If the situation in Iraq over the last couple of days could be summed up in a single word it would be "Stasis." It is almost as if everybody is waiting to see what will happen next.
The town of Amerli remains under siege from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). There continues to be no large scale plan to deliver urgent supplies to its 26,000 residents and there continues to be no plan to evacuate them. However the Iraqi military has managed to mount a small relief effort similar to the one seen on Mount Sinjar with helicopters delivering small amounts of aid and ammunition and evacuating small numbers of residents. As a result ISIL fighters remain unable to seize the town but Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces continue to lack the strength to break the siege and save the town. Today there are reports that the Peshmerga backed by Iraqi forces have launched a fresh attempt to break the siege with an assault on four sides. One thing that could aid Amerli is that ISIL fighters seem to be concentrating their forces elsewhere.
ISIL's main focus seems to be continuing their efforts to encircle the capital Baghdad in order to lay siege to it and cut it off from the countries main oilfields in the south east. To this end there was intense fighting in Mahmoudiya which is just 29km (17.5miles) south of Baghdad. As far as I can tell Mahmoudiya has not yet fallen to ISIL who are being held off by the Iraqi army and Shia militiamen who are also participating in the effort to re-take Amerli. Although it is a good thing that ISIL are being prevented from gaining more territory the involvement of militia's could present its own set of problems. Firstly militias are not trained to the standard of the regular army and are therefore more prone to carrying out human rights abuses. Secondly if they are successful these militias will likely expect some sort of reward either in terms of money or preferential treatment from the Iraqi government. This risks deepening secular tensions within Iraq which ISIL is already exploiting to its advantage.
One thing that may have helped to slow ISIL advance is that the Peshmerga have launched an offensive in Nineveh province to seize control of a strategically important road between the border with Syria and Mosul. This was making steady progress with the Peshmerga taking control off the Ain Zalah oil fields close to the road on Thursday (28/8/14). However since then ISIL have set fire to at least three oil wells creating an intense fire that has covered the area in thick black smoke which is delaying the Peshmerga's advance.
The US response to all this has been nominal at best. Since my previous post on the subject on Monday (25/8/14) the US has carried out just 14 air-strikes which succeeded in destroying 13 armed "technical" trucks, 2 Humvees, 1 tank and 5 supply/construction trucks. They also succeeded in damaging 2 technicals and 2 ISIL buildings/checkpoints. 12 of these strikes took place close to the Mosul Dam and 2 took place close to Arbil neither of which are within 200km (120miles) of the main combat areas. The cost of flying US aircraft over Iraq to effectively watch the fighting as it is taking place has been put at around USD7.5million per day meaning that so far the operation has cost USD173million.
Despite this large financial and humanitarian cost US President Obama's main priority seems to be slowing down the operation as much as possible. On Tuesday (26/8/14) it was announced that the US had expanded its operation to include reconnaissance flights over ISIL positions in Syria. Although this makes some sense because the more information you have about your enemy the better able you are to prioritise targets in order to do the maximum damage at the minimum risk it seems more like Obama trying to put up further barriers to taking effective action in Iraq.
If the US wants to carry out airstrikes against ISIL positions in Syria they will have to seek the permission of the Syrian government if for no other reason then the Syrian government has modern air defence systems. This will involve the US having to recognise the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria which is something it has refused to do over the past three and a half years as it has attempted to help ISIL topple the Syrian government. Therefore Obama seems to be hoping that people in the US will baulk at this idea providing him with an excuse not to take effective action in Iraq.
Obama also appears to using the issue of Syria in an effort to reduce the international pressure on him to take action in Iraq. Having been shocked by the sheer brutality of ISIL's behaviour both the UK and Australia have been very vocal in their calls for military action to be taken to stop them with the UK even moving aircraft to Cyprus in preparation for that action only to be stood down at the US' request. On Wednesday (27/8/14) the US unofficially let it be known that it had contacted both the UK and Australia to ask them to take part in a military coalition against ISIL in Syria although both Britain and Australia deny that the US has made such a request.
Obama's hope here seemed to be that because the UK in particular has been a very vocal supporter of the attempts to overthrow the Syrian government the prospect of having to acknowledge its legitimacy would cause them to back down. After all it would be very difficult for the UK to continue pursuing ruinous EU sanctions against Russia whilst at the same time admitting that Russia was in the right while they were in the wrong. Due to the Commonwealth link if the UK declined to join a military operation under such circumstances it is extremely unlikely that Australia would go it alone.
The UK's decision to raise the terror threat level on Friday (29/8/14) in response to ISIL and Australia's offer to aid the United Nations with intelligence gathering in Syria today both seem intended to indicate that the prospect of taking action in Syria frightens neither the UK nor Australia. However I think both nations are still waiting for the US to formally make the request.
Beyond putting around the rumour that it had asked the UK and Australia Obama on Thursday (28/8/14) announced that he would be sending Secretary of State John Kerry to the middle-east to build a coalition for action against ISIL. I think the hope here was that this would be viewed by US voters as Obama showing that he is different from George W Bush by seeking international agreement rather then taking unilateral military action.
The problem for Obama is that this international coalition already exists and has already given permission for military action. On August 15th (15/8/14) the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) met and passed resolution 2170(2014) on both ISIL and Al-Nusra Front (ANF). This resolution called on nations to do everything in their power to stop both organisations and is a Chapter 7 resolution that authorises the use of military force. No member of the UN has challenged the passing of this resolution meaning that a global consensus on the issue has already been reached and the legal basis for action is in place.
As such the true purpose to Kerry's tour is to provide Obama with yet another delay. For example the tour isn't even scheduled to begin until the end of the NATO Summit on September 5th (5/9/14). Also while Obama thinks that it is important for this tour to take place he is as yet unable to actually name any of the nations it is important to consult with. As a result this tour has no agenda and therefore no predicted end date.
Sadly we are already seeing the effects of Obama's procrastination on the ground in Syria. When ISIL carried out their big June offensive they seized huge amounts of heavy weaponry and armoured vehicles from the Iraqi military. As Obama refused to intervene at the time ISIL have been able to transport large amounts of that weaponry into Syria. There they have used it attack and expel ANF from the north of Syria.
In response the Al Qaeda linked ANF have regrouped in the small area of territory held by the US backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) close to the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. Over the past week ANF have attacked and defeated the FSA seizing control of the Quneitra border crossing. In the process they have kidnapped some 120 troops attached to the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). This has led to rumours that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has been forced to move up to take the positions that were lost by the UNDOF troops and today engaged in a battle with ANF to rescue 75 of those troops.
So we are now in a position where the moderate opposition in Syria is Al Qaeda and those forces are now face to face with the IDF on Israel's border. If ANF attack Israel they will have no option other then to fight back. This means that any future military action will be viewed as being in support of the hated 'Zionists' which will further inflame an already complex and dangerous situation. In short there is simply no more time left to waste.
21:20 on 30/8/14 (UK date).
Saturday 30 August 2014
Thursday 28 August 2014
Ukraine Update.
Back in 2011 the Gulf Monarchies led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar decided that they were going to overthrow the government of Syria. Despite the international pressure Russia decided to stand by Syria and support it as it fought the invading army made up of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Al-Nusra Front (ANF) who are considered the moderates because they are merely allied with Al-Qaeda.
Towards the end of 2013 the United States decided to punish Russia for this by orchestrating violent street protests in Russia's neighbour Ukraine. In February 2014 the US went even further by overthrowing the democratically elected government of Ukraine. In its place the US installed an unelected junta made up of a coalition of extreme right wing and Nazi groups including Svoboda, Right Sector and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) alongside the aggressively anti-Russian Fatherland Party headed by Yulia Tymoshenko who has lost every election she has stood in.
Almost immediately the junta set about purging ethnic Russians from Ukrainian public life by banning the use of the Russian language, tearing down buildings and monuments that included symbols of Ukraine's Soviet past and carrying out violent attacks against ethnic Russians and the political leaders that spoke on their behalf. Quite quickly this prompted Ukraine's ethnic Russian minority that is predominately based in the eastern Donbass region to form self-defence militias and once attempts at engaging the junta in negotiation had failed declaring an autonomous region.
In May 2014 Ukraine held its first Presidential election since the overthrow of the government. This election was strictly limited to the office of the President and therefore gave the Ukrainian people no say in the make up or policies of the junta. In fact you could say that it was intended to allow the junta to remain in power by providing a veil of democratic legitimacy to its activities.
Despite this the election actually only served to further discredit the junta who were pretty much wiped out in the poll. Right Sector received just 0.7% of the vote while Svoboda who also represented the UIA received just 1.16% of the vote. The Fatherland Party did best but still only managed to poll 12.82%. The election was very clearly won by Petro Poroshenko with 54.7% of the vote. This was particularly embarrassing for the junta because Poroshenko had been one of the main supporters of Viktor Yanukoyvch the President who was overthrown in what was supposedly a popular uprising.
Stung by this result the junta responded by launching a military offensive against the eastern regions just two weeks later. The junta labelled this as an "Anti-Terrorist Operation" however with the eastern militias showing no evidence of employing terrorist tactics this seems to be an example of them using the old Nazi tactic of labelling anyone who expresses an opinion different to theirs as "Terrorists." This offensive quickly grew into a full scale war against the east with the junta employing tanks, heavy artillery and ground attack aircraft against its citizens. So far this offensive has killed in at least 2,500 people and forced in excess of 1,000,000 ethnic Russians to flee Ukraine and seek sanctuary in Russia.
As such it seems that the junta is on a mission to cleanse Ukraine of ethnic Russians and it is tying to complete that mission before it calls an election in order to ensure that the only people left to vote will vote for the junta.
Under these circumstances I'm actually quite surprised that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has so far failed to authorise a military intervention in order to prevent what is considered a crime against humanity.
14:30 on 28/8/14 (UK date).
Towards the end of 2013 the United States decided to punish Russia for this by orchestrating violent street protests in Russia's neighbour Ukraine. In February 2014 the US went even further by overthrowing the democratically elected government of Ukraine. In its place the US installed an unelected junta made up of a coalition of extreme right wing and Nazi groups including Svoboda, Right Sector and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) alongside the aggressively anti-Russian Fatherland Party headed by Yulia Tymoshenko who has lost every election she has stood in.
Almost immediately the junta set about purging ethnic Russians from Ukrainian public life by banning the use of the Russian language, tearing down buildings and monuments that included symbols of Ukraine's Soviet past and carrying out violent attacks against ethnic Russians and the political leaders that spoke on their behalf. Quite quickly this prompted Ukraine's ethnic Russian minority that is predominately based in the eastern Donbass region to form self-defence militias and once attempts at engaging the junta in negotiation had failed declaring an autonomous region.
In May 2014 Ukraine held its first Presidential election since the overthrow of the government. This election was strictly limited to the office of the President and therefore gave the Ukrainian people no say in the make up or policies of the junta. In fact you could say that it was intended to allow the junta to remain in power by providing a veil of democratic legitimacy to its activities.
Despite this the election actually only served to further discredit the junta who were pretty much wiped out in the poll. Right Sector received just 0.7% of the vote while Svoboda who also represented the UIA received just 1.16% of the vote. The Fatherland Party did best but still only managed to poll 12.82%. The election was very clearly won by Petro Poroshenko with 54.7% of the vote. This was particularly embarrassing for the junta because Poroshenko had been one of the main supporters of Viktor Yanukoyvch the President who was overthrown in what was supposedly a popular uprising.
Stung by this result the junta responded by launching a military offensive against the eastern regions just two weeks later. The junta labelled this as an "Anti-Terrorist Operation" however with the eastern militias showing no evidence of employing terrorist tactics this seems to be an example of them using the old Nazi tactic of labelling anyone who expresses an opinion different to theirs as "Terrorists." This offensive quickly grew into a full scale war against the east with the junta employing tanks, heavy artillery and ground attack aircraft against its citizens. So far this offensive has killed in at least 2,500 people and forced in excess of 1,000,000 ethnic Russians to flee Ukraine and seek sanctuary in Russia.
As such it seems that the junta is on a mission to cleanse Ukraine of ethnic Russians and it is tying to complete that mission before it calls an election in order to ensure that the only people left to vote will vote for the junta.
Under these circumstances I'm actually quite surprised that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has so far failed to authorise a military intervention in order to prevent what is considered a crime against humanity.
14:30 on 28/8/14 (UK date).
Wednesday 27 August 2014
My Brother's Keeper: The End?
At 16:00 (19:00 local) yesterday both Israel and the Palestinian factions declared an open ended cease-fire bringing to an end the latest round of fighting in Gaza. As is sort of the form the start of the cease-fire was proceeded by a massive increase in rockets and mortars being fired from Gaza into Israel which brought the total for the day to 182.
However rather then being made up of almost constant fire this concentrated on intense barrages of mortar fire - often 20+ at a time - on civilian areas directly on the border. This was quite clearly an attempt by Hamas to kill as many Israelis as possible before the cease-fire came into effect. Hamas were partially successful when a barrage of fire minutes before the start of the cease-fire killed two men aged 43 and 55 on the Nirim Kibbutz in Eshkol. As such this seems like an appropriate moment for all the left-wingers who have been rounding on Israel during this conflict to go and find out what a kibbutz is.
Despite these two late deaths Israel did not retaliate and allowed the cease-fire to come into effect. In Gaza this was marked by a Hamas spokesman who declared it to be a victory for Hamas who had done what no Arab army have been able to do by defeating the Israeli army. Considering the death and destruction that Hamas brought on the people of Gaza over the past 50 days by starting this war I found his next claim that Hamas "had been the defenders of the Palestinian people and will now become the servants of the people" even harder to believe. However it did provide an insight into why Hamas chose to start this war with Israel.
Certainly since the end of the Cold War Hamas has been reliant on the support of Iran and Syria. They have also benefited from an Egyptian government that has been happy to turn a blind eye to their activities. This all changed in 2012 when Mohamed Morsi of Hamas' parent organisation the Muslim Brotherhood was elected President of Egypt and the Gulf Monarchies decided that Syria would be the next country to be overthrown as part of the so-called Arab Spring. The ensuing war meant that Syria was no longer in a position to support anyone and instead had to rely on support from Iran and Hamas' long term ally Hezbollah. Hamas however decided to throw their lot in entirely with Morsi and declared their support for groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who were fighting the Syria government. This completely isolated Hamas from Iran and Hezbollah who continue to fight and die at the hands of ISIL in Syria.
Within a year the Egyptian people decided that they'd had enough of Morsi and he was ousted from power. This prompted Hamas to send fighters and weapons into Egypt to fight on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood. In response Egypt closed the Rafah crossing removing a legal route for goods to flow in and out of Gaza. They also destroyed many of the smuggling tunnels into Gaza which not only provided Hamas with a steady flow of weapons but also a vital revenue stream from taxes levied on the smuggled goods. Added to the fact that Hamas was also clashing with the Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) who cut off funding to Gaza this crippled Hamas financially to the point that they were unable to pay salaries to any public sector workers in Gaza.
Needless to say this made Hamas spectacularly unpopular with the people of Gaza so they decided to start this war in a effort to convince Gaza that Israel was the bigger enemy then Hamas so they would start supporting Hamas as the people who were bravely protecting them from Israeli aggression.
With over 85% of their weapons stores destroyed and at least 800 of their fighters including at least 4 senior commanders killed it is easy to see what Hamas has lost during this war. It is much more difficult though to tell what they have won to back up their claim of victory not least because the exact details of the cease-fire agreement have yet to be made public. In fact I'm getting the distinct impression that the only thing firmly agreed in the cease-fire declaration is that the shooting will stop and all parties will meet up again in 30 days to start working out the details.
However it is clear that at the core of the agreement is the third compromise presented by Egypt. This will see Hamas drop their demands for air and sea ports in Gaza in return for fishermen being allowed to set sail up to 20 nautical miles off the coast. Israel will then discuss increasing the type and volume of goods flowing into Gaza and the number of visas issued to Gazans to travel into Israel in return for a cessation of violence on the part of Hamas. This essentially leaves Hamas where they were at the start of the conflict because it is a myth that Gaza has been under siege by Israel.
Since 2009 around 200 trucks loaded with goods including food, medical supplies and building materials along with hundreds of thousands of litres of cooking gas and gasoline pass through each of the five border crossings from Israel into Gaza every single day. This has continued throughout the war and is why Hamas were able to seriously injure several people at the Erez border crossing on Sunday (24/8/14). While Israel - like any other country - does technically restrict the flow of goods in and out of its borders the main cause of shortages in Gaza these days is that having not been paid for months people simply can't afford anything. The other major problem has been the stopping of the flow of cheaper goods from Egypt due to the closing of the Rafah crossing with Egypt which was done by Egypt in response to Hamas' sending of weapons and fighters to attack Egyptian soldiers and civilians.
If they are able to negotiate an increase in the flow of goods into Gaza and I suspect that Israel will be more then helpful in that effort although Hamas will need customers that is likely to mean even worse news for Hamas. The collection of excise duty (tax) on border crossings between Israel and Gaza is wholly the responsibility of Israel. Once they have removed their share the Palestinians share is handed over to the PA who then decide what money to send to Gaza. However Israel has frequently been known to withhold the Palestinian share from the PA who have also frequently been known to withhold funds from Gaza due to a split between Hamas and Fatah who dominate the PA. So unless Hamas can dramatically improve their relationship with Fatah and ideally with Egypt an increase in the flow of goods from Israel into Gaza could well end up making life there even more miserable rather then improving it.
Through its public statement since the cease-fire though Hamas seems extremely confident that its budget problems are about to be magically solved and all their employees will be paid all the money they're owed. This suggests to me that rather then securing any concession from Israel Hamas actually signed up to the cease-fire because Qatar offered them a huge bribe under the banner of "reconstruction efforts." This means that Hamas are fast on course for becoming just as corrupt and ineffective as Fatah and the burgeoning Palestinian state is set to be spilt apart as the West Bank becomes Saudi Arabia's Embassy in Israel and Gaza becomes Qatar's. After all if the Israel/Palestine conflict was resolved how would these Gulf Monarchs be able to show Zakat towards the Arab peoples?
So in summary even by the standards of wars between Israel and Palestine I think that this one has been particularly pointless meaning that there really has been no winners. However if I was forced to chose I would say that Israel has won although if someone launches an unprovoked attack on you stopping them is really the only victory you can achieve.
20:20 on 27/8/14 (UK date).
However rather then being made up of almost constant fire this concentrated on intense barrages of mortar fire - often 20+ at a time - on civilian areas directly on the border. This was quite clearly an attempt by Hamas to kill as many Israelis as possible before the cease-fire came into effect. Hamas were partially successful when a barrage of fire minutes before the start of the cease-fire killed two men aged 43 and 55 on the Nirim Kibbutz in Eshkol. As such this seems like an appropriate moment for all the left-wingers who have been rounding on Israel during this conflict to go and find out what a kibbutz is.
Despite these two late deaths Israel did not retaliate and allowed the cease-fire to come into effect. In Gaza this was marked by a Hamas spokesman who declared it to be a victory for Hamas who had done what no Arab army have been able to do by defeating the Israeli army. Considering the death and destruction that Hamas brought on the people of Gaza over the past 50 days by starting this war I found his next claim that Hamas "had been the defenders of the Palestinian people and will now become the servants of the people" even harder to believe. However it did provide an insight into why Hamas chose to start this war with Israel.
Certainly since the end of the Cold War Hamas has been reliant on the support of Iran and Syria. They have also benefited from an Egyptian government that has been happy to turn a blind eye to their activities. This all changed in 2012 when Mohamed Morsi of Hamas' parent organisation the Muslim Brotherhood was elected President of Egypt and the Gulf Monarchies decided that Syria would be the next country to be overthrown as part of the so-called Arab Spring. The ensuing war meant that Syria was no longer in a position to support anyone and instead had to rely on support from Iran and Hamas' long term ally Hezbollah. Hamas however decided to throw their lot in entirely with Morsi and declared their support for groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who were fighting the Syria government. This completely isolated Hamas from Iran and Hezbollah who continue to fight and die at the hands of ISIL in Syria.
Within a year the Egyptian people decided that they'd had enough of Morsi and he was ousted from power. This prompted Hamas to send fighters and weapons into Egypt to fight on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood. In response Egypt closed the Rafah crossing removing a legal route for goods to flow in and out of Gaza. They also destroyed many of the smuggling tunnels into Gaza which not only provided Hamas with a steady flow of weapons but also a vital revenue stream from taxes levied on the smuggled goods. Added to the fact that Hamas was also clashing with the Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) who cut off funding to Gaza this crippled Hamas financially to the point that they were unable to pay salaries to any public sector workers in Gaza.
Needless to say this made Hamas spectacularly unpopular with the people of Gaza so they decided to start this war in a effort to convince Gaza that Israel was the bigger enemy then Hamas so they would start supporting Hamas as the people who were bravely protecting them from Israeli aggression.
With over 85% of their weapons stores destroyed and at least 800 of their fighters including at least 4 senior commanders killed it is easy to see what Hamas has lost during this war. It is much more difficult though to tell what they have won to back up their claim of victory not least because the exact details of the cease-fire agreement have yet to be made public. In fact I'm getting the distinct impression that the only thing firmly agreed in the cease-fire declaration is that the shooting will stop and all parties will meet up again in 30 days to start working out the details.
However it is clear that at the core of the agreement is the third compromise presented by Egypt. This will see Hamas drop their demands for air and sea ports in Gaza in return for fishermen being allowed to set sail up to 20 nautical miles off the coast. Israel will then discuss increasing the type and volume of goods flowing into Gaza and the number of visas issued to Gazans to travel into Israel in return for a cessation of violence on the part of Hamas. This essentially leaves Hamas where they were at the start of the conflict because it is a myth that Gaza has been under siege by Israel.
Since 2009 around 200 trucks loaded with goods including food, medical supplies and building materials along with hundreds of thousands of litres of cooking gas and gasoline pass through each of the five border crossings from Israel into Gaza every single day. This has continued throughout the war and is why Hamas were able to seriously injure several people at the Erez border crossing on Sunday (24/8/14). While Israel - like any other country - does technically restrict the flow of goods in and out of its borders the main cause of shortages in Gaza these days is that having not been paid for months people simply can't afford anything. The other major problem has been the stopping of the flow of cheaper goods from Egypt due to the closing of the Rafah crossing with Egypt which was done by Egypt in response to Hamas' sending of weapons and fighters to attack Egyptian soldiers and civilians.
If they are able to negotiate an increase in the flow of goods into Gaza and I suspect that Israel will be more then helpful in that effort although Hamas will need customers that is likely to mean even worse news for Hamas. The collection of excise duty (tax) on border crossings between Israel and Gaza is wholly the responsibility of Israel. Once they have removed their share the Palestinians share is handed over to the PA who then decide what money to send to Gaza. However Israel has frequently been known to withhold the Palestinian share from the PA who have also frequently been known to withhold funds from Gaza due to a split between Hamas and Fatah who dominate the PA. So unless Hamas can dramatically improve their relationship with Fatah and ideally with Egypt an increase in the flow of goods from Israel into Gaza could well end up making life there even more miserable rather then improving it.
Through its public statement since the cease-fire though Hamas seems extremely confident that its budget problems are about to be magically solved and all their employees will be paid all the money they're owed. This suggests to me that rather then securing any concession from Israel Hamas actually signed up to the cease-fire because Qatar offered them a huge bribe under the banner of "reconstruction efforts." This means that Hamas are fast on course for becoming just as corrupt and ineffective as Fatah and the burgeoning Palestinian state is set to be spilt apart as the West Bank becomes Saudi Arabia's Embassy in Israel and Gaza becomes Qatar's. After all if the Israel/Palestine conflict was resolved how would these Gulf Monarchs be able to show Zakat towards the Arab peoples?
So in summary even by the standards of wars between Israel and Palestine I think that this one has been particularly pointless meaning that there really has been no winners. However if I was forced to chose I would say that Israel has won although if someone launches an unprovoked attack on you stopping them is really the only victory you can achieve.
20:20 on 27/8/14 (UK date).
The Micheal Brown Funeral.
On Monday (25/8/14) the funeral was held for Micheal Brown the 18 year old black man who was shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, USA sparking three weeks of protests and low level rioting. As I've explained the protests and the killing itself were timed to coincide with Rihanna and Eminem's "Monster" tour which took place over the same three weekends.
The main purpose of this was to make it look like the US was challenging the long held claim by the UK that Rihanna had caused the August 2011 riots which took place over the exact same period of time three years ago. That completely unsubstantiated claim in turn went to be used as metaphor for the claim that Rihanna was also responsible for the so-called "Arab Spring" that began in 2011 and therefore she needed to be punished by the US to apologise to the Gulf Monarchies for all the trouble that she had caused.
The story was also intended to create a swirl of debate around the issue of race in America. As such it was intended to climax over this past weekend that saw both the end of the Monster tour and the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA's). After all last year's VMA's coincided with the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech on civil rights and race relations. This led many people - myself included - to suggest that maybe the spectacle of Miley Cyrus twerking with Robin Thicke wasn't quite the dream that Dr King was talking about.
So on Saturday (23/8/14) at a pre-VMA's party being hosted by Rihanna's former boyfriend Chris Brown in Los Angeles hip-hop producer Suge Knight was shot and wounded. As the founder of "Death Row Records" Knight was one of the leaders of the "Gangster Rap" phenomenon that started in the late 1980/early 1990's which included the East Coast versus West Coast rap feud that saw Tupac Shakur and then Notorious BIG shot and killed. This fashion very obviously glamorised thug and petty criminal behaviour within black culture to the extent that modern black popstars such as Chris Brown and Drake (particularly Drake) have to pretend to be gangsters in order to sell records.
By saying that black men can only be thugs and petty criminals this is obviously very damaging to the black community and race relations in America. So much so that people have suggested that it is being imposed on popular culture in order to hold black people back by stopping them from finding better role models. As such the shooting was intended to feed into the Ferguson narrative because by only talking amongst themselves the very small group of protesters and their liberal supporters have managed to convince themselves that they're striking a massive blow for racial equality in America. In the reality though the situation has left a much larger group of Americans asking themselves the question; "What is wrong with black people?!" For example much has been made of the fact that black men need to be taught how to behave when talking to police officers while every other race seems capable of working it out for themselves.
One group in particular that has had trouble understanding the outrage in Ferguson is the gun owners of which there are many in America. They haven't been particularly shocked by the allegation that Brown was shot six times because they know that with a semi-automatic pistol of the type used it is possible to fire off six shots in less then three seconds. They also know that while it's unusual it is not unheard of for someone to be shot several times and for it to not even slow them down. This is particularly true if the person in question is heavily built like Micheal Brown was, hyped up on adrenaline like Micheal Brown most likely was and initially only received wounds to their arms like Micheal Brown did. Although CNN were outraged this scenario is made all the more credible by unverified audio released yesterday which appear to show a pause between the shots being fired. This would indicate that Brown was shot several times and just kept attacking the police officer forcing the officer to fire more shots in order to stop him.
The Suge Knight shooting perfectly reflects this because although the exact extent of his injures are disputed it is clear that he was shot between three and six times with the majority of those shots hitting him on the arm. However Knight did not immediately crumple to the floor. Instead he walked out of the club and sat down on a bench on the pavement at which point the police appear to have insisted that he walk into an ambulance and be taken to hospital. As with Micheal Brown Suge Knight is physically a big man.
The funeral itself was scheduled for the Monday so it would coincide with the final day of the Notting Hill Carnival in London, UK. Bringing together some 1.4million people from across the country for a two day street party the Notting Hill Carnival always attracts a certain level of crime and on a few occasions the final day has seen a fair bit of rioting. The 2011 carnival was actually a substantial factor in what happened to the people arrested during the August riots with many people being remanded in prison until the carnival was over to avoid it setting off the rioting once again. As a result the US seemed to be hoping that this years carnival would end in rioting and that Micheal Brown's funeral would trigger more rioting in Ferguson at the same time. This would force people to look at the details of the twin riots - which by their nature are disorganised and chaotic - to see if they could find evidence of a coded conversation going on between the US and the UK.
As it turns out the weather which saw constant, heavy rain throughout the day took the decision whether to go along with this plan or not out of the UK's hands. However the indication was that the UK was not interesting in joining the US in this exercise because early in the evening it emerged that a police officer had been hospitalised after being seriously assaulted while trying to stop and question a suspect at the carnival. This seems intended to quiet down the situation in Ferguson by highlighting that Micheal Brown had been assaulting a police officer at the time he was shot making it extremely likely that he was rightfully and lawfully killed.
15:20 on 27/8/14 (UK date)
The main purpose of this was to make it look like the US was challenging the long held claim by the UK that Rihanna had caused the August 2011 riots which took place over the exact same period of time three years ago. That completely unsubstantiated claim in turn went to be used as metaphor for the claim that Rihanna was also responsible for the so-called "Arab Spring" that began in 2011 and therefore she needed to be punished by the US to apologise to the Gulf Monarchies for all the trouble that she had caused.
The story was also intended to create a swirl of debate around the issue of race in America. As such it was intended to climax over this past weekend that saw both the end of the Monster tour and the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA's). After all last year's VMA's coincided with the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech on civil rights and race relations. This led many people - myself included - to suggest that maybe the spectacle of Miley Cyrus twerking with Robin Thicke wasn't quite the dream that Dr King was talking about.
So on Saturday (23/8/14) at a pre-VMA's party being hosted by Rihanna's former boyfriend Chris Brown in Los Angeles hip-hop producer Suge Knight was shot and wounded. As the founder of "Death Row Records" Knight was one of the leaders of the "Gangster Rap" phenomenon that started in the late 1980/early 1990's which included the East Coast versus West Coast rap feud that saw Tupac Shakur and then Notorious BIG shot and killed. This fashion very obviously glamorised thug and petty criminal behaviour within black culture to the extent that modern black popstars such as Chris Brown and Drake (particularly Drake) have to pretend to be gangsters in order to sell records.
By saying that black men can only be thugs and petty criminals this is obviously very damaging to the black community and race relations in America. So much so that people have suggested that it is being imposed on popular culture in order to hold black people back by stopping them from finding better role models. As such the shooting was intended to feed into the Ferguson narrative because by only talking amongst themselves the very small group of protesters and their liberal supporters have managed to convince themselves that they're striking a massive blow for racial equality in America. In the reality though the situation has left a much larger group of Americans asking themselves the question; "What is wrong with black people?!" For example much has been made of the fact that black men need to be taught how to behave when talking to police officers while every other race seems capable of working it out for themselves.
One group in particular that has had trouble understanding the outrage in Ferguson is the gun owners of which there are many in America. They haven't been particularly shocked by the allegation that Brown was shot six times because they know that with a semi-automatic pistol of the type used it is possible to fire off six shots in less then three seconds. They also know that while it's unusual it is not unheard of for someone to be shot several times and for it to not even slow them down. This is particularly true if the person in question is heavily built like Micheal Brown was, hyped up on adrenaline like Micheal Brown most likely was and initially only received wounds to their arms like Micheal Brown did. Although CNN were outraged this scenario is made all the more credible by unverified audio released yesterday which appear to show a pause between the shots being fired. This would indicate that Brown was shot several times and just kept attacking the police officer forcing the officer to fire more shots in order to stop him.
The Suge Knight shooting perfectly reflects this because although the exact extent of his injures are disputed it is clear that he was shot between three and six times with the majority of those shots hitting him on the arm. However Knight did not immediately crumple to the floor. Instead he walked out of the club and sat down on a bench on the pavement at which point the police appear to have insisted that he walk into an ambulance and be taken to hospital. As with Micheal Brown Suge Knight is physically a big man.
The funeral itself was scheduled for the Monday so it would coincide with the final day of the Notting Hill Carnival in London, UK. Bringing together some 1.4million people from across the country for a two day street party the Notting Hill Carnival always attracts a certain level of crime and on a few occasions the final day has seen a fair bit of rioting. The 2011 carnival was actually a substantial factor in what happened to the people arrested during the August riots with many people being remanded in prison until the carnival was over to avoid it setting off the rioting once again. As a result the US seemed to be hoping that this years carnival would end in rioting and that Micheal Brown's funeral would trigger more rioting in Ferguson at the same time. This would force people to look at the details of the twin riots - which by their nature are disorganised and chaotic - to see if they could find evidence of a coded conversation going on between the US and the UK.
As it turns out the weather which saw constant, heavy rain throughout the day took the decision whether to go along with this plan or not out of the UK's hands. However the indication was that the UK was not interesting in joining the US in this exercise because early in the evening it emerged that a police officer had been hospitalised after being seriously assaulted while trying to stop and question a suspect at the carnival. This seems intended to quiet down the situation in Ferguson by highlighting that Micheal Brown had been assaulting a police officer at the time he was shot making it extremely likely that he was rightfully and lawfully killed.
15:20 on 27/8/14 (UK date)
Tuesday 26 August 2014
My Brother's Keeper: Month 3, Week 2, Day 1.
While things seem to have calmed down today over the past two days the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza has continued to escalate. On Sunday (24/8/14) 140 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel while on Monday at least 120 were fired. These firing have included all types of weapon but there seems to be a continuing focus on shorter range rockets and mortars in particular with only a handful of the longer range rockets being fired into central areas of Israel where Tel Aviv is located.
On Monday night two mid-range, military grade Katyusha rockets were fired into the upper Galilee region of northern Israel from Lebanon. This raises the possibility that the conflict could be expanding to include Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as Hamas in Gaza. This would be very bad news because while Hamas has an estimated 20,000 rockets Hezbollah has in excess of 100,000. However despite once being close allies the predominately Shia Hezbollah have had a major falling out with the predominately Sunni Hamas over a range of issues and Syria in particular. As a result Hezbollah have so far not been in any great rush to join Hamas in this latest round of fighting.
Therefore I think the rocket fire from Lebanon has been the work of a single rouge cell that is trying to put pressure on Hezbollah leadership to put their joint opposition of Israel ahead of any differences they have with Hamas. This means that Israel's decision to respond to the rocket fire with artillery fire is a risky one because if Hezbollah feels it is under attack from Israel it is much more likely to respond by attacking Israel. That said though the Israelis may well have been targeting the rocket launch site and given the history of the situation if Israel didn't return fire in response to what is now a total of 3 rockets being fired from Lebanon it would leave absolutely everyone totally confused.
Also on Monday Israel was again hit by fire from Syria into the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. On this occasion though it was mortar rather then rocket fire and does seem to have been accidental. After all the Golan Heights was the route al-Nusra Front (ANF) used to hand over US hostage Peter Curtis on Sunday night meaning that their fighters would have been in the area at the time. As for Curtis' release itself the involvement of Qatar suggests that a ransom was paid. However it is also apparent that the threat of US air-strikes mean that ANF are very keen to separate themselves from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Imagine what would happen if the US actually started carrying out meaningful military action.
Aside from the interjections from Lebanon and Syria Israel has responded to the escalation from Gaza by intensifying its operations. On Sunday the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) carried out 65 air-strikes into Gaza while Monday they carried out between 50 and 60 strikes. As always a priority for the strikes has been to eliminate rocket and mortar launching sites into Israel. These included a mortar position located in a school in the Shejayia district of Gaza City.
The IDF have also continued its strategy of assassinating senior militants with quite a lot of success. On Sunday alone they succeeded in killing an as yet unidentified militant travelling on a motorcycle in Beit Lahiya and Mohamed al-Goul who acted as Hamas central banker as he was being driven through Ramal district of Gaza City. On Monday they succeeded in killing the suspected leader of the Army of Islam which operates under the command of Hamas. It has also been confirmed that Israel succeeded in killing the head of the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) on Saturday (23/8/14). The reason for the confusion was that the authorities in Gaza listed him as a civilian casualty.
Amid the intensification of the IDF's operation it appears that they have also taken to destroying a large number of buildings that have been used as command centres, weapon stores and weapon manufacturing sites. These have included tower block in the Al-Zafier district of Gaza City that was destroyed on Saturday and a Mosque in Beit Hanoun that was destroyed on Monday along with the Basha tower office building that was destroyed overnight and the Italian Plaza which was destroyed on Monday and a similar complex that was destroyed on Sunday in Rafah. Although from the footage of these last three targets it would appear that apartment blocks were targeted they are actually large, mixed use sites containing residential, commercial and industrial units. In all of these strikes the standard warning procedure of telephone calls followed by a "roof knock" was followed meaning that there were no fatalities linked to any of these strikes.
All of these targets were being used for a military purpose and there were legitimate targets. After all even if you don't kill any fighters if you destroy a building you deprive the enemy of that building along with any equipment that was stored there. This is particularly important for commerical buildings because with the large rooms, good connections to the power supply and things like loading docks they lend themselves to being used as weapon stores and weapon factories. However there is also a suspicion that Israel has destroying large buildings such as this in response to diplomatic efforts by the European Union (EU).
Following Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9 the EU heavily invested in re-building Gaza's infrastructure. Now that a lot of that infrastructure is being destroyed again the EU are quite annoyed and seem to be blaming the Israelis rather then Hamas. So in response the EU is circulating a document at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) which is supposed to bring an end to the fighting. This proposal seems intended to offend the Israelis because it treats Hamas and Israel equally and demands that Israel hands over control of its security to the EU which considering that Israel isn't even an EU member state massively undermines Israel's national sovereignty. The plan also suffers from a number of quite serious structural flaws. For example it takes at its core a 2005 Egyptian proposal that not even Egypt has agreed to. Also peace is rarely something that can be imposed from the outside. As such the Israel's could well be destroying a lot of its big targets in an effort to push back against the EU's plan.
The EU's plan also seems to be meeting with a degree of opposition from the US who have also begun circulating a UNSC plan of their own which is intended to rival the EU's plan. After all the US has made it perfectly clear that it wants to be the ones to bring peace to the middle east so are in no mood to let the EU steal their glory.
Meanwhile in actual peace efforts Egypt has resumed its role as mediator despite the US' attempt to accuse them of carrying out air-strikes in Libya. By Sunday rumours were beginning to circulate that all sides were very close to an agreement. By Monday it was apparent that all the Palestinian factions had agreed to a cease-fire except for Hamas. This of course raised the possibility that Israel could agree a cease-fire with everybody except Hamas. Today though it was announced that Hamas had also agreed to a cease-fire that will come into effect at 16:00 (19:00 local) today.
Obviously the full details of the cease-fire agreement have yet to be made public. However it seems to be based around the third compromise suggested by the Egyptians which would gradually see Gaza being moved towards parole by the incremental lifting of restrictions of the flow of goods into Gaza in return for the stopping of rocket fire from Gaza. Crucially it seems to be an open ended cease-fire which removes possibility of a return to fighting for at least the next month.
17:00 on 26/8/14 (UK date).
On Monday night two mid-range, military grade Katyusha rockets were fired into the upper Galilee region of northern Israel from Lebanon. This raises the possibility that the conflict could be expanding to include Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as Hamas in Gaza. This would be very bad news because while Hamas has an estimated 20,000 rockets Hezbollah has in excess of 100,000. However despite once being close allies the predominately Shia Hezbollah have had a major falling out with the predominately Sunni Hamas over a range of issues and Syria in particular. As a result Hezbollah have so far not been in any great rush to join Hamas in this latest round of fighting.
Therefore I think the rocket fire from Lebanon has been the work of a single rouge cell that is trying to put pressure on Hezbollah leadership to put their joint opposition of Israel ahead of any differences they have with Hamas. This means that Israel's decision to respond to the rocket fire with artillery fire is a risky one because if Hezbollah feels it is under attack from Israel it is much more likely to respond by attacking Israel. That said though the Israelis may well have been targeting the rocket launch site and given the history of the situation if Israel didn't return fire in response to what is now a total of 3 rockets being fired from Lebanon it would leave absolutely everyone totally confused.
Also on Monday Israel was again hit by fire from Syria into the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. On this occasion though it was mortar rather then rocket fire and does seem to have been accidental. After all the Golan Heights was the route al-Nusra Front (ANF) used to hand over US hostage Peter Curtis on Sunday night meaning that their fighters would have been in the area at the time. As for Curtis' release itself the involvement of Qatar suggests that a ransom was paid. However it is also apparent that the threat of US air-strikes mean that ANF are very keen to separate themselves from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Imagine what would happen if the US actually started carrying out meaningful military action.
Aside from the interjections from Lebanon and Syria Israel has responded to the escalation from Gaza by intensifying its operations. On Sunday the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) carried out 65 air-strikes into Gaza while Monday they carried out between 50 and 60 strikes. As always a priority for the strikes has been to eliminate rocket and mortar launching sites into Israel. These included a mortar position located in a school in the Shejayia district of Gaza City.
The IDF have also continued its strategy of assassinating senior militants with quite a lot of success. On Sunday alone they succeeded in killing an as yet unidentified militant travelling on a motorcycle in Beit Lahiya and Mohamed al-Goul who acted as Hamas central banker as he was being driven through Ramal district of Gaza City. On Monday they succeeded in killing the suspected leader of the Army of Islam which operates under the command of Hamas. It has also been confirmed that Israel succeeded in killing the head of the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) on Saturday (23/8/14). The reason for the confusion was that the authorities in Gaza listed him as a civilian casualty.
Amid the intensification of the IDF's operation it appears that they have also taken to destroying a large number of buildings that have been used as command centres, weapon stores and weapon manufacturing sites. These have included tower block in the Al-Zafier district of Gaza City that was destroyed on Saturday and a Mosque in Beit Hanoun that was destroyed on Monday along with the Basha tower office building that was destroyed overnight and the Italian Plaza which was destroyed on Monday and a similar complex that was destroyed on Sunday in Rafah. Although from the footage of these last three targets it would appear that apartment blocks were targeted they are actually large, mixed use sites containing residential, commercial and industrial units. In all of these strikes the standard warning procedure of telephone calls followed by a "roof knock" was followed meaning that there were no fatalities linked to any of these strikes.
All of these targets were being used for a military purpose and there were legitimate targets. After all even if you don't kill any fighters if you destroy a building you deprive the enemy of that building along with any equipment that was stored there. This is particularly important for commerical buildings because with the large rooms, good connections to the power supply and things like loading docks they lend themselves to being used as weapon stores and weapon factories. However there is also a suspicion that Israel has destroying large buildings such as this in response to diplomatic efforts by the European Union (EU).
Following Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9 the EU heavily invested in re-building Gaza's infrastructure. Now that a lot of that infrastructure is being destroyed again the EU are quite annoyed and seem to be blaming the Israelis rather then Hamas. So in response the EU is circulating a document at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) which is supposed to bring an end to the fighting. This proposal seems intended to offend the Israelis because it treats Hamas and Israel equally and demands that Israel hands over control of its security to the EU which considering that Israel isn't even an EU member state massively undermines Israel's national sovereignty. The plan also suffers from a number of quite serious structural flaws. For example it takes at its core a 2005 Egyptian proposal that not even Egypt has agreed to. Also peace is rarely something that can be imposed from the outside. As such the Israel's could well be destroying a lot of its big targets in an effort to push back against the EU's plan.
The EU's plan also seems to be meeting with a degree of opposition from the US who have also begun circulating a UNSC plan of their own which is intended to rival the EU's plan. After all the US has made it perfectly clear that it wants to be the ones to bring peace to the middle east so are in no mood to let the EU steal their glory.
Meanwhile in actual peace efforts Egypt has resumed its role as mediator despite the US' attempt to accuse them of carrying out air-strikes in Libya. By Sunday rumours were beginning to circulate that all sides were very close to an agreement. By Monday it was apparent that all the Palestinian factions had agreed to a cease-fire except for Hamas. This of course raised the possibility that Israel could agree a cease-fire with everybody except Hamas. Today though it was announced that Hamas had also agreed to a cease-fire that will come into effect at 16:00 (19:00 local) today.
Obviously the full details of the cease-fire agreement have yet to be made public. However it seems to be based around the third compromise suggested by the Egyptians which would gradually see Gaza being moved towards parole by the incremental lifting of restrictions of the flow of goods into Gaza in return for the stopping of rocket fire from Gaza. Crucially it seems to be an open ended cease-fire which removes possibility of a return to fighting for at least the next month.
17:00 on 26/8/14 (UK date).
Monday 25 August 2014
Operation Featherweight: Week 3, Day 4.
Although it is far from stable the battlefield situation in Iraq seems to have settled into something of a holding pattern.
The town of Amerli remains encircled by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters who are fortunately being preventing from entering the town. However this most certainly does not mean that Amerli's 26,000 or so residents are safe. Having been under siege for the past two months they have found themselves in a very similar situation to the Yazaidis who were trapped on Sinjar mountain with no electricity, clean water or sewage systems and both food and ammunition supplies are running extremely low. As a result the United Nations warning of an impending massacre is still very much valid.
However unlike with the people in Sinjar mountain there have been no large scale aid drops to provide food, drinking water and the ammunition the people desperately need to stop the town being overrun by ISIL. There is also no plan in place to start an aid operation or mount an evacuation to rescue the residents of Amerli.
The situation in Jalawa is also static. Here the Kurdish Peshmerga with help from the Iraqi military have succeeded in liberating some of the smaller towns around Jalawa from ISIL. However they so far remain unable to raise the strength needed to liberate the town itself.
The US response to all this has been to do next to nothing. On Saturday (23/8/14) and Sunday (24/8/14) they carried out exactly two air-strikes. One of these targeted an ISIL Humvee close to the Mosul Dam while the other targeted an ISIL "Technical" armed truck close to Arbil. Mosul Dam is roughly 325km (195miles) away from Amerli and 425km (255miles) away from Jalawa. Arbil is slightly closer only being 225km (135miles) to the north of Amerli and 325km (195miles) to the north of Jalawa. However I think its fair to say that the US' air-strikes have taken place absolutely nowhere near where they are needed.
With the battlefield situation static there has been an increase in more tradition terrorist tactics. Today a suicide bomber struck a Shia Mosque in Baghdad during noon prayers killing at least 15. This was followed by a car bombing in the town of Karbala which is just south of Baghdad that killed at least 15 people. In turn this was followed by two further car bombings in Babel which is also just to the south of Baghdad. Those twin bombings killed at least 11 bringing the total killed today to at least 41.
Coming just three days after the massacre at the Musab bin Omar Mosque in which 70 Sunnis were killed today's bombings which have targeted Shias is supposed to look like a retaliation for Friday's (22/8/14) massacre. However I think all of these attacks are likely the work ISIL The intention being to stoke up sectarian violence in order to allow ISIL to prosper in the chaos. After all US President Obama has very publicly made an 'inclusive government' presumably made up of both Sunnis and Shias are precondition for fighting ISIL.
On a somewhat related note in Libya Misrata based militias linked to ISIL appear to have seized control of the capital Tripoli. In the week prior to that taking place a series of very small air-strikes were carried out by unknown aircraft including a single strike on Saturday in which a single plane dropped a single bomb on the Misrata militia's position killing 10. With Libya being just as oil rich as Iraq ISIL increasing its power there should have sent shockwaves throughout the US government. However the US' only response has been to completely make up a story about the air-strikes being carried out by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the support of Egypt which is a very different position from the general consensus. So strange is this claim by they US that it seems like an attempt to increase pressure on Egypt and the UAE to prevent them mediating a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza.
After all Obama has already decided that he and he alone is the one who is going to take the glory for bringing peace to the middle-east no matter how much of it burns.
19:40 on 25/8/14 (UK date).
The town of Amerli remains encircled by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters who are fortunately being preventing from entering the town. However this most certainly does not mean that Amerli's 26,000 or so residents are safe. Having been under siege for the past two months they have found themselves in a very similar situation to the Yazaidis who were trapped on Sinjar mountain with no electricity, clean water or sewage systems and both food and ammunition supplies are running extremely low. As a result the United Nations warning of an impending massacre is still very much valid.
However unlike with the people in Sinjar mountain there have been no large scale aid drops to provide food, drinking water and the ammunition the people desperately need to stop the town being overrun by ISIL. There is also no plan in place to start an aid operation or mount an evacuation to rescue the residents of Amerli.
The situation in Jalawa is also static. Here the Kurdish Peshmerga with help from the Iraqi military have succeeded in liberating some of the smaller towns around Jalawa from ISIL. However they so far remain unable to raise the strength needed to liberate the town itself.
The US response to all this has been to do next to nothing. On Saturday (23/8/14) and Sunday (24/8/14) they carried out exactly two air-strikes. One of these targeted an ISIL Humvee close to the Mosul Dam while the other targeted an ISIL "Technical" armed truck close to Arbil. Mosul Dam is roughly 325km (195miles) away from Amerli and 425km (255miles) away from Jalawa. Arbil is slightly closer only being 225km (135miles) to the north of Amerli and 325km (195miles) to the north of Jalawa. However I think its fair to say that the US' air-strikes have taken place absolutely nowhere near where they are needed.
With the battlefield situation static there has been an increase in more tradition terrorist tactics. Today a suicide bomber struck a Shia Mosque in Baghdad during noon prayers killing at least 15. This was followed by a car bombing in the town of Karbala which is just south of Baghdad that killed at least 15 people. In turn this was followed by two further car bombings in Babel which is also just to the south of Baghdad. Those twin bombings killed at least 11 bringing the total killed today to at least 41.
Coming just three days after the massacre at the Musab bin Omar Mosque in which 70 Sunnis were killed today's bombings which have targeted Shias is supposed to look like a retaliation for Friday's (22/8/14) massacre. However I think all of these attacks are likely the work ISIL The intention being to stoke up sectarian violence in order to allow ISIL to prosper in the chaos. After all US President Obama has very publicly made an 'inclusive government' presumably made up of both Sunnis and Shias are precondition for fighting ISIL.
On a somewhat related note in Libya Misrata based militias linked to ISIL appear to have seized control of the capital Tripoli. In the week prior to that taking place a series of very small air-strikes were carried out by unknown aircraft including a single strike on Saturday in which a single plane dropped a single bomb on the Misrata militia's position killing 10. With Libya being just as oil rich as Iraq ISIL increasing its power there should have sent shockwaves throughout the US government. However the US' only response has been to completely make up a story about the air-strikes being carried out by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the support of Egypt which is a very different position from the general consensus. So strange is this claim by they US that it seems like an attempt to increase pressure on Egypt and the UAE to prevent them mediating a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza.
After all Obama has already decided that he and he alone is the one who is going to take the glory for bringing peace to the middle-east no matter how much of it burns.
19:40 on 25/8/14 (UK date).
Sunday 24 August 2014
My Brother's Keeper: Month 3, Week 1, Day 6.
Following the premature end of the last cease-fire on Tuesday (19/8/14) the conflict between Israel and militants in Gaza has settled into something of a rhythm of gradually increasing violence with rockets and mortars being fired into Israel and Israel carrying out air-strikes in response.
Friday (22/8/14) began looking as though it was going to be a relatively calm day but events quickly escalated with some 70 to 80 rockets and mortars being fired into Israel. The vast majority of these were mortars and short range rockets but there were also a substantial number of longer range rockets targeting northern and central Israel including Tel Aviv. At one point Hamas even fired a missile into Bethlehem on the West Bank although Israel intercepted it protecting Palestinians living there.
The rocket fire and in particular the mortar fire seems to have become more dangerous. For example three people were lightly injured when a mortar scored a direct hit on a Synagogue in Ashdod. One person was seriously injured when a mortar struck close to his car in Eshkol and another person was seriously injured when a rocket struck close to their car in Ashdod. The most serious incident of the day though came when a 4 year old boy was killed in Negev when his Kindergarten came under mortar fire. The source of that mortar fire was tracked back to the Jafar Ali Ibn Taleb school in the Zeitoun district of Gaza.
Although many people will be quick to point to the Palestinian children who have been killed in this conflict the death of this Israeli child highlights the brutality of Hamas' tactics. While Israel has very sophisticated ways of protecting its civilians including bomb shelters, early warning systems and the Iron Dome system every single one of the 3700+ rockets and mortars fired into Israel has been fired with the intention of killing Israeli civilians of all ages and each constitutes an individual war crime. In order to carry out its attacks on Israel Hamas hides amongst the civilian population in the hope they will act as shields protecting the militants from attack or perhaps even better will be killed and become martyrs to Israel's 'aggression.' For example the Jafar school was being used as a shelter for several thousand civilians at the time. No doubt if any of them had even been injured in an Israeli strike there would have been international uproar yet there seems to be no criticism of Hamas' use of a civilian shelter as a launching site.
Further evidence of Hamas' brutality was exposed earlier on Friday when they publicly executed 18 people outside a Mosque before and after Friday prayers. On Saturday (23/8/14) Hamas executed a further 4 people in a similar fashion. All 22 civilians were said to have been sentenced to death after being found guilty by a military court of collaborating with Israel.
While I think it was always going to happen Friday's death seems to have triggered an escalation in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) operations. Up until now they have been focused on assassinating senior militants and destroying rocket launch sites in open areas. On Saturday Israel moved to start targeting launch sites that are located in more built up areas. Israel signalled this escalation by dropping leaflets, sending sms messages and making hundreds of telephone calls to inform the people of Gaza that this is what they were going to start doing and instructing people to evacuate from areas close to launch sites.
The most dramatic incident in this expansion of operations came when a 12 story building was destroyed in the al-Zafer district of Gaza City. Although it was home to some 48 families this building was being used by Hamas as a command centre to allow senior members to meet up and plan future attacks. As such it was a legitimate military target. However rather then simply destroying the building the IDF forewent the opportunity of killing a significant number of senior Hamas figures in favour of warning the civilian residents to evacuate. So 20 minutes before the air-strike all apartments in the building were telephoned to warn that it was going to be bombed. 10 minutes before the air-strike a dummy bomb was dropped onto the roof of the building to provide a "roof knock" to again warn the residents to evacuate because the building was definitely going to be bombed. This appears to have paid off because there have been no reported fatalities from the strike and only a dozen reported injures.
Obviously this type of compromise is hardly ideal for either the civilians in the building who have been left homeless or the IDF who have lost the opportunity to land a heavy blow against Hamas' ability to fight them. However the IDF have succeeded in destroying a command centre and the hope is that Hamas will now locate its new command centre away from a civilian area in accordance with the laws of war.
In terms of the assassination element of the operation which is perfectly legal under international law the IDF have had a number of successes. On Friday they succeeded in killing 5 militants as they were preparing to launch rockets. On Saturday the IDF struck a car in the north of the Gaza strip killing one man and injuring 10 others. The dead man is suspected of being the head of the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) although that has not been confirmed. Today the IDF confirmed that they had succeeded in killing Mohamed Al-Oul who is essentially Hamas' central banker organising funding for their operations. There are also reports of a mysterious strike against two motorbikes today.
While the IDF escalated their operations in Gaza with 60 air-strikes on Saturday versus 20 on Friday Hamas have also escalated their operations. On Friday around 80 rockets and mortars were fired. On Saturday 106 were fired and it seems that today that total has already been exceeded. This obviously includes all types of rockets but there seems to have been a slight shift in focus towards mortars. Although both rockets and mortars are unguided, dumb weapons they can be aimed and because they are fired over shorter distances mortars are slightly more accurate. As such this shift in focus could reflect an increased desire on the part of Hamas to kill Israelis in retaliation for the senior leaders they have lost over recent days. For example this morning they fired a barrage of mortars at the Erez border crossing into Israel where a large number of people were gathered in the open air. Fortunately though only three people were lightly wounded and the IDF were quickly able to destroy the mortar position.
Overnight there was also the worrying development of a mid-range, military grade Katyusha rocket being fired from Lebanon into Galilee in northern Israel lightly injuring two people. This was almost immediately proceeded by the firing of six short-range, military grade Grad rockets from Syria into the Golan Heights which is considered Israeli occupied territory. Although both incidents appear to be the work of rogue individuals they did provide a glimpse of Israel's increasingly precarious security situation that could once again see them under attack from three directions at the same time.
Finally Hamas has indicated that it intends to support the Palestinian Authority's plan to join the International Criminal Court (ICC). As with the plan for UN recognition of a Palestinian State I don't think that the Palestinians have really thought this one through because as with statehood membership of the ICC would place obligations on the Palestinians that I don't think they're yet ready to meet.
For example an ICC investigation into this current conflict is likely to conclude that through their rocket fire the Palestinians have committed in excess of 3700 war crimes. Given Hamas' charter it is even possible to argue that these constitute the crime against humanity of extermination (genocide). As a result of this behaviour it is extremely unlikely that the ICC will be able to find fault with Israel's behaviour but the Palestinians will be forced to prosecute every single one of those 3700 crimes or face being expelled from the ICC.
17:50 on 24/8/14 (UK date).
Friday (22/8/14) began looking as though it was going to be a relatively calm day but events quickly escalated with some 70 to 80 rockets and mortars being fired into Israel. The vast majority of these were mortars and short range rockets but there were also a substantial number of longer range rockets targeting northern and central Israel including Tel Aviv. At one point Hamas even fired a missile into Bethlehem on the West Bank although Israel intercepted it protecting Palestinians living there.
The rocket fire and in particular the mortar fire seems to have become more dangerous. For example three people were lightly injured when a mortar scored a direct hit on a Synagogue in Ashdod. One person was seriously injured when a mortar struck close to his car in Eshkol and another person was seriously injured when a rocket struck close to their car in Ashdod. The most serious incident of the day though came when a 4 year old boy was killed in Negev when his Kindergarten came under mortar fire. The source of that mortar fire was tracked back to the Jafar Ali Ibn Taleb school in the Zeitoun district of Gaza.
Although many people will be quick to point to the Palestinian children who have been killed in this conflict the death of this Israeli child highlights the brutality of Hamas' tactics. While Israel has very sophisticated ways of protecting its civilians including bomb shelters, early warning systems and the Iron Dome system every single one of the 3700+ rockets and mortars fired into Israel has been fired with the intention of killing Israeli civilians of all ages and each constitutes an individual war crime. In order to carry out its attacks on Israel Hamas hides amongst the civilian population in the hope they will act as shields protecting the militants from attack or perhaps even better will be killed and become martyrs to Israel's 'aggression.' For example the Jafar school was being used as a shelter for several thousand civilians at the time. No doubt if any of them had even been injured in an Israeli strike there would have been international uproar yet there seems to be no criticism of Hamas' use of a civilian shelter as a launching site.
Further evidence of Hamas' brutality was exposed earlier on Friday when they publicly executed 18 people outside a Mosque before and after Friday prayers. On Saturday (23/8/14) Hamas executed a further 4 people in a similar fashion. All 22 civilians were said to have been sentenced to death after being found guilty by a military court of collaborating with Israel.
While I think it was always going to happen Friday's death seems to have triggered an escalation in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) operations. Up until now they have been focused on assassinating senior militants and destroying rocket launch sites in open areas. On Saturday Israel moved to start targeting launch sites that are located in more built up areas. Israel signalled this escalation by dropping leaflets, sending sms messages and making hundreds of telephone calls to inform the people of Gaza that this is what they were going to start doing and instructing people to evacuate from areas close to launch sites.
The most dramatic incident in this expansion of operations came when a 12 story building was destroyed in the al-Zafer district of Gaza City. Although it was home to some 48 families this building was being used by Hamas as a command centre to allow senior members to meet up and plan future attacks. As such it was a legitimate military target. However rather then simply destroying the building the IDF forewent the opportunity of killing a significant number of senior Hamas figures in favour of warning the civilian residents to evacuate. So 20 minutes before the air-strike all apartments in the building were telephoned to warn that it was going to be bombed. 10 minutes before the air-strike a dummy bomb was dropped onto the roof of the building to provide a "roof knock" to again warn the residents to evacuate because the building was definitely going to be bombed. This appears to have paid off because there have been no reported fatalities from the strike and only a dozen reported injures.
Obviously this type of compromise is hardly ideal for either the civilians in the building who have been left homeless or the IDF who have lost the opportunity to land a heavy blow against Hamas' ability to fight them. However the IDF have succeeded in destroying a command centre and the hope is that Hamas will now locate its new command centre away from a civilian area in accordance with the laws of war.
In terms of the assassination element of the operation which is perfectly legal under international law the IDF have had a number of successes. On Friday they succeeded in killing 5 militants as they were preparing to launch rockets. On Saturday the IDF struck a car in the north of the Gaza strip killing one man and injuring 10 others. The dead man is suspected of being the head of the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) although that has not been confirmed. Today the IDF confirmed that they had succeeded in killing Mohamed Al-Oul who is essentially Hamas' central banker organising funding for their operations. There are also reports of a mysterious strike against two motorbikes today.
While the IDF escalated their operations in Gaza with 60 air-strikes on Saturday versus 20 on Friday Hamas have also escalated their operations. On Friday around 80 rockets and mortars were fired. On Saturday 106 were fired and it seems that today that total has already been exceeded. This obviously includes all types of rockets but there seems to have been a slight shift in focus towards mortars. Although both rockets and mortars are unguided, dumb weapons they can be aimed and because they are fired over shorter distances mortars are slightly more accurate. As such this shift in focus could reflect an increased desire on the part of Hamas to kill Israelis in retaliation for the senior leaders they have lost over recent days. For example this morning they fired a barrage of mortars at the Erez border crossing into Israel where a large number of people were gathered in the open air. Fortunately though only three people were lightly wounded and the IDF were quickly able to destroy the mortar position.
Overnight there was also the worrying development of a mid-range, military grade Katyusha rocket being fired from Lebanon into Galilee in northern Israel lightly injuring two people. This was almost immediately proceeded by the firing of six short-range, military grade Grad rockets from Syria into the Golan Heights which is considered Israeli occupied territory. Although both incidents appear to be the work of rogue individuals they did provide a glimpse of Israel's increasingly precarious security situation that could once again see them under attack from three directions at the same time.
Finally Hamas has indicated that it intends to support the Palestinian Authority's plan to join the International Criminal Court (ICC). As with the plan for UN recognition of a Palestinian State I don't think that the Palestinians have really thought this one through because as with statehood membership of the ICC would place obligations on the Palestinians that I don't think they're yet ready to meet.
For example an ICC investigation into this current conflict is likely to conclude that through their rocket fire the Palestinians have committed in excess of 3700 war crimes. Given Hamas' charter it is even possible to argue that these constitute the crime against humanity of extermination (genocide). As a result of this behaviour it is extremely unlikely that the ICC will be able to find fault with Israel's behaviour but the Palestinians will be forced to prosecute every single one of those 3700 crimes or face being expelled from the ICC.
17:50 on 24/8/14 (UK date).
Saturday 23 August 2014
Operation Featherweight: Week 3, Day 2
On Tuesday (19/8/14) the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) executed US photo-journalist James Foley in response to US air-strikes against them. Normally what you want to do in response to something like this is absolutely nothing. That sends the message that this type of tactic will not influence what you are doing in any way, shape or form.
Obviously though this incident was so high profile it was impossible for the US not to react so on Wednesday (20/8/14) US President Obama was forced to issue a statement. Under these circumstances the next best thing to do would have been for the US to strike back hard in order to send the message that this type of tactic is only going to strengthen their resolve. Sadly though despite Obama's somewhat strongly worded statement the US seems intent on doing the exact opposite.
The first thing they did was to announce a criminal investigation into the killing and launch a manhunt for the killer seen in the video who has been dubbed by UK tabloids as "Jihadi John." This of course raises the possibility of daring special forces raids to bring Jihadi John to justice as happened with Osama bin Laden and Ahmed Abu Katallah who is currently awaiting trial in the US over the attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya. The problem is that Jihadi John is at best a mid-level guy so if the US succeeds in killing or capturing him ISIL will simply replace him and carry on as before. As such although the US has considerable resources trying to chase down Jihadi John strikes me as a waste of those resources and seems to have been suggested as a way for the US to avoid taking action that will really hurt ISIL.
Next on Thursday (21/8/14) the US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel gave a press conference in which he described ISIL as like nothing the US had ever faced before. Although this may have gone someway to opening people's eyes as to the threat of ISIL it seemed intended to make the US public afraid of fighting them.
In a way the point about ISIL's size is true because ISIL are certainly much larger then any other terrorist group such as Al Qaeda. However ISIL are structured to act more as a conventional battlefield army then as a terrorist group. Although their "join us or die" ultimatum has proved to be something of an effective recruitment tool they essentially have a core force of 15,000 men. Those men are armed with light battlefield weapons such as mortars and Grad rocket launchers. Since advancing into Iraq ISIL had added to their armoury with more sophisticated weapons such as Scud missiles, armoured vehicles, tanks and anti-aircraft missiles although they don't seem to have learnt how to use those yet.
By contrast the US military has 1,300,000 men (and women) under arms and is equipped with tens of thousands of the best tanks, artillery and aircraft that money can buy. It is designed to do battle with the Soviet army that had 5,300,000 million men under arms and was equipped with 210 tank divisions along with vast artillery divisions and a huge air-force. The US military is also capable of matching the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army which has 2,285,000 (and women) under arms and has vast tank and artillery divisions, three naval fleets and a seven air-forces along with some 400 nuclear missiles.
So in short ISIL is absolutely no match more the US military and is actually unlikely to prove much of a match for the single aircraft carrier group that the US already has in position to fight them.
Finally on Friday (22/8/14) the US announced that it would not respect the border between Iraq and Syria and would fight ISIL inside Syria if need be. This is a strategy that has been lifted entirely from this week's edition of "The Economist" magazine. Although it sounds like tough talk it seems intended to erect yet another barrier to the US fighting ISIL. While I doubt much of the general public really care one way or the other in diplomatic circles it would be hugely embarrassing for the US to have to take action against ISIL in Syria.
ISIL is simply an army that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have raised with the support of western governments to overthrow the elected, secular government of Syria. This notion of population uprising against the Syrian government is simply a fantasy that people like Obama tell themselves to avoid feeling guilty over the 190,000 some people that have been killed in the process. So for the US to go and fight ISIL in Syria they would have to admit that they've been lying for the past three and half years and the Syrian government has been right all along. This would be utterly humiliating for the US not least because they have overthrown the Ukrainian government in the process and are still trying to impose sanctions against Russia for supporting the Syrian government against the insurgency.
Fortunately though it is not a step the US needs to take. Once the Syrian government realised that the international community through bodies such as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was only criticising its tactics against ISIL in order to give ISIL a battlefield advantage they have made quick work in routing ISIL. As a result the Syrian military have forced ISIL back to a small area essentially north of the Euphrates river where they are having to hide behind groups like al-Nusra Front (ANF) to avoid the Syrian military. This is the main reason why ISIL launched their offensive into Iraq to steal fresh equipment and find softer targets to attack.
So if the US were to push back ISIL from Iraq and crucially cut their supply lines to prevent them retreating into Syria the Syrian military is more then capable of finishing them off. This is especially true if the international community led by the US simply acknowledged that the Syrian government has a right to fight ISIL and allows nations such as Russia to support them in that fight without fear of further sanctions.
In terms of actual US military action in Iraq it has been as light as all this political gamesmanship would indicate. On Thursday the US carried out six air-strikes close to the Mosul Dam. The targets attacked were three ISIL armoured Humvees and a single ISIL "Technical" armed truck. The majority of the strikes though were against ISIL minefields. With Kurdish forces in control of the dam those minefields are pretty meaningless targets and could even help ISIL by removing part of the dam's defences should they attempt to re-take the dam. On Friday the US carried out just three air-strikes against two ISIL Technicals and a machine gun emplacement all located around the Mosul dam. By contrast in Gaza the Israelis are carrying out roughly one air-strike every 45 minutes.
Meanwhile the Kurdish Peshmerga backed by Iraqi forces are have been retaking villages on the outskirts of the town of Jalawla which is 115km (70 miles) north-east of Baghdad and some 425km (255miles) south-east of Mosul Dam in preparation of an effort to liberate the town. ISIL though are still making advances particularly on the town of Armeli some 325km (195miles) south-east of Mosul Dam where the United Nations (UN) is warning of an impending massacre and ethnic cleansing. At neither location is the US offering any support against ISIL.
Finally I should help clear up some of the confusion over whether it is "ISIL" or ISIS." Although it is clearly marketed to a western audience the groups Arabic name is "al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham" (DASH) which translates into English as "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL). Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham" (ISIS) is basically a mash-up of the two with "al-Sham/Sharm" being the Arabic word for "Levant." The Levant is a nation from the middle-ages made up of bits of modern Turkey, modern Iraq, modern Syria and modern Jordan. It is next to another medieval nation known as the Fertile Crescent which is made up of bits of modern Turkey, all of modern Lebanon and all of modern Israel/Palestine and bits of modern Egypt. These are both parts of the medieval Islamic Caliphate (state) that stretches from Europe and across north Africa and the middle-east. This is the area that the group wishes to conquer.
However the term ISIS is purely a creation of the western media intended to soften the groups image when we were trying to pretend they were a humanitarian group bravely protecting civilians from the brutal Syrian government. The idea being that most people would simply mistake the second "S" as meaning "Syria." Sadly even today normally respectable publications such as The Economist are still trying to perpetuate this lie.
So in summary the correct acronyms are DASH in Arabic or ISIL in English. I can think of at least one person on my Twitter list who really, really wants you to use "ISIL."
16:15 on 23/8/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 23:10 on 23/8/14 (UK date) add;
On Friday up to 70 Sunnis were massacred when gunmen opened fired inside the Musab bin Omar Mosque during Friday prayers. In response Sunni politicians have quit discussions to form a new government on the assumption that it was Shias that carried out the attack.
However before they leap to conclusions I should point out that from their activities in Syria we know that ISIL are the masters of the false flag attack. That is to say they will carry out of a massacre of this type in the hope that it will be blamed on the government. We also know that Obama has made a poorly defined "inclusive government" as a pre-condition for helping Iraq fight ISIL. Therefore I think it is extremely likely that ISIL carried out this attack to stop Iraqis forming and new government in order to further discourage the US from taking military action against them. After all ISIL aren't exactly keen on mainstream Sunnis either.
Obviously though this incident was so high profile it was impossible for the US not to react so on Wednesday (20/8/14) US President Obama was forced to issue a statement. Under these circumstances the next best thing to do would have been for the US to strike back hard in order to send the message that this type of tactic is only going to strengthen their resolve. Sadly though despite Obama's somewhat strongly worded statement the US seems intent on doing the exact opposite.
The first thing they did was to announce a criminal investigation into the killing and launch a manhunt for the killer seen in the video who has been dubbed by UK tabloids as "Jihadi John." This of course raises the possibility of daring special forces raids to bring Jihadi John to justice as happened with Osama bin Laden and Ahmed Abu Katallah who is currently awaiting trial in the US over the attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya. The problem is that Jihadi John is at best a mid-level guy so if the US succeeds in killing or capturing him ISIL will simply replace him and carry on as before. As such although the US has considerable resources trying to chase down Jihadi John strikes me as a waste of those resources and seems to have been suggested as a way for the US to avoid taking action that will really hurt ISIL.
Next on Thursday (21/8/14) the US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel gave a press conference in which he described ISIL as like nothing the US had ever faced before. Although this may have gone someway to opening people's eyes as to the threat of ISIL it seemed intended to make the US public afraid of fighting them.
In a way the point about ISIL's size is true because ISIL are certainly much larger then any other terrorist group such as Al Qaeda. However ISIL are structured to act more as a conventional battlefield army then as a terrorist group. Although their "join us or die" ultimatum has proved to be something of an effective recruitment tool they essentially have a core force of 15,000 men. Those men are armed with light battlefield weapons such as mortars and Grad rocket launchers. Since advancing into Iraq ISIL had added to their armoury with more sophisticated weapons such as Scud missiles, armoured vehicles, tanks and anti-aircraft missiles although they don't seem to have learnt how to use those yet.
By contrast the US military has 1,300,000 men (and women) under arms and is equipped with tens of thousands of the best tanks, artillery and aircraft that money can buy. It is designed to do battle with the Soviet army that had 5,300,000 million men under arms and was equipped with 210 tank divisions along with vast artillery divisions and a huge air-force. The US military is also capable of matching the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army which has 2,285,000 (and women) under arms and has vast tank and artillery divisions, three naval fleets and a seven air-forces along with some 400 nuclear missiles.
So in short ISIL is absolutely no match more the US military and is actually unlikely to prove much of a match for the single aircraft carrier group that the US already has in position to fight them.
Finally on Friday (22/8/14) the US announced that it would not respect the border between Iraq and Syria and would fight ISIL inside Syria if need be. This is a strategy that has been lifted entirely from this week's edition of "The Economist" magazine. Although it sounds like tough talk it seems intended to erect yet another barrier to the US fighting ISIL. While I doubt much of the general public really care one way or the other in diplomatic circles it would be hugely embarrassing for the US to have to take action against ISIL in Syria.
ISIL is simply an army that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have raised with the support of western governments to overthrow the elected, secular government of Syria. This notion of population uprising against the Syrian government is simply a fantasy that people like Obama tell themselves to avoid feeling guilty over the 190,000 some people that have been killed in the process. So for the US to go and fight ISIL in Syria they would have to admit that they've been lying for the past three and half years and the Syrian government has been right all along. This would be utterly humiliating for the US not least because they have overthrown the Ukrainian government in the process and are still trying to impose sanctions against Russia for supporting the Syrian government against the insurgency.
Fortunately though it is not a step the US needs to take. Once the Syrian government realised that the international community through bodies such as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was only criticising its tactics against ISIL in order to give ISIL a battlefield advantage they have made quick work in routing ISIL. As a result the Syrian military have forced ISIL back to a small area essentially north of the Euphrates river where they are having to hide behind groups like al-Nusra Front (ANF) to avoid the Syrian military. This is the main reason why ISIL launched their offensive into Iraq to steal fresh equipment and find softer targets to attack.
So if the US were to push back ISIL from Iraq and crucially cut their supply lines to prevent them retreating into Syria the Syrian military is more then capable of finishing them off. This is especially true if the international community led by the US simply acknowledged that the Syrian government has a right to fight ISIL and allows nations such as Russia to support them in that fight without fear of further sanctions.
In terms of actual US military action in Iraq it has been as light as all this political gamesmanship would indicate. On Thursday the US carried out six air-strikes close to the Mosul Dam. The targets attacked were three ISIL armoured Humvees and a single ISIL "Technical" armed truck. The majority of the strikes though were against ISIL minefields. With Kurdish forces in control of the dam those minefields are pretty meaningless targets and could even help ISIL by removing part of the dam's defences should they attempt to re-take the dam. On Friday the US carried out just three air-strikes against two ISIL Technicals and a machine gun emplacement all located around the Mosul dam. By contrast in Gaza the Israelis are carrying out roughly one air-strike every 45 minutes.
Meanwhile the Kurdish Peshmerga backed by Iraqi forces are have been retaking villages on the outskirts of the town of Jalawla which is 115km (70 miles) north-east of Baghdad and some 425km (255miles) south-east of Mosul Dam in preparation of an effort to liberate the town. ISIL though are still making advances particularly on the town of Armeli some 325km (195miles) south-east of Mosul Dam where the United Nations (UN) is warning of an impending massacre and ethnic cleansing. At neither location is the US offering any support against ISIL.
Finally I should help clear up some of the confusion over whether it is "ISIL" or ISIS." Although it is clearly marketed to a western audience the groups Arabic name is "al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham" (DASH) which translates into English as "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL). Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham" (ISIS) is basically a mash-up of the two with "al-Sham/Sharm" being the Arabic word for "Levant." The Levant is a nation from the middle-ages made up of bits of modern Turkey, modern Iraq, modern Syria and modern Jordan. It is next to another medieval nation known as the Fertile Crescent which is made up of bits of modern Turkey, all of modern Lebanon and all of modern Israel/Palestine and bits of modern Egypt. These are both parts of the medieval Islamic Caliphate (state) that stretches from Europe and across north Africa and the middle-east. This is the area that the group wishes to conquer.
However the term ISIS is purely a creation of the western media intended to soften the groups image when we were trying to pretend they were a humanitarian group bravely protecting civilians from the brutal Syrian government. The idea being that most people would simply mistake the second "S" as meaning "Syria." Sadly even today normally respectable publications such as The Economist are still trying to perpetuate this lie.
So in summary the correct acronyms are DASH in Arabic or ISIL in English. I can think of at least one person on my Twitter list who really, really wants you to use "ISIL."
16:15 on 23/8/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 23:10 on 23/8/14 (UK date) add;
On Friday up to 70 Sunnis were massacred when gunmen opened fired inside the Musab bin Omar Mosque during Friday prayers. In response Sunni politicians have quit discussions to form a new government on the assumption that it was Shias that carried out the attack.
However before they leap to conclusions I should point out that from their activities in Syria we know that ISIL are the masters of the false flag attack. That is to say they will carry out of a massacre of this type in the hope that it will be blamed on the government. We also know that Obama has made a poorly defined "inclusive government" as a pre-condition for helping Iraq fight ISIL. Therefore I think it is extremely likely that ISIL carried out this attack to stop Iraqis forming and new government in order to further discourage the US from taking military action against them. After all ISIL aren't exactly keen on mainstream Sunnis either.
Thursday 21 August 2014
My Brother's Keeper: Month 3, Week 1, Day 3.
Since my last post on the subject militants in Gaza have fired a further 125 rockets and mortars into Israel. These included both short range and longer range rockets. The overwhelming majority of these have either been intercepted by the Iron Dome system or have fallen in open areas. Some though did succeed in hitting structures such as electrical substations leaving people in the Ashkelon area without power. A handful of civilian homes have also been hit including one in Eshkol where one person was seriously wounded although their condition has since been upgraded to moderate.
In response the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have carried out 20-30 further air-strikes into Gaza. These have struck rocket launch sites but it has become clear that the IDF mission has shifted towards assassinating senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. This has included two fighters of undeclared allegiance who were killed in central Gaza City and six Islamic Jihad fighters who were killed while preparing a rocket for launch at an undisclosed location. The big scalps of the night though have been the deaths of Raed Attar, Muhamed Abu Shamala and Muhamed Barhoum who were all killed in a single air-strike in Rafah. While I'm unsure of Barhoum's role Abu Shamala was the commander of Hamas military wing in the southern region of Gaza, Attar is a very senior Hamas official who is believed to have taken command of their tunnel operations from Muhamed Deif when Deif was promoted to overall command. It was Attar who commanded the operation to kidnap Gilad Shalit and is suspected of being behind the attempt to kidnap Hadar Goldin.
Despite Palestinian claims to the contrary the civilian death toll from this latest round of fighting has been extremely light. For example there have only been 22 reported deaths overnight and not only are we certain that the majority of them were fighters we can actually name 11 of them.
In response to this fresh round of fighting Israeli Prime Minister last night addressed the nation. In this speech Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a great blow being dealt to Hamas which seemed to be a reference to the attempt to kill Muhamed Deif yesterday and the expansion of the operation to target more senior Hamas figures. Netanyahu went on to speak on the need for patience from the Israeli people during the operation.
This last point struck me as fair comment because the facts of the situation dictate that this is going to be a war of attrition. That is to say that Israel's success or failure will come from their ability to wear down Hamas capacity to fight by destroying their stores of weapons and killing their fighters. Unlike the tunnel threat which has been completed and required boots on the ground in Gaza this next phase of the operation may not require another ground operation and with now only the hard targets located in the heavily populated areas of Gaza left a ground operation carries with it increased risks of both civilian casualties but also Israeli military casualties.
The problem is that the Israeli public seem to be getting extremely frustrated at the length of time that this war has gone on for and that is increasing the pressure on Netanyahu. For example the reaction to the announcement that Netanyahu was going to speak that I got from everyday Israelis was deeply sarcastic and even the leader of the normally quite moderate opposition Labor Party came out to publicly accuse Netanyahu of being more worried about maintaining his governing coalition then protecting Israeli civilians. This strikes me as a very worrying development not just for Israeli politics but also more seriously for the Palestinians.
Netanyahu's big achievement has been keeping the conflict between Israel and Palestine at such a low level that many Israelis have been able to almost forget that it has been going on. As a result the Israeli economy has grown steadily under Netanyahu and much has that growth has been drive by dynamic start-up businesses in the hi-tech sector. With many young Israelis now able to live fulfilling lives on the back of this economic growth they have become less and less interested in religious and political causes that demand the increasing expansion of Israel and the subjugation of the Palestinians. This was reflected by the strong showing of the Yesh Atid Party who unusually for an Israeli political party don't really have a policy towards Israel.
As a result more Israelis then ever before are happy to support both a two state solution and a peace process providing neither really affects how their go about their everyday lives. By launching this long war of attrition Hamas has once again forced the conflict to the centre of every Israelis minds and a lot of the old attitudes are once again coming to the fore. So if this war causes the Netanyahu government to fall or even changes the attitudes of a significant number of Israelis I am worried that the best ever chance of peace between Israel and Palestine could be lost for a generation or even longer.
Another development that I found interesting is that yesterday evening Hamas warned international airlines to avoid Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport from 03:00 (06:00 local) today presumably because they were going to start shooting rockets at it. This seems to have been an attempt to force a repeat of the shortlived international ban on flights to Israel that we saw early on in the conflict. Although I think this began as an attempt to put internal pressure on US President Obama it was largely received by the Israelis as a form of sanction and therefore a sort of victory for Hamas. This time though not a single airline or airline regulator responded to Hamas' threat and in the end I don't think Hamas even bothered attacking the airport. This really highlighted to me that Hamas really don't seem to have realised that in the last two to three weeks international support has very much shifted away from them and back towards Israel.
The first reason for this has been the way that Hamas has conducted itself during the cease-fire negotiations. By rejecting a series of very reasonable offers that have been tabled by both Israel and Egypt in favour of firing more rockets and in the process breaking cease-fires Hamas have revealed themselves to be very much the aggressors in this situation. This obviously makes it very hard for people who have no real bias in the situation to be sympathetic to Hamas and the problems it has succeeded in bringing upon itself.
The other big factor has of course been the situation with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq. Although the Hamas I am used to is nowhere near as bad as ISIL its current military wing does seem to have rather been swept up in ISIL's delusional propaganda. With ISIL's true methods and objectives being laid bare for the World to see international opinions have very much hardened against them with even previously staunch supporters such as the UK calling for military action to destroy them. As a result the Gulf States such as Qatar that back ISIL and also back Hamas are now very much out in the cold internationally. So while Obama might look to increase the pressure on Israel as a way to apologise for taking extremely limited military action against ISIL it seems that nobody else in the international community is in any mood to do Qatar or Hamas any further favours.
16:55 on 21/8/14 (UK date).
In response the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have carried out 20-30 further air-strikes into Gaza. These have struck rocket launch sites but it has become clear that the IDF mission has shifted towards assassinating senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. This has included two fighters of undeclared allegiance who were killed in central Gaza City and six Islamic Jihad fighters who were killed while preparing a rocket for launch at an undisclosed location. The big scalps of the night though have been the deaths of Raed Attar, Muhamed Abu Shamala and Muhamed Barhoum who were all killed in a single air-strike in Rafah. While I'm unsure of Barhoum's role Abu Shamala was the commander of Hamas military wing in the southern region of Gaza, Attar is a very senior Hamas official who is believed to have taken command of their tunnel operations from Muhamed Deif when Deif was promoted to overall command. It was Attar who commanded the operation to kidnap Gilad Shalit and is suspected of being behind the attempt to kidnap Hadar Goldin.
Despite Palestinian claims to the contrary the civilian death toll from this latest round of fighting has been extremely light. For example there have only been 22 reported deaths overnight and not only are we certain that the majority of them were fighters we can actually name 11 of them.
In response to this fresh round of fighting Israeli Prime Minister last night addressed the nation. In this speech Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a great blow being dealt to Hamas which seemed to be a reference to the attempt to kill Muhamed Deif yesterday and the expansion of the operation to target more senior Hamas figures. Netanyahu went on to speak on the need for patience from the Israeli people during the operation.
This last point struck me as fair comment because the facts of the situation dictate that this is going to be a war of attrition. That is to say that Israel's success or failure will come from their ability to wear down Hamas capacity to fight by destroying their stores of weapons and killing their fighters. Unlike the tunnel threat which has been completed and required boots on the ground in Gaza this next phase of the operation may not require another ground operation and with now only the hard targets located in the heavily populated areas of Gaza left a ground operation carries with it increased risks of both civilian casualties but also Israeli military casualties.
The problem is that the Israeli public seem to be getting extremely frustrated at the length of time that this war has gone on for and that is increasing the pressure on Netanyahu. For example the reaction to the announcement that Netanyahu was going to speak that I got from everyday Israelis was deeply sarcastic and even the leader of the normally quite moderate opposition Labor Party came out to publicly accuse Netanyahu of being more worried about maintaining his governing coalition then protecting Israeli civilians. This strikes me as a very worrying development not just for Israeli politics but also more seriously for the Palestinians.
Netanyahu's big achievement has been keeping the conflict between Israel and Palestine at such a low level that many Israelis have been able to almost forget that it has been going on. As a result the Israeli economy has grown steadily under Netanyahu and much has that growth has been drive by dynamic start-up businesses in the hi-tech sector. With many young Israelis now able to live fulfilling lives on the back of this economic growth they have become less and less interested in religious and political causes that demand the increasing expansion of Israel and the subjugation of the Palestinians. This was reflected by the strong showing of the Yesh Atid Party who unusually for an Israeli political party don't really have a policy towards Israel.
As a result more Israelis then ever before are happy to support both a two state solution and a peace process providing neither really affects how their go about their everyday lives. By launching this long war of attrition Hamas has once again forced the conflict to the centre of every Israelis minds and a lot of the old attitudes are once again coming to the fore. So if this war causes the Netanyahu government to fall or even changes the attitudes of a significant number of Israelis I am worried that the best ever chance of peace between Israel and Palestine could be lost for a generation or even longer.
Another development that I found interesting is that yesterday evening Hamas warned international airlines to avoid Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport from 03:00 (06:00 local) today presumably because they were going to start shooting rockets at it. This seems to have been an attempt to force a repeat of the shortlived international ban on flights to Israel that we saw early on in the conflict. Although I think this began as an attempt to put internal pressure on US President Obama it was largely received by the Israelis as a form of sanction and therefore a sort of victory for Hamas. This time though not a single airline or airline regulator responded to Hamas' threat and in the end I don't think Hamas even bothered attacking the airport. This really highlighted to me that Hamas really don't seem to have realised that in the last two to three weeks international support has very much shifted away from them and back towards Israel.
The first reason for this has been the way that Hamas has conducted itself during the cease-fire negotiations. By rejecting a series of very reasonable offers that have been tabled by both Israel and Egypt in favour of firing more rockets and in the process breaking cease-fires Hamas have revealed themselves to be very much the aggressors in this situation. This obviously makes it very hard for people who have no real bias in the situation to be sympathetic to Hamas and the problems it has succeeded in bringing upon itself.
The other big factor has of course been the situation with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq. Although the Hamas I am used to is nowhere near as bad as ISIL its current military wing does seem to have rather been swept up in ISIL's delusional propaganda. With ISIL's true methods and objectives being laid bare for the World to see international opinions have very much hardened against them with even previously staunch supporters such as the UK calling for military action to destroy them. As a result the Gulf States such as Qatar that back ISIL and also back Hamas are now very much out in the cold internationally. So while Obama might look to increase the pressure on Israel as a way to apologise for taking extremely limited military action against ISIL it seems that nobody else in the international community is in any mood to do Qatar or Hamas any further favours.
16:55 on 21/8/14 (UK date).
Wednesday 20 August 2014
Operation Featherweight: Week 2, Day 6.
Five days after the start of the operation to liberate Mosul Dam the US is continuing to carry out air-strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) positions in and around the dam. The US has not yet confirmed these air-strikes let alone provided information about the number of strikes and what they have targeted. However it is believed that in the past 24 hours there have been roughly 12 strikes against ISIL artillery and mortar positions which have been shelling Kurdish Peshmerga forces who are attempting to hold the dam.
On Tuesday (19/8/14) Iraqi forces launched an operation to liberate the city of Tikrit from ISIL. In this effort the Iraqi military received absolutely no air-support from the US leaving them with little protection from ISIL artillery, mortar, heavy machine gun and sniper fire. This combined with ISIL's usual tactic of heavily mining the area around their positions meaning that the Iraqi advance was quickly ground to a halt and the operation was abandoned on Tuesday afternoon less 12 hours after it began.
If you needed further evidence of the difference that US air-power can make on the battlefield it was provided by ISIL themselves. On Tuesday evening they decided to execute James Foley a US photo-journalist who has been held hostage in the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa in eastern Syria. The video of this beheading which has been widely circulated online was entitled "A Message to America" and made it quite clear that Foley was being executed in response to US air-strikes. It went on to threaten that another US journalist - Steven Sotloff - who is also being held hostage would also be executed unless the US immediately stops its air-strikes.
This is quite clearly a sign that US air-strikes are hurting ISIL and hurting them badly. The purpose of the execution video was firstly to intimidate US President Obama into stopping the air-strikes because Obama has certainly got a reputation for being easily scared off. In the second instance it was intended to intimidate western journalists into not travelling to Iraq to cover the conflict. After all it seems very clear that Obama only took any action against ISIL when pressure from journalists left him with no other option.
In this first objective ISIL are likely to have taken encouragement from the statement given by Obama today in response to the execution. In this response Obama seemed weak once again reprising his role as the "Consoler in Chief" talking at length about Foley's work, his family and how everybody really misses him. Obama then sort of drifted into theology claiming that ISIL do not represent Muslims (a fact that Muslims are already well aware of) and that no god would stand for what they did to Foley and what they do every day. Obama did eventually come close to something approaching tough talk when he declared ISIL to be a cancer that needed to be cut out. However he did not explain how America was going to remove that cancer or if it even intended to do so.
Hopefully the US Navy's response to the execution of Foley will be more robust then Obama's speech. After all as Israel recently demonstrated through the use of the Hannibal Protocol in circumstances such as these you need to send a stronger message then words alone can deliver.
19:15 on 20/8/14 (UK date).
On Tuesday (19/8/14) Iraqi forces launched an operation to liberate the city of Tikrit from ISIL. In this effort the Iraqi military received absolutely no air-support from the US leaving them with little protection from ISIL artillery, mortar, heavy machine gun and sniper fire. This combined with ISIL's usual tactic of heavily mining the area around their positions meaning that the Iraqi advance was quickly ground to a halt and the operation was abandoned on Tuesday afternoon less 12 hours after it began.
If you needed further evidence of the difference that US air-power can make on the battlefield it was provided by ISIL themselves. On Tuesday evening they decided to execute James Foley a US photo-journalist who has been held hostage in the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa in eastern Syria. The video of this beheading which has been widely circulated online was entitled "A Message to America" and made it quite clear that Foley was being executed in response to US air-strikes. It went on to threaten that another US journalist - Steven Sotloff - who is also being held hostage would also be executed unless the US immediately stops its air-strikes.
This is quite clearly a sign that US air-strikes are hurting ISIL and hurting them badly. The purpose of the execution video was firstly to intimidate US President Obama into stopping the air-strikes because Obama has certainly got a reputation for being easily scared off. In the second instance it was intended to intimidate western journalists into not travelling to Iraq to cover the conflict. After all it seems very clear that Obama only took any action against ISIL when pressure from journalists left him with no other option.
In this first objective ISIL are likely to have taken encouragement from the statement given by Obama today in response to the execution. In this response Obama seemed weak once again reprising his role as the "Consoler in Chief" talking at length about Foley's work, his family and how everybody really misses him. Obama then sort of drifted into theology claiming that ISIL do not represent Muslims (a fact that Muslims are already well aware of) and that no god would stand for what they did to Foley and what they do every day. Obama did eventually come close to something approaching tough talk when he declared ISIL to be a cancer that needed to be cut out. However he did not explain how America was going to remove that cancer or if it even intended to do so.
Hopefully the US Navy's response to the execution of Foley will be more robust then Obama's speech. After all as Israel recently demonstrated through the use of the Hannibal Protocol in circumstances such as these you need to send a stronger message then words alone can deliver.
19:15 on 20/8/14 (UK date).
My Brother's Keeper: Month 3, Week 1, Day 2.
Since the Palestinian factions broke the cease-fire fighting between Gaza and Israel has resumed at such an intensity it is difficult to keep track. The total of rockets fired has literally changed three times whilst I've been writing this.
However at last count 175 rockets and mortars have been fired into Israel. These included the shorter range, less sophisticated Qassam and Grad type rockets which have focused on the areas of Israel on the border with Gaza. It has also included plenty of the longer range, more sophisticated M-75 and M-302 rockets which have succeeded in reaching areas deep inside Israel including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Fortunately due to a combination of the Iron Dome system and well co-ordinated air-raid warnings and bomb shelters there have been no reports of deaths or serious injuries amongst Israeli civilians. There however has been limited damage to property including to a civilian home which received a direct hit in Ashkelon and will probably have to be demolished although the occupants were able to escape injury.
In response the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) have carried out between 50 and 80 air-strikes against targets in Gaza. The overwhelming majority of these have been against rocket launch sites which have largely been located in open areas of farmland rather then in densely populated residential areas. However the IDF have also been carrying out targeted strikes against known militants. This includes two confirmed kills alongside a strike on the home of Mohammad Deif - the head of Hamas' military wing - overnight. Rather displaying the almost reflex bias that has been present throughout this conflict this was initially reported in the western media as; "Woman and child killed in air-strike."
Although I don't think that there is any doubt Deif is a legitimate target for IDF strikes he does rather highlight the complexity of the situation. A very mysterious figure Deif has never been seen in public while not wearing a disguise and I think only one photograph exists of him and that was taken for his university ID some 30 years ago. As a result Israeli intelligence aren't really sure what he looks like and what he does so have only felt comfortable describing him as the head of Hamas' military wing since Adnan al-Ghoul his assistant/rival was killed in 2004. Obviously as a target it is reasonable that Deif would try to keep his identity secret from the Israelis. However he is so secretive I get the impression that Hamas' political wing which is based in Qatar also don't know what he looks like and aren't themselves 100% sure that he is the head of their military wing.
Obviously with such a man of mystery it is incredibly to difficult to tell whether he was killed in the air-strike on his home or not. We do know that a third body was recovered alongside the bodies of Deif's wife and son. FOX News in America are reporting that an unnamed Israeli intelligence official has confirmed that Deif has been killed. Hamas are denying this though and are repeatedly claiming that it is carrying out rockets attacks that Deif has ordered. However the way that Hamas are claiming the rocket attacks will only stop when Deif gives the order for them to stop suggests to me that they know that he won't be around to give such an order.
16:10 on 20/8/14 (UK date).
However at last count 175 rockets and mortars have been fired into Israel. These included the shorter range, less sophisticated Qassam and Grad type rockets which have focused on the areas of Israel on the border with Gaza. It has also included plenty of the longer range, more sophisticated M-75 and M-302 rockets which have succeeded in reaching areas deep inside Israel including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Fortunately due to a combination of the Iron Dome system and well co-ordinated air-raid warnings and bomb shelters there have been no reports of deaths or serious injuries amongst Israeli civilians. There however has been limited damage to property including to a civilian home which received a direct hit in Ashkelon and will probably have to be demolished although the occupants were able to escape injury.
In response the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) have carried out between 50 and 80 air-strikes against targets in Gaza. The overwhelming majority of these have been against rocket launch sites which have largely been located in open areas of farmland rather then in densely populated residential areas. However the IDF have also been carrying out targeted strikes against known militants. This includes two confirmed kills alongside a strike on the home of Mohammad Deif - the head of Hamas' military wing - overnight. Rather displaying the almost reflex bias that has been present throughout this conflict this was initially reported in the western media as; "Woman and child killed in air-strike."
Although I don't think that there is any doubt Deif is a legitimate target for IDF strikes he does rather highlight the complexity of the situation. A very mysterious figure Deif has never been seen in public while not wearing a disguise and I think only one photograph exists of him and that was taken for his university ID some 30 years ago. As a result Israeli intelligence aren't really sure what he looks like and what he does so have only felt comfortable describing him as the head of Hamas' military wing since Adnan al-Ghoul his assistant/rival was killed in 2004. Obviously as a target it is reasonable that Deif would try to keep his identity secret from the Israelis. However he is so secretive I get the impression that Hamas' political wing which is based in Qatar also don't know what he looks like and aren't themselves 100% sure that he is the head of their military wing.
Obviously with such a man of mystery it is incredibly to difficult to tell whether he was killed in the air-strike on his home or not. We do know that a third body was recovered alongside the bodies of Deif's wife and son. FOX News in America are reporting that an unnamed Israeli intelligence official has confirmed that Deif has been killed. Hamas are denying this though and are repeatedly claiming that it is carrying out rockets attacks that Deif has ordered. However the way that Hamas are claiming the rocket attacks will only stop when Deif gives the order for them to stop suggests to me that they know that he won't be around to give such an order.
16:10 on 20/8/14 (UK date).
Tuesday 19 August 2014
My Brother's Keeper: Month 3, Week 1, Day 1.
As I said on Sunday (19/8/14) I thought it would be extremely unlikely for Israel and the Palestinian factions to negotiate an extension to the existing cease-fire. However on Monday (20/8/14) evening all parties did manage to cobble together a 24 hour extension to allow for further work on the existing proposal for a more long term cease-fire.
Although it was never officially declared I suspect the proposal on the table was the latest compromise suggested by the Egyptian mediators which involves Israeli restrictions on Gaza being gradually lifted in return for an absence of rocket fire and tunnel attacks from Gaza. While I've never been comfortable with the idea of Gaza becoming simply another Israeli suburb I thought this was generally quite a sensible proposal. The reintroduction of the normal flow of Israeli goods into Gaza would of course provide immediate relief to the people of Gaza but would have stopped short of providing Hamas with a clear victory by rewarding them for starting a war with Israel. The denial of such a victory is something that I consider very important both for the region as a whole and the Israeli government which has come under a lot of internal pressure - some justified, some less so - over its desire to seek a cease-fire in Gaza.
However in the meantime Hamas' failure to deliver a clear victory from this war has led to people in Gaza including the various factions to question whether Hamas can continue as the Gazan government. As a result one of the Palestinian factions decided to break the cease-fire by launching rockets into southern Israel at around 13:00 (16:00 local). I think the situation regarding the different Palestinian factions is rather well summed up by this clip from the Monty Python film "The Life of Brian"; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS-0Az7dgRY
After all it is based on the different Palestinian factions in the 1970's. That all obviously raises questions within Israel about whether the complete demilitarisation of Hamas is in fact a sensible idea.
In the meantime though the firing of rockets into Israel left no option other then for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to conduct air-strikes against the rocket launch sites. Those Israeli air-strikes have in turn provoked a certain type of unity amongst the Palestinian factions prompting them all to start firing rockets into Israel. The IDF will of course continue to respond to these rocket launches in line with their standing Rules of Engagement (RoE).
On the diplomatic front the resumption of rocket fire has caused Israel to withdraw their negotiators from Egypt and the Egyptians to suspend their role as mediator. Hopefully though following a night of violence diplomatic efforts can resume tomorrow. After all Israel certainly has the capacity for a long war of attrition.
20:45 on 19/8/14 (UK date).
Although it was never officially declared I suspect the proposal on the table was the latest compromise suggested by the Egyptian mediators which involves Israeli restrictions on Gaza being gradually lifted in return for an absence of rocket fire and tunnel attacks from Gaza. While I've never been comfortable with the idea of Gaza becoming simply another Israeli suburb I thought this was generally quite a sensible proposal. The reintroduction of the normal flow of Israeli goods into Gaza would of course provide immediate relief to the people of Gaza but would have stopped short of providing Hamas with a clear victory by rewarding them for starting a war with Israel. The denial of such a victory is something that I consider very important both for the region as a whole and the Israeli government which has come under a lot of internal pressure - some justified, some less so - over its desire to seek a cease-fire in Gaza.
However in the meantime Hamas' failure to deliver a clear victory from this war has led to people in Gaza including the various factions to question whether Hamas can continue as the Gazan government. As a result one of the Palestinian factions decided to break the cease-fire by launching rockets into southern Israel at around 13:00 (16:00 local). I think the situation regarding the different Palestinian factions is rather well summed up by this clip from the Monty Python film "The Life of Brian"; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS-0Az7dgRY
After all it is based on the different Palestinian factions in the 1970's. That all obviously raises questions within Israel about whether the complete demilitarisation of Hamas is in fact a sensible idea.
In the meantime though the firing of rockets into Israel left no option other then for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to conduct air-strikes against the rocket launch sites. Those Israeli air-strikes have in turn provoked a certain type of unity amongst the Palestinian factions prompting them all to start firing rockets into Israel. The IDF will of course continue to respond to these rocket launches in line with their standing Rules of Engagement (RoE).
On the diplomatic front the resumption of rocket fire has caused Israel to withdraw their negotiators from Egypt and the Egyptians to suspend their role as mediator. Hopefully though following a night of violence diplomatic efforts can resume tomorrow. After all Israel certainly has the capacity for a long war of attrition.
20:45 on 19/8/14 (UK date).
The Rick Perry Indictment.
While everybody has been focused on events in Ferguson, Missouri perhaps an even bigger political story has been developing in the US. On Friday (15/8/14) Republican Governor of Texas Rick Perry was indicted by a Grand Jury on charges that he abused his power and attempted to coerce an elected official by vetoing funding for the state anti-corruption office.
Back in April 2013 Rosemary Lehmberg the Democrat District Attorney for Travis County and head of the anti-corruption unit was arrested for drink driving. By all accounts Lehmberg was not only extremely drunk at the time but was also extremely belligerent. To make matters worse Lehmberg then attempted to abuse her position to avoid punishment for the crime. This is obviously unacceptable behaviour for any public official particularly one who has responsibility for law enforcement and ensuring that other public officials uphold the law. However Lehmberg repeatedly refused calls to resign so Perry is alleged to have threatened to withhold funding to Lehmberg's department until she resigned.
I must admit that I'm not an expert in the specifics of Texas state law but if it isn't within legislators powers to force the resignation of a disgraced and properly convicted peer it strikes me that it certainly should be. As a result this indictment of Perry strikes me as being extremely politically motivated and a sign of the growing panic amongst the Democrat Party national.
Missing from all the discussions about race that events in Ferguson have started has been the fact that over the past year to 18 months Democrat President Obama has been engaged in the worst form of racial politics through his attempts to reform the immigration system to make it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens. This has been a naked attempt to attract Hispanic voters to the Democrat Party not because of their views on economic policy, crime or even foreign policy but simply because of their race. As such I think this type of vile politics has no more place in the American mainstream then the Ku Klux Klan. By Obama's own admission it has created a humanitarian disaster across the US' border with Mexico by allowing people smugglers to falsely claim that Obama has declared that unaccompanied children will be allowed to stay in the US creating a massive influx of such immigrants.
One of the states that has been hardest hit by Obama's racial politicking has been Texas and Governor Perry has been one of Obama's harshest critics frequently calling him out publicly while at the same time deploying the National Guard to secure the border while calling on the federal Congress to fund the operation. As Obama has so far failed to force through his immigration reforms and therefore can't count on the extra votes of all the newly minted citizens Perry's criticism of Obama's policy is likely to damage all Democrat candidates at the November 2014 mid-term elections. This seems to have been the main factor behind local Texas Democrats attempts to smear Governor Perry's reputation in the run-up to the mid-terms.
Rick Perry could also prove to be a substantial threat in the 2016 Presidential election because he is widely considered as one of the front runners for the Republican nomination. Despite the fact that John Kerry has really impressed me a State the Democrat Party seem to have set in stone that Hillary Clinton will be their 2016 candidate. The problem is that as Obama's Secretary of State from 2008 to 2012 Hillary Clinton was one of the main architects of the invasion of Libya, the invasion of Syria and the disastrous withdrawal from Iraq. With the consequences of those decisions coming home to roost in the form of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) genocide and ethnic cleansing Hillary Clinton's credibility as an international stateswoman has been totally shot to pieces. As a result the Republican Party could probably nominate an actual donkey to run against Hillary in 2016 and still win. The Democrats are therefore absolutely terrified of an even half-way credible opponent such as Rick Perry so seem to be trying to take him out of the game early.
As another little comparison to the situation in Ferguson I should point out that at absolutely no point has Governor Perry been arrested. Instead Lehmberg's District Attorney's office prepared as file of evidence that was presented to a Grand Jury. That Grand Jury then decided to issue an indictment and Governor Perry will answer that indictment on, I think, Thursday (21/8/14).
This is the standard practise for how serious crimes are investigated and prosecuted in the US. Arrests only happen if there is a need to stop evidence being destroyed or to prevent a suspect from fleeing. So all the people in Ferguson who are calling for the police officer to be arrested are starting to give me the impression that black Americans do more badly in the criminal justice system then any other race not because of racism but because they simply do not understand the system. I don't think Huey Newton would be best pleased.
16:20 on 19/8/14 (UK date).
Back in April 2013 Rosemary Lehmberg the Democrat District Attorney for Travis County and head of the anti-corruption unit was arrested for drink driving. By all accounts Lehmberg was not only extremely drunk at the time but was also extremely belligerent. To make matters worse Lehmberg then attempted to abuse her position to avoid punishment for the crime. This is obviously unacceptable behaviour for any public official particularly one who has responsibility for law enforcement and ensuring that other public officials uphold the law. However Lehmberg repeatedly refused calls to resign so Perry is alleged to have threatened to withhold funding to Lehmberg's department until she resigned.
I must admit that I'm not an expert in the specifics of Texas state law but if it isn't within legislators powers to force the resignation of a disgraced and properly convicted peer it strikes me that it certainly should be. As a result this indictment of Perry strikes me as being extremely politically motivated and a sign of the growing panic amongst the Democrat Party national.
Missing from all the discussions about race that events in Ferguson have started has been the fact that over the past year to 18 months Democrat President Obama has been engaged in the worst form of racial politics through his attempts to reform the immigration system to make it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens. This has been a naked attempt to attract Hispanic voters to the Democrat Party not because of their views on economic policy, crime or even foreign policy but simply because of their race. As such I think this type of vile politics has no more place in the American mainstream then the Ku Klux Klan. By Obama's own admission it has created a humanitarian disaster across the US' border with Mexico by allowing people smugglers to falsely claim that Obama has declared that unaccompanied children will be allowed to stay in the US creating a massive influx of such immigrants.
One of the states that has been hardest hit by Obama's racial politicking has been Texas and Governor Perry has been one of Obama's harshest critics frequently calling him out publicly while at the same time deploying the National Guard to secure the border while calling on the federal Congress to fund the operation. As Obama has so far failed to force through his immigration reforms and therefore can't count on the extra votes of all the newly minted citizens Perry's criticism of Obama's policy is likely to damage all Democrat candidates at the November 2014 mid-term elections. This seems to have been the main factor behind local Texas Democrats attempts to smear Governor Perry's reputation in the run-up to the mid-terms.
Rick Perry could also prove to be a substantial threat in the 2016 Presidential election because he is widely considered as one of the front runners for the Republican nomination. Despite the fact that John Kerry has really impressed me a State the Democrat Party seem to have set in stone that Hillary Clinton will be their 2016 candidate. The problem is that as Obama's Secretary of State from 2008 to 2012 Hillary Clinton was one of the main architects of the invasion of Libya, the invasion of Syria and the disastrous withdrawal from Iraq. With the consequences of those decisions coming home to roost in the form of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) genocide and ethnic cleansing Hillary Clinton's credibility as an international stateswoman has been totally shot to pieces. As a result the Republican Party could probably nominate an actual donkey to run against Hillary in 2016 and still win. The Democrats are therefore absolutely terrified of an even half-way credible opponent such as Rick Perry so seem to be trying to take him out of the game early.
As another little comparison to the situation in Ferguson I should point out that at absolutely no point has Governor Perry been arrested. Instead Lehmberg's District Attorney's office prepared as file of evidence that was presented to a Grand Jury. That Grand Jury then decided to issue an indictment and Governor Perry will answer that indictment on, I think, Thursday (21/8/14).
This is the standard practise for how serious crimes are investigated and prosecuted in the US. Arrests only happen if there is a need to stop evidence being destroyed or to prevent a suspect from fleeing. So all the people in Ferguson who are calling for the police officer to be arrested are starting to give me the impression that black Americans do more badly in the criminal justice system then any other race not because of racism but because they simply do not understand the system. I don't think Huey Newton would be best pleased.
16:20 on 19/8/14 (UK date).
Monday 18 August 2014
Operation Featherweight: Week 2, Day, 4.
On Sunday (17/8/14) the Kurdish Peshmerga backed by specialists from the Iraqi army launched a ground assault to re-capture Mosul Dam from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Located on the Tigris river some 72km (45miles) north of the city of Mosul the dam sits in front of a man-made reservoir containing 11.1km^3 (2.7miles^3) of water and it's four hydroelectric turbines generate some 187MW of electricity. As such it is of huge strategic importance because whomever controls the dam also controls the electricity and water supply for most of Iraq. Also if the dam were to be destroyed it would unleash a torrent of water that would completely flood Mosul along with the Tigris' floodplain. As a result it is far more important that the dam is liberated from ISIL before the Peshmerga attempt to protect and re-take towns from ISIL. That is because defending a town of 300 people could provoke ISIL to blow the dam killing around 50,000 people and leaving millions without drinking water and electricity.
Any mission to re-take the dam is going to be a very complicated one. Firstly the attacking force has to fight a conventional battle to defeat the defences such as artillery and mortar positions in the open areas around the dam. They then need to clear any mines that have been laid around the area before climbers and explosive ordinance disposal specialists move in to conduct a hostage rescue-type operation to clear fighters from the dam complex and remove any demolition charges. Ideally all this needs to happen very quickly because at any point the people defending the dam could destroy it rather then losing control of it.
In their effort to liberate the dam the Peshmerga have been aided by extremely limited US air-strikes. On Saturday (16/8/14) the US carried out nine air-strikes which succeeded in destroying 14 ISIL vehicles. On Sunday - with the ground assault underway - the US carried out an undisclosed number of further air-strikes against undisclosed targets which are believed to have been ISIL defensive check-points and artillery positions. Today the US is believed to have carried out yet more air-strikes although they have yet to officially confirm this let alone provide details about the number and type of targets.
Despite this the Peshmerga assault seems to have bogged down with fighting stretching into a second and possibly third day although they do seem to have been able to secure the dam structure itself. This painfully slow progress highlights exactly the problem presented by US President Obama's extremely hesitant approach to military action.
If Obama had the courage to properly authorise the Navy to take full military action they would probably have drawn up a proper attack plan. This would have involved bombing the area around the dam hard in the days leading up to the ground assault in order to soften up the target by destroying most if not all of ISIL defences. After all you can even clear a minefield by bombing it from the air. With no let up in the air-strikes the ground assault could have begun while ISIL were in disarray allowing the Peshmerga to quickly seize control of the dam. Then as ISIL were retreating from the dam further air-strikes could have been used to kill all of the 400 or so ISIL fighters who were stationed at the dam. I know this sounds harsh but it needs to be done to prevent ISIL from re-grouping and then launching a new offensive to seize the dam.
On Sunday Obama did write a letter to Congress to inform them that US forces would be taking part in the operation to retake the dam. Officially this was done because Obama felt the War Powers Resolution required him to do so. However with military action having already been authorised I can't help but feel the Obama was trying to overplay US involvement in the operation while at the same time hoping that some of the more capable members of Congress would grade his reasoning for the need to re-take the dam.
In that case I would say that it shows improvement because Obama has at least realised that the demolition of the dam would create a humanitarian disaster. However it stills fall far below a passing grade because Obama has failed to recognise the strategic importance of securing the water and electricity supplies. Also Obama strictly limited the action to Mosul Dam which suggests to me that he is still trying to excessively limit the use of military force indicating that he still hasn't understood the scale of the problem and the type of solution it requires.
Hopefully though the Peshmerga will be able to fully secure the dam in the coming hours. That is because if they were to fail to do so or even sustain heavy losses in the process it would have very dire humanitarian consequences across Iraq.
16:55 on 18/8/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 13:10 on 19/8/14 (UK date) to add;
Despite President Obama's statement yesterday the fighting around Mosul Dam is most certainly not over. The Peshmerga have succeeded in gaining control of the dam structure itself but they continue to come under heavy artillery fire from positions around 1km (0.6miles) outside of the dam.
The US has however provided details to the air-strikes it has undertaken against ISIL positions close to the dam. As previously mentioned the strikes on Saturday were purely against 14 ISIL vehicles. The strikes on Sunday concentrated on further vehicles, a defensive checkpoint and artillery/mortar positions. The strikes on Monday concentrated on further mortar/artillery positions and a minefield that had been halting the Peshmerga's advance.
In a way that last target makes me happy because it provides me with plenty of opportunity to go; "I told you so." However it does also worry me because I don't think the US military need me to explain this to them. So the fact it took them three days to carry out effective strikes really highlights just how badly their operations are being hampered by Obama's ineffectual leadership. This is a problem because in wars this type of hesitancy and confused leadership ends up getting people killed and causes small conflicts to escalate into bigger conflicts that end up sucking in more men and resources.
I must say that I really don't understand why Obama is still being so hesitant. Whatever barrier there was to taking action be it a desire not to admit that it was a mistake to withdraw from Iraq in the first place or fears of a Muslim backlash against US military action it has already been crossed. As a result there is nothing to be gained by continuing to hold back and a lot to lose so the US may as well go about the military action properly.
Located on the Tigris river some 72km (45miles) north of the city of Mosul the dam sits in front of a man-made reservoir containing 11.1km^3 (2.7miles^3) of water and it's four hydroelectric turbines generate some 187MW of electricity. As such it is of huge strategic importance because whomever controls the dam also controls the electricity and water supply for most of Iraq. Also if the dam were to be destroyed it would unleash a torrent of water that would completely flood Mosul along with the Tigris' floodplain. As a result it is far more important that the dam is liberated from ISIL before the Peshmerga attempt to protect and re-take towns from ISIL. That is because defending a town of 300 people could provoke ISIL to blow the dam killing around 50,000 people and leaving millions without drinking water and electricity.
Any mission to re-take the dam is going to be a very complicated one. Firstly the attacking force has to fight a conventional battle to defeat the defences such as artillery and mortar positions in the open areas around the dam. They then need to clear any mines that have been laid around the area before climbers and explosive ordinance disposal specialists move in to conduct a hostage rescue-type operation to clear fighters from the dam complex and remove any demolition charges. Ideally all this needs to happen very quickly because at any point the people defending the dam could destroy it rather then losing control of it.
In their effort to liberate the dam the Peshmerga have been aided by extremely limited US air-strikes. On Saturday (16/8/14) the US carried out nine air-strikes which succeeded in destroying 14 ISIL vehicles. On Sunday - with the ground assault underway - the US carried out an undisclosed number of further air-strikes against undisclosed targets which are believed to have been ISIL defensive check-points and artillery positions. Today the US is believed to have carried out yet more air-strikes although they have yet to officially confirm this let alone provide details about the number and type of targets.
Despite this the Peshmerga assault seems to have bogged down with fighting stretching into a second and possibly third day although they do seem to have been able to secure the dam structure itself. This painfully slow progress highlights exactly the problem presented by US President Obama's extremely hesitant approach to military action.
If Obama had the courage to properly authorise the Navy to take full military action they would probably have drawn up a proper attack plan. This would have involved bombing the area around the dam hard in the days leading up to the ground assault in order to soften up the target by destroying most if not all of ISIL defences. After all you can even clear a minefield by bombing it from the air. With no let up in the air-strikes the ground assault could have begun while ISIL were in disarray allowing the Peshmerga to quickly seize control of the dam. Then as ISIL were retreating from the dam further air-strikes could have been used to kill all of the 400 or so ISIL fighters who were stationed at the dam. I know this sounds harsh but it needs to be done to prevent ISIL from re-grouping and then launching a new offensive to seize the dam.
On Sunday Obama did write a letter to Congress to inform them that US forces would be taking part in the operation to retake the dam. Officially this was done because Obama felt the War Powers Resolution required him to do so. However with military action having already been authorised I can't help but feel the Obama was trying to overplay US involvement in the operation while at the same time hoping that some of the more capable members of Congress would grade his reasoning for the need to re-take the dam.
In that case I would say that it shows improvement because Obama has at least realised that the demolition of the dam would create a humanitarian disaster. However it stills fall far below a passing grade because Obama has failed to recognise the strategic importance of securing the water and electricity supplies. Also Obama strictly limited the action to Mosul Dam which suggests to me that he is still trying to excessively limit the use of military force indicating that he still hasn't understood the scale of the problem and the type of solution it requires.
Hopefully though the Peshmerga will be able to fully secure the dam in the coming hours. That is because if they were to fail to do so or even sustain heavy losses in the process it would have very dire humanitarian consequences across Iraq.
16:55 on 18/8/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 13:10 on 19/8/14 (UK date) to add;
Despite President Obama's statement yesterday the fighting around Mosul Dam is most certainly not over. The Peshmerga have succeeded in gaining control of the dam structure itself but they continue to come under heavy artillery fire from positions around 1km (0.6miles) outside of the dam.
The US has however provided details to the air-strikes it has undertaken against ISIL positions close to the dam. As previously mentioned the strikes on Saturday were purely against 14 ISIL vehicles. The strikes on Sunday concentrated on further vehicles, a defensive checkpoint and artillery/mortar positions. The strikes on Monday concentrated on further mortar/artillery positions and a minefield that had been halting the Peshmerga's advance.
In a way that last target makes me happy because it provides me with plenty of opportunity to go; "I told you so." However it does also worry me because I don't think the US military need me to explain this to them. So the fact it took them three days to carry out effective strikes really highlights just how badly their operations are being hampered by Obama's ineffectual leadership. This is a problem because in wars this type of hesitancy and confused leadership ends up getting people killed and causes small conflicts to escalate into bigger conflicts that end up sucking in more men and resources.
I must say that I really don't understand why Obama is still being so hesitant. Whatever barrier there was to taking action be it a desire not to admit that it was a mistake to withdraw from Iraq in the first place or fears of a Muslim backlash against US military action it has already been crossed. As a result there is nothing to be gained by continuing to hold back and a lot to lose so the US may as well go about the military action properly.
Sunday 17 August 2014
Dumbass is Not a Race.
I think it's fair to say that events in Ferguson, Missouri are starting to get on my nerves. However that is not because I'm being overwhelmed by complex, coded discussions the US is having amongst itself and it's allies. Instead I'm being annoyed by the sheer stupidity of the comments on Twitter some of which come from otherwise intelligent people who work for respected news organisations.
On Friday (15/8/14) Ferguson police claimed that the officer who stopped and ended up shooting Micheal Brown had no idea that Brown had just committed a robbery at a near-by convenience store. This is of course nonsense because there would have been a high volume of open police radio traffic calling for officers to respond to the 911 call and giving a description of the suspects. Having come under White House control via Eric Holder at the Justice Department Ferguson police seemed to issue this false statement in an effort to keep the story going in order to keep the Iraq story which has been humiliating for the White House away from the top of the news agenda.
True to form residents of Ferguson reacted to this false statement by looting a number of local shops including the convenience store that Brown had robbed in what struck me as a clear attempt to intimidate the store owner. Despite the fact that these looters only numbered around two dozen the deafening howl of criticism that Ferguson police have been under for the last week meant that they took no action because they didn't want to be accused of infringing on the looters 'civil rights.'
In response local business owners took to protecting themselves by patrolling outside carrying a variety of guns including assault rifles. Although that is their right this creates a very dangerous situation so on Saturday (16/8/14) Missouri Governor finally declared a State of Emergency which is a legal pre-condition that allowed him to declare a curfew. Possibly because this curfew began stupidly late at night (from mid-night onwards) it was broken by groups who simply wanted to commit crime and square up to the police. At least one of these groups were armed and seemed to randomly open fire on passing vehicles seriously injuring at least one person. The media response to this was of course to criticise the police for using smoke grenades in an effort to evacuate the man who had been shot.
The curfew has been extended into tonight and hopefully the police will be enforcing it properly because it is really time for them to break the back of this and restore order to the streets. One of the main reason order to needs to be restored is that we will only get to the bottom of what exactly happened to Micheal Brown by carefully and dispassionately examining the evidence. That is impossible to do when you have so many people intent on twisting the facts to fit their purposes from the criminals who want to use the protests as a cover to commit crime to people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who simply see an opportunity to boost their profiles and bank balances.
It must be said though that this story of Micheal Brown being an innocent young man who was brutally gunned down by a racist police officer as he was off to visit his poor old grandmother is fast coming apart at the seems. For a start Brown wasn't innocently walking anywhere. Instead he and his friend Dorian Johnson had just committed a robbery and were fleeing the scene in possession of stolen property. Robbery is of course defined as theft involving the threat or use of force.
This detail is hugely important because it totally changes the context of Brown's interaction with the police. After all people who have just committed a crime are rarely happy to see the police turning up. It also proves that the main witness - Dorian Johnson - had lied. This makes it very hard to believe anything else he has to say about the incident. After all if it wasn't for all this backlash against the outrageous incident Johnson has told us about Johnson would most probably be in prison by now.
Another thing that is becoming clear is that when Brown was first challenged by the police officer he did not comply with the officer's perfectly reasonable request that he stopped and stood up against the wall. Instead Brown seems to have lunged towards the officer in an effort to prevent him from getting out of his vehicle. This immediately provides grounds for the officer to fear for his safety. If it turns out that Brown had grabbed for the officer's weapon that would mean he immediately represented a clear threat to life regardless of whether he caused the gun to be fired or not. This threat to life would continue until Brown either surrendered or had succeeded in escaping from the scene.
As for the claim that Brown was standing with his hands up which has spawned a very tedious campaign tactic this does not mean that he had surrendered. Anyone who has had any level of contact with armed police officers or has even just seen a TV show knows that you signal your surrender by following the officer's instructions to place your hands on your head and kneel down. This putting your hands up while continuing to walk towards is a well known trick used to close down the distance to someone so you can attack them. If you have previously tried to snatch their gun this means you are presenting a clear threat to life.
As such I wouldn't be in any way surprised if this case was presented to a Grand Jury only for that Grand Jury to rule that no crime had been committed apart from Johnson's participation in the original robbery.
In meantime though the protesters are not only calling for the police officer to be arrested but making thinly veiled threats against his life while complaining about any fact that challenges their story of a racist murder. As such the image that Ferguson is presenting of itself is of a bunch of criminals who simply want to kill some white folks. At the same time charities are being forced to collect money for children who have gone unfed because the schools have been closed due to the unrest. After all apparently in the Ferguson community it is the job of teachers to feed children not their parents.
18:30 on 17/8/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 13:30 on 18/8/14 (UK date) to add;
Yesterday Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton held a Church 'service' to honour Micheal Brown. The main thrust of this was to raise funds. During that service the Brown family lawyer Benjamin Crump gave an impassioned speech demanding that Brown was given due process. He went on to list a number of examples of what due process was not - for example "Due process is not shooting me because you've had a bad day." Unfortunately Crump failed to mention what due process is.
Due process is stopping when instructed to do so by a police officer or other officer of the Court. Due process is peacefully submitting to arrest. Due process is pleading guilty when you have committed the crime and due process is taking your punishment without complaint. As such I would go so far as to say that neither Micheal Brown nor his supporters have any interest in due process whatsoever.
Following the service the Brown family released the details of the second, private autopsy that had been performed. The protesters have of course been arguing that Brown was running away from the police officer when he was shot in the back. He then turned and raised his hands before being shot again numerous times while a couple of yards away from the officer. The family's autopsy report completely destroys this version of events.
It shows that Brown was not shot in the back but was shot four times in the right arm and chest and twice in the head. All the shots entered from the front proving that Brown was facing the officer at the time. All the shots also came from a range of between 1 to 2 feet indicating that Brown had either advanced on the officer or was advancing on the officer at the time. Although the autopsy can't really be certain if Brown had his hands raised at the time the bullets appear to have entered the front rather then the sides and back of his arm suggesting that his arms were not raised at the time. However the positions of his arms aren't really relevant because if he was advancing he was presenting a threat rather then surrendering meaning that it was a clean shooting.
Brown supporters of course look like they're going to fixate on the fact that the two shots to the head appear to have entered at a downward angle. As Brown was taller then the officer they are going to trying and spin this to mean that he was shot execution style. However it's much more likely that Brown was leaning forwards in a charge position or was simply falling to the ground as the bullets hit him.
Meanwhile there has been another night of rioting in Ferguson prompting the authorities to deploy the National Guard. Although the police could be doing more by starting the curfew earlier and arresting known ringleaders this does rather mean that the argument about the militarisation of the police has now gone full circle.
On Friday (15/8/14) Ferguson police claimed that the officer who stopped and ended up shooting Micheal Brown had no idea that Brown had just committed a robbery at a near-by convenience store. This is of course nonsense because there would have been a high volume of open police radio traffic calling for officers to respond to the 911 call and giving a description of the suspects. Having come under White House control via Eric Holder at the Justice Department Ferguson police seemed to issue this false statement in an effort to keep the story going in order to keep the Iraq story which has been humiliating for the White House away from the top of the news agenda.
True to form residents of Ferguson reacted to this false statement by looting a number of local shops including the convenience store that Brown had robbed in what struck me as a clear attempt to intimidate the store owner. Despite the fact that these looters only numbered around two dozen the deafening howl of criticism that Ferguson police have been under for the last week meant that they took no action because they didn't want to be accused of infringing on the looters 'civil rights.'
In response local business owners took to protecting themselves by patrolling outside carrying a variety of guns including assault rifles. Although that is their right this creates a very dangerous situation so on Saturday (16/8/14) Missouri Governor finally declared a State of Emergency which is a legal pre-condition that allowed him to declare a curfew. Possibly because this curfew began stupidly late at night (from mid-night onwards) it was broken by groups who simply wanted to commit crime and square up to the police. At least one of these groups were armed and seemed to randomly open fire on passing vehicles seriously injuring at least one person. The media response to this was of course to criticise the police for using smoke grenades in an effort to evacuate the man who had been shot.
The curfew has been extended into tonight and hopefully the police will be enforcing it properly because it is really time for them to break the back of this and restore order to the streets. One of the main reason order to needs to be restored is that we will only get to the bottom of what exactly happened to Micheal Brown by carefully and dispassionately examining the evidence. That is impossible to do when you have so many people intent on twisting the facts to fit their purposes from the criminals who want to use the protests as a cover to commit crime to people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who simply see an opportunity to boost their profiles and bank balances.
It must be said though that this story of Micheal Brown being an innocent young man who was brutally gunned down by a racist police officer as he was off to visit his poor old grandmother is fast coming apart at the seems. For a start Brown wasn't innocently walking anywhere. Instead he and his friend Dorian Johnson had just committed a robbery and were fleeing the scene in possession of stolen property. Robbery is of course defined as theft involving the threat or use of force.
This detail is hugely important because it totally changes the context of Brown's interaction with the police. After all people who have just committed a crime are rarely happy to see the police turning up. It also proves that the main witness - Dorian Johnson - had lied. This makes it very hard to believe anything else he has to say about the incident. After all if it wasn't for all this backlash against the outrageous incident Johnson has told us about Johnson would most probably be in prison by now.
Another thing that is becoming clear is that when Brown was first challenged by the police officer he did not comply with the officer's perfectly reasonable request that he stopped and stood up against the wall. Instead Brown seems to have lunged towards the officer in an effort to prevent him from getting out of his vehicle. This immediately provides grounds for the officer to fear for his safety. If it turns out that Brown had grabbed for the officer's weapon that would mean he immediately represented a clear threat to life regardless of whether he caused the gun to be fired or not. This threat to life would continue until Brown either surrendered or had succeeded in escaping from the scene.
As for the claim that Brown was standing with his hands up which has spawned a very tedious campaign tactic this does not mean that he had surrendered. Anyone who has had any level of contact with armed police officers or has even just seen a TV show knows that you signal your surrender by following the officer's instructions to place your hands on your head and kneel down. This putting your hands up while continuing to walk towards is a well known trick used to close down the distance to someone so you can attack them. If you have previously tried to snatch their gun this means you are presenting a clear threat to life.
As such I wouldn't be in any way surprised if this case was presented to a Grand Jury only for that Grand Jury to rule that no crime had been committed apart from Johnson's participation in the original robbery.
In meantime though the protesters are not only calling for the police officer to be arrested but making thinly veiled threats against his life while complaining about any fact that challenges their story of a racist murder. As such the image that Ferguson is presenting of itself is of a bunch of criminals who simply want to kill some white folks. At the same time charities are being forced to collect money for children who have gone unfed because the schools have been closed due to the unrest. After all apparently in the Ferguson community it is the job of teachers to feed children not their parents.
18:30 on 17/8/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 13:30 on 18/8/14 (UK date) to add;
Yesterday Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton held a Church 'service' to honour Micheal Brown. The main thrust of this was to raise funds. During that service the Brown family lawyer Benjamin Crump gave an impassioned speech demanding that Brown was given due process. He went on to list a number of examples of what due process was not - for example "Due process is not shooting me because you've had a bad day." Unfortunately Crump failed to mention what due process is.
Due process is stopping when instructed to do so by a police officer or other officer of the Court. Due process is peacefully submitting to arrest. Due process is pleading guilty when you have committed the crime and due process is taking your punishment without complaint. As such I would go so far as to say that neither Micheal Brown nor his supporters have any interest in due process whatsoever.
Following the service the Brown family released the details of the second, private autopsy that had been performed. The protesters have of course been arguing that Brown was running away from the police officer when he was shot in the back. He then turned and raised his hands before being shot again numerous times while a couple of yards away from the officer. The family's autopsy report completely destroys this version of events.
It shows that Brown was not shot in the back but was shot four times in the right arm and chest and twice in the head. All the shots entered from the front proving that Brown was facing the officer at the time. All the shots also came from a range of between 1 to 2 feet indicating that Brown had either advanced on the officer or was advancing on the officer at the time. Although the autopsy can't really be certain if Brown had his hands raised at the time the bullets appear to have entered the front rather then the sides and back of his arm suggesting that his arms were not raised at the time. However the positions of his arms aren't really relevant because if he was advancing he was presenting a threat rather then surrendering meaning that it was a clean shooting.
Brown supporters of course look like they're going to fixate on the fact that the two shots to the head appear to have entered at a downward angle. As Brown was taller then the officer they are going to trying and spin this to mean that he was shot execution style. However it's much more likely that Brown was leaning forwards in a charge position or was simply falling to the ground as the bullets hit him.
Meanwhile there has been another night of rioting in Ferguson prompting the authorities to deploy the National Guard. Although the police could be doing more by starting the curfew earlier and arresting known ringleaders this does rather mean that the argument about the militarisation of the police has now gone full circle.
My Brother's Keeper: Month 2, Week 5, Day 1.
With the existing cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza due to expire at mid-night on Monday 18/8/14 (21:00/17/8/14 GMT) negotiators in Egypt are working hard to find a permanent solution or failing that a temporary extension to the existing cease-fire. Unfortunately all the indications at the moment is that neither of those is particularly likely and it must be said that once again the main sticking point has been Hamas.
Israel's initial offer that would see the lifting of restrictions on the flow of goods into Gaza, the release of Hamas prisoners detained on the West Bank and permission being granted for Gaza fishermen to set sail up to 20 nautical miles was rejected by Hamas. They of course were holding out for all that plus the opening of air and sea ports in Gaza along with the end to restrictions on people travelling from Gaza into Israel. As Hamas has made it very clear over the last couple of months that it intends to continue attacking Israel and Israeli civilians in particular there is no way that Israel can agree to a deal that makes it easier for Hamas to supply itself with weapons and launch attacks.
The gridlock over this offer led to Egypt to suggest a compromise deal. This would have seen Hamas defer the issue of the sea and air ports. It would also have seen the complex discussions about opening Gaza's border with Israel dropped in favour of opening Gaza's border with Egypt under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority rather then the Israeli government. This would have ended the blockade without threatening Israel's security while helping Hamas to establish an important stream of tax revenue. Unfortunately it seems that work on this compromise has also ground to a halt.
As a result in the past few days a new compromise has been suggested that would see a gradual loosening of the blockade by allowing an increasing variety and volume of goods into Gaza from Israel and an increasing number of people into Israel from Gaza providing Hamas refrains from using that increased freedom to attack Israel. If you want to continue the metaphor that the people of Gaza are being held in a large prison by Israel this compromise deal would represent them being moved to a lower security prison before being granted occasional day release and the finally paroled provided they could demonstrate they're no longer a threat to (Israeli) society.
Sadly progress on this compromise is also proving hard to find. If I'm being totally honest I think that Hamas are finding themselves somewhat overwhelmed by the technical complexity of a deal that sees you trying to weight tonnes of grain delivered against number of days without rocket fire and number of trips for dialysis treatment in Israel hospitals. The main problem though is Hamas' attitude which seems very much focused on getting some big announcement, any big announcement such as the lifting of the blockade that they can take back to the people of Gaza to show that this war has been worth it. I for one would be very hesitant to give Hamas any type of propaganda victory because if the situation is going to move forward they really need to get out of this mindset that picking fights with Israel leads to success when in fact it very often leads to failure
Complicating matters further Thursday (14/8/14) saw the first anniversary of the clearance of the protest camp at the Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo. This really marked the end of the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi but also marked the start of a low intensity war between Hamas who are an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian government. This is a confrontation that somehow neither Hamas nor Egypt are winning because it has weakened Hamas by cutting off its supply lines in to Egypt while the constant violence and terrorist attacks by Hamas linked militants is derailing the Egyptian revolution by increasing public calls for better security.
No doubt irritated by Human Rights Watch (HRW) downright hysterical report on the Rabaa al-Adawiya clearance along with Hamas' continued intransigence Egypt are starting to show signs that they're losing patience in their role as mediator. In fact they've indicated that if progress isn't made on this latest compromise deal they won't be thinking up another one and will stop trying to find a negotiated solution. Such a decision of course will have little impact on either Egypt or Israel but does rather leave Hamas out of options.
If no extension of the cease-fire is agreed this really leaves Israel with two options of what to do next. Firstly they can conduct a long war of attrition with Hamas in which they respond with air-strikes to each rocket Hamas fires. Alternatively they can mount a short, sharp war that includes ground troops to clear out Hamas weapons stores and command centres in the sections of Gaza that were left untouched during the last incursion.
Although Israel certainly has the resources to win a long war of attrition I can't help but feel that the short, sharp war would be the better option because it certainly feels to me as though this situation has already dragged on for far too long.
15:20 on 17/8/14 (UK date).
Israel's initial offer that would see the lifting of restrictions on the flow of goods into Gaza, the release of Hamas prisoners detained on the West Bank and permission being granted for Gaza fishermen to set sail up to 20 nautical miles was rejected by Hamas. They of course were holding out for all that plus the opening of air and sea ports in Gaza along with the end to restrictions on people travelling from Gaza into Israel. As Hamas has made it very clear over the last couple of months that it intends to continue attacking Israel and Israeli civilians in particular there is no way that Israel can agree to a deal that makes it easier for Hamas to supply itself with weapons and launch attacks.
The gridlock over this offer led to Egypt to suggest a compromise deal. This would have seen Hamas defer the issue of the sea and air ports. It would also have seen the complex discussions about opening Gaza's border with Israel dropped in favour of opening Gaza's border with Egypt under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority rather then the Israeli government. This would have ended the blockade without threatening Israel's security while helping Hamas to establish an important stream of tax revenue. Unfortunately it seems that work on this compromise has also ground to a halt.
As a result in the past few days a new compromise has been suggested that would see a gradual loosening of the blockade by allowing an increasing variety and volume of goods into Gaza from Israel and an increasing number of people into Israel from Gaza providing Hamas refrains from using that increased freedom to attack Israel. If you want to continue the metaphor that the people of Gaza are being held in a large prison by Israel this compromise deal would represent them being moved to a lower security prison before being granted occasional day release and the finally paroled provided they could demonstrate they're no longer a threat to (Israeli) society.
Sadly progress on this compromise is also proving hard to find. If I'm being totally honest I think that Hamas are finding themselves somewhat overwhelmed by the technical complexity of a deal that sees you trying to weight tonnes of grain delivered against number of days without rocket fire and number of trips for dialysis treatment in Israel hospitals. The main problem though is Hamas' attitude which seems very much focused on getting some big announcement, any big announcement such as the lifting of the blockade that they can take back to the people of Gaza to show that this war has been worth it. I for one would be very hesitant to give Hamas any type of propaganda victory because if the situation is going to move forward they really need to get out of this mindset that picking fights with Israel leads to success when in fact it very often leads to failure
Complicating matters further Thursday (14/8/14) saw the first anniversary of the clearance of the protest camp at the Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo. This really marked the end of the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi but also marked the start of a low intensity war between Hamas who are an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian government. This is a confrontation that somehow neither Hamas nor Egypt are winning because it has weakened Hamas by cutting off its supply lines in to Egypt while the constant violence and terrorist attacks by Hamas linked militants is derailing the Egyptian revolution by increasing public calls for better security.
No doubt irritated by Human Rights Watch (HRW) downright hysterical report on the Rabaa al-Adawiya clearance along with Hamas' continued intransigence Egypt are starting to show signs that they're losing patience in their role as mediator. In fact they've indicated that if progress isn't made on this latest compromise deal they won't be thinking up another one and will stop trying to find a negotiated solution. Such a decision of course will have little impact on either Egypt or Israel but does rather leave Hamas out of options.
If no extension of the cease-fire is agreed this really leaves Israel with two options of what to do next. Firstly they can conduct a long war of attrition with Hamas in which they respond with air-strikes to each rocket Hamas fires. Alternatively they can mount a short, sharp war that includes ground troops to clear out Hamas weapons stores and command centres in the sections of Gaza that were left untouched during the last incursion.
Although Israel certainly has the resources to win a long war of attrition I can't help but feel that the short, sharp war would be the better option because it certainly feels to me as though this situation has already dragged on for far too long.
15:20 on 17/8/14 (UK date).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)