The US Intelligence Assessment on Syria.

Today the United States published its intelligence assessment on the events of August 21st (21/8/13) in Syria which can be read here; http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2013/08/world/syria-documents/index.html or in a more useful format here; http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/30/us-government-assessment-syria-use-chemical-weapons/

I should probably start by apologising to the reports authors for my earlier Twitter comments because this is clearly a much more carefully constructed document than my initial skim read revealed. It does though fall far short of an intelligence assessment. An intelligence assessment would not only reveal the sources of the intelligence but also include some discussion of the credibility of those sources. I fully appreciate that the US intelligence community would not want to publish that sort of information in the public domain for very obvious reasons. However I hope that the version of report that has been sent to members of the US Congress contains a far greater level of detail as would befit their security clearance.

My main concern about this four page summary is that it appears to have taken thousands if not millions of separate pieces of information and then cherry-picked the pieces that best fit the pre-determined narrative that the Syrian government was responsible for any chemical weapons attack. Take for example the 7th paragraph which states that members of Syria's chemical weapons program are carefully vetted to ensure security and loyalty. Although it is undoubtedly a fact that members of the program are carefully vetted this detail seems to have been included specifically to tie any chemical weapons activity directly to the Syrian President by giving the impression that there is no possibility that rogue elements within the military could have been responsible. This is simply not the case because in July 2012 the head of Syria's chemical weapons program Adnan Silu defected to the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) where he now holds the rank of General. If the Syrian's vetting program has failed to secure the loyalty of the head of the chemical weapons program it is clearly far from foolproof.

Then there is the 12th paragraph which talks about the Syrian government attacking the affected suburbs with conventional weapons for days prior to August 21st but becoming frustrated and resorting to chemical weapons. The obvious alternative conclusion to that evidence is that the Syrian government had been attacking with conventional weapons to the point that the SQIA were close to defeat prompting them to launch a false flag chemical weapons attack in order to relieve the pressure on them. I would like to know on what grounds that alternative scenario has been discarded.

The 4th paragraph is equally problematic because it puts the death toll at 1,429 and takes special care to point out that 426 of them were children. The most credible assessment puts the death toll at just 355 while the least credible SQIA estimate puts the death toll at 1,300. Therefore US intelligence appears to have made 129 extra bodies appear out of thin air. This could be a simple case of over/double-counting while collating information from various sources. However it could also be someone simply making up a very large number in order to inflame public outrage in order to fuel support for military action. It goes without saying that immediately after the release of the summary the hashtag #1429Syrians leaped straight to the top of the worldwide Twitter trends. US intelligence also have a strong motivation to inflate the death toll because it prompts discussions at the United Nations about at what point an incident becomes "widespread" as required to be described as a "Crime Against Humanity" as defined by the 1998 Rome Statutes which would justify military intervention under a Chapter 7 UN Security Council (UNSC). This is never an easy discussion to have because for example was the horror of Srebrenica that some 8000 people were killed or that the Serbs spent 7 consecutive days systematically killing people?

This theory of the intelligence being chosen to fit the conclusion appears to be supported by the tone of yesterday's debate in the UK House of Commons. Throughout that debate MP's from the governing Conservative Party spoke not of the UK taking military action against Syria by the UK joining in with US military action against Syria that was definitely going to take place. To me that sounds like Conservative MP's being informed by members of the cabinet that MI6 had been assured by their US counterparts that they had prepared an intelligence dossier that would make it impossible for the US President to avoid military action.

There are two things in the report that give me some confidence there is at least a hint of objectivity going into the US assessment of events. The first is that in the 5th paragraph and 9th paragraph it talks about it being unlikely that the SQIA carried out the attack or used chemical weapons. This differs from the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) report which states that the SQIA lacks the capability to mount a chemical weapons attack. This is simply untrue because back in May 2013 the Turkish authorities who are virulent opponents of the Syrian government arrested two members of the SQIA in the Turkish city of Adna in possession of 2kg of Sarin. Similarly the Syrian government recently captured Sarin gas from the SQIA in a tunnel network in the Damascus suburbs. Obviously the Syrian government have great incentive to lie about the SQIA having stockpiles of Sarin gas but it is not enough to simply dismiss the claim out of hand for no other reason then it is the Syrian government making the claim.

The second thing that hints at at least some objectivity is the 19th paragraph which talking about the social media reports of the incidents states that the SQIA does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos. The implication is that a number of the videos and photographs most certainly were faked for propaganda purposes. A specific example would be the video of a pubescent girl with her burgeoning breasts exposed demanding that a doctor tells her she's alive. Apart from being an emotive attempt to convey the horror of the situation this was deliberately staged in order to play into the global discussion about at what age it becomes acceptable to marry/have sex with girls that is particularly prevalent in the Middle-East at the moment.

As for the intelligence itself apart from the stuff on the Internet it seems to have come from three main sources; Satellite imagery, communications intercepts (phone taps basically) and human intelligence sources who are Syrians on the ground who the CIA have recruited.

The satellite imagery should be easiest to declassify because provided the images are smudged up prior to release they are unlikely to reveal much about the US' intelligence gathering capabilities. There should be a lot of pressure on the US to release at least part of this satellite imagery because it makes up the bulk of the intelligence that this assessment is based on. For example all the stuff in the 10th to 15th paragraphs which talk about the attack itself and what the authors term the "preparation" has clearly come from spy satellites. The problem is that as far as I know the US has yet to develop a satellite that can detect the presence of Sarin gas in a fast moving object thousands of miles away. Therefore all the references to a conventional artillery and rocket attack is far from conclusive proof of a chemical weapons attack because the use of artillery and grad style rockets is an accepted and widely used lawful military tactic. The 13th and 14th paragraphs talk about satellite information showing Syrian troops preparing chemical weapons. I actually heard rumours of these images much earlier in the week. However the rumour I heard was that they merely showed Syrian troops moving and transporting chemical weapons. This is something that Syrian troops have been doing almost constantly for the last 12-15 months primarily to stop the SQIA get their hands on them, to deter foreign attempts to seize the weapons and just to annoy the US spy satellites. Therefore I would be very interested to know how the interpretation of these satellite images has changed from mere transportation to active preparation.

The communications intercept information is even more problematic. In the 20th paragraph reference is made to information the US itself has itself intercepted but goes on to refer to information that has been provided to them by a third party. What I've heard is that the US has little or no capability to intercept Syrian communications beyond satellite phones. As a result they are relying on Israel for the majority of their communication intercepts. Due mainly to the situation in Syria and to a lesser extent the Rihanna operation I would say that the relationship between the US and Israel has deteriorated to the point that Israel would provide the US with false intelligence in order to screw with them. The reports refusal to confirm what information has come from the US and what information has come from Israel seems to me to be a US attempt to question the quality of the information being provided by Israel. This is continued by the reports repeated reference to a "High Confidence" which could be a reference to the confidence the US has in its conclusion on Syria or a reference to the confidence (or lack thereof) it has in its Rihanna operation. After all if there's one thing we know about Rihanna it's that she likes to get 'high.'

The human intelligence is of course the most sensitive of all the intelligence because if some satellite pictures get released the worst that can happen is that China will confirm something it already knows about the US satellite capability. However if the identity of an agent on the ground in Syria is released they will be killed. If they're lucky. As a result this assessment makes very limited reference to human intelligence which also reflects the fact that the US' network of agents in Syria is limited at best. However the important thing to remember about human sources in this type of situation is that they were most likely recruited on the promise that the CIA will help them achieve their ideological goal of overthrowing the Syrian government. Therefore any assessment of their credibility will have to give serious consideration as to whether they are simply telling the CIA what it needs to hear in order to allow the US to take military action to overthrow the Syrian government.

22:10 on 30/8/13.

UK Commons Motion on Syria Defeated.

In the last hour or so the UK government's motion on military action against Syria that can be read here; http://www.itv.com/news/2013-08-28/the-full-text-of-the-governments-motion-on-syria/ has been defeated by a margin of 13 votes with 272 votes in favour and 285 votes against. There were 93 abstentions apparently including two Conservative Party who accidentally missed the vote because they were called away to meetings.

In response to what has been an embarrassing defeat the UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said that the result shows that; "The British Parliament reflecting the will of the British people do not wish to see British military action." However this is not the same as saying that there will be no military action against Syria. Firstly under the UK's unwritten constitution the military remains the property of the Monarch rather than the people. As a result the Monarch has the prerogative to send the military to war without the consent of the people. However if the Monarch were to attempt to exercise that prerogative the UK would be looking at its most serious constitutional crisis in some 300 years and possibly another civil war. Secondly and perhaps more relevantly the UK Parliament has not voted against military action against Syria it has merely rejected this particular motion calling for military. There is nothing to stop the government on recalling Parliament to vote on another motion tomorrow.

What is interesting is that just before rejecting the government's motion the House of Commons also rejected the Labour Party's amendment by a margin of 112 votes with 220 votes in favour, 332 against and 98 abstentions. This amendment would have of course required the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to vote on the UN inspectors report before the UK Parliament voted on another motion on military action against Syria. So while there were clearly Members of Parliament (MP's) who voted with their consciences and principles I detect the distinct whiff of the Conservative Party whips purposefully sinking this motion in order to clear the way for another motion as quickly as possible. Parliament reconvenes in normal session at the start of next week.

What appears to have changed is that during the 8 hour debate the UN inspection team have indicated that their preliminary report will be available for discussion by the UNSC on Saturday (31/8/13). The rumour is that this report will detail the discovery of Grad-style rocket parts which test positive for Sarin gas and have serial numbers linking them to the Syrian military. Although the UN inspection team is not mandated to draw any conclusion as to who was responsible for the August 21st (21/8/13) Sarin gas attack in Jobar supporters of the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) will immediately hold these up as conclusive proof that the Syrian government is responsible. They of course will be hoping that we all gloss over tiny little details like Sarin gas coats most things it comes into contact with and the former head of the Syrian army's chemical weapons division is I believe now a General in the SQIA.

In preparation for these fresh calls for military action against Syria Rwanda has today accused the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) of shelling its territory. The government of the DRC has responded by accusing Rwanda of shelling the DRC and its own territory in order to discredit the DRC. This issue will reach the UNSC firstly because Rwanda is currently a member of the UNSC. Secondly in order to protect the people of the DRC from the M23 rebels who are widely believed to be supported by Rwanda the UN is currently engaged in a peacekeeping mission in the DRC. This peacekeeping mission (MONUSCO) is controversial because it is the first time that a UN peacekeeping mission has been mandated to take offensive military action against designated groups rather then just acting to keep warring parties apart. Therefore the intention seems to be to raise pressure on the UN to allow the UK to take unilateral military action against Syria by comparing MONUSCO's mandate with the UN doctrine of "Responsibility to Protect (R2P)" that the UK is trying to invoke to justify military action against Syria without a UNSC mandate. See previous post here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-uks-legal-position-on-syria.html for lots of tedious detail on R2P.

Although there are vast differences between the MONUSCO mission and what the UK is trying to attempt in Syria any comparison will fail for two main reasons. Firstly M23 and other groups routinely use rape as a weapon of war against civilians in the DRC. Rape is one of the offences listed in the 1998 Rome Statute as a possible crime against humanity. As for how widespread this activity is in the DRC the last report I read on the subject estimated it as occurring four times every minute meaning that it is far from an isolated or sporadic event. Secondly MONUSCO has a mandate from the UNSC. I believe the UK raised reservations.

23:20 on 29/8/13.

The UK's Legal Position on Syria.

Both houses of the UK Parliament are currently debating the use of chemical weapons in Syria with a House of Commons vote expected at around 21:00. With the motion that can be read here; http://www.itv.com/news/2013-08-28/the-full-text-of-the-governments-motion-on-syria/ now containing a guarantee that there will have to be a second vote before UK military action is taking this debate has turned into something of a damp squib.

However there is some talk that Conservative Party MP's will push for Parliament to be recalled over the weekend for that vote to take place. Bizarrely though this seems like an attempt to get this current motion passed because it features the Labour Party amendment that can be read here; http://www.itv.com/news/2013-08-28/full-text-of-labours-amendment-on-syria/ that requires that the United Nations (UN) inspectors are allowed to complete their inspection and make a report to the Security Council before a UK vote on military action can take place. The UN inspectors are likely to be in Syria until Saturday (31/8/13) so there is little chance of them completing their report by Sunday (1/9/13). Therefore passing the amended motion would head off a weekend vote although there is little guarantee that things will get that far.

Ahead of the debate though the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) published a summary of its findings that can be read here; https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/235094/Jp_115_JD_PM_Syria_Reported_Chemical_Weapon_Use_with_annex.pdf However even in the heavily redacted world of espionage this so brief as to be useless. The main evidence it cites in support of its finding that the Syrian government used chemical weapons is that previous JIC reports have concluded that the Syrian government have used chemical weapons. It does though concede that it can find no political or military reason why the Syrian government would have used chemical weapons.

The UK Attorney General has also published a summary of the governments legal position regarding a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government that can be read here; http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2013/images/08/29/chemical-weapon-use-by-syrian-regime-uk-government-legal-position.pdf Again this is very brief but from what has been written it is easy to tell that it is deeply flawed. The 2nd paragraph describes the use of chemical weapons by the "Syrian regime" as "a breach of international law prohibition on use of chemical weapons (sic)and amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity." Peculiarly for a legal briefing though it offers no basis for the laws on which the opinion is based forcing us all to guess.

However by "Crime Against Humanity" I assume that it is referring to the 1998 Rome Statute as this is the only accepted document offering a definition of a crime against humanity. It lists Crimes Against Humanity as murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, religious and ethnic persecution none of which apply to the events in Jobar on August 21st (21/8/13). Although people were killed with only 355 dead there doesn't appear to have been any attempt at a mass extermination and the killings occurred as part of an armed confrontation between at least two armed groups. Killings that take place under those circumstances are not normally considered murder. At a massive stretch I suppose that the use of chemical weapons could be described as an "inhumane or degrading act." However crimes against humanity do not refer to "isolated or sporadic events." Lawyers can argue about the specific definitions of "isolated or sporadic" forever and a day however I think that most reasonable people would agree that a one off incident fits the definition of isolated or sporadic meaning that no crime against humanity has occurred.

The customary law on the prohibition of chemical weapons seems to refer to the 1925 Geneva Protocol on chemical weapons. Although this is not technically part of the Geneva Conventions is relies of the Geneva Conventions' definitions of "warfare" and "combatant." The Geneva Conventions are of course the documents that define "war crimes." It is here that the UK government's position runs into serious trouble because the 4th article of the 3rd Geneva Convention lays out a distinction between a lawful combatant and an unlawful combatant. Warfare as defined by the Geneva Conventions and the 1925 protocol can only be waged against lawful combatants and therefore war crimes cannot be committed against unlawful combatants. The Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) are quite clearly unlawful combatants meaning that no course of action including the use of chemical weapons is prohibited against them. I understand that from a humanitarian perspective this can be particularly hard to stomach but the most important part of the distinction is that a lawful combatant must obey all the other laws of war. That means they cannot massacre, hide amongst civilian populations, rape, murder, pillage or eat their dead. If we get into a position where we start defending people's right to act as unlawful combatants we are condoning war crimes and the laws of war which are hardly the membership rules of the local women institutes knitting circle fall apart creating a free for all as we are currently witnessing in Syria and have seen in places such as the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

The 2nd paragraph goes onto assert that the legal basis for any UK military would be humanitarian intervention. Here I am at an utter loss as to what aspect of international law this opinion is based on. However from the talk of deterring or disrupting the future use of chemical weapons this appears to be a reference to the 2005 UN doctrine of "Responsibility to Protect (R2P)." To use the correct legal parlance this is Cr*p for the simple reason that R2P is not part of international law. Instead it is a set of internal UN guidelines detailing the circumstances under which the UN Security Council (UNSC) can issue a Chapter 7 resolution authorising the use of military force. It considers the UNSC to be the sole body that can authorise the use of military force and most certainly does not permit nations to take military action without a UNSC resolution. In fact R2P was largely introduced to prevent a repeat of NATO's little adventure into Serbia in 1999. Although it has no application in these circumstances I will consider the UK's discussion of the criteria laid out in R2P but only to explain why there will be no UNSC resolution on Syria under the current circumstances;

The first requirement is that there is compelling evidence accepted by the international community (UNSC) that there is humanitarian distress on a large scale. This condition has clearly not been met. Although the JIC summary is scant on detail I gather that the UK's evidence rests of three pillars because the US the and Israel are not sharing their intercept evidence with the UK. Those pillars are video evidence, witness statements and social media reports. I am considering witness statements and social media reports to be the same thing for obvious reasons.

Although I'm not disputing the video evidence the assertion that it could not be faked is simply incorrect because there are a host of drugs that can induce seizure like symptoms and irritation to the eyes and frothing at the mouth can be induced by simple household soap. The witness statements severely lack credibility because the attack took place at around 03:00 (local). Due to the fighting in Syria there is no street lighting or electricity grid to speak of so the attack took place in pitch darkness. It also took place amid an artillery bombardment which are so traumatic and disorientating it is well documented they can drive people insane. Finally Sarin gas is both odourless and colourless so even during perfect daylight a person could no more tell you were it had come from than the air they breath daily. So will I appreciate that in these circumstances it is unreasonable to apply the same burden of proof as you would apply in a civilian criminal trial if a witness who has great incentive to lie is claiming to have seen something that it is physically impossible for them to have seen we really have to ask if they're telling the truth.

If the available evidence were to some how magically strengthen to the point it at least indicates the Syrian government rather than the SQIA were responsible the events in Jobar of August 21st (21/8/13) still represent a isolated or sporadic incident meaning that the 1998 Rome Statute covering Crimes Against Humanity and R2P cannot and do not apply.

The second requirement is that it has to be objectively clear that there is no alternative to the use of military force. This is simply not the case in Syria because alternatively the UNSC could pass a resolution prohibiting the supply of weapons and other equipment to the unlawful combatants of the SQIA or requiring that the SQIA stop hiding in civilian areas. It could also begin to supply the Syrian government with weapons and tactical advice making it better able to defeat the SQIA while minimising civilian casualties.

The third requirement is that any military force is proportional and strictly limited to relieving the humanitarian need (the use of chemical weapons). Obviously this is quite difficult to asses without it being declared exactly what military action is being considered. However even the nations that are proposing military action have made clear that they would not be able to target chemical weapon stores without spreading them across a wide area making the humanitarian need much worse. The UK's plan use Cruise missiles to knock out Syria's air defences including its air-fields is definitely out. Destroying air defences will have no impact on the Syrian governments ability to use chemical weapons and seems to be a precursor to regime change which R2P does not authorise. Similarly attacking air-fields or any other military hardware such as artillery positions seems to be a precursor to regime change and is actually likely to increase the Syrian governments need to use chemical weapons by reducing their ability to use conventional weapons.

As such the criteria of R2P have not been met so the UNSC will not be passing a Chapter 7 resolution. I strongly recommend that the UK Parliament respects the UN a votes down today's flawed and unlawful motion.

17:45 on 29/8/13.

Operation Misery: Month 6, Week 4, Day 2.

OK technically a day late. However yesterday Rihanna returned to Los Angeles, California for the final preperations for the next leg of her Diamonds World Tour. Although Rihanna will mostly be spending this time in planning meetings, at rehearsals and making sure her pets are going to be taken care of the CIA handlers were hoping for lots of speculation about whether Rihanna will be meeting up with Chris Brown or any other of her alleged suitors. However given the timing I think they've only succeeded in highlighting how stupid this final part of Rihanna's tour is going to be.

That's because it looks like the least stressful date of the tour is going to be the week Rihanna spends in Israel. The Israeli government is currently in the process of handing gas masks to its citizens in case the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) use a western military strike against Syria as an excuse to launch a chemical weapons attack against Israel in order to provide a pretext for a larger military intervention against the Syrian government. Therefore you have to ask with the security plan now featuring the phrase; "It'll be fine, the poison gas won't reach as far as Tel Aviv" are there any circumstances in which Rihanna's handlers will consider cancelling the tour.

On a related note more details of the US' dossier of evidence about the August 21st (21/8/13) chemical weapons attack are begining to leak out. Apart from the hundreds of eyewitnesses who swear blind they know exactly where the colourless and odourless Sarin gas orginated from the bulk of this evidence appears to be an intercepted telephone conversation featuring a Syrian government official who was demanding to know why everyone was reporting that a chemical weapons attack had taken place in Jobar and a military commander on the ground. The military commander's response is not known. Crucially this telephone intercept has not come from the US' PRISM survellience program but from an Israeli listening station. That means for the last week or so the Israelis have been forcing the Americans to demand that the intercept evidence is released. Considering the parrallels with my case that's the sort of play that should send a shiver down the spines of UK MP's as they debate this House of Commons motion on Syria.

10:40 on 29/8/13.

The UK Commons Motion on Syria.

Following a day of frantic politics the UK government has finally released the text of the motion it is going to present to the lower house of the UK Parliament for debate and possible vote. The publication came after the opposition Labour Party took the unusual step of tabling an amendment to an unseen motion. The Labour amendment has yet to be published in full but it is said to require Parliament to wait for and debate the United Nations (UN) inspection team's report before voting on direct British military intervention in Syria. Labour also indicated that unless their amendment was accepted they would vote against the government's motion most likely defeating it.

Therefore the government's motion that can be read here; http://www.itv.com/news/2013-08-28/the-full-text-of-the-governments-motion-on-syria/ seems to have been hastily rewritten to assuage the Labour Party's concerns and ensure that the motion is passed. Therefore the 9th paragraph ends with the clear guarantee that; "Before any direct British involvement in such action a further vote of the House of Commons will take place." However this watered down motion is still deeply flawed, in violation of international and reads like a recipe for the continuation of the conflict in Syria.

For example the opening paragraph reads; "Deplores the use of chemical weapons in Syria on 21 August 2013 by the Assad regime." There is absolutely no evidence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on August 21st or any other date and the description of the Syrian government as "the Assad regime" is clearly intended to undermine the legitimacy of the Syrian government violating the sovereignty of the Syrian state.

The 4th paragraph talks about the need for a strong humanitarian support that is focused on saving lives and deterring the further use of Syria's chemical weapons. The government intends to use this as a justification to supply the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) with equipment such as gas masks to protect them from chemical weapons. This will of course better equips the SQIA to use their chemical weapon stockpiles without risk to themselves. This represents a clear violation of the international prohibition on using chemical weapons against a civilian population and the 2nd paragraph of this very motion.

Paragraph 5 is simply factually inaccurate. The SQIA are considered as unlawful combatants under the customary law (article 4, 3rd Geneva Convention) and as such are deemed to be less then human meaning that no crime against humanity including the use of chemical weapons can be committed against them. Therefore international law provides no basis for their protection and attempts to protect them actually threatens the entire basis of international law by normalising their unlawful and immoral conduct.

The 7th to 9th paragraphs merely concedes that there is never going to be a UN resolution authorising foreign military intervention in Syria under the current circumstances because to do so would violate a host of international laws and the UN's own charter. Therefore it attempts to pave the way for the UK to take hostile and unlawful military action against Syria inspite of the opposition of the UN.

For these reasons I think it is quite clear that I believe this motion should be rejected by UK Members of Parliament (MP's). In fact I would go further and say that the person tabling this motion in the House should immediately arrested and expelled from Parliament.

20:15 on 28/8/13.

Headaches All 'Round!

The UK is currently in the grips of a rabid quest to declare war on Syria. As a result international diplomacy is incredibly delicately balanced at the moment. However I think it is fair to say;

In the winter of 2010 the Tunisian people rose up to overthrow their dictator Ben Ali. They were quickly followed by the Egyptian people rising up to overthrow their dictator Hosni Mubarak. Both the Egyptian and Tunisian people were fighting for freedom, democracy and justice. However the Gulf Monarchies led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar saw an opportunity to dominate the entire Middle East, North Africa (MENA) region by imposing their distorted brand of Sunni Islamic politics. So in Libya Britain's MI6 set about creating a protest movement in order to remove Muammer Qaddafi from power so Libyan oil could be brought back onto the world market in order to extend the life of Saudi and Qatari reserves. At around the same time the Gulf States assisted by the US and the UK created another protest movement in order to remove Bashar al-Assad from power in order to create a Sunni dominated puppet regime in order to counter-balance the Shia dominated government in neighbouring Iraq.

Both of these artificial uprisings used as a template Nazi Germany's "Project Green" which allowed Hitler to justify an invasion of Czechoslovakia by staging a series of terrorist atrocities principally around the town of Ostrava. As a result while the focus of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions was very much about minimising confrontation between the security forces and protesters the insurgencies in Libya and Syria actively encouraged protesters to provoke the security forces into attacking them. The idea being to use these 'atrocities' as an excuse to allow western powers to use their military might to overthrow the governments in these nations under the United Nations principle of "Responsibility to Protect (R2P)." In Libya this was reasonably successful with western war planes quickly joining the war on the side of the insurgents who eventually overthrew the Libyan government. Libya is currently a borderline failed state with a barely functioning government being largely unable to control the armed militias and criminal gangs who carry out shootings, kidnappings and bombings on an almost daily basis. The conflict there has also had the knock-on effect of creating a powerful Islamist insurgency in Mali driving that country from being a relatively stable democracy to the brink of being a failed state. Libya's oil has be available for purchase on the global market for the best part of two years though so many are happy to call the operation a success.

In Syria things have not been running so smoothly. Primarily this is because a large proportion of the Libyan people didn't stick to the script and cheer the western invasion. Instead they took up arms and fought against the insurgency meaning that the war dragged on for some seven months. In the first instance this meant that the western powers simply didn't have the military resources available to also attack Syria. It also meant that with western intelligence services tied up in Libya the Saudis and Qataris were forced to take the lead in Syria. These are two nations that seem to lack any form of moral compass so they saw no problem with immediately raising an irregular army of foreign Jihadists. The Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) then set about enthusiastically carrying out increasingly worse atrocities such as the al-Houla massacre in the hope provoking western powers into intervening to overthrown the Syrian government. With the international community unwilling or unable to intervene to protect the Syrian people from the SQIA the conflict in Syria rapidly descended into something from hell with massacres, ethnic cleansing and even cannibalism becoming almost daily occurrences.

Things started to change for the better in Syria in the spring of 2013 when Hezbollah a Shia dominated political party and militia from neighbouring Lebanon joined the conflict on the side of the Syrian government. Hezbollah's long experience in this type of guerrilla style urban warfare gleaned from Lebanon's 15 year civil war coupled with dwindling support for the SQIA caused by their horrific treatment of Syrians finally tipped the balance of the conflict decisively in the Syrian government's favour. Since the spring of 2013 the Syrian government have be able to retake control of the main population centres along the west of the country including  Al-Qusayr, Aleppo and parts of Homs. The SQIA have been reduced to occupying mainly rural areas in the north of the country where they are desperately trying to create a Sunni enclave by forcing Shias, Christians and secularists into either government held territory or Iraqi Kurdistan. The only thing that is stopping the Syrian government moving north to put a stop to this ethnic cleansing is a small pocket of SQIA resistance in the Jobar suburb of Damascus. Over recent weeks the Syrian government have been concentrating their forces of Jobar in order to clear the area so their forces would be free to head north.

According to some reports SQIA fighters in Jobar were just days away from defeat when on August 21st (21/8/13) they decided to unleash part of their stockpiles of Sarin gas killing some 355 people. In the first instance this was intended to force the UN to force the Syrian government into halting its assault on Jobar under the pretence of investigating the Sarin attack. The SQIA's main short term motivation though was to halt the Syrian government operation in order to buy themselves time in order to regroup. To their credit the UN inspection team don't seem to be rushing the Syrian government to call a ceasefire because they very much object to being exploited in this way. The more long term objective of the SQIA's Sarin gas attack though was to give the Saudis and the Qataris grounds to put pressure on the western nations to intervene on the side of the SQIA in order to use their military might to overthrown the Syrian government.

The UK has been the first to respond to this pressure from the Saudis and Qataris by recalling Parliament to vote on military action against Syria. Apart from the fact that UK Prime Minister David Cameron is looking to use this vote as a way to exert his dominance of Conservative Party backbench MP's who've been very restive over Europe recently the main objective is to get a vote in favour of military action. This yes vote will then be used to exert pressure on US President Obama to join the military intervention because the UK going it alone in Syria is just a polite way of saying a lot of UK planes are going to be shot down.

Obviously in order to soften-up public opposition to any military action we are being told that rather then being a war this will simply be a short operation using so-called "stand-off" weapons such as Cruise missiles intended to intimidate the Syrian government into never using chemical weapons again. Putting aside the fact that the Syrian government haven't used chemical weapons yet this is of course a nonsense because unless the Syrian government can rapidly wipe out the SQIA in the days following any western attack there will be another chemical weapons attack and there will be another clamour for further western intervention. In fact the rumour I've heard is that the UK intends to use Cruise missiles against Syria's air defence systems. That way when the SQIA mount thier next chemical weapon attack it will be much harder for the US to argue against a full-scale Libya-style intervention and regime change.

11:55 on 28/8/13.

Operation Misery: Month 6, Week 3, Day 6.

Much to my surprise the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards (VMA's) took place on Sunday (25/8/13) at the Barclays Centre in New York City, US. Although she was only nominated for one award the final leg of Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour starts shortly and politically she's pretty much all the US have got at the moment. As a result Rihanna played a large part in the build up to the ceremony.

Firstly her friend Leandra hosted a pre-VMA's party at a nightclub on Saturday (24/8/13). The intention here was to push her into the spotlight in order to pique Chinese interest into Rihanna's core tour party by creating speculation that Leandra could be the CIA's so-called agent in the room helping to keep Rihanna in line and on her mission. Then there was Katy Perry's show closing performance. Katy Perry has of course been lumbered with being the public face of opposition to Rihanna and Chris Brown's relationship. Initially the plan was that Katy Perry would perform her new single "Roar" on top of the Brooklyn Bridge but the Mayor's office objected forcing Katy Perry to perform under the bridge instead. "Under the Bridge" is a famous song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers which is all about heroin addiction - illegal drug use is of course a big theme of Rihanna's upcoming tour leg.

The main purpose of Rihanna's involvement in the VMA's though was to demonstrate that the 'community containment' of Chris Brown was working so there is no need to put in place a formal restraining order preventing Chris Brown for contacting Rihanna. While Rihanna was in New York Brown was in Hawaii which is really the furthest point within the US from New York City. Brown has since been joined in Hawaii with his on again/off again girlfriend Karruche Tran and Rihanna was rumoured to have had dinner with her ex-boyfriend Drake on Saturday night. Therefore the intention was for Rihanna to turn up at the VMA's with Drake showing that both Rihanna and Chris Brown had moved on from the relationship. Bizarrely this actually seems like an attempt to reunite Chris Brown and Rihanna because while I don't think there is much chance of Drake and Rihanna resuming their relationship forcing them together in this sort of publicity stunt makes it far less likely that they will.

In the end the speculation about whether Rihanna would turn up with Drake turned into speculation about whether Rihanna would turn up at all. Although this added to the drama I think this was a genuine problem with Rihanna trying to decide whether she actually wanted to go or not. That's because while these award shows look great on TV when you're actually there they can be rather tedious with people like Rihanna being forced to sit there trying to act all natural while someone points a TV camera at them for the best part of three hours.

Another thing that would have put Rihanna off going to the VMA's was the fact the ceremony was very much dominated by Miley Cyrus who was nominated in multiple categories and was performing during the show. You may remember a while ago I said something along the lines of; "If I was being arrogant I would say that all the attention I've been giving to Rihanna has made Miley Cyrus jealous." As such making Miley Cyrus the Belle of the VMA's ball could well have knocked Rihanna's confidence by making her worry she could be getting replaced and reminding her that the grip she thought she holds over me isn't quite as strong and she'd like.

Also since I made those comments back in the spring Miley Cyrus has gone on to release a hugely successful single "We Can't Stop." This has caused quite a bit of controversy for the former child star of "Hannah Montana" because the song appears to make reference to things like casual sex and illegal drug use. The video features Miley Cyrus wearing not very many clothes and engaging in what is known as 'Twerking' which is a form of sexual explicit dancing common in Hip-Hop and RnB videos such as the ones frequently put out by Rihanna. Therefore there has been lots of discussion about whether Miley Cyrus is mimicking Rihanna and Hip Hop and RnB culture or gently mocking them. Miley Cyrus of course performed We Can't Stop on the night and stayed on stage dancing around in her underwear while white RnB star Robin Thicke performed his big summer hit "Blurred Lines." Obviously due to recent events any talk about lines being blurred is risky at the moment however with lots of white being used throughout the performance it was intended to be a reference to the white lines of cocaine that is a major theme of Rihanna's upcoming tour leg rather then Obama's red lines. Although I've not been following it the song Blurred Lines is all about female heterosexuality which has apparently angered certain feminists (the homosexual ones) not least because the video features female models dancing in not very many clothes. This is pretty much par for the course for Hip Hop and RnB videos but the way it is done in the Blurred Lines video has led to people suggesting that it is gently mocking Hip Hop and RnB culture.

Therefore coming at the start of a week of events in the US to mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous March on Washington and "I Have a Dream" speech the purpose of these two white music stars being front and centre of the VMA's was to prompt a backlash against them for daring to suggest that the example set by black music stars such as Micheal Jackson and Chris Brown isn't quite what Martin Luther King was aiming for. Fair play to the both of them though because they seem to have deliberately made sure their critics had plenty of ammunition. 


22:50 on 26/8/13.

Mayhem in the Middle-East.

On Wednesday (21/8/13) someone used a chemical weapon believed to be Sarin gas in five suburbs of Syria's capital Damascus killing 355 people. Although this is significantly less then the 1300 people the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) claim and substantially less then the 5000 people that were killed in the Iraqi city of Halabja in 1988 this is clearly not acceptable and could border on a crime against humanity depending on who was responsible and who was targeted. Of course whomever carried out this attack must have had such good knowledge of events in the UK to know that in the previous week my father had decided to treat our lawn with a chemical herbicide which causes a slight urea like smell. However you have to feel that any neighbours that were annoyed by this were perhaps looking for a reason to be annoyed. Also of course the use of a chemical agent (Buprenorphine) on the unlawful medical experiment on my grandmother made this a very interesting diplomatic conversation to have in the week while I was appear in Court.

Despite the obvious dirty war that has been going on in Syria what I find more interesting is the way in which this use of chemical weapons in Syria prompted a wave of violence across the middle-east region. Things began on Thursday (22/8/13) when four Katyusha rockets were fired from southern-Lebanon into Israel. One of these rockets was destroyed by Israel's Iron Dome defence system and the other three landed in unpopulated areas. Although Katyusha rockets have normally been the preserve of Hezbollah this attack has been claimed by the rival Abdullah Azzam Brigades. Therefore the issue at play here seems to be Hezbollah's involvement in Syria which has been causing them public relations problems. You see although its priority in Syria is stability Israel is actually quite happy for Hezbollah to fight in Syria to defeat the SQIA and keep the Syrian government in power. Hezbollah however is sworn to destroy Israel so being seen to be doing Israel a favour has led to some tension amongst Hezbollah's membership and support base. Therefore Thursday's attack on Israel seems to be either Hezbollah showing that it is still Israel's enemy or the Abdullah Azzam Brigades trying to chip away at Hezbollah's support by showing it is prepared to attack Israel while Hezbollah's appears to be helping Israel.

As such I feel I have to point out that Hezbollah is supporting the Syrian government for entirely selfish reasons. Syria has historically been a strong supporter of Hezbollah providing it with not only cash and weapons but also crucial support on the international level. For example diplomats from the US, the UK and the European Union (EU) are not allowed to speak to Hezbollah directly but they can use an intermediary like Syria. Also Syria provides a key transit point between Hezbollah and their other main supporter Iran because Iranian government planes can't land in Lebanon but they can most certainly land in Syria. Therefore the fall of the Syrian government and the installation of a western puppet regime would create a much weaker Hezbollah and a much stronger Israel.

Israel of course responded to the rocket attack by sending war-planes to bomb targets in northern Lebanon on Friday (23/8/13).  In the first instance this was Israel simply sending out the message that certain things - such as attacks on their territory - could not go unanswered. However the level of violence they used was intended to show that these escalating cycles of attack and retaliation can quickly get out of control. Particularly in places like Lebanon. The fact that Israel attacked targets in northern Lebanon rather then southern Lebanon where the missiles were launched from were also intended to serve as a warning that it knew the US was going to carry out attacks against Sunni Mosques in Tripoli in northern Lebanon later that they.

The reason why Israel is very opposed to the US' current position on Syria is that they know that the fall of the Syrian government is not going to lead to installation of a western puppet regime. Instead they know it is going to lead to a failed state populated by warring Jihadist factions. None of these Jihadist groups will be well armed or organised enough to destroy Israel but they will be able to threaten its security to the point where Israel will be forced to launch attacks outside of its borders in order to protect itself leading to the gradual expansion of Israel. The fact that the Israelis are nowhere near as keen on this plan to expand Israel as the US and the UK are rather proves the point that when you're talking about Zionists you're far more likely to be talking about Protestants than Jews.

As for the twin bombings in Tripoli that was the US trying to make it look like Hezbollah were carrying out a revenge attack for a recent car bombing in Beirut. The intention being to weaken Lebanese support for Hezbollah in order to force them out of the Syria conflict. That's because is Hezbollah don't pull of of Syria the SQIA will soon be defeated and that horrid little war will soon be over.

Tripoli was targeted specifically in order to cause confusion about whether people were referring to the Tripoli in Lebanon or the Tripoli in Libya. That Friday was chosen because the Muslim Brotherhood were staging a "Day of the Martyrs" protest. The intention being to make it appear as if the Brotherhood had chosen that name for their protest in order to warn fellow Sunnis in Lebanon on an impending Shia attack. This obviously starts people looking at all sorts of conspiracies not least the famous and completely unsubstantiated one that the September 11th attacks were a Jewish plot and that Jews were secretly warned to take that specific day of work. With the Fort Hood shooting verdict and the Robert Bale verdict coming later in the day the US was keen to get people across the middle-east thinking and talking about conspiracies because while the US' support for the SQIA will be as unwavering as ther US is dependent on Saudi Arabia and Qatar for oil and natural gas they really have little idea who they're supporting and are desperately trying to learn more.

17:50 on 25/8/13

Ready To Roll.

As you probably know by now tomorrow (23/8/13) I've got to appear before Croydon Magistrates Court over this criminal damage nonsense. That means I've spent most of the afternoon preparing a file with which to brief my lawyer hence why the are sometimes known by the slang term "briefs."

In terms of the hearing you can come along and watch if you like. I can't yet tell you in exactly which Courtroom it will take place in but it is scheduled to start at 09:30 (local.) That said custody cases always take priority so if the local police spend tonight rounding up every they can think I might be left waiting there until the Court closes at 16:00 (local).

Being a mere procedural hearing though things will be very be very short and very boring. The prosecution will present its evidence to the defence and the three Magistrates. The defence will then present any evidence to the prosecution and the Magistrates. The Magistrates will then have to to decide if (a) They have the jurisdiction to hear the case and (b) if there is a case to answer. If they answer yes to both these questions I'll be asked to enter a plea, a trial date will be set there and then the prosecution will be given an opportunity to block bail. If the Court answers no to (a) but yes to (b) the case will be referred to another Court which will provide a date for another procedural hearing in the fullness of time. The prosecution will then be given an opportunity to block bail.

I've already explained the bail situation here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/i-never-liked-glastonbury.html but to be honest it would be unusual for the prosecution even to apply to block bail.

Obviously it is not my job to explain to the Magistrates how they should answer those two questions. After all it will be interesting to find out how they interpret the decision today with unlawful imprisonment regarding the Full Sutton prison case or the starting of a criminal investigation based on data recovered from David (Carmen) Miranda's computers in that tedious Glenn Greenwald case.


19:50 on 22/8/13.

Edited at around 10:20 on 23/8/13 to add;

As predicted my appearance today before Croydon Magistrates Court was very short and very dull. Although my case was listed as 4th in Courtroom 8 it was bumped up to the second case heard. The first case was a simple begging case in which the accused plead guilty and was fined GBP20. It took all of five minutes.

After a quick discussion about whether first the prosecution and then the Magistrates would like to "retire" (meaning take a short break) after my case the Court decided that (a) they did have the authority to hear the case and (b) there was a case to answer. So I entered a guilty plea and trial date has been set for 14:00 (local) on 12/11/13.

As for the prosecutions case it has become even weaker. The hammer has not been submitted in evidence which is a polite way of saying that the arresting officers claim to have found glass shards on it was not corroborated by forensic analysis. It also avoids questions being asked about the manner in which the hammer was searched for and seized. Also no CCTV evidence has been submitted. This of course could be that there never was any CCTV evidence or it could be that the prosecution has decided that the CCTV evidence would hinder rather than help their case. As a result all the prosecution is left with is the statements of the two witnesses whose credibility is likely to evaporate very quickly under cross-examination. Therefore while I am very much opposed to it I suspect that over the coming months the witnesses will be coming under quite a lot of pressure to withdraw their statements.

The application for legal aid has been accepted so before the trial I will have at least one meeting with my lawyer. This is likely to lead to a rather bizarre defence strategy in which the defence is going to be trying to get the prosecution to enter more evidence.

Chemical Weapon Use in Syria.

Yesterday (21/8/13) reports began to emerge of a chemical weapon believed to be Sarin gas being used in a suburb of Syria's capital Damascus. Independent estimates put the death toll at around 600. However displaying their usual relationship with the truth the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) claim that more that 1300 people were killed. Either way the incident has succeeded in propelling Syria to the top of the news agenda across the world for where it has been largely absent for the last couple of months.

The reason for this absence is that as the conflict has continued the mask has started to slip and it has become more difficult to get the facts to fit the western propaganda line. For example it is now clear to all involved that what is going on is not a popular uprising against an unpopular dictator. Instead it is a war being fought between effectively an invasion force made up of foreign irregular troops and the Syrian army. Most civilians in Syria have now worked this out for themselves and are fleeing the country in vast numbers. Secondly since Hezbollah who have great experience in this type of urban guerrilla warfare gained during Lebanon's 15 year civilian war the tide of the conflict has very much turned against the SQIA. The past few months the Syrian government has retaken strategic towns from Al-Qusayr up to Aleppo. As a result the SQIA are now pinned down in a small, rural area of the north-east of the country where they have been reduced to attempts to ethnically or more accurately religiously cleanse the territory they hold. This cleansing has recently triggered a mass exodus of refugees from north-eastern Syria into Iraqi Kurdistan. The only thing that is stopping the Syrian government moving north to end this ethnic cleansing is a small pocket of SQIA resistance in the Damascus suburb where yesterday's chemical weapon attack is alleged to have taken place.

Therefore it seems quite clear that the SQIA have attacked themselves with chemical weapons in a last gasp effort to avoid defeat. Coming almost a year to the day that US President Obama declared the use of chemical weapons in Syria to be a "red line" this incident obviously puts huge pressure on him to intervene on the side of the SQIA. Also the attack came on the day that European Union (EU) Foreign Ministers were holding an emergency meeting to discuss Egypt. Throughout the recent upheaval in Egypt nations led by the UK have been trying to use that situation as a way to discuss Syria specifically the near universal but unstated ban on EU nations supplying the SQIA with weapons. Obviously diplomacy is very delicately poised at the moment but the fact that the EU meeting ended with a decision to ban weapon imports to Egypt while leaving financial support untouched does not immediately sound like good news for the SQIA.

In the more immediate term the attack seems intended to put pressure on the United Nations to demand that its inspection team that arrived in Syria two days before the attack to assess previous alleged uses of chemical weapons be allowed to inspect to the Damascus suburb where this latest attack has taken place. That suburb is currently the focus of a concerted effort by the Syrian army to force the SQIA out using conventional weapons. In order to the UN team to investigate this latest incident some sort of ceasefire will have to be negotiated taking the pressure off the SQIA allowing them to hold onto their only stronghold in the south of Syria. The UN Security Council (UNSC) met in an emergency closed door session yesterday but requested rather than demanded that it's inspection team be given access to the affected area.

10:20 on 22/8/13.

Operation Misery: Month 6, Week 3, Day 1.5.

In the first part of the preview of the upcoming leg of the Diamonds World Tour that can be read below I explained how Rihanna's CIA handlers are using the model of Whitney Houston to destroy Rihanna through a domestically violent relationship and cocaine abuse to destroy her in a form of honour killing the appease the Gulf Monarchies. By taking this operation on tour the handlers are also trying to assess global attitudes to these issues paying special attention to drug smuggling. This helps exert pressure on Australia ahead of their upcoming General Election and on particularly African nations taking part in the current operation in Mali.

In what I can only assume is an attempt to bankrupt the entire tour as soon as the final Auckland concert is finished Rihanna and all her tour equipment will have to be flown at great expense to South Africa so Rihanna can perform two loss making stadium concerts in Johannesburg on October 13th (13/10/13) and in Cape Town on October 16th (16/10/13). Both of these concerts relate to the current situation in Mali where French troops backed by the United Nations (UN) are trying to defeat an Islamist insurgency and rebuild a functioning state in order to prevent the Islamist terrorists operating in the country in the future. Certain nations such as the US have a different view. Instead they would prefer to use the conflict in Mali along with Rihanna's tour to exert maximum pressure on the African nations making up the UN peacekeeping force in order to better help the Islamist terrorists flourish in all those other African nations. That way the US and others can sell weapons to both sides in order to ensure they're forced to sell their valuable natural resources (such as Diamonds) at knock-down prices. Being one of the African nations that is supplying troops to the UN peacekeeping force South Africa has agreed to the Rihanna concerts in the hope of learning some great secret that they can use to gain a competitive advantage over their regional rivals. The US of course agreed to the concerts in the hope of dumping a whole lot of extra special pressure on the regions dominant power.

Fortunately for South Africa the two big pressure points failed to materialise. Despite some initial noisy allegations of vote rigging the election in Mali seems to largely have been run smoothly and fairly. Although he's a southerner the winner Ibrahim Boubacar Keita seems to be a man of integrity with proven democratic credentials who seems well placed to keep on the national factions united. We are though all very interested to see what the insurgents will do next. Similarly Zimbabwe's election produced a clear winner which has been accepted without significant protest now the MDC-T have sensibly withdrawn their legal challenge to the result. However the CIA handlers seem intent on pressing ahead with their plan regardless. As such they've been working hard to make sure that a song called "Rihanna" by a nominally Nigerian wrapper called Orezi has been at the top of the charts in most sub-Saharan African nations. They have also failed to issue a restraining order keeping Chris Brown from contacting Rihanna in create speculation that he could be joining Rihanna on tour. If the South African government foolishly decide to allow Chris Brown into their nation it will lead to a discussion about his safety which will rapidly turn into a discussion about the Shrian Dewani case that has touched on so many things - not least the COP17/CMP7 Summit and Zimbabwe's election. Therefore my concern is that although they've sensibly kicked the Oscar Pistorious case into the long grass under this sort of pressure the South Africans might panic and come down hard on Rihanna if an effort to uncover some great secret that isn't actually there. Of course the overall security situation in South Africa is not up to US or European standards so while the South Africans won't attack Rihanna or her fans during her visit someone else might attack them in order to attack the South Africans by proxy much as they did when Rihanna joined Chris Brown on his tour in Cote D'Ivorie over the New Year's holiday.

Following the Cape Town concert Rihanna and all her tour equipment will have to be flown at great expense to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on October 19th (19/10/13). This is intended to be the moment of crowning glory in the CIA handlers plan for the tour. Along with all other Gulf Monarchies Abu Dhabi is run in accordance with a strict, Sunni interpretation of Islamic Shaira law. As such it has very stiff penalties for the use and possession of illegal drugs (grains of marijuana in the treads of your sneakers count), immodest dress, extra-marital sex and the sort of lewd behaviour that pretty much defines every aspect of Rihanna's existence. Foreigners even require a special government licence to posses or consume alcohol. Therefore Abu Dhabi is not a place Rihanna is likely to enjoy visiting. As is it is inconceivable that Rihanna or anyone in her wider tour party will attempt to smuggle marijuana into the country and with it being very difficult to obtain from inside the nation the hope is that the stress of the situation coupled with the stress carried on from South Africa and the absence of a drug that Rihanna seems dependent on will combine to cause Rihanna to have a massive Azerbaijan style nervous breakdown whilst in Abu Dhabi. The US hopes that this implosion by Rihanna will help restore the honour to the Gulf Monarchs (Emirs) that she took from them by triggering the Egyptian revolution. Of course since the planning stage the CIA's assertion that Rihanna was responsible for the so-called 'Arab Spring' has been thoroughly discredited and Egypt has once again changed direction. Therefore the US will now be hoping that Rihanna's visit will cause enough drama that it will help them learn about the Gulf Monarchies feelings about the current situation in the region.

Immediately after the Abu Dhabi concert Rihanna will travel to Israel for a concert in Tel Aviv on October 22nd (22/10/13). Knowing exactly what the US' plan for Rihanna is and very much disapproving of it Israel has rather nobly insisted that the concert after the Abu Dhabi concert is in Israel so they can provide Rihanna with a place of safety in which to rest and recover. I suggest she takes full advantage of this because as she's not a Palestinian short of running guns to Gaza Israel will allow Rihanna pretty whatever she likes

After a quick rest stop in Israel Rihanna's tour will move on to a series of concerts in the Caribbean starting in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic on October 26th (26/10/13) followed by San Juan, Puerto Rico on October 29th (29/10/13) before finishing in Bridgetown in Rihanna's native Barbados on November 1st (1/11/13). The main theme of these concerts will be US immigration policy. Puerto Rico is a US Commonwealth meaning that while it has a degree of autonomy its people are considered US citizens who have the same rights to live and work on the US mainland as any other US citizen. However people born in the Dominican Republic and Barbados have a much tougher time being granted permission to enter the US resulting in a lot of illegal immigration. Rihanna's own immigration status and the post-September 11th condition that she would have to give up her Bajan citizenship to become a US citizen in particular is a long standing hot topic for discussion. Also the Caribbean is a well established cocaine smuggling route from South America into North America and Europe via Africa. Finally the Dominican Republic sits on the island of Hispaniola which it shares with Haiti. Therefore it is likely that there will be some discussion about Haiti's 2010 earthquake in order to damage US President Obama's reputation. After all the overwhelming response to Haiti's earthquake was Obama's first big international act as President. Sadly though since then very little has changed in Haiti with only a tiny proportion of the promised international aid actually turning up.

Shortly after the Barbados concert Rihanna's tour will move back to the US starting in Denver, Colorado on November 9th (9/11/13). Colorado of course legalised the recreational use of marijuana in a ballot initiative at the 2012 US Presidential election. Therefore the concert will bring the focus back onto that election and its result particularly Rihanna, Chris Brown and my role in it. Although they didn't realise it at the time Chris Brown and Rihanna were actually campaigning against Barack Obama. Being reminded of this detail does not help Rihanna's reputation especially amongst black Americans which in turn prompts a discussion about race within US politics and society in general. Also this concert provides yet another opportunity to discuss Rihanna's marijuana use which coming hot on the heels of the Caribbean concerts prompts a wider discussion about drug smuggling routes and drug policy which is a hot issue in South American politics at the moment particularly in Uruguay.

After the Denver concert Rihanna's tour moves onto Dallas, Texas on November 11th (11/11/13). This is the rescheduled date after the April 16th (16/4/13) concert was cancelled. As such it's rather lost its intended agenda of prompting a discussion about race in the US by starting a run of concerts across southern US states such as Georgia and Florida. Although the concert was rescheduled rather than cancelled to provide an excuse to drag the tour out leading to the China concerts, the Philippines concert etc with it being added to the schedule the handlers have made a rushed effort to give it some political significance. Texas is traditionally a deeply Republican state and bordering Mexico immigration particularly illegal immigration is a massive issue within Texas politics. The federal US government is currently in the process of trying to implement new immigration laws meeting stiff opposition from both Republicans and Democrats. By bringing Rihanna to Texas so soon after the Caribbean concerts the CIA handlers are hoping she will help bring the immigration debate to Texas.

Following the Dallas concert Rihanna's tour moves on to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for a concert on November 12th (12/11/13). I hate to break it to the people of Oklahoma but politically this concert is really just there to make up the numbers. However Rihanna's path from Texas to Oklahoma will be reminiscent of a number of highly destructive tornadoes that occurred towards the end of the first US leg of Rihanna's tour. This will help feed into the debate about quantum field theory and whether Rihanna can somehow control the weather. As Rihanna will be flying by private jet throughout this final leg of the tour there is also a hope of prompting discussion about aircraft emissions in terms of efforts to tackle global warming. Mainly though the Texas to Oklahoma journey is supposed to create an almost subconscious association between Rihanna and death and destruction which is not likely to help Rihanna's career any.

Helping to feed that association following the Oklahoma concert Rihanna will return to Texas for a concert in Houston on November 14th (14/11/13). Not only will this help further associate Rihanna with all those tornadoes it will bring back memories of the West fertiliser plant explosion and by extension the Boston marathon bombings and the Bangladesh garment factory tragedy. Being another rescheduled concert when this concert was first meant to take place on April 15th (15/4/13) it was intended to promote discussion about the parallels between Rihanna's personal life and the personal life of the late Whitney Houston. There will likely to be attempts to promote similar discussions amongst the American public when the concert finally takes place.

Finally on November 15th (15/11/13) Rihanna will perform the last concert of the tour in New Orleans, Louisiana. November 15th is my birthday so this concert is a big, personal "F*ck You!" from Rihanna's CIA handlers to me and my supporters. You see in order for Rihanna to perform at the closing ceremony of the 2012 para-Olympic games an awful lot of people had to agree. My people agreed in the hope that after performing Rihanna would stay in the UK for London fashion week providing an opportunity for me and her to meet up in order to see what happens. However as was a big theme of the closing ceremony I've had a number of similar relationships in the past and they tend to be short lived, emotionally intense and end with both parties leaving being better people for the experience. Quite a few people were hoping the same thing would happen between Rihanna and I. However the handlers in both the US and the UK agreed in the hope that I would explain in detail those previous relationships before Rihanna would go back to Chris Brown making me look like a fool with the damage to my credibility helping Mitt Romney rather than Barack Obama win the 2012 Presidential election. 

By dragging the Diamonds World Tour out until the middle of November the handlers are pretty much destroying any possibility that Rihanna and I can get together and do what we should have been doing in the winter of 2012. By announcing the final concert on my birthday the handlers were sending the message to me and others (mainly Israel) that it didn't matter what we did to disrupt and destroy their plan for Rihanna they intend to press ahead with it regardless so we may as well not bother. Also New Orleans is still associated with Hurricane Katrina. It is widely felt that George W Bush's response to that disaster which was perceived as racist helped to propel Barack Obama to victory in 2008. Therefore New Orleans is always a large element of any discussion about race in modern American politics and society.

Provided no more concerts are added following the New Orleans Rihanna will finally return home to Los Angeles in California in order to assess the damage that has been done to her career. During this post-tour depressive comedown a restraining order free Chris Brown will no doubt engineer a way to worm himself into Rihanna's affection and her descent down the Whitney Houston path will continue apace.

18:55 on 21/8/13.

Operation Misery: Month 6, Week 3, Day 1.

Rihanna will shortly resume her Diamonds World Tour. Although the world has changed significantly since the start of the tour the original plan was for this tour was to completely destroy Rihanna as a popstar and a human being in order to restore the honour to the Gulf Monarchies that they feel they lost during the so called 'Arab Spring.' Despite all the evidence to the contrary Rihanna's CIA handlers would of course like everybody to believe that she helped cause the 'Arab Spring' through songs like "Run This Town."  This plan should also have given the handlers opportunity to assess attitudes to things like honour killing and forced marriage across the Muslim world while the confusion all this created would exert pressure on African governments who are trying to fight Islamic terrorism in Mali. The model for Rihanna's destruction that the handlers are trying to follow is the life of Whitney Houston who died of drug abuse in 2012.

Once a highly successful singer Houston was destroyed by a domestically violent romantic relationship with Bobby Brown that led to her becoming addicted to cocaine and crack cocaine. Despite the handlers best efforts to protect him from prosecution in order to keep him in the game Rihanna's own domestically violent romantic relationship with Chris Brown now seems to be over. As a result the UK are now trying very hard to push the drug use element of the story. Primarily this involves trying to manoeuvre Rihanna into an ever closer friendship with the model Cara Delevinge. Apart from giving the UK a high degree of access to Rihanna's private life Delevinge is a habitual cocaine user so the UK's hope is that the more time they spend together the greater the chance that Rihanna will pick up Delevinge's drug habit. However I doubt the young Ms Delevinge is aware of that part of her role. The question of whether it is possible to be an occasional or even habitual user of a drug like cocaine without becoming a full blow addict like Whitney Houston is of course one of the main discussion points about illegal drug use that the UK is trying to trigger.

As for the tour itself it begins with two concerts in Macau, China on September 13th and 14th (13&14/9/13). Initially these concerts were arranged in an effort to find out if the CIA handlers plan was being successful in confusing the Chinese. By appearing desperate for Rihanna concerts in their country the Chinese were trying to give the impression that they were struggling to follow what was going on meaning that the handlers plan was being successful. However by arranging the concerts for Macau which is considered as a gamblers paradise the Chinese also seemed to be sending the message that the US should only go ahead if they're feeling lucky. The fact that the Chinese were able to respond so elegantly to the US' fishing trip suggests that they're not finding the US' plan at all challenging. 

When Rihanna finally arrives in the country the Chinese will no doubt take the opportunity to inspect her and her core tour party because China are one of the largest contributors to the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force in Mali. The specific thing that the US are trying to get the Chinese to focus on is the relationships between Rihanna and her core tour party because some are obviously very pro-Chris Brown and anti-me while others are anti-Chris Brown and pro-me. Although human allegiances change on an almost day to day basis the Chinese will be somewhat interested who in Rihanna's core tour party fit into which camp and whether specific opponents of mine are doing so simply because they're immature or because they're the CIA's agent in the room so to speak who is trying to keep Rihanna on course for her mission. 

Apart from my usual and ever present concerns about Rihanna being stopped at international border crossings on suspicion of carrying drugs my main concern about China is that all this attention on her core social relationships could make Rihanna and her tour party quite paranoid. Being a one party surveillance state with informers behind every lamppost China can be quite a paranoid place to begin with so Rihanna could probably do without the extra tension. However China is slowly starting to open up and is now probably now a lot less weird to an outsider then say Azerbaijan. Also any tiny detail the Chinese may learn about Rihanna's core tour party is likely to be outweighed by the reputation boost that will come from being seen not to participate in the US' increasingly unpopular plan. So provided Rihanna and her party act normally, accept offers of excursions and don't try and hide things the Chinese are likely to tread very lightly only having a casual look at what's going on making it one of the safer nations on the tour.

Next up Rihanna will be playing a concert in Manila in the Philippines on September 19th (19/9/13). Rather embarrassingly the Philippines is actually deputising for two of its neighbours - Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Indonesia is the most populated Muslim nation outside of the Arab world. Although the religion is the same cultural differences mean that certain aspects of the religion are interpreted differently. So through the Philippines concert the US is trying to find out Asian Muslim attitudes towards things like honour killing, forced marriage and modesty standards etc in order to compare them to Arab Muslim attitudes that they'd hoped to collect during Rihanna's concerts in Morocco and Turkey. Simply holding the concert in Indonesia would have been a bit obvious. Papua New Guinea is often referred to by the acronym "PNG" which is also the acronym used for the diplomatic term "Persona Non-Grata" which refers to people who have been denied entry to or deported from a country. By keeping Chris Brown in the game the handlers were hoping to raise speculation that he would be joining Rihanna on this leg of the tour raising the question of whether countries on the tour (particularly South Africa) would simply declare him PNG and refuse him entry to their nations. 

Also Papua New Guinea has undergone a recent trend of burning women alive as punishment for being witches. As it was in Europe and the colonial-era US in places such as Salem the allegation of witchcraft is often just an excuse for violence against women and score settling between neighbours. However being a female victim of male violence and currently being in the middle of some score settling between nations Rihanna provides the perfect cipher through which to discuss the current issues in Papua New Guinea. The discussion about witchcraft and magic also helps to bring up that long running discussion about Quantum field theory and whether Rihanna has some sort of special power to control the weather. The fact that the Philippines has recently experienced some devastating flooding certainly adds a interesting dimension to that discussion because it seems somewhat unfair to give the Philippines the task of physically dealing with Rihanna while the political aspects of her visit are mainly focused on their neighbours.

Finally the group of islands that make up Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea represent the main smuggling route from South East Asia to Australia. These smuggling routes mainly deal in people and illegal drugs. The illegal immigration that results from the people smuggling has long been a major issue within Australian politics which I will cover in more detail later. In terms of drugs smuggling business is apparently booming with demand and prices rising on the Australian markets while they're falling on the European market due to the Eurozone crisis. As such during her visit the Filipino government is likely to come under a lot of pressure to make sure that Rihanna and her tour caravan is properly searched at customs. They're likely to withstand that pressure but the usual border rules most certainly apply.

On September 22nd (22/9/13) Rihanna will make a quick detour to perform a concert in Singapore. This performance is part of the festivities surrounding the Formula 1 Grand Prix that more or less shuts down the city state for a weekend so it's really just an opportunity for Rihanna to pick up a big cheque to help cover the cost of the this logistical nightmare of a tour leg. However Singapore is part of the UK Commonwealth so the visit will also allow for the UK to mount a quick inspection of Rihanna following her China and Philippines concerts and before her Australia and New Zealand concerts. Also Singapore has strict rules against and harsh punishments for things like illegal drug use and chewing gum meaning that Rihanna is likely to find it quite a stressful place. Therefore my advice is to arrive at the last minute and leave as soon as possible.

After the quick pit-stop in Singapore Rihanna's tour moves onto Australia with concerts in Perth on September24th (24/9/13), Adelaide on September 26th (26/9/13), Brisbane on September 28th (28/9/13), Melbourne on September 30th (30/9/13) and October 1st (1/10/13) and Sydney on October 3rd and 4th (3&4/10/13). Along with the concerts in South Africa and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) these concerts in Australia are the primary political purpose of the tour with the other concerts really just being there to pad it out to give a degree of disguise. 

Australia will shortly hold a General Election and at the time this tour was being planned the Labor Party which make up the largest part of the governing coalition were led by Julia Gillard who was deeply unpopular with voters making it extremely likely that Labor would lose the election and the Liberal by name but Conservative by nature Party led by Tony Abbott would form Australia's next government which seems likely to be another coalition. Therefore the US and the UK were hoping to use Rihanna's tour as a way of assessing the new government. The US is obviously keen to find out what effect a change of government in Australia would have on its "Pivot towards the Pacific" policy while the UK is interested to see how loyal that government would be towards the Commonwealth Realm of which Australia is a member. 

However since the tour was announced the Labor Party replaced Gillard with Kevin Rudd as their leader meaning they now have a reasonable chance of beating Abbott in the General Election which Rudd recently called for September 7th (7/9/13). As a result it now seems that even if a coalition has be formed it is likely that Australia's election will be sorted out before Rihanna leaves China. Obviously though the US is hoping that all the discussion about Rihanna's tour beginning means that she will at least play a small role in the final days of Australia's election campaign. As the Singapore date is more of a festival appearance rather than a full concert expect a long discussion about whether Rihanna's tour equipment will be travelling from the Philippines to Australia by boat or by aeroplane.

The two big areas of Australian politics that the US are hoping Rihanna will shed light on are the big issues of immigration which Rihanna will call into focus by mimicking the route take by the boat people through islands like the Philippines and the environment. The environmental issue will be highlighted by the discussion about whether quantum field theory means that Rihanna can somehow control the weather which the US used extensively at the COP18/CMP8 Summit as a possible alternative explanation for global warming. As Australia is the world’s largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases global warming and how to combat it is a massive issue in Australian politics.

The UK's role in the Australian leg of Rihanna's tour is much more sinister though. They intend to make available to the Australians all the detailed information about Rihanna's psychological make-up, social circle and pre-concert routines that they've either been provided with by their US counterparts or collected themselves through the friendship with Cara Delevinge and Rihanna's work with River Island. The test of the new Australian government's loyalty to the Crown will be whether they are prepared to use that information to run a low level harassment campaign against Rihanna in order to put her under as much stress as possible and deliver reputation damaging poor concert performances. So while I appreciate that Australians have more important issues to consider when choosing who to vote for such as an economy that is far too dependent on resources mining that leaves it overly vulnerable to changes in the Chinese economy and the great carbon tax which I support in spirit but would use a free market cap and trade system to achieve the same result Rihanna's - and by extension my - life will be made a lot easier if the Labor Party won another term. That's because they will actually take a degree of pride in defying orders from the UK. That said with the reward from the European leg of Rihanna's tour failing to materialise the UK now seems very worried about the reputational damage that will come from being seen to join in with the US' mission to destroy Rihanna. Therefore if any Australian government were to gently express a lack of desire to attack Rihanna I doubt the UK will force the point too much.

It is though obviously difficult for me to do a full threat assessment of the Australian concerts until I know the result of the election. However the worst case scenario is that aside from the two border crossings any harassment will be low level stuff like noisy hotel neighbours and internal flights getting delayed or local traffic congestion leading to concerts starting late or fans not being able to get in. It is in this period that I would prefer to be in closer, more direct contact with Rihanna. Not because I want all the backstage gossip but because I can actually be quite useful in getting that sort of thing sorted out.

Following on from the concerts in Australia Rihanna will move on to New Zealand for three concerts in Auckland on October 6th, 7th, and 8th (6&7&8/10/13). Although I'm likely to start an argument by saying this Australia and New Zealand are extremely friendly neighbours and their cultures are so similar that you could almost say they're the same country. So although Rihanna will have to cross an international border to get in and out of New Zealand her stay there will be almost exactly the same as her stay in Australia only without the pressure of a newly formed government. In fact based on current form I might even go so far as to say Rihanna could almost be looking forward to a relatively relaxing time. Mind you I could give someone the yips just by saying that.

Due to the time difference from GMT the Philippines concert, most of the Australian concerts and all of the New Zealand concerts are likely to take place during the start of the European working day. Therefore the CIA handlers were hoping that any screw ups will help to spread chaos across the European financial markets which is an ugly place to be at the best of times. As such if Rihanna will insist of screwing up she'd be well advised to avoid doing so during those concerts.

16:30 on 21/8/13.