because if it doesn't happen it kind of looks like they f*cked up by voting for resolution 1973(2011). It's just a shame the situation in Libya spoke for itself.
When the incumbent strongman President, Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected with 79.67% of the vote while his closest challenger, Andrei Sannikau received only 2.43% there were widespread accusations of vote rigging. These quickly led to protests which led to riots which led to a government crackdown that saw Internet sites like Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter etc being blocked and opposition TV stations being raided by state security and forced off the air. Although exact figures are hard to come by around 700 people including 7 Presidential candidates were arrested and are currently working their way through the Belarusian court system with some facing sentences of up to 15 years in prison. At one point Uladzimir Nikajeu was kidnapped from his hospital bed by masked men and I'm not sure if he's yet been released.
Today (11/4/11) a bomb exploded at a railway station in Minsk, the Belarusian capital killing at least seven. With not a great deal of information to go on it appears that one of two things has happened. Either the opposition to Lukashenko carried out the bombing in order to draw attention to their cause. This would be a major change in tactics because their previous attempts have been along the lines of writing to the pop star Shakira. Alternatively Lukashenko carried out the bombing as a false flag attack in order to justify a further crackdown on the opposition. This seems more likely and would tally with attacks on government buildings that took place on election day which were widely blamed on agent provocateurs. However I really do need more information before I can call it definitively one way or another.
Going off topic slightly I should point out that between my last post and Jacob Zuma's absence from the African Union (AU) visit to Benghazi some people may have got the mistaken impression that South Africa was only supporting the idea to reduce AU support for the NATO attacks on Libya. They weren't. Like the USA South Africa will support any attempts to bring a ceasefire to Libya because if it doesn't happen it kind of looks like they f*cked up by voting for resolution 1973(2011). It's just a shame the situation in Libya spoke for itself.
Operation Oil Theft: Week 4. Day 3.5
The Libyan rebels have rejected the African Union AU ceasefire that was accepted by Qaddafi yesterday (10/4/11). Officially the reason given was that they can't accept a deal that will keep Qaddafi in power. However if you've read the signs and heard the opinions expressed at the protests that greeted the AU's delegation's arrival in Benghazi you'd understand that the rebels position is more that they can't agree to any plan that prevents them killing Qaddafi and all his family.
So it looks like this conflict is going to drag on for quite a while yet even if the AU and the US have just been given a sharp lesson in the naked blood lust that's driving the rebel's peaceful protests and the "humanitarian" intervention to support them.
Also there's been an explosion at a railway station in Minsk, Belarus so I've got the feeling there's going to be a busy evening ahead.
So it looks like this conflict is going to drag on for quite a while yet even if the AU and the US have just been given a sharp lesson in the naked blood lust that's driving the rebel's peaceful protests and the "humanitarian" intervention to support them.
Also there's been an explosion at a railway station in Minsk, Belarus so I've got the feeling there's going to be a busy evening ahead.
Gbagbo's Been Arrested.
In the last few hours French Special forces in the Ivory Coast have moved in to arrest the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo. Although this is something the French have been in a position to do for about a week they moved in very quickly without permission from the United Nations.
Mr Gbagbo is now being held in the Golf Hotel in Abidjan so sadly rather then being a legitimate attempt to bring him to justice, calm the situation in the country and allow the elected President Alassande Ouatarra to take up office this is French attempt to enquire about the result of the US Open Golf tournament that ended in the USA yesterday (10/4/11). Apparently Jacob Zuma beat me in a surprise final round which is being seen as an American endorsement of the African Union (AU) road map for peace in Libya - a plan that Britain and France are opposed too.
What will happen now in Cote D'Ivorie will be interesting because a lot of bad feeling has been built up in the country since the start of the political crisis and after five years of civil war it's not exactly a place where conventional command structures exist.
Mr Gbagbo is now being held in the Golf Hotel in Abidjan so sadly rather then being a legitimate attempt to bring him to justice, calm the situation in the country and allow the elected President Alassande Ouatarra to take up office this is French attempt to enquire about the result of the US Open Golf tournament that ended in the USA yesterday (10/4/11). Apparently Jacob Zuma beat me in a surprise final round which is being seen as an American endorsement of the African Union (AU) road map for peace in Libya - a plan that Britain and France are opposed too.
What will happen now in Cote D'Ivorie will be interesting because a lot of bad feeling has been built up in the country since the start of the political crisis and after five years of civil war it's not exactly a place where conventional command structures exist.
Operation Oil Theft: Week 4. Day 3.
Yesterday (10/4/11) Muammar Qaddafi agreed to an African Union (AU) "Road Map for Peace" designed to bring an end to the conflict in Libya. Today (11/4/11) the AU delegation will present the plan to the rebels in Benghazi. Until that diplomatic visit has been completed the details of the plan will not be made public but the main points are that Qaddafi will remain in power, all sides will maintain a ceasefire, corridors will be opened to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid and there will be negotiations between the Libyan government and the rebels. So it appears that Qaddafi's agreed to do what would have happened anyway if resolution 1973(2011) hadn't been passed. Obviously the vague nature of the road map does raise concern that Qaddafi might be pulling a Gbagbo and only using negotiations as a cover to re-group his forces.
Speaking of which there is a conspiracy theory widely circulating on the Internet about the situation in the Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivorie). Normally this wouldn't be a problem but it appears that some people are starting to take it seriously and it is fuelling pressure on the international community to call the UN peacekeepers to account for their recent actions. The theory follows that the 2010 Presidential election was rigged by the international community in order to install Alassane Ouattara as a puppet President for either France, the UN, the USA, the IMF, the Jews or the Lizard people depending on your personal preference. The only problem is that there is absolutely no truth in it.
Alassane Ouattara has always enjoyed popular support in Cote D'Ivorie and one of the triggers for the civil war that started in 2002 was Ouattara's exclusion from a Presidential election that it looked like he was going to win. By 2005 the civil war had calmed to the point where another Presidential election was going to be held but as soon as it looked as though Ouattara was going to win the violence started up again and that election had to be postponed. That election was finally held in November 2010 and was monitored by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU). On December 2nd 2010 all these bodies agreed that the election had been free and fair and declared Alassane Ouattara to be the winner. Then on December 3rd, with no explanation, the Constitutional Council of the Cote D'Ivore (CCDI) declared that all those international bodies were lying, there'd been a massive fraud and Laurent Gbagbo was the rightful winner. The head of the CCDI is a man called Paul Yao N'Dre who served in Gbagbo's government as interior minister and was appoint to the CCDI by Gbagbo just before the election. At the time of his appointment people warned that he'd only been given the job to help Gbagbo steal the election.
Also if you look closely at recent events in the Ivory Coast you'll see that it's Gbagbo and his supporters who feel safest with the French, the former colonial masters. When fighters supporting Ouattarra advanced into Abidjan many of Gbagbo's senior officials sought refuge in the French Embassy, the only interviews that Gbagbo has been giving from his bunker have been to French TV and it was France that led the negotiations that allowed Gbagbo's fighters to re-group and avoid certain defeat.
So I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that it's France that has been circulating this conspiracy theory in order to force the international community to stop France taking action in order to make sure that Gbagbo gets to stay in power but the French still get to look like the good guys.
Speaking of which there is a conspiracy theory widely circulating on the Internet about the situation in the Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivorie). Normally this wouldn't be a problem but it appears that some people are starting to take it seriously and it is fuelling pressure on the international community to call the UN peacekeepers to account for their recent actions. The theory follows that the 2010 Presidential election was rigged by the international community in order to install Alassane Ouattara as a puppet President for either France, the UN, the USA, the IMF, the Jews or the Lizard people depending on your personal preference. The only problem is that there is absolutely no truth in it.
Alassane Ouattara has always enjoyed popular support in Cote D'Ivorie and one of the triggers for the civil war that started in 2002 was Ouattara's exclusion from a Presidential election that it looked like he was going to win. By 2005 the civil war had calmed to the point where another Presidential election was going to be held but as soon as it looked as though Ouattara was going to win the violence started up again and that election had to be postponed. That election was finally held in November 2010 and was monitored by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU). On December 2nd 2010 all these bodies agreed that the election had been free and fair and declared Alassane Ouattara to be the winner. Then on December 3rd, with no explanation, the Constitutional Council of the Cote D'Ivore (CCDI) declared that all those international bodies were lying, there'd been a massive fraud and Laurent Gbagbo was the rightful winner. The head of the CCDI is a man called Paul Yao N'Dre who served in Gbagbo's government as interior minister and was appoint to the CCDI by Gbagbo just before the election. At the time of his appointment people warned that he'd only been given the job to help Gbagbo steal the election.
Also if you look closely at recent events in the Ivory Coast you'll see that it's Gbagbo and his supporters who feel safest with the French, the former colonial masters. When fighters supporting Ouattarra advanced into Abidjan many of Gbagbo's senior officials sought refuge in the French Embassy, the only interviews that Gbagbo has been giving from his bunker have been to French TV and it was France that led the negotiations that allowed Gbagbo's fighters to re-group and avoid certain defeat.
So I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that it's France that has been circulating this conspiracy theory in order to force the international community to stop France taking action in order to make sure that Gbagbo gets to stay in power but the French still get to look like the good guys.
Sunday 10 April 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Week 4. Day 2.
Saturday April 9th was a significant day in the Libya conflict as government forces were able to advance on Ajdabiya. As this was more of a smash and grab raid rather then a conventional military advance the rebels were able to repel the attack but the front line has been moved from the eastern outskirts of Brega to the western outskirts of Ajdabiya. The most interesting aspect of the battle was that NATO appear to have waived the no-fly zone in order to allow the rebels to use two helicopter gunships and a fast jet war plane to attack government troops. Libyan government sources claim that they were able to shoot down the two helicopters but the fast jet was provided with a NATO escort to allow it to return to base undamaged.
With depressing symmetry Saturday also saw a dramatic change in the course of the conflict in the Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivorie). Using French led peace talks as cover fighters loyal to the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo have re-grouped. This allowed them to push out from positions around the Presidential Palace and Gbagbo's residence where they had been contained by fighters aligned to the elected President, Alassane Ouattara. With Gbagbo's fighters on the offensive fighting has spread throughout Abidjan and the British Embassy had to be evacuated as it was caught in the crossfire and the violence threatens to spread re-igniting Cote D'Ivorie's civil war.
Despite events in Cote D'Ivorie the main diplomatic focus still seems to be on Libya with African Union leaders including South Africa's Jacob Zuma today (10/4/11) visiting the Libyan government in Tripoli. The first visit by foreign leaders to Libya since the passing of resolution 1973(2011) this trip will be made all the more interesting by the fact that South Africa surprised everyone by supporting 1973(2011). What is more interesting though is the diplomacy that has been happening outside of Libya. On Thursday (7/4/11) Brazil saw it's first US style high school shooting which was an attempt to open a dialogue with America over resolution 1973(2011) which sadly confirmed many of the worries about Brazil's new, "progressive" President. On Friday Britain tried to enquire about and impose it's own meaning onto that dialogue with the shooting of two naval officers by an enlisted man on the nuclear submarine HMS Astute. On Saturday (9/4/11) 6 people were killed in a shopping mall in the Netherlands as a Dutch man went on a shooting spree. Apart from being a Dutch attempt to join in the Brazil dialogue this was also an attempt to enquire how the investigation into the Tuscon shooting is progressing. After all if members of the American intelligence community were found to be working with foreigners to overthrow a lawfully elected US President by assassinating a US Congresswoman you would expect them to find themselves in a lot of Long Island style trouble.
So if the diplomacy's killed 20 I dread to think how many the war's going to kill.
With depressing symmetry Saturday also saw a dramatic change in the course of the conflict in the Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivorie). Using French led peace talks as cover fighters loyal to the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo have re-grouped. This allowed them to push out from positions around the Presidential Palace and Gbagbo's residence where they had been contained by fighters aligned to the elected President, Alassane Ouattara. With Gbagbo's fighters on the offensive fighting has spread throughout Abidjan and the British Embassy had to be evacuated as it was caught in the crossfire and the violence threatens to spread re-igniting Cote D'Ivorie's civil war.
Despite events in Cote D'Ivorie the main diplomatic focus still seems to be on Libya with African Union leaders including South Africa's Jacob Zuma today (10/4/11) visiting the Libyan government in Tripoli. The first visit by foreign leaders to Libya since the passing of resolution 1973(2011) this trip will be made all the more interesting by the fact that South Africa surprised everyone by supporting 1973(2011). What is more interesting though is the diplomacy that has been happening outside of Libya. On Thursday (7/4/11) Brazil saw it's first US style high school shooting which was an attempt to open a dialogue with America over resolution 1973(2011) which sadly confirmed many of the worries about Brazil's new, "progressive" President. On Friday Britain tried to enquire about and impose it's own meaning onto that dialogue with the shooting of two naval officers by an enlisted man on the nuclear submarine HMS Astute. On Saturday (9/4/11) 6 people were killed in a shopping mall in the Netherlands as a Dutch man went on a shooting spree. Apart from being a Dutch attempt to join in the Brazil dialogue this was also an attempt to enquire how the investigation into the Tuscon shooting is progressing. After all if members of the American intelligence community were found to be working with foreigners to overthrow a lawfully elected US President by assassinating a US Congresswoman you would expect them to find themselves in a lot of Long Island style trouble.
So if the diplomacy's killed 20 I dread to think how many the war's going to kill.
Friday 8 April 2011
America's Shutdown.
Now I'm confused. In Britain when the government wants to introduce a new budget the Chancellor/Finance Minister simply stands up in the House of Commons and reads out the new budget. It then automatically becomes law and some of the tax changes come into effect that very same evening. In America they clearly do things a little bit differently.
Back in February 2010 President Barack Obama proposed the budget for the 2011 fiscal year which runs from October 2010 to September 2011. 14 months later the US Congress is still arguing about it. With more then half the fiscal year already gone and no budget in place the Federal Government of the United States is now on the brink of going into economic shutdown. This means that all federal government employees such as civil servants, FBI agents and members of the armed forces will not get paid and non-essential government services such as national parks and museums will close.
As always in politics the arguments that are preventing the budget from being passed are not so much to do with the issue itself as the issues that surround it. In this case the bigger issue is America's national debt which is approaching it's legally mandated $14.3 trillion limit. Obama and the Democrats want to increase this limit in order to pay for unemployment benefits and stimulus measures that will increase employment. The Republicans want to reduce the debt by introducing more tax cuts for the rich. It has to be said that neither of these ideas are likely to reduce America's debt and clearly no-one has realised that forcing American government agencies to buy their fuel, manpower and bullets etc on credit will only serve to increase America's debt.
Although countries like Japan seem to do just fine with a national debt at around 200% of GDP it is quite difficult to argue that countries shouldn't be concerned about their spending and try to keep their national debt down. However the American Right's obsession with reducing the national debt is something that they've imported from European governments, especially Britain, where debt is more of a problem. By contrast America occupies a much stronger and unique position in terms of debt because the US dollar is the worlds reserve currency. That means that the value of all the other world's currencies like the British Pound, the European Dollar (Euro), the Chinese Yuan and the Japanese Yen only exist as an extension of the value and amount of the US dollars those central banks hold in reserve. As a result if any country were to call in America's debt the first thing that would happen is that the value of the US dollar would drop instantly making the country calling in the debt and all other countries poorer.
This gives America a sort of built in insurance policy against ever having it's debt foreclosed on. It does though make Ben Bernanke's (a Bush appointment) plan to voluntarily devalue the US dollar through Quantitative Easing or currency debasement look stupid to the point of treason. Obviously the central banks behind some of the world's largest currencies such as China and the Eurozone are in the process of diversifying their currency reserves in order to reduce the importance of the US dollar but this will take a number of years so in the meantime America has a lot more wriggle room on it's national debt then the Republicans will have you believe.
Mind you as most of America's national debt comes from Medicare and Medicaid and the Republicans are also objecting to the mandated insurance of Obama's health care bill the fact that Obama and the Democrats haven't been able to avoid this entire argument by highlighting the obvious comparison between the two issues makes me wonder just how useless they really are.
Back in February 2010 President Barack Obama proposed the budget for the 2011 fiscal year which runs from October 2010 to September 2011. 14 months later the US Congress is still arguing about it. With more then half the fiscal year already gone and no budget in place the Federal Government of the United States is now on the brink of going into economic shutdown. This means that all federal government employees such as civil servants, FBI agents and members of the armed forces will not get paid and non-essential government services such as national parks and museums will close.
As always in politics the arguments that are preventing the budget from being passed are not so much to do with the issue itself as the issues that surround it. In this case the bigger issue is America's national debt which is approaching it's legally mandated $14.3 trillion limit. Obama and the Democrats want to increase this limit in order to pay for unemployment benefits and stimulus measures that will increase employment. The Republicans want to reduce the debt by introducing more tax cuts for the rich. It has to be said that neither of these ideas are likely to reduce America's debt and clearly no-one has realised that forcing American government agencies to buy their fuel, manpower and bullets etc on credit will only serve to increase America's debt.
Although countries like Japan seem to do just fine with a national debt at around 200% of GDP it is quite difficult to argue that countries shouldn't be concerned about their spending and try to keep their national debt down. However the American Right's obsession with reducing the national debt is something that they've imported from European governments, especially Britain, where debt is more of a problem. By contrast America occupies a much stronger and unique position in terms of debt because the US dollar is the worlds reserve currency. That means that the value of all the other world's currencies like the British Pound, the European Dollar (Euro), the Chinese Yuan and the Japanese Yen only exist as an extension of the value and amount of the US dollars those central banks hold in reserve. As a result if any country were to call in America's debt the first thing that would happen is that the value of the US dollar would drop instantly making the country calling in the debt and all other countries poorer.
This gives America a sort of built in insurance policy against ever having it's debt foreclosed on. It does though make Ben Bernanke's (a Bush appointment) plan to voluntarily devalue the US dollar through Quantitative Easing or currency debasement look stupid to the point of treason. Obviously the central banks behind some of the world's largest currencies such as China and the Eurozone are in the process of diversifying their currency reserves in order to reduce the importance of the US dollar but this will take a number of years so in the meantime America has a lot more wriggle room on it's national debt then the Republicans will have you believe.
Mind you as most of America's national debt comes from Medicare and Medicaid and the Republicans are also objecting to the mandated insurance of Obama's health care bill the fact that Obama and the Democrats haven't been able to avoid this entire argument by highlighting the obvious comparison between the two issues makes me wonder just how useless they really are.
Operation Oil Theft: Week 3. Day 7.
In Libya the conflict has ground into stalemate with neither side able to advance from positions around Brega. The only events of note are that on 6/4/11 the first tanker of rebel oil left Tobruk to be sold by the Qatari's in defiance of international sanctions. On 7/4/11 NATO aircraft destroyed a convoy of rebel tanks and heavy weapons as they were making their way to the front line killing at least three rebel fighters. The rebels then complained to NATO who explained that the attack was caused by confusion because they were not aware that the rebels were operating tanks but crucially refused to apologise.
This is quite right because there is no need for NATO to explain it's actions to the rebels let alone apologise for them. The UN mandate, resolution 1973(2011), authorises and compels NATO to destroy both military personnel and vehicles in order to protect civilians. As the UN cannot pass a resolution that supports one side of a civil war over another 1973(2011) makes no distinction between Libyan government forces and rebel forces. It merely states that if anyone on the ground in Libya continues to fight they must be destroyed. So NATO is actually in breach of the UN mandate by allowing the rebels to advance out of Benghazi and refusing to bomb them back to their positions when the resolution was passed.
With stalemate in place the most interesting things to come out of the Libya conflict in recent days have not been events in Libya itself but the effect the conflict is having in other parts of the world. Fuelled in no small part by American involvement in Libya the blood letting in Israel/Palestine has continued unabated with daily exchanges of heavy weapons fire between militants in Gaza and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). In the most significant of recent incidents on 7/4/11 a Katyusha style anti-tank rocket was fired from Gaza into southern Israel where it hit a school bus seriously injuring one passenger. In response the IDF launched a barrage of artillery fire and air strikes against Gaza killing an unspecified number of people. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu then promised to take all necessary measures to stop the rocket attacks. This prompted some well connected American Jews to speak up in protest in the form of an explosion at a Jewish centre in California. Apparently a build up of pressure caused an explosion that launched a missile shaped pipe into a neighbouring building. No-one was injured.
Sadly, along with the American government's rather childish decision to define the firing of Katyusha style anti-tank missiles as a defensive action in the Libyan rules of engagement, this type of protest is going to do little to reduce the pressure in the region that has been created by the passing of 1973(2011). It is fortunate then that by my assessment of the situation, which can be changed simply by talking about it, if America were to indicate that it would abstain from any vote the UNSC would quickly revoke 1973(2011), military action in Libya would cease and we need never speak of this terrible error ever again.
This is quite right because there is no need for NATO to explain it's actions to the rebels let alone apologise for them. The UN mandate, resolution 1973(2011), authorises and compels NATO to destroy both military personnel and vehicles in order to protect civilians. As the UN cannot pass a resolution that supports one side of a civil war over another 1973(2011) makes no distinction between Libyan government forces and rebel forces. It merely states that if anyone on the ground in Libya continues to fight they must be destroyed. So NATO is actually in breach of the UN mandate by allowing the rebels to advance out of Benghazi and refusing to bomb them back to their positions when the resolution was passed.
With stalemate in place the most interesting things to come out of the Libya conflict in recent days have not been events in Libya itself but the effect the conflict is having in other parts of the world. Fuelled in no small part by American involvement in Libya the blood letting in Israel/Palestine has continued unabated with daily exchanges of heavy weapons fire between militants in Gaza and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). In the most significant of recent incidents on 7/4/11 a Katyusha style anti-tank rocket was fired from Gaza into southern Israel where it hit a school bus seriously injuring one passenger. In response the IDF launched a barrage of artillery fire and air strikes against Gaza killing an unspecified number of people. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu then promised to take all necessary measures to stop the rocket attacks. This prompted some well connected American Jews to speak up in protest in the form of an explosion at a Jewish centre in California. Apparently a build up of pressure caused an explosion that launched a missile shaped pipe into a neighbouring building. No-one was injured.
Sadly, along with the American government's rather childish decision to define the firing of Katyusha style anti-tank missiles as a defensive action in the Libyan rules of engagement, this type of protest is going to do little to reduce the pressure in the region that has been created by the passing of 1973(2011). It is fortunate then that by my assessment of the situation, which can be changed simply by talking about it, if America were to indicate that it would abstain from any vote the UNSC would quickly revoke 1973(2011), military action in Libya would cease and we need never speak of this terrible error ever again.
Thursday 7 April 2011
Gbagbo's Still Hoping.
Three days after his Presidential compound was surrounded by fighters supporting the elected President of Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivorie), Alassane Ouattara the incumbent President, Laurent Gbagbo is still refusing to step down and hand over power. Hiding in a bunker beneath the building I can only assume that Gbagbo is still clinging on to the mistaken belief that he can somehow exploit divisions in the international community caused by the attack on Libya to hold on to power.
In the meantime French special forces have been forced to rescue the Japanese Ambassador and his aides after they were taken hostage by fighters loyal to Gbagbo. Israel has now formally requested that French troops move to protect Israeli Embassy staff as the security situation in the country continues to deteriorate.
The United Nations Commission for Human Rights (UNCHR) now say that they are investigating three specific incidents of civilian massacres. The first incident occurred in Duekoue in mid-March where 100 people, including women and children were raped, murdered and buried in a mass grave. The second incident also occurred in Duekoue on March 28th and is thought to be revenge for the first massacre. On this occasion 230 people were killed and dumped in a mass grave. The third incident took place in Blolequin but as there is still fighting going on in the area the specific date and the number of people killed is not yet known. In Abidjan at least 400 people have been killed in targeted artillery attacks on civilians by Gbagbo's forces and there are reports of people being burnt alive in the streets. This brings the total number of civilians killed in little over a week of fighting to nearly 2000.
Although Gbagbo is said to have only 1000 fighters left loyal to him including 200 guarding him in his compound this threat of tit for tat massacres leading to a widespread genocide is making it difficult to capture him. The fear is that if he is killed in an assault on his compound Gbagbo will become a martyr and his death will re-ignite Cote D'Ivorie's civil war.
Therefore the fighters surrounding the compound have been given strict orders to do everything possible not to kill him. However this might not be possible because if those fighters are forced to fight their way into the compound to capture him there is a high risk that Gbagbo will be killed in that fight. So it still seems that Gbagbo will be the one to decide his own fate and the fate of his country.
In the meantime French special forces have been forced to rescue the Japanese Ambassador and his aides after they were taken hostage by fighters loyal to Gbagbo. Israel has now formally requested that French troops move to protect Israeli Embassy staff as the security situation in the country continues to deteriorate.
The United Nations Commission for Human Rights (UNCHR) now say that they are investigating three specific incidents of civilian massacres. The first incident occurred in Duekoue in mid-March where 100 people, including women and children were raped, murdered and buried in a mass grave. The second incident also occurred in Duekoue on March 28th and is thought to be revenge for the first massacre. On this occasion 230 people were killed and dumped in a mass grave. The third incident took place in Blolequin but as there is still fighting going on in the area the specific date and the number of people killed is not yet known. In Abidjan at least 400 people have been killed in targeted artillery attacks on civilians by Gbagbo's forces and there are reports of people being burnt alive in the streets. This brings the total number of civilians killed in little over a week of fighting to nearly 2000.
Although Gbagbo is said to have only 1000 fighters left loyal to him including 200 guarding him in his compound this threat of tit for tat massacres leading to a widespread genocide is making it difficult to capture him. The fear is that if he is killed in an assault on his compound Gbagbo will become a martyr and his death will re-ignite Cote D'Ivorie's civil war.
Therefore the fighters surrounding the compound have been given strict orders to do everything possible not to kill him. However this might not be possible because if those fighters are forced to fight their way into the compound to capture him there is a high risk that Gbagbo will be killed in that fight. So it still seems that Gbagbo will be the one to decide his own fate and the fate of his country.
Wednesday 6 April 2011
Haiti's Next President: Michel Martelly.
You may remember Haiti. Back in January 2010 it was struck by a devastating earthquake that killed around 300,000 people. Initially the American President responded incredibly well deploying around 10,000 US troops to spearhead the relief effort. Then with the dangerous and difficult work done Obama choked and the reconstruction effort had to be delayed for eleven months while Haiti prepared for it's own Presidential election. During that time a Cholera epidemic struck the country and killed another 2000 people. When the election finally came it was a chaotic shambles that failed to produce a clear winner and a run-off vote had to be held. Amid allegations of fraud, an investigation by the Organisation of American States (OAS) and confusion over which two candidates would take part the run-off itself was delayed for a further four months.
That vote has now taken place and after another short delay the preliminary results were released on April 4th 2011. They show that Michel Martelly was the clear winner with 716,986 votes (67.7%) to Mirlande Manigat's 336,747 votes (31.74%).
These are only preliminary results because under Haitian election law there must be a 14 day challenge period for the candidates to raise any problems with the electoral commission and for the electoral commission to investigate any complaints. Although the release of the preliminary results was delayed by a couple of days the electoral commission seem to intend to stick to the original election schedule meaning that the challenge period will end on April 15th and the official results will be published on April 16th. This will allow the new President to take up office on May 16th.
While the run-off vote was certainly much better organised then the original poll there are, as with all elections, some reports that in some instances election procedure was not strictly followed. For example the results of the original poll and the names of the run-off candidates was not published in the correct government publication. Problems like these give the candidates plenty of opportunity to challenge the result and this seems to be something that Mirlande Manigat seems intent on doing. That is a shame because while technically a breach of the rules none of these problems are big enough to effect the result of the election and most certainly don't amount to fraud or vote rigging. So I think both sides should limit their challenges only to the most serious problems that could effect the result of the election because Haiti has already wasted far too much time and energy on this election and now is the time for action not arguing.
That vote has now taken place and after another short delay the preliminary results were released on April 4th 2011. They show that Michel Martelly was the clear winner with 716,986 votes (67.7%) to Mirlande Manigat's 336,747 votes (31.74%).
These are only preliminary results because under Haitian election law there must be a 14 day challenge period for the candidates to raise any problems with the electoral commission and for the electoral commission to investigate any complaints. Although the release of the preliminary results was delayed by a couple of days the electoral commission seem to intend to stick to the original election schedule meaning that the challenge period will end on April 15th and the official results will be published on April 16th. This will allow the new President to take up office on May 16th.
While the run-off vote was certainly much better organised then the original poll there are, as with all elections, some reports that in some instances election procedure was not strictly followed. For example the results of the original poll and the names of the run-off candidates was not published in the correct government publication. Problems like these give the candidates plenty of opportunity to challenge the result and this seems to be something that Mirlande Manigat seems intent on doing. That is a shame because while technically a breach of the rules none of these problems are big enough to effect the result of the election and most certainly don't amount to fraud or vote rigging. So I think both sides should limit their challenges only to the most serious problems that could effect the result of the election because Haiti has already wasted far too much time and energy on this election and now is the time for action not arguing.
Tuesday 5 April 2011
Koran Burning.
Starting in Afghanistan on April 1st the last few days have seen a wave of, sometimes deadly, protests across the Muslim world against after an Internet video emerged showing a Qu'ran being burnt at US Pastor Terry Jones' Florida church. I know that in the past Pastor Jones has been used as an American metaphor for my dealings with the Court of Protection but since then his purpose has changed. He is now American intelligence's liaison with Britain's English Defence League (EDL). Obviously that made it difficult for me to mention the change of role earlier and makes it impossible for me to comment on the matter further because training up the EDL is an American objective, not mine.
It is interesting though that in Afghanistan the protesters didn't focus their anger on American troops or the Afghan army but instead targeted a United Nations compound killing up to twenty people including two that were beheaded. This was followed up by further attacks on UN staff in the Ivory Coast and appears to be a response to the UN's involvement in Libya. As such I think the UN could still find that the passing of resolution 1973(2011) turns out to be their League of Nations moment. Or as the weather in Kinshassa more succinctly put it; "It crashed back to earth hard, broke into pieces and then caught fire."
And yes it's Tuesday night, I'm back from the pub and everything is OK but I might be a little bit drunk.
It is interesting though that in Afghanistan the protesters didn't focus their anger on American troops or the Afghan army but instead targeted a United Nations compound killing up to twenty people including two that were beheaded. This was followed up by further attacks on UN staff in the Ivory Coast and appears to be a response to the UN's involvement in Libya. As such I think the UN could still find that the passing of resolution 1973(2011) turns out to be their League of Nations moment. Or as the weather in Kinshassa more succinctly put it; "It crashed back to earth hard, broke into pieces and then caught fire."
And yes it's Tuesday night, I'm back from the pub and everything is OK but I might be a little bit drunk.
Operation No Oil to Steal.
As the five month political crisis the Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivorie) enters it critical final phase the humanitarian situation in the country has deteriorated dramatically. Apart from the people being killed in the fighting there are serious shortages of food and water and over 1 million people have been displaced both internally and externally which is threatening to destabilise neighbouring countries like Burkina Faso and Liberia.
The most dramatic development came yesterday (4/4/11) when forces loyal to the incumbent President, Laruent Gbagbo who were holed up in the Presidential palace opened fire on UN peacekeepers outside. As the peacekeepers have a mandate to defend themselves they responded by using helicopter gunships to destroy heavy weapons within Gbagbo's compound and ammunition stores elsewhere in Abidjan. French military forces who are in the country but not part of the UN mission also joined in with the attacks. Sadly the French only seem to have got involved in order to make it more difficult for people to criticise them for using similar tactics in Libya. Of course this comparison is a massive over simplification of the two situations and ignores the crucial difference that in Cote D'Ivorie the people voted to make Alassane Ouattara their next President and Laurent Gbagbo simply refused to respect their wishes. Therefore rather then bringing about regime change in Cote D'Ivorie the international forces are simply enforcing the change in regime that the people voted for.
Whatever the motivation and although I think they could have done it without help the helicopter strikes allowed fighters aligned to Ouattara to take control of the Presidential palace. Gbagbo is now believed to be hiding in a bunker in the basement of the building and trying to negotiate his surrender.
Unfortunately one of his spokesmen has said that he cannot give himself up because Ouattara's fighters will extract victors justice and kill him so it has to be a fight to the death. This is not true because if he voluntarily hands himself over then the United Nations can put pressure on the Ivorian government to make sure that he is treated humanely and with respect. However if he stands and fights they cannot do this and his fate will be one of his own making.
So he can either leave now with some dignity intact or he can drag his country back into civil war in a desperate attempt to cling to power for just one more day.
The most dramatic development came yesterday (4/4/11) when forces loyal to the incumbent President, Laruent Gbagbo who were holed up in the Presidential palace opened fire on UN peacekeepers outside. As the peacekeepers have a mandate to defend themselves they responded by using helicopter gunships to destroy heavy weapons within Gbagbo's compound and ammunition stores elsewhere in Abidjan. French military forces who are in the country but not part of the UN mission also joined in with the attacks. Sadly the French only seem to have got involved in order to make it more difficult for people to criticise them for using similar tactics in Libya. Of course this comparison is a massive over simplification of the two situations and ignores the crucial difference that in Cote D'Ivorie the people voted to make Alassane Ouattara their next President and Laurent Gbagbo simply refused to respect their wishes. Therefore rather then bringing about regime change in Cote D'Ivorie the international forces are simply enforcing the change in regime that the people voted for.
Whatever the motivation and although I think they could have done it without help the helicopter strikes allowed fighters aligned to Ouattara to take control of the Presidential palace. Gbagbo is now believed to be hiding in a bunker in the basement of the building and trying to negotiate his surrender.
Unfortunately one of his spokesmen has said that he cannot give himself up because Ouattara's fighters will extract victors justice and kill him so it has to be a fight to the death. This is not true because if he voluntarily hands himself over then the United Nations can put pressure on the Ivorian government to make sure that he is treated humanely and with respect. However if he stands and fights they cannot do this and his fate will be one of his own making.
So he can either leave now with some dignity intact or he can drag his country back into civil war in a desperate attempt to cling to power for just one more day.
Monday 4 April 2011
Flight AF 447 Wreckage Found.
Back in 2009 an Air France passenger aircraft crashed into the Atlantic ocean shortly after taking off from Rio in Brazil. Although the wreckage was never found French prosecutors have been considering bringing manslaughter charges against Air France and Airbus who built and maintained the aircraft. This prompted both Air France and Airbus to really start searching for the wreckage and on April 3rd they suddenly found it.
Call me a cynic but this seems like an attempt by France, a UNSC member, to open a discussion with Brazil, also a UNSC member to shore up Brazilian support for resolution 1973(2011). In order to show their commitment to humanitarian intervention the French have also, finally, allowed their military to join other UN peacekeepers in attacks against Laurent Gbagbo's forces in Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivorie). As France are the former colonial master this could be a problem by allowing Gbagbo to claim that the election was all a big conspiracy to install Ouattara as a colonial puppet.
It wasn't and if anything the French have been more supportive of Gbagbo then Ouattara but the French are the only people with military forces available on the ground. It's just a shame that NATO are too busy elsewhere.
Call me a cynic but this seems like an attempt by France, a UNSC member, to open a discussion with Brazil, also a UNSC member to shore up Brazilian support for resolution 1973(2011). In order to show their commitment to humanitarian intervention the French have also, finally, allowed their military to join other UN peacekeepers in attacks against Laurent Gbagbo's forces in Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivorie). As France are the former colonial master this could be a problem by allowing Gbagbo to claim that the election was all a big conspiracy to install Ouattara as a colonial puppet.
It wasn't and if anything the French have been more supportive of Gbagbo then Ouattara but the French are the only people with military forces available on the ground. It's just a shame that NATO are too busy elsewhere.
Operation Oil Theft: Week 3. Day 3.
In eastern Libya the rebels have dug into positions just to the east of Brega. Although both sides continue to fire on each other this has produced something of a stalemate with the rebels lacking the strength to advance on the government forces and foreign air power preventing the government forces advancing on the rebels.
This lack of movement has allowed the focus to shift onto Misrata, the only pocket of rebel resistance in western Libya. Yesterday (3/4/11) a Turkish ferry that had been evacuating casualties from Misrata docked in Benghazi. Apart from showing off their injuries for the cameras and telling the world why they should hate Qaddafi these casualties also revealed why they'd been prevented from receiving medical attention in Misrata. In the very early days of the conflict, prior to resolution 1973(2011) being passed the rebels took over the main hospital in Misrata, forced patients out of the building and turned it into their military headquarters. This is most certainly a war crime and probably one of the dirtiest tricks in the book because not only does it force opposition forces to attack a hospital it also undermines the very principle that anything marked with either a red cross or a red crescent should be considered neutral. There have also been reports that rebels in Misrata and elsewhere have been launching attacks from inside Mosques in order to force government troops to attack those Mosques which really raises the question of whether there is anything that the rebels are not prepared to do to create anti-Qaddafi propaganda.
In diplomatic news the Libyan deputy Foreign Minister is in Greece for talks. When he initially crossed into Tunisia there was excitement in Britain that he might be another defector. He wasn't so I should explain that the NATO no-fly zone also includes diplomatic and civilian flights meaning that if the Libyan government want to carry out any diplomatic activity they must first drive to Tunisia to catch a flight and hope they don't get blown up on the way.
Also the Americans have formally denied that they are supplying weapons to the rebels and have troops on the ground training the rebels how to use those weapons. They are of course lying because I don't think they've informed either NATO or the UN. In an oil for weapons swap Qatar is providing the rebels with a variety of weapons and ammunition including heat seeking Katyusha missiles being brought into the country via Egypt. As Katyusha missiles are relatively hi-tech weapons the rebels are being trained how to use them and other military techniques by American and Egyptian special forces at a secret base believed to be near Al Marj. This suggests that the current stalemate will last until enough rebel fighters have been trained up to advance west under the cover of foreign air support.
In the meantime NATO air strikes have been severely hampered by the actual weather. Last week there were rain storms and cloud cover. This week there have been sand storms that have obscured ground targets. This is fitting into a pattern that saw the government forces initial advance on Benghazi taking place when the world was distracted by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan so I think the rebels might want to think twice before they shout "Allah Akbar!" again.
Also Barak Obama has today (4/4/11) officially announced that he intends to stand for the US Presidency again in 2012. That's odd because by my reckoning he gave up on doing that job about five weeks ago.
This lack of movement has allowed the focus to shift onto Misrata, the only pocket of rebel resistance in western Libya. Yesterday (3/4/11) a Turkish ferry that had been evacuating casualties from Misrata docked in Benghazi. Apart from showing off their injuries for the cameras and telling the world why they should hate Qaddafi these casualties also revealed why they'd been prevented from receiving medical attention in Misrata. In the very early days of the conflict, prior to resolution 1973(2011) being passed the rebels took over the main hospital in Misrata, forced patients out of the building and turned it into their military headquarters. This is most certainly a war crime and probably one of the dirtiest tricks in the book because not only does it force opposition forces to attack a hospital it also undermines the very principle that anything marked with either a red cross or a red crescent should be considered neutral. There have also been reports that rebels in Misrata and elsewhere have been launching attacks from inside Mosques in order to force government troops to attack those Mosques which really raises the question of whether there is anything that the rebels are not prepared to do to create anti-Qaddafi propaganda.
In diplomatic news the Libyan deputy Foreign Minister is in Greece for talks. When he initially crossed into Tunisia there was excitement in Britain that he might be another defector. He wasn't so I should explain that the NATO no-fly zone also includes diplomatic and civilian flights meaning that if the Libyan government want to carry out any diplomatic activity they must first drive to Tunisia to catch a flight and hope they don't get blown up on the way.
Also the Americans have formally denied that they are supplying weapons to the rebels and have troops on the ground training the rebels how to use those weapons. They are of course lying because I don't think they've informed either NATO or the UN. In an oil for weapons swap Qatar is providing the rebels with a variety of weapons and ammunition including heat seeking Katyusha missiles being brought into the country via Egypt. As Katyusha missiles are relatively hi-tech weapons the rebels are being trained how to use them and other military techniques by American and Egyptian special forces at a secret base believed to be near Al Marj. This suggests that the current stalemate will last until enough rebel fighters have been trained up to advance west under the cover of foreign air support.
In the meantime NATO air strikes have been severely hampered by the actual weather. Last week there were rain storms and cloud cover. This week there have been sand storms that have obscured ground targets. This is fitting into a pattern that saw the government forces initial advance on Benghazi taking place when the world was distracted by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan so I think the rebels might want to think twice before they shout "Allah Akbar!" again.
Also Barak Obama has today (4/4/11) officially announced that he intends to stand for the US Presidency again in 2012. That's odd because by my reckoning he gave up on doing that job about five weeks ago.
Update on the NI Bombing.
No-one has yet stood up and admitted that they carried out Saturday's (2/4/11) bombing which killed a 25 year old Catholic police officer in Omagh, Northern Ireland. However if they did they would probably claim that they had carried out the attack as a warning to any Catholic traitors who were considering joining the police force of the British oppressors or some similar rhetoric.
Between Irish independence and the Northern Irish peace process policing in Northern Ireland was carried out by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). This organisation was over 90% Protestant and was little more then a Loyalist paramilitary gang dedicated to fitting up and beating up Catholics. Obviously as part of the peace process it had to go and was renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI)*. As part of the change a rule was imposed that for every Protestant the PSNI recruited it also had to recruit a Catholic to increase it's neutrality and as a result the PSNI is now only about 70% Protestant.
Very recently, like in the past week, this neutrality rule was scrapped meaning that the PSNI can go and recruit as many Protestants as it likes. As Protestants are culturally more likely to join the PSNI this move is likely to tip the religious balance of the force back towards RUC levels. Also in response to Saturday's bomb attack the British government in London authorised an extra £235million in funding for the soon to become more Protestant PSNI.
So whoever carried out Saturday's attack was enforcing the official British government policy of bringing back the RUC which is not a particularly Republican thing to do.
*They were going to call it the Northern Irish Police Service but then they decided that no-one likes getting caught by the NIPS.
Between Irish independence and the Northern Irish peace process policing in Northern Ireland was carried out by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). This organisation was over 90% Protestant and was little more then a Loyalist paramilitary gang dedicated to fitting up and beating up Catholics. Obviously as part of the peace process it had to go and was renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI)*. As part of the change a rule was imposed that for every Protestant the PSNI recruited it also had to recruit a Catholic to increase it's neutrality and as a result the PSNI is now only about 70% Protestant.
Very recently, like in the past week, this neutrality rule was scrapped meaning that the PSNI can go and recruit as many Protestants as it likes. As Protestants are culturally more likely to join the PSNI this move is likely to tip the religious balance of the force back towards RUC levels. Also in response to Saturday's bomb attack the British government in London authorised an extra £235million in funding for the soon to become more Protestant PSNI.
So whoever carried out Saturday's attack was enforcing the official British government policy of bringing back the RUC which is not a particularly Republican thing to do.
*They were going to call it the Northern Irish Police Service but then they decided that no-one likes getting caught by the NIPS.
Sunday 3 April 2011
I Think My Soul's Dying.
It's been so long since my heart had to beat faster out of either fear or passion I feel like I'm slowly decaying from the inside out. I'm tired all the time but still have trouble sleeping. My back hurts, my shoulder hurts, my knee hurts, my ankle hurts. Even my toes hurt and my complexion has gone to hell. Seriously if I don't get the chance to get back to my roots soon I think I'm going to simply just fade from existence.
It could be worse though. I could be that neighbour of mine who waits until i go to bed and then goes out into his garden to make noises that (don't really) sound like my shed is being broken into. I wouldn't mind so much but I go to bed really late and he's got work in the morning.
It could be worse though. I could be that neighbour of mine who waits until i go to bed and then goes out into his garden to make noises that (don't really) sound like my shed is being broken into. I wouldn't mind so much but I go to bed really late and he's got work in the morning.
Saturday 2 April 2011
Bring Back the IRA
Because they wouldn't stand for this sh*t!
Today (2/4/11) a Catholic police officer was killed in Omagh, Northern Ireland after "dissident Republicans" detonated a targeted bomb that had been placed under his private car outside his home in a predominately Loyalist/Protestant neighbourhood.
Coming on the same day that the English Defence League (EDL) staged another protest/paki-bashing rampage through Blackburn on the British mainland this was clearly an MI5 orchestrated operation attempting the smear the British left and anyone who isn't a CoE Protestant by making it seem like a revenge attack for the Ian Tomlinson inquest/Dr Freddie Patel sentencing.
An earlier attempt took place in the Stockwell/Brixton area of south London. On Tuesday (29/3/11) a gang related shooting took place in a convenience store in Stockwell. None of the four gang members were injured but a 35 year old man and a 5 year old girl were caught in the crossfire and remain in critical conditions in hospital. Although in itself this incident was nothing more then a sad indictment of British society tensions were already running high in the area following the death of a black man, known as Smiley Culture, during a police raid. The shocking shooting of an innocent 5 year old girl further raised those tensions to the point that the gunman decided that police custody would be the safest place for him and handed himself in.
On the day of the Dr Freddie Patel sentencing (31/3/11) the Metropolitan Police decided to respond to this local tension by flooding Brixton with the hated Territorial Support Group (TSG). The idea was that this would either incite a riot or end up with a police officer getting shot. Fortunately Brixton showed incredible restraint and nothing happened despite the provocation so instead the Brits had to go and kill a Catholic in Northern Ireland in the hope they could pin it on Qaddafi.
Speaking of which it's been confirmed that US troops are on the ground in eastern Libya in order to train the rebels. In an attempt to Islamify the operation the Americans have put pressure on the Egyptians to make them also supply troops. Egypt is also being used to channel weapons from Qatar to the rebels in an effort to bypass the arms embargo that NATO are only enforcing from the sea. So it seems to have taken all of six weeks for the Americans to get the Egyptians to return the "favour" America did them by allowing them to overthrow Hosni Mubarak.
Today (2/4/11) a Catholic police officer was killed in Omagh, Northern Ireland after "dissident Republicans" detonated a targeted bomb that had been placed under his private car outside his home in a predominately Loyalist/Protestant neighbourhood.
Coming on the same day that the English Defence League (EDL) staged another protest/paki-bashing rampage through Blackburn on the British mainland this was clearly an MI5 orchestrated operation attempting the smear the British left and anyone who isn't a CoE Protestant by making it seem like a revenge attack for the Ian Tomlinson inquest/Dr Freddie Patel sentencing.
An earlier attempt took place in the Stockwell/Brixton area of south London. On Tuesday (29/3/11) a gang related shooting took place in a convenience store in Stockwell. None of the four gang members were injured but a 35 year old man and a 5 year old girl were caught in the crossfire and remain in critical conditions in hospital. Although in itself this incident was nothing more then a sad indictment of British society tensions were already running high in the area following the death of a black man, known as Smiley Culture, during a police raid. The shocking shooting of an innocent 5 year old girl further raised those tensions to the point that the gunman decided that police custody would be the safest place for him and handed himself in.
On the day of the Dr Freddie Patel sentencing (31/3/11) the Metropolitan Police decided to respond to this local tension by flooding Brixton with the hated Territorial Support Group (TSG). The idea was that this would either incite a riot or end up with a police officer getting shot. Fortunately Brixton showed incredible restraint and nothing happened despite the provocation so instead the Brits had to go and kill a Catholic in Northern Ireland in the hope they could pin it on Qaddafi.
Speaking of which it's been confirmed that US troops are on the ground in eastern Libya in order to train the rebels. In an attempt to Islamify the operation the Americans have put pressure on the Egyptians to make them also supply troops. Egypt is also being used to channel weapons from Qatar to the rebels in an effort to bypass the arms embargo that NATO are only enforcing from the sea. So it seems to have taken all of six weeks for the Americans to get the Egyptians to return the "favour" America did them by allowing them to overthrow Hosni Mubarak.
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