Mission Creep in Missouri.

As I've mentioned previously between August 7th 2014 (7/8/14) and August 23rd 2014 (23/8/14) Rihanna and Eminem are performing six concerts together in California, New Jersey and Michigan. Despite the fact this neither Eminem nor Rihanna will be appearing in a majority of the US states let alone leaving its national borders this has rather optimistically been described as a "Tour."

As always with Rihanna her CIA handlers have clearly decided that this is their moment to be the centre of attention. This effort has mainly focused on the aftermath of the shooting by police of an 18 year old black man - Micheal Brown - in the Ferguson suburb of Saint Louis in Missouri.

Obviously the main purpose has been to create a diplomatic storm of confusion to make it appear as if the US is having urgent discussions about a variety of topics amongst itself and its allies. For example ever since Barack Obama became the US first black President the issue of "Race in America" has been a hot topic. I don't think anyone will dispute that race has been a significant issue in Ferguson. Also once you get into the issue of why SWAT teams need armoured cars you quite quickly get into the issue of gun control which has been another major theme of Obama's Presidency. In fact I think "AR-15" or "assault weapon" was even been used as a codeword for "Chris Brown" in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting.

The main focus of the effort though seems to have been the claim that Rihanna caused the UK's August 2011 riots and therefore needed to be punished by being forced into an abusive relationship with Chris Brown and then failing that Drake. The UK's August 2011 riots were initially triggered by the shooting of a young black man - Mark Duggan - and the similarities between the two case have been striking. Even the dates match up perfectly.

Immediately after Duggan was shot the police put out a very aggressive statement claiming that Duggan was an armed gangster who had opened fire on the police. The general tone of this statement was so offensive it may as well have read; "The police think the only good nigger is a dead nigger." It was also found to be completely false because although Duggan was found to be carrying a weapon he most certainly did not fire at the police and the weapon was not even in a condition to be fired at the time. Following the Brown shooting the police immediately put out a similar statement claiming that Brown had attacked the officer causing him to fear for his life. As it took three years to get close to something like the truth in the Duggan case the validity of the police's claim in the Brown shooting is still being hotly discussed as I write.

The first photograph of Duggan that was released to the press following his shooting showed him in dark clothes looking very moody and angry. It later emerged that this photograph had been taken at Duggan's daughter's funeral  where I think he was entitled to look moody and angry. However the photo had been cropped to disguise this innocent explanation. Although they haven't shown the one where he is pointing a gun at the camera one of the first photographs released of Brown shows him looking moody, angry and flashing what appears to be a gang sign. This prompted a Twitter Hashtag "If I Was Gunned Down" in which people discussed how photographs can be taken out of context as they were in the Duggan case.

As the August 2011 riots progressed to engulf the country the British police were forced to deploy SWAT teams complete with armoured vehicles to the streets. As rioting engulfed Ferguson the police very quickly deployed SWAT teams complete with armoured vehicles prompting a Twitter and US wide campaign about the militarisation of the police.

The over-arching theme of the coverage of the Duggan shooting was conflicting and confrontational behaviour by the authorities which increased tensions. One thing the Ferguson police did was leave Brown's body uncovered in the street for a number of hours. Although it is a standard practise for crime scenes to be left untouched until they have been cleared by  forensic investigators this seemed incredibly insensitive and a blatant provocation. However it was so blatant it seemed to be mocking the type of provocation that followed the Duggan shooting.

As such I think the original objective of the Brown shooting was to make it look like the US was challenging the UK's claim that Rihanna caused the August 2011 riots by highlight all the things the UK authorities themselves did to provoke and orchestrate the riots. Therefore I think the natural conclusion of the story was always going to be that Brown had just committed a violent robbery, was fleeing the scene in possession of stolen property and hyped up on adrenaline attacked the police officer in an attempt to evade justice. As such the truth of the situation is that it was a clean shooting.

The problem is that the Iraq situation blew up as the Ferguson story was getting underway. As a result if anyone wanted quality information about the relationship between the US and the UK they simply had to look at their interactions in response to Mount Sinjar rather then waste their time with the scripted performance piece. Curiously it seems that the UK is much more keen to take action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) then Obama.

As a result the Ferguson story morphed to fit in better with what was going on in Iraq. As a result the SWAT teams started moving around in a way that if it was in any way similar to the tactics used by ISIL would make a good case for arming the Kurdish Peshmerga with MILAN-type anti-tank weapons. Then after the US assessment declared the crisis on Mount Sinjar to be mysteriously over the police started trying to silence members of the press which seems a fair assessment of Obama's decision to declare "Mission Accomplished!" in a way that makes George W Bush look calm and considered.

It was the day after members of the press were detained that Obama and the White House intervened to take full control of the situation in Ferguson by appointing Missouri Highway Patrol to head the operation. Since then the police are back to making contradictory statements such as claiming that there was absolutely no police radio traffic about the robbery and officers responded using telepathy alone. This seems intended to inflame the situation further in the hope that it will keep Iraq out of the headlines for a few more days at least.

Of course the fact that the US is going to a great effort to tie Rihanna to all this tells you probably all you need to know about their future plans for her.

23:45 on 15/8/14 (UK date).