Having Fun Ferugson.

Rihanna and Eminem are currently playing a series of concerts in California, New York and Michigan. This is rather optimistically being described as "The Monster Tour." The US has decided to mark the event by recreating the events of the UK's August 2011 riots in miniture in the town of Ferguson just outside Saint Louis. This began with the shooting - in highly disputed circumstances - of a young, black man named Micheal Brown by the police.

The UK's August 2011 riots were of course intended to be strictly limited to a single night in the Tottenham district of London in order to provide a talking point about crime and gang culture in the run up to the 2012 Summer Olympics. Unfortunately British authorities badly underestimated just how unpopular they were and the violence quickly spread across London and the wider country producing some of the worst rioting the UK has ever seen. In order to cover up their mistake the UK immediately blamed the violence on Rihanna and her song "Run This Town" in particular. This was then used to justify all of the US' violent treatment of Rihanna including the attempts to force her into an abusive relationship first with Chris Brown and then with Drake. This of course then ballooned into Rihanna been blamed for the so-called "Arab Spring" which swept across the Middle-East, North Africa (MENA) region including Egypt, Libya and Syria.

The problem is that events in Ferguson have coincided with the crisis in Iraq. With US President Obama being forced to do everything in his power to protect the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who have very much been the shock troops of the Arab Spring it has become impossible to argue that Rihanna was responsible for the Arab Spring. It has even become impossible to argue that the Gulf Monarchies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar are anything other then aggressive supporters of the Arab Spring who certainly aren't looking for an apology.

As a result the US has tried to save the situation by turning Ferguson into a metaphor for Iraq. The main way they have done this is by deploying SWAT teams in armoured vehicles onto the streets provoking much controversy. The reason why SWAT teams need armoured vehicles is simply to protect them in the event that they are attacked by people armed with AK-47 or those infamous AR-15 type weapons. That is because you can pretty much shoot at an armoured car with 7.62mm ammunition all day long and not do any damage. This is exactly the problem the Kurdish Peshmerga forces are facing in Iraq because they are lightly armed with little more then AK-47 assault rifles. ISIL on the other hand have seized a number of armoured cars and even tanks from the Iraqi army meaning that there is little the Peshmerga can do to repel ISIL attacks. The US and France are discussing providing the Peshmerga with heavy weapons but what they really need are air-strikes to destroy ISIL's armoured vehicles.

Last night the US concluded that there was no need to evacuate Yazadi (ethnic Kurds) civilians who are trapped on Sinjar mountain because apparently there are fewer then originally thought and they are supposedly well fed and perfectly happy. I will cover this in more detail about the situation in Iraq but it was press coverage of the plight of the Yazardi on Mount Sinjar that forced Obama to take the extremely limited action he has in Iraq. This latest conclusion basically appears to accuse the press of lying about the situation on Mount Sinjar. It seems intentionally designed in an effort to help Obama avoid taking any further action. The police in Ferguson responded by arresting two journalists overnight which is presumably something Obama is currently very keen to do himself.

11:55 on 14/8/14 (UK date).